Dark Knight

Just a brief update on Batman. It's hard to do anything creative in this heat.

I'm just doing a high-contrast repaint on the grey, highlighting up the black bits with dark blue but it's barely visible so far. His belt looks pretty rough, I'm just hoping I can spoof some better detail with paint alone... on a metal mini I would have filed it off and tried to resculpt a new one.

Finished!

My Legionnaire is finished, and mounted on his brand-new base! (see previous post)

The blue still seems under-highlighted but I don't want it to have near-white highlights or it may make the colour seem less rich. I think all the colours and metallic effects turned out okay, and seem to fit together aesthetically.

Basing Basics

A good miniature tells a story. Maybe not a whole Russian novel, but it should at least stimulate the viewer's imagination to think of the figure as a "character", with context and background. A good display base can enhance or strongly guide how the viewer sees the figure, depending on the creator's preference (and skill). For example, I chose a rustic forest floor base for my Mousling to suggest he is a wandering minstrel traveling between towns. However, more futuristic figures like Princess Leia or "Greybo" require something more artificial/technological.

Right now I'm working on a base for my Black Legionnaire. I contemplated a stone floor representing a temple or palace, but I decided that he too is a wanderer, questing for some arcane knowledge or artifacts for his own mysterious purposes. So he gets an outdoor base. The base I'm making uses thin slabs of cork (from cheap IKEA coasters) to simulate weathered rock.

I'm using snow to indicate the season, mostly because I want to practice the technique, but also because it makes his milieu a little more exotic. The "snow" is sodium bicarbonate mixed with white Elmer's glue. Quite simple, but I don't want to distract from the miniature itself.

Slow week...

I swear brown is one of the most difficult colours to do well. Along with black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. I'm currently working on the Legionnaire's rucksack, belts and scabbard: kind of a drab contrast to his vivid regalia. Not very exciting, alas...

In response to your previous query, Liz, he's wearing a metal mask or helmet under his cloth hood. So it's done in non-metallic steel like the rest of the armour. His eyes are barely visible through the vision slit in the helmet.

Legionnaire/eBay/Dark Knight

I'm slowly layering up the blue highlights on my Legionnaire:

I recently made my first eBay purchase - a couple of HeroClix Batman figures. These minis are basically toys, and are made from some appalling rubbery substance. However I managed to strip the paint off with acetone and I'm sure I can give him a much better look.

(VERY Dark Knight)

I'm a big fan of the Frank Miller version of Batman, so I think I'll go with a heavy contrast, near-monochrome scheme on this one.