The Skaven Screaming Bell and Hope That I Can Actually Paint

Long time no... nothing. I'm a bum. This happens sometimes.

Good things have happened in the recent past though. Just for funzies over the last forever I've been working on a skaven screaming bell, after my boyfriend bought the thing to only use the burning plague furnace ball thing from it and more or less discarding the rest. So! Off and on working on it resulted in a pretty cool model that I can say I actually completely finished, base and all and am happy with it.

The best part? Entered it into Armies on Parade at Feast of Blades 2013 and ended up with Convention Choice Runner-Up! There were quite a few more entries than last year, and a good chunk of them were really beautiful. Can't say I had too much faith in my entry after seeing the rest, but I came home with one of the two Grex airbrushes they were giving out!

It's like I can do stuff or something.

You can excuse the monstrosity that is the last picture, but the swampy base turned out too well to not show (and to be completely covered up by the bell for that matter) and that is the only picture I have of it now. Tinted epoxy resin? New best friend.

Like this model so much you want to buy it? That's why ebay exists guys. Only a few days left, bid now.

The Cheetobrute and Mothman

Sunshine McHellbrute
Busy semesters are stupid. Just sayin'. It's been a while since I actually (kind of) finished this hellbrute. There's a serious lack of orange in anything miniature related I've been viewing lately, so I made up for it by vomiting up all the orange I could muster and throwing it on here.

The Cheetobrute.

And so it began. I actually kind of liked it at this stage, although not exactly what I would picture anything chaos to be like. But after doing a few layers of wash, it started to look less cheeto-like.

 I'm planning on tweaking a few things detail-wise later and I'll finish his base junk eventually,  but I've been pressed for time lately due to end of the semester shenanigans.

Dark Vengeance Moth Lord
Another thing I finished about the same time as the 'brute, was this Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord. All I could think about the entire time painting him was that he had a cute little face of a moth. Just slap on a proboscis and he'd be set to fly around under street lamps and/or in your face.

Srsly.

I think I'm most pleased the the carcass on his back... I have a thing for dead stuff. 

There's miniature paints for a reason, goddammit

I'm still working through a lot of technical issues, since painting on this sort of scale is nothing like what I've done before. Most of the paint I've used thus far (minus any metallics) is not necessarily meant for miniatures. It's not that it's terrible like the goopy latex-like acrylics I somehow managed to slather onto my Ravehammer Tyranid, but it's cheap under-a-dollar craft paint, low in pigment, high quantity for the price (compared to any Citadel paints). I'm currently working on a group of terminators and decided what the hell, spend the money on a couple Citadel brand pots and see if they are any better/worth the extra cost. Well fuck, they were. Who would have guessed a paint made specifically for miniature painting would be so good for miniature painting? My point is anyway, I'll likely cease using cheap paint for the majority of my painting, I'm already used to spending all my money on artist supplies for school, might as well keep on spending with hobby stuff, right?

Commissions? Oh, boy!

I've also been playing around with the idea of taking small commissions sometime in the near future. I obviously can't take on much while I'm still in school, but graduation at the end of next semester will give me more of an opportunity to get more serious about this idea.

Ponies and Guns

So my project over the weekend consisted of repainting a few pony conversions and finishing out the unit by fully painting six more. It should be noted that these were not actually made by me, but Angry Richard.While he was busy modifying the shit out of a maulerfiend, I was left to paint parts of these old models and finish the rest that he managed to scrap together previously. These three models came to me already painted:

For the record, I generally hate orange.

All your base are belong to... well, not you.

 I was asked to repaint their footies and weapons to something more... ghostly. Meh, not hard to repaint the ones already done, but the six others were only primed and for consistency's sake I needed (or rather wanted) the others to look like they were painted in the same manner as the others. Again, not too hard to do, especially considering the majority of the armor was black and silver, and I was told how the previous ones were done and the colors used. So, the other six went something like this:

I'm still not sure if I'm a huge fan of how the weapons turned out, the colors just seem a little... strange. They're okay and match those lovely feets, but the flat color isn't doing it for me and I wasn't sure what else to do and wanted to be done with them. Not that it's too late to fix, but... meh. Suggestions welcome for next time.

I feel like fist weapons are kind of a bad idea when
you're on a horse. Or... are a horse.

The repainting of the original three went well, and when finished they ran with the rest fairly seamlessly. Of course, those two still need bases, but that isn't quite something I want to do yet, and it wasn't exactly in my job description when these were thrust on me.

Yeah, the painting turned out great and all, but the best part of this project wasn't even the end result. Being the kind soul that he is, Richard let me paint in one of my favorite words onto the chest of one of the models:

Yeah, that's right.

So these will end up at Feast of Blades in Denver this weekend among other glorious conversions Richard has made for his list. I also managed to acquire a tank, and will be painting that soon to play around with weathering and battle damage. The Warmachine Cygnar group is still on hold for the present moment, and the blending practice trygon is getting there... eventually. 

Warhammer is also managing to work its way into my studio art classes, and I'm currently working on making a small bolter pistol in Metalsmithing.... More to come on that soon.

Ravehammer and Beyond!

So as it happens, I was introduced to Warhammer 40,000 by my boyfriend Angry Richard. Fortunately enough for him, I've taken a HUGE interest in painting miniatures! 

I suppose it wasn't really a surprise, after all, I'm a nerd of other sorts --  I've been playing World of Warcraft and other vidja games for a while now, and being an art student it's only natural I'd like to make tiny adorable things awesome looking. So after a few vague verbal introductions to building/painting armies and the mechanics of the game, I begged for a model to paint, just to see what it's like. He gave me this fellow:

Naked and hungry for pigment.

 So, still blind as to how one actually (and beautifully) paints this junk, I attacked full throttle with an arsenal of terrible acrylics and fishing lure coating and ended up with a striped abomination that glows in the dark.... yeah. In my defense, stripes are my favorite things and the carapace certainly lent itself to alternating colors, and anything that glows in the dark must kick ass in the dark too. Minus the fluorescent spray paint claws, it was painted with a thick, artist quality, very latex-y acrylic that did not thin well with water. Unfortunately for me, this paint also lends itself to revealing brushstrokes too. So, with a terrible chunky wash over the whole thing, and every last brushstroke showing, I had to shame the thing more by covering it in UV-Glo lure coating. And with the black light bestowed upon me by the previous tenants of this apartment, I was able to look at the little guy all lit up.

Ravehammer 40,000.

It's not that this was a completely disgusting wreck of a paint job, I just suppose it was not ideal. Technique-wise it blows and its color scheme is a little out there, but I'm thinking it's at least one step up from a Hello Kitty army. And for the record, I applaud anyone who happens to paint their Tyranid army in this beautiful black and white monstrosity, and I would happily sell you my soul for it.

After a while, and after looking at numerous pictures and examples of well painted (some not-so-well painted) pieces, I at least had some knowledge now of what these things are supposed to like. After seeing what other people have painted up, it gave me an idea of how to do several techniques, or at least what the result should look like. I then ended up with this dumb beastie:

Rawr.

Again, not that this is completely disgusting, but it is a little less disgusting than last time. At least this looked a little more reasonable. I had a slightly better supply of paints that would do what I wanted them to, but that still was not quite enough. I needed to try out a shade, but only had this weird Winsor & Newton set of translucent inks. Didn't work out too well as a shade, but turned out pretty bitchin' on the carapace. A layer of yellow, and a second spotty layer of brown, and I was able to create a nice dappled effect without much hassle, and even more the ink dries glossy and gave it a little more contrast from the rest of the model. The dry brushing overall was a little more successful this time around. A few mistakes here and there, but I didn't expect much with this since I was still practicing. Although I felt I was starting to grasp how to paint minitures, I was still unhappy with it.

After requesting for more things to paint, Richard threw another mawloc at me:

Blending!

Maybe I'm a little biased at this point, but I'm thinking Tyranids are my favorite. This time around I wanted to work a bit more with blending and glazing and other such things to create gradients of sorts. This more of less came from looking at James Wappel's miniatures, which gave me a huge case of the jellies. With that beautifully gaping mouth and an arsenal of better supplies and techniques starting to work their way under my belt, I set to work. I'm obviously not finished with him yet, and I suppose I don't have a whole lot left to do now. Updates will surely be given once I'm finished.

To continue practicing, Richard also managed to toss my way  a four piece Warmachine Cygnar group, something he'll be selling on eBay once I finish them. I'll give an update on these when I'm actually finished with all of them.

This guy's finished.

This guy's not.

These have temporarily been put on hold for now, since I've been recruited to help Richard paint a handful of centaur robot conversions he made that he's going to use for Feast of Blades in Denver next weekend. Yeah, he sure does cut it close...