Malifaux WIP - Tara

Hey folks!

This weekend I also did some major work on Tara, using that awesome galaxy base I made and showed in the previous update a a little while back. I am absolutely pleased with how she's coming along, and only a few more (anxiety-inducing) steps away from being ready to rock!

I was painting her alongside the Cloud miniature I showed earlier and forgot to take pictures as I did the steps because I got too caught up in the work :)

Essentially prior to this stage I had her sticky-tacked to a stand to paint her off the base. I used VMA Dark Panzer Gray, then added some VGA Cold Grey until it was a pure grey. I initially wanted her clothes to be as black as Cloud's but let the grey get a little away from me. She still is pretty dark, so I'm okay with it.

I also painted the skin on her arm with a brush very quickly just so I can airbrush the blue where her arm is transforming into the claw. I picked blue because this is what I plan on painting her more alien crew members as, although I hyped up the lightness for her to make it stand out. On the other members of her crew, like the Nothing Beast and Void Wretches, I plan on going much darker with this blue being very sparing, just to make the OSL pink pop more. But with such a small area of "monster" on her I feel I needed to embellish the color to make it noticeable. A dark blue/black wouldn't look good and would get lost in the model. For the blue I used VMA Blue and VGA Electric Blue, a color I've been obsessed with ever since I painted that Blood Bowl commission a long time ago.

Here you see me finishing the skin tones in the arm and face. I used my tried-and-true combo of colors from Reaper, Golden Skin Shadow, Golden Skin and Golden Skin Highlight. Simple, but effective, and my favorite combo of colors for skin. I didn't use any wash so I could keep the values nice and soft. The trick is to paint the golden skin shadow opaque, but since it's over black it's a bit darker. When you're done doing the rest of the skin, you go back over where the layers are, well, layered, and do a small amount of shadow over the lines to blend it together. When it's painted over the base Golden Skin, it comes out with a much different tone and blends the two layers extremely well.

For the eyes, because they are just so ridiculously tiny, I decided to keep it very simple when I was in the middle of painting them. A trick I use when wanting to give a dark, ominous feel to a model's eyes, is to do a light wash of black in the sockets. This helps guide where my paint needs to go later when painting in the actual white and irises, but if you do it light enough to let the skin tone show through it really helps frame the eyes and gives that really creepy look to them. If you're doing a non-creepy set of eyes, swap out the black wash for a flesh wash. The definition does a ton of work for you but helps your eyes pop (not literally).

In this case I new they were just too damn small to do that. I originally wanted to recreate what I did for the Malifaux Child's eyes, where I painted the eyeballs grey and added bone to the mix and left it with no pupils to give it a dead, otherworldly stare. But it's just too damn small. So instead I did a heavier wash of black and made it look like nothing. She does have nothingness in her fluff, so I guess a black set of eyes does the trick of explaining my not-doing-more-workness.

I think it did a great job, because it puts the Golden Skin Highlight of her cheek bones right next a line of black, which does a great job of defining the face and where the eyes are and helps make the skin contrast very well.

Lastly, on this step I also did an additional drybrush of white/grey on the stones of the base, because they didn't stand out well enough in natural light. Once that was done I glued her to the base to make it easier to paint.

Here is her backside :)

Okay, a ton of work was done in this photo. I used GW Nuln Oil and a small brush to glaze the shading in her grey clothes. This was pretty time consuming. Then I took shades of Black, Cold Grey and and maybe some white, to line each crease of her clothing next to the black glazing. This was even more time consuming and frustrating. There are a lot of areas where I am just completely unhappy, but really the overall look is good, and when you're not staring under intense light and 6 inches away you will likely not notice them. It may bug me, but I know it still looks pretty good.

Adding in these highlights definitely took it from looking maybe like black to definitely this is grey. This is what I was talking about with Cloud, where it's a really fine line between keeping a model black and stepping over the line into grey, but luckily she can get away with it as opposed to Cloud who has a defined look.

After the excruciating work of highlighting I also painted the leather elements with a mix of VMC Woodgrain and VMC Orange Brown to block it in. I originally did the same to the bands on her wrist and ankles, but decided that stood out too much and painted them black with a highlight of GW Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey. They get lost in the folds of the clothes, but I found that I actually don't want those to stand out. 

Also, Tara knows the faux pas of wearing a brown belt with black shoes, but since she's less than 2" tall she doesn't give a crap. She needed something to break up the grey fields, and I once saw a picture online of someone doing the brown belt over a dark grey coat like this and I liked the look, so sue me :)

Lastly, you'll see I did the hair, and I was super happy with how it turned out. Hair like this can be a pain, especially when you want it to look like black hair. You can't go grey with this, like how her clothes turned out. So I did a simple trick that keeps it black while still having nice highlights. I just painted in the "bends" some GW Shadow Grey in the direction of the hair and left the primer in the darkest areas. Then I painted some lines of GW Space Wolves Grey to highlight those areas. It was super quick and I think is highly effective, and although it's another grey it separates well from the rest of the model. The blue tone of the grey ties the clothes in with the arm and base. It's important to think of those things to make a model look uniform, especially when you have such a wide array of colors on a model like this. 

Here this wasn't too much extra done, mostly the arm. I used some GW Blue Glaze (I forget the name) and painted them in the crevices of the monster arm. I then took some GW Purple Wash (forgot the name of that too) and glazed in the heavier shaded areas. Lastly I mixed some VGA Electric Blue with a bit of white and selectively added edge highlights. But only highlighting small focal areas I made it look much darker than it started out to be, which I think will help tie it in with the crew models I'll paint slightly darker, or rather more emphasized on the darker areas. It will make more sense when I paint those guys.

Here I finished, or rather started working the leather areas. I took the original VMC Woodgrain/Orange Brown mix, added more Orange Brown until it was pure Orange Brown, then added VMC Dark Sand for highlighting. I did this haphazardly to show worn leather rather than a clean set of layers. I then washed it with Woodgrain and finally GW Nuln Oil. I ended up going back over with my highlight mix to show more areas of wear by slightly stippling/randomizing the highlights.

And this is where she stands today. I painted the belt buckle up quickly with some greys, and did work on the hilt of the sword. The hilt I painted as a challenge to myself to try to do more brush NMM work, using GW Shadow and Space Wolf Grey with white as the final highlight, with a small glaze of VGC Turquoise. Because it's so small even if I mess it up it doesn't stand out too badly. I feel like I did the front of the hilt well enough but just crapped out on the back side. Honestly it doesn't bug me even though it's objectively the worst part of the model, but it was fun to try out some challenging new things, and I feel like I can easily translate this to other models in the future. If I had just had my mixes out and ready on the palette rather than mixing on the fly I think I could have done this better. Overall I'm pleased.

Next up I'll have to paint the OSL glow on the sword and the hole in her chest. I am excited about the final look, but am terrified of doing this as one screw up will negate all the hard work I did on her clothes!

Immense WIP Update!

Welcome readers!

So, as the title states, this is an immense update. I've recently been motivated to get a lot of my Malifaux painting done as I've decided to attend a local tournament this Saturday. This will be my first Malifaux tournament ever and I want to make an impression with my models as they will have a Hobby award - which I assume is for painting - and I want a chance to get it. I decided to list all the models I'd need to have completed before this Saturday's tournament and came up with this:

All the grey glory

I decided that I can't get every model I use in game complete, as the summons between Leveticus and the Mechanical Rider will be overwhelming - that's an addition 7 models from what I own.

So I decided to have everything painted from what starts out on the table for two crews, Leveticus and the Viks, as they are my favorite crews so far. I changed a couple things in my lists in the prior week that I've play tested and came up with something I like so far. What I had was a half painted Leveticus, Hodgepodge Effigy, Freikorpsmann, 3 Waifs, Desolation Engine and the Mechanical rider.

I prioritized the models based on shared models between the two crews. The Hodgepodge was in both lists so I wanted him done first. Then I put the Freikorpsmann second in the list as when he got done my entire Vik crew would be painted. The rest would be done after based on assembly line and what I felt like doing, although I definitely wanted to save the Mechanical Rider for last as that was the model I was most excited to paint and the most intimidated by.

Hodgepodge Effigy

So seeing as this little guy is in both crews I decided to paint him up first. I based him with black then used Grey and White to zenithal highlight. I then used Vallejo Game Air (VGA) Electric Blue to spray over this, with the natural highlighting from the grey/white creating different tones to a sharp contrast to black. When you keep the deepest shades completely black it creates a lot of good contrast. I then sprayed the knife and pistol barrel with grey and white to create the NMM effect. I edge highlighted with Electric Blue and added a small amount of white for the brightest highlights. I then took Vallejo Model Air (VMA) Blue, which is a pretty dark blue, and shaded some parts that  wouldn't necessarily be total black, like the dip in the top of the hat or some parts of the pants.

Here I've added some neutral grey to the skin. I eventually added some light grey and white for highlights, intentionally not shading the grey to keep a light tone like an alien.

Here he is complete, I skipped a lot of steps without taking a photo but pics weren't my main concern. The pistol and arm/leg bands were painted black > GW Shadow Grey > GW Space Wolf Grey. The NMM was glazed with turquoise. The eyes were painted red > orange. The leather was painted using the guide from the Wood/Leather Vallejo paint set, which is (all VMC) Woodgrain/Orange Brown > Orange Brown > Dark Sand > Woodgrain Wash > Black lines and wash in deepest recesses. It's a pretty cool recipe and I've been using it a lot, as Brown is one of my weakest colors. This recipe has also allowed me to learn how to make any traditional paint into a successful wash as well (hint: use Vallejo Thinner and a touch of water for best results, approximately 4:1 Thinner to Paint).

I didn't paint the grass on the base but I don't really care to finish that before the tourney, some corners will need to be cut!

Freikorpsmann

I started with a black base coat then did my traditional NMM spray of VGC Stone Grey > White with turquoise glazes in the recesses. This model didn't have too many places I wanted to spray, as I hate masking anything due to laziness and my track record with spraying folded cloth is hit or miss. I decided to do the rest of the model with traditional brush and see where it took me. I basecoated the clothing with GW Shadow Grey (don't remember the new name for it) and the leather with 3:1 VMC Woodgrain/Orange Brown (btw, OB is an awesome color!). This is essentially a breakdown of how I painted the Effigy's leather as well.

Here I highlighted the cloth with GW Shadow Grey mixed with GW Space Wolf Grey until it was pure SWG.

Here I highlighted the leather with VMC Orange Brown and VMC Dark Sand. Notice that it's super bright and can easily pass as a 90's era GW model now... talk about extreme highlights...

This step is where the magic happens. I made a wash with 4:1 Vallejo Thinner Medium and Woodgrain with a drop or two of water - don't add much as this disperses the pigments too much. This unifies the color and brings it back to that red brown color. These photos make it look lighter than it really is I think, but it's a darn cool color recipe that makes your browns rich and vibrant with a warm tone. When making a worn look you want to add some stippling and random patterns with your progression, which is evident with the Effigy's backpack and straps.

Just a few finishing touches like the base and half fingered gloves and he's done!

Viktoria Crew Complete!

Considering that my new year's resolution in 2014 was to have a completely painted crew this was long overdue, but better late than never! I'm pretty proud of these guys, and although list building in Malifaux is a bit more fluid I think I'll be sticking to this particular crew's build until I have more models painted. It's seemed to have worked well enough so far.

Hollow Waifs

So now I'm working on Leve's crew, and decided to assembly line the three waifs as they'll have similar paint progressions even if they have different colors for their dresses. I based all three with black (funny how I used to base only in black, then only in white, now I'm back to black!). I did a zenithal spray but instead of neutral grey I used VGA Sombre Grey and VGA Wolf Grey, just to give it a blue tint. I wanted their skin to look monochrome as they are empty husks of horcrux for Leve so I'm largely leaving their skin how it is. 

Once the basecoats are done I masked parts of the model with silly putty. I used Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints to spray a candy coat over the basecoat. This makes difficult colors like yellow a breeze, but the most useful reason to me is that it helps create really good contrast and shadows for these difficult colors. I've painted yellows easily enough before, but they don't quite capture the spotlight effect like this. Notice that these paints dry with a very glossy finish, which can be knocked down with washes but most effectively matte varnish. The finish helps with washes however as it creates less surface tension and allows the wash to move much more freely.

Here I heavily washed the yellow with GW Seraphim Sepia (which is vastly inferior to the previous GW Gryphonne Sepia... ugh I hate the new one) followed by a heavy wash of GW Cassandora Yellow, which is more like an orange really but light enough for yellows. With the zenithal/candy coat the washes do not compromise the black shades but tints and glazes the yellow, knocking back the cartoony brightness and overall grey look to the color. I also took GW Sunburst Yellow and did some highlights to the folds. With the frilly edges I painted VGC Heavy Brown highlighted with VMC Dark Sand.

I didn't do much after this besides finish the base and base the stocking/boots/hair black, I'm running out of time and figured this was well enough.

I really love how this turned out, man is it a creepy shade! Although it was minimal effort on my part and really I was just experimenting with this recipe it created a look that I've never seen with a yellow. I think it's very dynamic.

This waif I thought would be the easiest and it turned out to be the most disappointing. I used Minitaire Plasma Fluid on this one and it looks really bland, although I'm sure it will look better once I work on it more. One of the reasons why I hate masking is evident at the waist. The silly putty hung over the stomach more than I though and masked part of the dress I wanted blue. Luckily this is fixable and I've just painted it a different color, but I need to try using liquid mask for this type of stuff. 

Here I used the Minitaire Green tint. I have used this before and prefer to airbrush the usual way for this color as you have more control over the look. I plan on brushing on the highlights then knocking it back with some green wash. This is my least favorite sculpt of the three so I'm not too concerned.

None of these are complete, but I finished their bases and they look well enough for the tournament.

Desolation Engine

Over a black base coat I sprayed an olive green (can't remember the name from VMA) and added VMC for highlights. I should have went for one more highlight as it's really dark, at least too dark for what I prefer. The pictures make it slightly brighter than it looks with natural light I think. But a simple remedy can be done later with a few glazes of a highlight color to make that contrast pop. For now I'll settle for the ninja turtle look...

I also basecoated the metal bits with VMC Woodgrain (I'm loving that color...) and the bandages with GW Khemri brown and VMC Dark Sand highlights.

Here you can see more progression. I painted the gums and tongue with VMA Electric Blue, added in white for highlights, and heavily washed it with GW Leviathan Purple. I painted the teeth with Dark Sand and heavily washed the bandages with GW Devlan Mud - also known as Brown Crutch. I stippled on VMC Orange Brown (such a versatile color!) on the metal bits to start the rust effect.

Here's where he's at as of now and how he'll look this weekend. Although he isn't done he's tabletop ready and I can move on to the rest of the crew. I highlighted the bandages with Dark Sand again and white, then glazed over the white with Dark Sand to knock it back a bit. I finished the rust by stippling on GW Blazing Orange and finished the base. Eventually I'm going to highlight the skin and put some metal chips on the rust bits, but for now he's fine.

Originally I bought this model as a backup in case I ever got the legendary 4 Abominations to Voltron into this monstrosity. I never thought I'd be using stones to bring him in as he's super expensive. But I recently realized he'd be a good replacement for Rusty Alyce for the time being, ultimately until I get Ashes and Dust, a model I loathe using as everyone and their uncle uses him with Leveticus. Alyce hasn't been proving her worth lately, and with the upgrade to summon A-bombs pushing her into super expensive territory she has been even more disappointing. Sure, she has a good damage track for shooting, but there are plenty of other cheap shooters with comparable damage. Her main ability is preventing charges within 3", but I've only seen that work out once for me and I feel I need a sturdier anchor for the crew. Also, her summon needs a 10 or higher card to go off, cards that the rest of my crew are starved for. That same card can go to Leve who summons when he kills, which is much more efficient. Another thing, having another Henchman makes Leve and Hannah fight for the same resources.

The Engine has Hard to Wound and a plethora of abilities for one more SS than what I'm paying for Alyce and her upgrade. When he dies he pops out two Abominations, making him SS efficient. He heals and causes disruption at the end of his activation. He's pretty good on paper as opposed to Rusty, who I've always thought of replacing even before I used her. We'll see how it goes, hey it's always smart to make major changes without testing before a tournament, right? Just like getting a new hairstyle a week before your wedding...

Mechanical Rider

And now, my favorite piece of all..

So this one I've thought about for a long time. I didn't want to paint her horse silver, as it's been done to death and I also have Hannah, who is also a model predominately NMM silver. I wanted to do brass or gold, but have never done it through airbrush before, or of this scale either. The NMM Gold I've done so far using the set from Vallejo has a very good effect but is super yellow-gold, but I've always thought it's because they don't show you nearly as much contrast as it requires, giving you only Sepia Ink to provide contrast. I decided to tackle this by adding more black into the equation for shading and less white for the highlights, taking it down a step from the royal gold look I've done before.

So in this first pic I mostly did airbrushing. I basecoated black. I airbrushed VMC Heavy Brown, leaving plenty of black in the shading. Then I highlighted using VMC Heavy Goldbrown which adds in some yellow tones. I then added white to the mix, but this proved too yellow for my tastes so I knocked it back to the VMC Heavy Goldbrown, luckily it's only in a small area so it's not noticeable. I did no masking to achieve the gold highlights, it's all in the angle of how you spray really. That confidence only comes with experience and experimentation. I then masked the horse so I could airbrush the NMM Silver for the rider and did the usual Black > Stone Grey > White I always do.

Masking Hate Rant: I still didn't cover everything for the horse and some of it got on the gold... doh!

I also did the base. In case you were wondering how I did it, I usually take 4 or 5 shades of grey in both neutral and blue variety and put them on the palette. I then messily paint them on the sand and cork very fast and mix them on the base to create a random pattern. Make sure to get in the nooks and crannies as well as to vary between light and dark often. Honestly it's not a very good effect and by the end you wouldn't be able to tell, but it's a very subtle effect and I think it's better than only using one base color.

Now we're cooking with gas!

Here's my favorite and painstakingly crazy part! With a few simple lines you transform that airbrush mess of gold into a coherent and impressive look! At this point I've only added blacklining and edge highlights, but it makes a drastic difference. For the gold I used Sepia Ink to carefully paint the recesses in the armor. Then I used 1:1 Heavy Goldbrown/White to carefully edge highlight every raised edge. It took a few hours as this model has a lot of edges, not to mention difficult rounded ones that are close to other surfaces. Luckily I have a band aid technique that's no real secret to most. If I ever get paint where I don't want it I just paint over it with a tiny slash using the highlight color, or with black or brown for a deep slash and then highlight. If you use this sparingly and add more to other areas of the armor you can create battle scratches. This hides mistakes as well as adds more character to your little horsie. Those deep scratches were already molded on the model, so it only helps to add to the illusion. Be careful with these scratches and don't go overboard, I messed up in plenty of places but I don't think it's too noticeable. I also used it to help draw your eye away from problem areas, such as an overly thick line of highlight or two (I don't want to tell you where because you'll be looking for it!). This step takes a looooong time, but by far the coolest one.

I also painted the skin's basecoat using GW Tallarn Flesh, just to block in the color and help separate the plates. Please ignore the terrible sculpt job on her right elbow, I never claimed to be good at sculpting, which is why there are a lot of gaps visible on my models. I only use it in unavoidable situations or easy sculpts like fur or mutations.

Here's the other side

On the base I add a heavy wash of GW Nuln Oil, otherwise known as Black Crutch. If you want more variance then alternate areas with GW Agrax Earthshade/Devlan Mud, or even Blue Wash. I'm lazy, so I didn't do that here. I then drybrush GW Ushabti Bone over the whole thing then drybrush white at the edges of the cork. For a more subtle look you can use a neutral grey first then bone sporadically and white at the edges. It's going to look very grey at this point, which I usually break up with some greens using flock and grass tufts. I'm not the best at basing as it's my least favorite part of a model, and some people just go way overboard with it. 

I also was having a tough time deciding what the mane and tail was going to be colored. I was thinking of using my usual light blue/turquoise color Plasma Fluid as it was a color I was familiar with. But seeing as the original art used that color and a lot of other people used that same color I kind of wanted to do something different. I then looked at my multitudes of paints on the rack and saw VGC Foul Green, a color I bought over a year and a half ago simply because I thought it looked awesome. Having been looking for an excuse to use it for a long time now I've finally found it was perfect for this.

The color contrasts very well against the gold. I've only done a solid basecoat for now to see how it looks I plan on painting it like flames (as per its art) and think this can be very interesting. For now I'll leave it how it is for the tournament.

Finally, this is how she stands as of today. I painted the base ring with GW Gretchin Green to match the rest of my models and basecoated the chains and spear handle with 1:1 Black/Stone Grey. I also added edge highlights of white to the spear as I forgot to do that earlier. I based the cloak 1:1 Black/Stone Grey as well and the hair Black/Shadow Grey. Not pictured here, I've also painted the fur/hair on her knee pads and spear head brown and bone colored, but it's not a huge change from this picture overall.

So that's all the work I've done over the last 6 days, not too shabby at all as compared to my usual sluggish pace. Tournaments are a great motivator, even though there isn't a requirement in this case to be painted I held myself to that standard and am pretty proud with the results thus far. I've only got to add to Leveticus to make him tabletop ready and will probably work a bit more on the Waifs if time permits. The craziest part of this is that in the last week I've done more work than I have in the last year for Malifaux!

Let me know what you think, or if there are any recipes or tips you'd like to ask about. 

Leveticus Painting WIP

I finally got started on laying down some paint on Leve last night:

So I've been wracking my brain on how I wanted to paint him for a very long time. I decided on creating a spotlight effect over black, and I tried making the source light come from above and behind him toward his right shoulder. This proved very difficult for me to pull off, especially when trying to give the impression that the jacket is black. I think I lost that, but the overall contrast and effect seems to work. I'm pretty disappointed in the difference of quality between the model's right and left side. I'm going to work on smoothing out the transitions more toward the bottom of the coat by his left leg. I know a lot of things won't come together until certain details are picked out, like his straps and buckles on his chest lending to a muddied look right now, but I'm very impatient lol.

Anyway, I'm going to try to post as many pics of WIP as possibly, as sort of an impromptu tutorial.

Here's what I've done so far:

• Prime black
• 50/50 Vallejo Air Sombre Grey/Black spray at 45 degree angle
• Sombre Grey - spray only in spotlight areas
• 50/50 Sombre Grey/Vallejo Wolf Grey - start spraying only in the hot spots, I concentrated on the shoulders and back
• Wolf Grey - spray very very very considerately on hard hot spots, like the shoulders. You want to be very conservative with this.
• Take the previously mentioned paints and brush them on for highlights and shades.
• Also for kicks I painted the floating rocks Vallejo Game Color Stone Grey. I plan on making these a lot darker than this, though.

That's all I have for now, I'll update when I make further progress on this!

WIP Dreamer Crew

So, I'm terrible at commissions...

I've had a friend's Dreamer crew for quite some time. He gave me this a while back, and I think I may have posted when I assembled them earlier on this blog. I've procrastinated on painting them up for a very long time for reasons unworthy and started working on them a few weeks back. My first attempt was terrible as I decided to try using only the traditional brush and was thoroughly ashamed lol. After even more time pondering how to salvage it I decided to repaint it using my airbrush. Here's what I've done so far:

I am very much happier with these results, I didn't even take a picture of my previous attempt. I'm happy with the monochrome effect I've produced so far, although I plan on painting much more on the alps as they have a lot more different textures and articles of clothing. The pink Daydreams, however, are pretty much mostly done short of details like eyes and teeth/horns. The bases will have to painted, although I am very much intrigued by the OSL glow given off them onto the rocks. I won't be leaving them there, as cool as they are, since that's just a happy accident and leaving that as it is seems lazy.

In case you are interested here are the recipes:

• Alps
• Basecoat black
• Airbrush Vallejo Stone Grey at a 45 degree angle on most of the model, leaving black in the areas in shade to create a strong contrast and deep shadow
• Airbrush white at a 90 degree angle only catching the strongest highlights
• Airbrush Badger Minitaire Ghost Tint Plasma Fluid on the whole model, taking care to do light coats. This stuff dries terribly and can create splatter if the air is pushing pools of it, experience with this stuff goes a long way so test it on a model you don't care about to see how it reacts. People suggest letting it dry overnight, but I have no patience for such caution and just let it dry while I paint the rest :)
• Airbrush white carefully in spot highlights, preferably in areas that catch the light best or where I want attention to be drawn, such as the shoulders or face. Keep the contrast strong, so leave the areas of the lower face alone and concentrate on places like the forehead. This gives a great "spotlight" effect and keeps sunken in characteristics like below the cheekbones in darkness
• Finish with a light airbrush over the white areas with your Plasma Fluid to blend in the highlights, With the Ghost Tint line you can build up your colors to create more shading without compromising the black areas effectively knocking down any contrasts too strong, but too much build up can obscure your blends and make one tone throughout, so a light touch goes a long way
• Matt varnish the whole model with the airbrush - Ghost tints finish extremely glossy and don't look good at all before you matt varnish, you'll have to trust that it will look good once this step is done so don't overwork your blends too much as they don't show up well due to the gloss
• Daydreams
• Basecoat black
• Airbrush Stone Grey exactly as the Alps
• Airbrush White exactly as the Alps - see how these steps are similar but the results come out with different colors? That's what's awesome about the flexibility of the Ghost Tint line
• Airbrush Ghost Tint Magenta over the whole model in light layers
• Airbrush small spot white highlights
• Lightly airbrush Magenta over the whole model again
• Matt varnish the whole model with the airbrush

Not a single standard brush stroke was used so far, it's a fairly effective technique if I say so myself. I may add in some shading and highlighting in the end, but the downside to using the ghost tints is finding the right colors in standard paints to fit in. Luckily these are colors I frequently use, so the right turquoise and pinks/purples should do the trick. The scary part is finishing with brushes, as I don't want to ruin what I've done so far with a sloppy brushstroke.

If you have an airbrush and haven't tried Minitaire's Ghost Tint line, you need to! It's a very unique "candy coat" line for minis that makes painting a breeze. I've only discovered a few issues, one being that it dries funky if not used lightly. Another is the undercoat colors needed for a few of their colors are hard to figure out, particularly for brown. I've tried the same technique using grey and white zenithal highlighting with the brown tint and it does not look good at all. Maybe if I try yellow or red it will turn out different, I'll have to see. The same with purple, but maybe that's because grey isn't a good choice for those. I've yet to try a metallic undercoat with these colors, but that's usually for stuff like car models.

Once these are done, I've got the Dreamer, Coppelius and the epic Lord Chompy Bits. It's insane how these 6 models are the easy ones while the other three can be insane projects themselves. Now you see why I held off for so long?

If I ever plan on being a commission painter I need to get my act together!

MERCs WIP, Malifaux Gaming and Gencon Goodies!

Hi all!

So it's been a busy week in the gaming department! Lets categorize:

MERCs

First Model Primed

I got working on my first MERCs model, a House Member. I glued some sand and a big piece of slate on his base. I also took a piece of round sprue and cut it down to size, then glued it on top of the sand. My goal is to create a realistic city fight scene with their bases, and I plan on painting it up like a can of soup!

Here is his current stage...

So far I've sprayed on his main color, olive. Lately I've been in love with this color and it suits this model well as a guerrilla fighter. Only now have I just realized that he's wearing green fatigues in a city fight, but a ragtag group like House 9 don't have matching outfits for every outing lol. I'll see where it takes me!

Yesterday I purchased some green tufts for basing along with razor wire to create more of an urban war zone feel. I plan on trying out a new recipe for skin tone on him too, as this house is centered in the Middle East as well as having a multi-ethnic population. And he has a handlebar mustache, so that's a win!

I also got a 36"x36" game mat yesterday. It's basically a big mouse pad, but with the urban image it works perfectly for MERCs. It can also moonlight as a mat for Malifaux since it has the right dimensions, the aesthetic just doesn't belong. It's still better than unpainted hardboard and masking tape, which is what we usually play on.

Reuben and I also got to play our first game this week!

This game is EPIC.

I've tried to hold back my enthusiasm for the first game, I didn't want another harsh disappointment like I did with Deadzone. This game, however, just rocked my socks. In less than two hours we played 3 games and hardly ever had to use any reference. The rules are clear enough where they don't get in the way of the fun or strategy, and the game flows so well. We only used one of the advanced rules (Bounding), but it's still a hoot within the basic game. I got to use all the models I currently own to see how they operated, and see how the rules interact in real time rather than in theory. I like how mobile the House Member is, and the Chem Engineer's weapon is just brutal. The Boomer was a sad disappointment, though. Not because it didn't perform like I thought it would, it's only because he only rolled one successful attack ever, and he only had to hit on 3s! My first shots of the game required 10s, and my House Member got both his shots through!!

It's a great game, and it begs to have terrain built for it. I showed a few of mine, and Reuben got bit by the bug and printed out a 3'x2' mat along with making his own barriers. I have a few more plans of my own, but I'm going to concentrate on painting my current force before anything else.

Malifaux

First off, the goodies!

One of the players here went to Gencon and was gracious enough to pick up models for us. I got the Shenlong starter, a Lone Swordsman and the Gencon Exclusive Miss Anne Thrope (who counts as a Wastrel). It's all Ten Thunders stuff, and it wouldn't normally be released any time soon (Shenlong isn't even scheduled yet as far as I know, so that's at least until after November). I have plans (where have I heard that before?) for Shenlong's model, and I hope it goes to what I imagine. It's funny that I haven't even finished his proxy, although it was definitely table top ready. Overall though I think that I'll just build the rest of his crew, then only paint Shenlong because he's the only one I'm excited to paint.

Lately I've been trying to game regularly with the guys at Montag's for Malifaux. Their crew is extremely skilled and I'm hoping to learn a thing or two by playing them consistently. Well it's starting to pay off, because I got my first legitimate win last night!

I played my typical Viktoria crew due to my model limitations, and he played a Lynch crew. The Strategy was Reconnoiter, which I hate since I don't have a high model count, with the schemes Plant Evidence, Assassinate, Protect territory, ALITS and take prisoner. I know my crew rather well now, at least enough to know their capabilities. I chose Protect Territory and Assassinate and kept them hidden.

The main event was on turn one. I deployed the Viks and the Student in the center, the Convict Gunslinger on the left by himself and Johana with a Ronin on the right. The plan was to kill models to deny the Strategy, while capitalizing on Assassinate. The end game would be my flank models popping schemes and sitting on them while claiming two quarters for Reconnoiter. Johana and the Ronin are capable of sitting on schemes and the quarter, both having hard to kill, and the Convict can kill models quite well. Well first turn he moved the Hungering Darkness and two young Nephilim to the center of the board, directly in front of my Viks and Student. I teleported Ashes, who then teleported Blood and buffed her up. In three attacks all three of his models evaporated. I knew this would then trade with his Nekima, but I felt it was a good trade being that I killed almost half his army - including a heavy hitter - for my one model, who then popped out Killjoy!

In the end I got 4vp to his 2 before calling it on turn 4. I only had 2 models left to his 1 doppelganger, so it was looking like there was no way out for him.

I'm hoping that this is my first step toward being a consistent competitor in games. I'm knowing my Vik crew more and finally have a grasp on using them effectively. I just wish I had a second Outcast master that I can use well - Misaki is not gelling with me at the moment.

Anyway, that's just an update on what I've been up to. Hopefully next time I'll have some completed pics for you to enjoy!

Works in Progress: Viktoria of Blood and Garden of Morr; New Trollblood List

Hello all!

I've been slowly chipping away at my paint log, although I'm still keeping in mind my mantra for 2015 and only painting what fancies me in the moment. Last week (or was it the week before?) I started painting Viktoria of Blood. I don't know what struck me, but I really wanted to paint some skin tones and do more work with Non Metallic Metal. I did, however, realize why I always put her off on the side - because I have some big plans with her model. I don't want to give it away, but it's something I've never tried before. I'm eager to take another step in my painting and modeling knowledge, and hopefully it doesn't prove too difficult or impossible to pull off. If it turns out the way I hope, then it's gonna blow minds. Or just look cool. Whatevs.

Anyway, here's my work in progress. I'll post a sort of step-by-step of how it's gotten here.

I started with my airbrush of course. After priming black (airbrush primer is one of the best things in life) I got a dark blue-grey and worked in my blocks of color for the NMM silver. I've always liked the way a blue-grey worked for metal, and when the model's fully painted you can hardly tell the blue tone is in there. It's a pretty versatile color as well. I've used it to shade white, I've used it to lighten up olive, and in this case I've used it for a blue tone of grey. It's a great way of achieving a neutral color like grey but making it visually interesting. It's one of my go-to colors, much like red or olive is now.

Once I block in the dark tones, leaving some of the darkest shades black, I lock in the highlights by airbrushing a light grey-blue mixed with the basecoat. Although airbrush can afford to paint light colors over dark and create a smooth gradient I still find it best to mix your steps together so you don't create an extreme change, although that technique also has its place. I wanted her shine to be more subtle. Once that highlight was in I added white to the mix and did a fine spray line where the light source would hit the armor directly. I took the basecoat grey-blue and lined the shading using blacklining techniques to create a deeper contrast where the overspray from the airbrush went. Then I edge highlighted with the lightest shade mix followed by pure white. You always want your edge highlight to be brighter than your highest highlight if you want to achieve a "pop" quality to your paintjob. You also want to use your mixes to create a gradual edge highlight, so the grey-blue basecoat highlights to edge the black, the midtone to edge the basecoat, etc. This helps with a realistic reflection of your light source.

I also experimented with the brown pants. In all my years of painting there are two things that always stumped me: black cloth and brown everything. I've still got to figure out black cloth. I joke with a friend that every time I've painted brown it has been a completely different recipe, and I've yet to find one I truly like. Well, this one is close!

I did a GW Doombull Brown basecoat, leaving no black. I gradually mixed in Elf Flesh and highlighted until i was at maybe 50/50. Then I did a heavy GW Devlan Mud wash. I like it alot, but I fear it will only work with heavily folded cloth, I don't know how it will look on any flat surfaces as I don't like to end with a wash too much anymore. I'm still searching for that perfect brown recipe, because I'm always running across leather on models!

At this step I've blocked in the colors for the hair and vest, and finished the skin tone. The vest is going to be a lot brighter, and I don't work with blond hair too often. The skin is my usual recipe that I have developed over the years. Over a black basecoat I use my GW Foundation Paint of Tallarn Flesh to get a good even coverage. The old Foundation Paints are some of my favorite in the range and it's a shame it's out of production. Because my skin tones are really light and I thin the paints very much I use this step to eliminate tedious layers of painting my actual tones. I usually have to do the same over a white basecoat as well, as flesh is one of those colors that goes on patchy and you can see all the overlapping layers until you've done about 3 coats.

Once that coat is on I paint about 2-3 coats of old GW Dwarf Flesh until the coverage is even. This is a kind of peachy/orange skin tone, like a sunburn or something. I then gradually mix in GW Elf Flesh to work the highlights until I get to 100% Elf Flesh. I then start adding in small amounts of white to get a good amount of highlight.

When painting skin it's important to do a very gradual succession of highlights. Skin doesn't reflect light like most surfaces do. It already has a tone itself, light just reveals it in different ways. So you cant just block in parts of the skin, which makes it look like an anime or cartoon. I see this a lot, especially around the faces or muscles, where it's essentially a blackline. Now, I still do this from time to time (see my Killjoy as an example) so I'm the first to break my rules. But I find that a subtle blend tends to be more successful than only using 2 or 3 layers.

Here I started doing the hair. I won't talk much about it, as I hate it. It looks like a porcupine. I think I'm going to paint over it. In the next step I tried fixing a spot on the bangs and got my color mix all wrong and now it haunts me. I hate painting blonde!

Here's where I'm at right now. I've painted NMM Gold on the sword and scabbard. I've painted the hilt with a purple/blue mix. I originally painted the scabbard with the same purple/blue mix, but I didn't like the way it turned out so I painted over it with my olive mix standard, which is dark olive gradually highlighted with light grey in the mix. NMM Gold is kind of like my new Brown and I haven't painted it the same once since I started it. I also painted the white cloth flowing from the hilt and on the scabbard.

I've got a few tidbits left for her, including my new technique, but I'm holding off on her right now until I get the mojo back.

Another WIP:

The Garden of Morr!

I've had this terrain piece for a while, and the kit is beautiful. It's pretty versatile too, and the modular footprint is good for several games. I started painting it on a whim, and just airbrushed grey over black and drybrushed white. The roof was basecoated a dark blue the I added white for a light blue, I may add more for a highlight. I stopped there, but really it's about done. I just need to pick out some details and paint the rust on the metal.

Well, that's about where I'm at in the hobby life. I'm still working on more things creatively, including some Malifaux-centric videos. I've been playing a lot lately, mostly Warmachine with a few buddies. I've made a new Trollblood Beast list on accident when I played a few weeks ago and I'm discovering that it's actually really good. Out of 5 games I've played with it I've gotten top of turn 2 assassinations twice, and I've won all the games with it so far. I'm sure it has some glaring weaknesses. 

• Epic Doomshaper
• Mulg
• Earthborn Dire Troll
• Dire Troll Mauler
• Troll Axer
• Champions
• Min sized Krielstone
• UA
• Whelps
• Janissa Stonetide

I'm sure it's been tread before. Essentially it's a Mulg Delivery System - or Mulg Missile. eDoomy can get him a minimum of 12" charge with reach. If Mulg gets hurt, 14". If he charges something and kills it, 16"+ per fury. I've gone over a lot of it in the much earlier log of beast tactics.

What I changed was putting Janissa in it with the EBDT. Troll players love this combo, I had just never done it yet due to not having an EBDT. Well, this is actually the first time I played with it even though I got one months ago. It's awesome.

The beasts are in the front blocking most fire to the brick with Armor 22, and Mulg Armor 23. If the wall is in front of them then their def gets a bump up to 14, not too shabby. Behind them is Doom with a bodyguard of Arm 20 Champs. I usually keep Doom on the side behind Mulg to bait out Protective Fit, but also so that when he needs to pop his feat he is free to go first without screwing up the order of operations, and usually the feat turn is on turn 2 when the opponent is caught off guard thinking he's safe. I've done a permutation of this before, but adding Janissa really changed things up for me.

In a list like this it's easy to get dependent on the one trick pony. This one is a turn two assassination. Most of the Meta is going to be ready for it, it's just that if I go first it will be hard to avoid - much like the Molik Missile lists out there. The turn two game ender is mostly there for those who don't know about Mulg and eDoomy together. But for those that do, Janissa can be the wrench in the plans for them. People can block tramples with big bases, or hide their casters out of range. Janissa can open up those lanes as well as provide cover and armor. I played a friend in 3 back to back games, and on the last one when he thought the trample was completely blocked by two Khador jacks, I cleared a way for Janissa and she popped in the gap to slide those jacks over and Mulg trampled past them to the caster. It was beautiful!

Problems with this list: It's tiny. I will be outnumbered. Hopefully the high armor and sheer amount of wounds will mitigate incoming damage, but I've played a game where he killed my axer first and I lost a lot of speed because of it, not to mention pathfinder. I'll have to make sure he's behind the three heavies now. Also, people who ignore LOS can target Janissa and the stone bearers, which is no bueno. Lastly, slippery casters like Ashlynn or Caine may stop Mulg in his tracks. We'll see how this list pans out.

One last negative, I no longer can have Janissa in my Madrak list, so my def 16/18 arm 20 champs got knocked down a peg to just def 14. I also have to fill that gap. It's a problem for later.

Well, this post went in all kinds of directions. Hopefully I'll finish Vik soon and post the pics!