Sunday, 19 June 2016

Gualtiero

And so the pirate crew is complete, with the addition of my puppet master Gualtiero and his little marionette - who we'll call Piccolo Rosso.


Now technically, if you play Freebooter's Fate, this chap is supposed to be in a different crew (the Cult). It's not a game I play, and I loved the little puppet version of my pirate captain so much that I wanted him to be one of the figures in my little pirate band. It would be nice to add wire between the control bar and the puppet, but I haven't got anything in the toolbox that's suitable.

Speaking of which, here's a full and final shot of the crew.



Second shot provided to give a better view of the bases. Hopefully they feel coherent when you're looking at them as a group, despite being from different miniature ranges and factions.

Next project? Over to Purgatory miniatures that I picked up at Salute this year and painting up Hannibal for a four-way painting competition.


This little elephant is reason enough to love a new line of miniatures.

Sunday, 12 June 2016

Captain Rosso

Quiet painting fortnight due to life getting in to the way, but I've finished up another of the pirate crew - Captain Rosso from Freebooter Miniatures.


The official paint job for this guy is ridiculously detailed (a blue iris at this scale? Oh come on!) but I've only used their colours as a general guide to ensure I didn't miss detail. Two things I haven't tried before are present here: use of Vallejo Smoke Ink for shading in places - I bought some years ago on recommendation and forgot about it, and trying Ben Komets' loaded brush technique on the trousers to get a wet blend going. One of these was reasonably successful, the other will quite a lot more practice to master as a way to introducing blending rather than layering to my skill set.

I feel it's a more detailed and characterful sculpt than the Black Scorpion ones, but feel confident the consistency of colour choices across my little warband will make them feel like they belong together. So the bandanna pattern is the same as a crewman's trousers, and the leather coat is painted the same as the cabin boy and navigator.

Only one more to go in the warband now, so we're nearly there.