Wednesday 29 December 2021

Eldar Guardian

 I have quite an ambitious project planned for 2022. This is the first test model to see how that goes. It isn't based, as it's going to a friend to join his army, but overall I'm happy with the colours as a first draft.

Things that will change. More oomph in the red required. Gems need more contrast so I'll be pushing the darker edges to really drive that home. Undecided on how to paint the weaponry, as I'd like to go metallics because there's so many weapons, and it will be quicker, but there's always the lure of NMM.


Very happy with the purples and blues in the shadow of the white. It gives me a nice colour and I want to do more of that. The boots had a recolour, as the original brown was much too red and conflicted with the armour, so swapping to something with blue is a better fit.

 More WIP shots this time.







Monday 27 December 2021

Dankhold Troggboss

This was an experiment in using primary colours from Instar (https://shop.instarpaint.com/) as a test of their paint range, as Mr Instar was giving away packs of the primaries at Salute 2021 (or was it 2020, both work!) and I thought it only right to give them a good workout on their own merit.


The paints are too satin for my personal taste, as it's hard to see what you're doing under lights, but a quick hit of matte varnish and the result is pretty great. Well worth a look, and if you like glazing then I think the composition will be of interest.

This time I did remember to take a lot of WIP photos, so I hope these are useful.


















 

Saturday 25 December 2021

Ho, ho, ho

One of the kids bought low budget Santa decoration, and on closer inspection was VERY unhappy with the painting quality. She asked me to fix the face, as she was annoyed that the painted on eyes weren't even in the right place. I started repainting the eyes and ... well, it escalated and the whole figure really needed a do-over.

 If you want to try your own, then it's only £1 from here (https://www.theworks.co.uk/p/craft-embellishments/santa-resin-embellishment/5052089301177.html).

With hindsight I would have primed it and repainted, rather than a series of items painted on top of the original, but all in all it was only two hours. I reglossed the boots and belt, as I was informed that Santa always keeps his shoes shiny.


Merry Christmas!

Wednesday 22 December 2021

Pilots Helena van Gaal & Freeman Liste

The best for last, in my opinion at least. I love the contrast of sculpts between the slim and chunky, but then the no-nonsense "I've got my helmet, and ready to go" versus "I can't travel without my snidey pet". The face on Helena was great fun to paint, really characterful.




 

Monday 20 December 2021

Port Admin Adjunct Gilda Citlax & Street Vendor Lazlo Zhao

 The space version of Cut My Own Throat Dibbler, and his delicious tentacle-based treats. Good fun to paint a face in partial shadow. But underneath the Devo-esque glasses are painted, I promise.

For the Port Admin I nearly went for a lizard green, but thought it would be more fun to paint it human and expose the "ugly" nature of the character.





 

Saturday 18 December 2021

Tech Trader Dronk Henkman & Courier Jak Fenwick

Trader Dronk's sculpt is a curious one. I looked at the official version and didn't like how the eyes had been painted on - so painted him with his eyes closed in a "I'm so pleased with this" expression, and like the result.

I may as well call the courier "Handsome" Jak, as when I saw the sculpt it demanded a metallic paintjob like the Borderlands character. One of the most fun sculpts I've painted in a while. Some WIP shots at the end, to highlight how small these models are and a close-up of the face - it's not pretty zoomed in, but gives an idea of the sculpt quality.






Thursday 16 December 2021

Ludo, Socialites Syra & Ustina

Whenever I paint skin, it tends to be caucasian tones. On this project I wanted to add a bit more variety, and that didn't just mean non-caucasian but also adding robots because we're in the future and there'll be robots right?

 I wanted Ludo to feel lost and small. Putting them on a base alone didn't do that, so I dug out another piece of random scenery and stuck them behind it and added some anti-robot graffiti.

The socialites are painted in pastels, then I used the greys to create different effects - a more shiny metallic on him, and a softer fabric on her.





Tuesday 14 December 2021

Nan-O-Bot, Botcot, Karlston & ZoZu

Let's start with the little guy, Karlston. He's very, very tiny. That's a 25mm base and he's dwarfed by it.

I thought it would be fun to throw a camo jacket on him, but make it look like he's lost and has been crying - looking around for his designated adult. There's track marks left in the dusty surface from him dragging the robot, so it's clearly heavier than it looks.

Meanwhile, at the fancier end of society someone has been able to afford a robot nanny to push their delightfully creepy baby around. I started painting her in metallics but realise that was a bit boring and gave her a swinging sixties shiny dress front to go with the fantastic hairdo. Perfectly normal, right?





Sunday 12 December 2021

Familiars

 As part of the Kickstarter, they threw in a number of smaller miniatures under the heading of "Familiars". But I liked the idea of them being more akin to scavengers in my little colony. While Ambulatory Fungoid and Horned Urz Cub are big enough to merit a base on their own, the others didn't and I wanted to create a little diorama for them.

So here's the Owl Shrews, Squippet, Homungulid, Testudo Bird and Feathered Hopper in a single scene. Should have taken more WIP shots, but there are a couple at the bottom of this post. It's an old resin barrel, a backpack of papers then I printed a load of fake posters, rolled them up and bundled them in a disorganised fashion.







Some of the WIP shots and a sense of scale for the bear against a Primaris Space Marine.