Solun's Tabletop & Board Game Miniatures

[Jonahmaul]

Excellent fanatics and Black Orc SD. I'm a big fan of the new GW plastic characters so looking forward to seeing your take on them

[Solun Decius]

@Monsterzonk: Yeah, it's an imteresting mix, I guess, and I'm afraid SDE will take precedence for now, but the others will be there for variation and a break of sorts. The Nurgle Lord will probably take an immence amount of time, and I'll paint in in portioins, in between other projects. That way I hope to be able to stick to the quality I want for him.

@EmperorNorton: Yeah, I'm hoping to see you finish it before the end of the Tale, at least
I hope you find someone to play SDE with, and while it's OK to play with one opponent, it's much more immersive if the Heroes are each played by one player.

@sigur: Thank you very much. I have the same feeling, although, as a notorious overthinker, I think I can explain
Firstly it's been three years, so I'd hope I've gotten a better feel for highlight placement and such. It's also that I'm allowing myself to paint less cautiously, which yields bolder colors. When I started the goblins I was trying to blend everything really smoothly, but never got the strength of color and shade/highlight contrasts that I wanted. I sort of blurred the minis with the paint job. Now I'm sacrificing smoothness for speed, and am also getting stronger and purer colors (this style is perfect for SDE!). I'm going to return to the super watery paints and smooth blends now on some choice minis, and see if I can still keep the colors strong.

@Jormi_Boced: Thanks man! You can see the first three characters almost finished (link in the first post, first page) and I've finished a set of Kobolds and the baby dragons as well. You can also just wait for me to finish and post the whole thing again

@JonahMaul: Many thanks! They are great models, and I look forward to painting them, but SDE will come first (although I'll start them just to take SDE breaks once in a while).

OK, this is what I'll do now: After every session I'll post a photo of all these minis. Then I can just paint whatever part of whatever mini I feel like and little by little the whole thing will get done.



Last night I primed (brush-on) the SDE characters and did some insignificant basecoating.

[Lord Dan]

That's a neat color you've started on the chest there. Insignificant, of course, but neat.

[Solun Decius]

Thanks Lord Dan! I'm going to aim for a monster green color with rusty metals. It's pretty experimental so I'm only doing one at a time.

Here's the current status of my painting:



I did some shading and highlighting on the Barbarian's tanned skin, and I'm pleased with the outcome. Thank you Reaper Master Series paints, for making it so easy

[Solun Decius]

Done some more shading on some more skin. Yay me!

[Lord Dan]

My friend, you need to cover up that awful-looking paint-on primer before I start going crazy...

[Solun Decius]

Ja ja ja! Little by little it's happening



I actually like how the unpainted areas are so completely chaotic and dirty compared to the strong solid colors of the painted ones. It catches the feeling of how the final "image" is materializing.

[Solun Decius]

OK, more and more getting covered!



This stuff is getting somewhere, albeit rather sporadically

[Dezmord]

This stuff is getting somewhere, albeit rather sporadically

I feel with you :-) summer always seems to be time when everything painting-related goes in slow-motion...

[EmperorNorton]

I don't know if you noticed, but...your bear is blue.

[Lord Dan]

And your beserker appears to be wearing the pelt of one of his relatives...

...right in front of him.

[Solun Decius]

I feel with you :-) summer always seems to be time when everything painting-related goes in slow-motion...

True, true. I think my most productive time of year is starting right about now, after the summer rest

I don't know if you noticed, but...your bear is blue.

Well, I'm sure there was a reason for that ... some plan or the other. Let's see how it goes.

And your beserker appears to be wearing the pelt of one of his relatives...

...right in front of him.

Hahaha! No wonder the bear is so angry!!
Just for clarification, if you're unfamiliar with the characters, the green-bearded druid and the blue bear are one and the same. The pelt is a shape-shift thingy.

Thanks for the constructive comments guys! They make it all worth it

[Solun Decius]

This is starting to materialize a bit.



Not very interesting stuff, but I'm going to allow this page of the log to just be all about this progress, slow as it is.

Notice the bear's left arm. I've started the whitening process on the whole thing. Not quite there yet, but you can see where I'm going with that Azure base coat.

[EmperorNorton]

Should be interesting.
The Dwarf's beard looks good, something I did not manage to accomplish.

[Dezmord]

The whitening looks very good on the bears arm. I'm once again not ssold on the miniatures, but the colours are very vibrant and the execution of the paintjob seems to be as flawless as always.

[HereBeDragons]

Not very interesting stuff, but I'm going to allow this page of the log to just be all about this progress, slow as it is.

In which case you have 5... no wait 4 more posts to get them finished. Hurry it up boy! But don't rush...

Trying to do all the heroes at once can't be the easiest way of doing things?

[chaoticflanagan]

I love the shading on the dwarf's beard and the bears fur. Any tips you can share on them?

[Lord Dan]

Ice bear!!!

[Solun Decius]

Thanks guys!

@EmperorNorton: I'm glad you mentioned the Dwarf's bears as I spent time on that and actually redid it a couple of times to get it right. I wanted to say "meh, good enough" but now I'm glad I didn't. More on that below...

@Dezmord: Thank you very much! I'll have to try to push through the last of these and get cracking on some more conventional minis

@HereBeDragons: Heh! I guess this'll be my last post on this page. Then I'll just have to post a big'ol finished pic at the top of the next (unless no one comments now, then I'll have room for one more WIP ).
True, it's a bit much to do all the characters at once but it's also a good thing. When I don't feel like doing super details or stuff I have to concentrate too much on, I can do simpler stuff on all of them, and when I really get into the hard stuff, I can keep that motivation rolling and do details on all of them too. It's also good, when I can't make a decision on what color to use, to just be able to pick up another mini and go on.

@chaoticflanagan: Thanks! Again I'm glad the Dwarf's beard get's noticed.
The most important part is being consistent on the brush stroke direction, when you're doing this type of fur texture or any streaking for that matter. Start with a color that's not too far from the base color and map out which directions the fur will be going everywhere. If something isn't perfect now it's easy to fix when you get to the brighter colors, as they'll draw the eye more, so work with the first highlight to really get the directions right (see current state of my bear). When you start using brighter colors, streak the exact same way, starting with what will end up brightest and proceeding until you feel this color has enough coverage. You can also easily go back to darker colors to fix stuff, as long as you're consistent in the direction. It'll all blend nicely. Always drag the brush towards where you want the color strongest (usually towards edges, but with fur it's towards the hair ends).
The Dwarf's beard ended up with too much of the original dark colors (much like the hair is now) so I went back to the middle colors to cover up more and then back to the highlights, again and again until I felt it was good. The mustache was hard because the model didn't really support the right direction of individual hairs, for them to look natural, so I had to work against the model a bit until the feel was right.

Ice bear!!!

Haha! I was thinking the same, and at a point I was actually thinking about painting it crystalline and glossy like Ice.

OK, these pics are a bit overflashed and grainy, but you get the drift.



There's really not much texture to work with on this model, but it's really fun to be able to make it happen with only the paint.

[Jonahmaul]

Really loving this stuff. Don't really see much that isn't GW as they're the only games I really play so nice to see some other stuff and I really like the bright vibrant style of these.