Where I Ruin Some Perfectly Good Minis

[Discord]

I finally got myself a digicam. And since painting stuff only to put it on my shelf to collect dust doesn't really inspire me to paint, I decided to share some of my stuff and hopefully get some useful commentary, too.

To start it off, here's two miniatures I managed to finish just a few days ago. If someone wonders, they're men transformed into some sort of genderless insectoid gladiators for the french game Hell Dorado. Don't ask for fluff info please, the game is in french and I have no idea.






I'm pretty pleased with how the skin turned out. I thought the nets they are carrying looked a little plain after I took the pics, so I added in a final highlight. Much better now. As for the bases, they'll eventually get some patches of static grass painted brownish, like it's dried up/dead/whatever. They are supposed to be in hell after all, don't want to make it look too cheery.

These guys were also my second try with the new GW washes, I think the stuff works fine even when you don't want to just slosh the wash all over the mini, call it quits and go game.

[Magos Explorator]

Best plog title ever. I like the skin on the models; are you painting any GW stuff?

[Discord]

Thanks, glad you like them.

You bet there'll be some GW stuff in here too. However, I can be a lazy painter at times and get bored painting similar stuff over and over, so it'll mostly be Specialist Games. Doesn't help one bit that my army of choice is Orcs & Goblins, meaning my 49 finished miniatures add up to...300 points of troops and one shaman. Ouch.

I'll be posting some more finished things in the days to come, to get this thread properly started. In the meantime, here's a group shot of my orcy Blood Bowl team. I put the pic in as a link this time because it'll cause horizontal scroll bars of doom due to its wideness.

http://i34.tinypic.com/2ym87rm.jpg

The paintwork's done, but I still need to figure out how I want to finish those bases. Probably adding in a fair amount of static grass, with maybe a white line on a base or two. Don't want to get overboard with those.

[bugbait_nz]

Nice bugmen thingies, flesh tones are nice.
Looks like they have their butts stiched up!?! must make them exta angry . . .
More of a painter than gamer? Have you done any Dark age minis? they have some cool/strange models that I would like to paint up one day.

Bugbait out.

[silverstu]

Great thread title- if a little misleading!!
Nice work on the bugthings- very good start- interesting to see how this progresses..

[Discord]

They don't only have their rear ends stitched up, but also have their genitalia removed and the front end stiched up. It's a little small, but it does show in the first picture.

I do have a few Dark Age miniatures that I originally bought for my 40k chaos army (for which I've got two miniatures half-painted, that project isn't exactly progressing rapidly) but they're still in my box of unassembled minis. I do get in games every now and then though, so I mostly try to paint stuff I can use for those occasions. Especially since I decided not to play with unpainted miniatures, that just doesn't look cool enough.

As for today, I've got pics of my fantasy orcs for you. Did them in a 'tale of x gamers' kind of thing that only progressed to 300 points. Played small games with warbands rules in which they caused much havoc - in one game the main orc unit squabbled three turns out of four, while the squigs pulled off some rather heroic moves and ate the opponent's army by themselves, leaving only a few peasants and small pieces of bretonnian plate mail on the field. I liked the unreliability, one could always count on something going wrong and that was loads of fun.

Here are the lads, they're done in a (somewhat) quick and sloppy way. Can't get too fiddly with them, I have hundreds of the little blighters to paint after all. Ignore the rather sad movement trays I hurriedly made before the games, I'll construct proper ones our of plasticard when I get the whole regiments painted.




Yeeees, I did paint in pupils on every single miniature, including the snotlings. Too much time on my hands, I suppose.

And a few unforgiving closeups...




I love the grin on this last guy. I have bunches of the 4th-5th edition squigs and command groups in my army, I think they have lots of character and great facial expressions.

[daemonkin]

Like the orcs. Nice freehand on the banner.

D.

[Discord]

I'm not sure if anyone viewing this thread noticed it, but I signed up for the tale of 40k painters, as motivation to get some stuff finished. It starts next month, but as I've never painted a Battlefleet Gothic ship before, I decided to do one now as a test, so I won't be totally unprepared when the tale starts. Had some spare cruisers around, so I managed to whip this one up this morning.




A rough and dirty drybrush job with the red areas, no fancy-shmancy techniques. These are so full of surface detail I'd probably have popped a vein trying to paint them in a regular fashion. And drybrushing just picks out that detail beautifully. Wasn't originally going to paint in the windows, but they do add a lot of life to the model. I'm going to vary that bone pattern on the hull for the different ships, so the fleet'll look more chaotic, while still looking like they belong together. As for the paint scheme, I got that from those two half-painted chaos minis I mentioned. Here they are in case you're interested.



Wanted them to look unaligned, yet fit in alongside troops of any god without looking grossly out of place. So brownish red armour with bone rims and white guns/details it was. When I get around to it, I'm going to paint my epic chaos marines like this, too. Just in case someone decides to run a campaign where all three rulesets are used in the conquest of a solar system. That'd be awesome.

[Discord]

Painted up an imperial cruiser too, I'm fairly confident about finishing two 2000p fleets. Although that imperial cruiser had far more surface detail, making it pretty annoying to paint and it didn't turn out as good as the chaosy one. Ah well. I'll post it if someone wants to see it, more of them will be featured in the tale of 40k painters when it starts.

But today, I want to post some more Hell Dorado stuff, 'cause I like them and they're different. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of seeing threads full of space marines. Here's my damned of pride. If someone wonders, nope, won't get rid of the gloss on the skinned parts, I like it that way. Was my first try doing rust, I think the rust itself looks okay, but I need to think more about where to apply it. That rusty part around the hole on the blade is fine, since I think that's where rust would build up, but the big smear I'm not so sure about. Not that I'll bother to go back and fix it since I've got far too many models needing attention, just something to think about in the future. And bases are unfinished, like with the bugmen from the first post. I'm planning on finishing them all in one go in the future. Hate opening that bag of static grass. It gets all over the place.



Plus a closeup. Left the pupils out on purpose, for a more demonic look.



And again some clickables too wide for the forums. They were taken before I registered, I promise I'll resize them to fit from now on. They're 200 point (the regular game size) Hell Dorado armies, one for each of the three demonic commanders, featuring almost all minis I've painted for the game. Wanted to take them because I like army pics. Might be a bit cheating, since ten miniatures is enough for a full force in that game. Of course, after taking them, I noticed the middle one is not only illegal (too many troops) but would suck a whole lot in play. That's just the painter in me arranging stuff for photos, I guess. And I even went through the trouble of making them exactly 200 points, not one point under. Bah.

http://i33.tinypic.com/jpac29.jpg
http://i38.tinypic.com/f2v9sp.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/a9mf4m.jpg

If you want closeups on any minis in them, just ask.

[Discord]

Hmm, awfully quiet in here. Ah well. I hope it'll pick up some after I get more stuff painted. I'm currently cleaning paint from a bucketful of minis I either painted in my youth or got cheaply from eBay. Fairy power spray works well, if someone wonders what I use. Of course, the stuff is fairly powerful, meaning my skin is peeling off my fingers, making me look like I have a nasty skin disease. Then again, I've been fiddling around with the stuff for two days now. Still have seven largeish minis to clean. Bleh.

But since we're talking bad skin, here's a zombie. Everyone loves zombies. It's by Rackham, if you don't recognize it.



As for stuff to come, I've been suckered into taking care of my parents' place for a week. Just a tv to keep me company and nothing to do. I mean nothing. But it's not like they ask me to do things often. As it happens, before I started with the paintremoval business, I noticed I have enough little plastic men to make around 4000 points of epic chaos marines with tzeentchian flavour and have been assembling them. So I'll take them and a painting kit with me, let's see how many of them I manage to get done in a week.

[daemonkin]

Nice BFG.

How did you do the bone on the marines? Was it sepia over white? I'm planning on doing something similar for my DW but have to decide between sepia over white or over dheneb stone.

D.

[precinctomega]

Those Heldorado miniatures are so hideously French! Stitched-up genitals? WTF?

But it's great to see more BFG. I keep meaning to get mine down out of the attic. Might have a crack at some on Wednesday...

R.

[Discord]

Nice BFG.

Thanks! Not too long before tale of 40k painters starts, then there'll be plenty more. Speaking of that, I'd better nab some of those minis with me too when I'll be gone. Plenty of time to paint then.

How did you do the bone on the marines? Was it sepia over white? I'm planning on doing something similar for my DW but have to decide between sepia over white or over dheneb stone.

Nope, the marines were painted a year or two ago, before the new washes. They were done with bleached bone, a flesh wash, a chestnut wash, then highlighted back to bleached bone. The champion had some more attention due to the bone armour and was given some brown wash in the deepest crevices and an additional bleached bone + white highlight on the highest points.

However, I did try out the new washes on the styx. It's done otherwise similarly (bone, two washes, bone, bone+white), but I used sepia and ogryn flesh wash instead of the older flesh and chestnut washes. There's a slight but noticeable difference though, the marines are slightly more yellow and vibrant than the BFG ship.

But it's great to see more BFG. I keep meaning to get mine down out of the attic. Might have a crack at some on Wednesday...

It's a great game. Sadly not many play it, which is why I decided to start painting two fleets at once. Then I can borrow one pretty, fully-painted fleet to a friend and force them to try it out.

[Math Mathonwy]

But since we're talking bad skin, here's a zombie. Everyone loves zombies. It's by Rackham, if you don't recognize it.

Groovy skin tones - love the blue and purple bits, subtle but works great!

[Discord]

Hey, I have a question. Remember when I said I had that imperial cruiser painted? Well, I painted another test scheme. I'd like to get some feedback on them to help me pick one. Although I kind of do have my favourite already. But I'm not telling you which one it is, to keep things fair.

So, here you go:



What do you think? Ideas on how to make them better? Remember, they've got lots of surface and I need to paint a bunch of them, so nothing too fancy.

And that's not all for today, I also have a sneak peek on upcoming stuff. I managed to assemble those chaos minis (about 4500 points) I talked about and the orks for the first part of the tale of 40k painters. Here's what I'm bringing along for the week I'm away. Hopefully I'll still have time to sand the bases before I leave on tuesday, so I won't have to drag sand and glue with me.



Want to bet on how many I'll manage to finish in a week? Looks like a monumental task, hopefully I won't come back empty-handed.

[ancient god]

Wow, that skinned HellDorado guy is scary... good work on the face!

I'd say go for the lower scheme. The main colour is great with the bluish metals. Also, it makes me think of caramel candy.

The first one'd look great too if you did it up as nicely as the candy ship. Seems you rushed that one a bit.

Cheers,
Michael

[Discord]

Seems you rushed that one a bit.

Yeah, I was sloppy. Didn't help that after I did the highlights, I noticed the shadows were too bright and darkened them up some. With the old brown wash quickly and messily applied. Well, you see the result. And rushing shows up more on bright schemes. Anyhow, I've picked out the prow torpedo tubes on the candy ship a bit better, since after taking the picture I noticed they look a bit cruddy. Silly big pictures that show all the flaws better than real life. Grr. I also washed the yellow lights with the new red wash, since I thought they looked a tad plain. So no need to point those out, already fixed 'em.

And finally thanks to everyone who's complimenting my stuff, it's always a nice read.

[ancient god]

Hehe, I hear you on the picture problem...

I just came back here and thought the Caramel Cruiser would look cool with some blue marking on it. Like a narrow blue band alng the spine or down the flank. Would go nicely with the blueish metals.
Other than that, it still makes me hungry. Honestly, I see it and have to go eat something.

[Discord]

I wonder what'd happen to you if I painted an entire fleet in the caramel theme, then.

But yeah, it does look a bit plain. Although when looking at the real model it isn't an issue, since it's far smaller than in the pic. I'm trying to avoid using too many colours on these to avoid making them look too hodgepodge on the tabletop. More highly contrasting colours, like the bone and red on the chaos ships and the white and darkish brown, to make them quickly recognizable. I have another mini in which the bone/gold works well (I'll post a picture of it later on, so you'll see what I mean), but on this imperial ship they kind of blend in too much from afar.

But if I do go for the caramel theme (ack, the name's stuck now), I'll definitely paint in some squadron markings in a different colour for the smaller ships.

[Math Mathonwy]

Yeah, the caramel is much better painted, certainly. OTOH considering your Chaos scheme (red with some bone) making the Imperial ones something other than bone with some red is probably a good idea. And the caramel really is very nicely done. Though I must say that the creamier one has nicer engine exhausts with the details being cream and not just all metal like on the caramel.