Ogre Bones WIP (Part 3)

I made some more progress during the week. I really like the group project concept. It's been interesting to see the work of other painters using exactly the same model at the same time. You can see their work so far on the Reaper Boards here.

As you can see, I started in highlighting and painting the leather straps and accessories carried by our nefarious Ogre villain. I decided to leave the straps basically black against his skin, but I am using a basic brown leather / rawhide color for his belt pouch and clothing.

Ogre Bones WIP (Part 2)

In my last installment, I touched briefly on preparing my Reaper Bones ogre chieftain for paint, and  giving him a base coat of basic black to cover the plastic and start things off.

As you can see, I have finished most of the painting on his skin and eyes. I also gave his base a coating of primer and black paint to match the rest of the miniature. Read on for the detailed version of what I've done so far.

Time to Paint

I have been very busy lately, which has left me little time for painting, but I really wanted to participate in the group WIP on the Reaper forums, run by user "Buglips*the*Goblin". The idea of having a whole series of WIPs of the same miniature intrigues me, and ought to produce some cool results.

The model chosen is 77005, the Bones Ogre Chieftan (also available in pewter).

I got a late start on the project, but I plan to at least try to finish in a semi-timely manner. I will post my progress both here and on the Reaper boards.

More Miniatures

The gaming industry has really jumped into Kickstarter with both feet. Veteran sculptor Patrick Keith has started one for his new line, "Bombshell Miniatures".

I'm a fan of Patrick's past work. Only time will tell if his dedicated line will be a success. You can find out more about his work on the Kickstarter page, or on the Bombshell Miniatures page, or on his personal website.

Also starting up is a pledge drive Tom Mason's Effigy Miniatures. I am less familiar with the specifics of Effigy and of Tom's work, but they are offering some interesting options for more modern or sci-fi subjects.

It seems like there are more popping up every week. They won't all appeal to everybody, but there are so many, any miniatures enthusiast will probably find something great. It's an exciting time for the hobby.

Nova A - All Painted Up And Ready To Go (Part 2)

In my last installment, I went through the steps I used to base coat my converted Battletech Nova miniature. I also showed a little bit of the NMM work I applied to the model. This post will cover the finishing work I put into the project, along with some of the problems I ran into along the way.

With all of the paneling blocked in with green and yellow, and with the metal parts shaded into a more or less final NMM state, I tackled the project of shading all of the armor panels. This is, without a doubt, the longest and most labor intensive stage of most Battletech jobs. If nothing else, Battlemechs tend to be painted in relatively few colors compared to a fantasy character or similar model, leading to a lot time spent shading one panel after another with the same set of colors.

 
On the positive side, you can pretty much just mix up one set of shade colors and go to town for hours working on one or two models. In this case, I continued with the Reaper Warm Green triad, blending from Pine Green up through Pale Green. The very brightest highlights also include a touch of white to lighten the color even further.

Nova A - All Painted Up and Ready To Go (Part 1)

Back in January I posted a conversion build for a Battletech Nova Omnimech miniature. In fact, it was the first in my ongoing 'Battletech Conversions' series. After the build, I left the project languishing on a shelf for months, waiting for inspiration to strike. When I heard about a new Iron Painter contest on the Battletech discussion forums, I decided to dust off my creation and give it a brand new paint job.

The paint scheme I chose is the canon Jade Falcon "Delta Galaxy" paint scheme from the Battletech Universe. It's a strong scheme based around yellow and green, and I've been meaning to expand my collection of Clan miniatures for some time. Now that I have a prototype, I'm hoping that I can find the time to fill in the rest of a star around this model.

Of course, if you're not a Battletech fan, you can just ignore all that and read on to find part one of my painting odyssey.

Bones Follow-Up

I spent a little more time playing with my sample model. After applying a little more paint, I decided to take it seriously and remove the mold lines from the model using my hobby knife.

I am pleased to say that I was able to scrape away the fine mold lines away quite easily using a sharp hobby blade. One hidden bonus of the Bones material is that, even though I had already started painting, I was able to patch up the color on the model immediately after trimming the lines. Thanks to the Bones plastic, I did not have to go through a new priming and prep phase.

All in all, not bad for five minute's work.