The Vagaries of Life

There is not a whole lot to report for June: I haven't been able to make much painting or modelling time in the past month, due to the intervention of life:

What you see is the state of my front door, as of the end of May. Fortunately, the repairs are now complete, and I have most of my furniture back in place. I have even installed a new, slightly safer, spray booth in my paint area to give me a place to experiment with air brushing.

My first airbrush project has been to try to inject some additional color into my DropzoneCommander Shaltari army. My basic red scheme looked good enough, with chrome highlights and bright yellowy lift-vanes, but it didn't really pop the way I wanted it to. My newest experiment is to add some brighter yellow-orange patterns to the base design and see how it looks after that.


Stay tuned for further updates!

CAV Razor: Continued

Home repairs, business travel and illness have conspired against much progress on the CAV project, but much of that is behind me, and I have made some headway as compared to my last installment.

I outlined a Malvernian insignia on the Razor to tie it into the CAV Universe. I'm not sure if the paint scheme is appropriate, but I gather that CAVs change schemes readily and often sport bright colors, so I imagine that it is acceptable.

Fey Project 9: The Voyage Home

At long last, the Fey Project is winding to its conclusion. During the weekend before ReaperCon 2015 I managed to get the final shading and finishing done, and pack the miniature up for transport to Dallas. This project was exhausting, but I am pretty happy with the results, and it was fun to experiment with so many new basing techniques. Rest assured that some of these will return in the future.

Naturally, I am never 100% satisfied with my work. There are lots of little details that could be shaded or blended a little better to refine the piece, but I do not think the differences would translate into the photos.

CAV: Battle Damage

During a recent New England Miniature Painters Association (NEMPA) paint day, I took a short break to play around with one of the Bones CAV models that I received from Reaper Miniatures back in the Fall. The mini was part of the early-bird Kickstarter package from their CAV campaign. If everything goes to plan, the second installment of little plastic robots should appear in a few more months.

When I started this, I wasn't thinking too hard about paint. Instead, I pulled out the CAV and attacked it with my hobby knife, slicing pieces off and then playing around with a variety of materials to add on battle damage that might look cool in the finished product. One thing I'll say for Bones is that it makes this sort of experimentation easy and affordable!

Fey Project 8: The Home Stretch

In the past week, I finished my basing work on the Fey project, and I am almost done with the basic shading for the whole figure. Once I add some highlights to the edges of her wings, all I have to do is refine the light and shadow across the model to perfect the finish. (OK, to improve the finish. Nothing will ever be perfect.)

As you can see, I finished up the bracken leaves, and added in a couple of additional mushrooms to break up the yellow-green monotony of the base. Not visible in this picture is the fact that I have now gotten the yellow-orange blending roughed in on the back of her wings, making them more or less complete, even if the blends are not as butter-smooth as I might like.

Fey Project 7: Return of the Bracken

I have not had a huge amount of time to paint in March, but I still made some process on the Fey Project. This entry will just be a quick progress check-in, rather than a deep article on technique. Hopefully, the next one will include some finishing touches and a complete, or nearly complete product.

The biggest change is, as you can see, that I glued the figure down to the base. At this stage, I am close to 80% finished with the ground cover basing, and I have also nearly completed the paint on the tree stump and roots that frame the scene. I still have shading and finishing to do on the figure, but it makes the project feel much closer to completion to have the parts put together.

This brass-etch bracken looks nice, and it is far sturdier than any paper equivalent that I might construct, but it is a huge amount of added work. Individually painting each leaf only takes around 1-2 minutes, but there are already more than 40 leaves glued to the base. At a guess, I need another 15-20 to finish up, and move on to other painting.

Fey Project 6: Basing Without End

I took a major hiatus from this project at the start of the year. A big part of it was the wings. I just couldn't wrap my head around shading all the little cells on all four surfaces. The base was also a bit vexing, since it involves a lot of repetitive work with the photo-etch brass.

Thankfully, my local group paint day came to the rescue and pulled me out of my project funk. I am now forging ahead with a serious hope of bringing this thing to ReaperCon for display.