No Time for Villainy

Well, another weekend gone and nowhere near as much done as I would have liked, due to a combination of tournaments keeping me up later than I prefer, and a new game called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter tying up most my time outside of that (awesome game, by the way - definitely one that I recommend for those who are more into the cerebral side of games).  But I did manage to get one item painted up - as promised, I give you Citizen Dawn:

That's all I have for today.  Tune in next time, for the dastardly Baron Blade.  Until then, folks - paint on!

The best laid plans...

Greetings, all.  I meant to get something painted up last night, but was lured away by the siren call of this seasons TV dramas. I'm usually not a big TV watcher, but this season looks like it'll be spectacular - with Gotham, Scorpion, and Agents of Shield already showing (and drawing my attention all last night), and The Flash, Arrow, Constantine,and perhaps a few others to go with them.

But that's not why you're here, is it?  You're here to see what I've been up to, and I'm not going to disappoint.  Tonight, I give you The Proletariat.  This ex-russian is a rather nasty case, but I'll get more into that later:

And there you have it.  The proletariat, in his full miniature glory.  What's that?  You want to hear more about him?  We'll see where the luck of the draw takes us - but let's just say that this isn't the last we'll see of this particular villain.  But next time, we have the charismatic and dangerous Citizen Dawn to worry about - and where she goes, her citizens are never far behind.

Except maybe here.  We'll see what I want to paint when she's done.

So tune in next time, and until then - paint on!

And time keeps on slipping

Once again, a long wait since the last post - but between work and the competition piece, I really haven't had much to show.  But now...  Now the competition piece is in and ready for the voting!

Unfortunately, I'm up against some really hefty competition this time around, so I doubt I'll win - but I'm sure that it will put up a solid showing, and place well!

And with that out of the way, I can continue with my next project - continuing on with the Sentinel Tactics miniatures.  Today, I bring you the stalwart leader of the Sentinels, Legacy:

A strapping young man who would bend over backwards to help his teammates.  But his alternate future self is not one to be trifled with - no siree!  I am very happy with how this figure came out, and can hardly wait to get him on the table to play (after sealing, of course).  Here's hoping the rest of his teammates come out looking nearly this good (glopped on the paint a bit thick on the cape - which means there was some actual wet blending going on back there!).

That's all I have for this week.  With the big slog finished with, I may be able to start cranking out these little guys again, but we'll see how things go.  One way or the other, the next one on my list is the Proletariat!  So tune in next time to see how it develops - be that Tuesday or a week from today.  I can assure you - it will be coming.  And until it does?

Paint on!

A long time coming...

Hey, all.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  Well, I haven't had as much time to work on painting as I would like - but I wouldn't give up what I'm learning right now to make it otherwise, so we'll all have to grin and bear it together.  I have been making slow but steady progress on the tower for this month's painting contest, and I'm sure you'll all want something to see after all this wait:

It's definitely coming along - but I've still got a long ways to go, especially with the weathering that I want to put on it (though I have gotten some with the varying stone texture.  I'll definitely have it done in time for the contest - but it is definitely going to be a near thing!  But, it'll just get too looking more an more awesome as I put more time in on it, and I look forward to seeing the results!

So tune in next week, when I should have this piece wrapped up and ready to go.  And until then - paint on!

A Blue Façade

Hello again, folks.  Time to tune in once more and see what I've gotten done today - which really is not a whole lot.  But I have started on this months competition piece, and I'm ready to share!

I'll start off with a bit of a discussion on priming wood.  Unlike pewter or hard plastic, Wood (such as the balsa wood that I used on this figure) and other porous materials (like plaster and related products) tend to become rather...  Shall we say, malodorous when primed using a spray primer.  Because of this, you need to use something to create a non-porous barrier between the wood/plaster/what have you and the spray primer.  I, personally, like to use craft paint for this purpose - it coats well, it's thin, so it doesn't obscure details, and its biggest flaws - it's low color- and light-fastness - aren't a factor as you're not seeing it anyways.

So, that said, here's the pics of the piece primed up and ready to go:

Here's the front.  Nothing really special to see here, so moving along...

And here's the back.  With a layer of primer over everything, you really can't tell which parts are original plastic, and which are the balsa-wood add-ons that I put on.

And, finally, we have the first half of the base layer of stonework.  For a project like this, I take a variety of Artists Paints - expensive, but they have excellent color- and light-fastness levels, which makes them the next best thing to actual hobby paints - but they are thick!  So be ready to water them down quite a bit to be usable.  In this case, I took a mid gray with a dark blue-gray to get this color, which I will then go over with the gray, and finish off with a gray/white mix to give the final results.  It's going to take a while to get everything done, but it'll be well worth it in the end!

That's all I have for now, folks.  Tune in Tuesday to see the rest of this first level, and perhaps get started on the drybrushing.  Until then, folks - paint on!

Anybody got a dollar?

I know I promised this for yesterday - but in the frenzy of getting it assembled, I didn't have time to snap pictures before heading to gaming - which is good, because I needed to do some custom work on it to get it looking good and ready to present to you.  For those of you not familiar with the Blue Ridge Crossing's monthly painting competition, this months theme is anything goes - and I am taking that to its illogical extreme:

That green stuff you can see all over the model is, well, Greenstuff, which is used to fill in the cracks and smooth out some surfaces.  Lots of big cracks in this one, so a good chunk of greenstuff got used - but all for the better, I think.

And around to the other side, where you can see some of the balsa wood work that I added to the figure.  When I originally assembled the piece, one of the doors was too far away from the side it should be on, and the platform itself wouldn't fit where it needed to.  The solution - to cut down a couple of pieces of cheap balsa wood, carve out a wood grain in them with some sculpting tools, and glue the result to the side.  It's not the first time I've done something like this - I've done much the same for several of the Malifaux figures I've painted up long ago - but this is the first time I've done it for a terrain piece.

That's all I have for today, folks.  Tune in tomorrow, when I get started on painting this beast - and I've got the artists paints to tackle it.  Lots of drybrushing, and I'm also going to be experimenting with some weathering techniques, and try to get some moss growing on this thing.  It'll be an interesting ride - and you won't want to miss out on it!  So, until next time, folks:

Paint on!

The Chairman sends his regards

Greetings once more, readers.  Time for the latest on what I've been working on - and I've been working on the first of the figures for Sentinel Tactics.  I've started with the Operative (mostly because she was on the top of the deck of cards): a very dangerous assassin who is often hired by The Chairman - one of the heads of organized crime.  In the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game, she acts as The Chairman's muscle, protecting him from harm until she's taken out.  In the Tactics game, she's a pretty nasty melee character who really knows how to use that sword of hers:

And that's all I have for today.  Tune in Friday for the next assembled competition piece, and then on Saturday to see the start of it getting painted.  Until then, folks - paint on!

She's certainly looking sharp - and there's something super on the horizon!

Greetings all!  It's certainly been a bit, but I'm finally back and raring to go!  We'll start off by finishing off what I started before I left - the lovely dwarven lass, Ursula Silverbeard:

I would certainly say that she came out looking quite nice.  Definitely ready for the flocking and to get sealed up with the next batch that I do.  And, speaking of which...  I've been hinting at it for a bit, but here's the next big project that I'm going to be working on.  It's from the new game from a company that I've grown to rather enjoy over the years - and since I won't know what I need to be painting up until Friday for this month's painting contest, I'm going to get an early start on it:

That's right, folks - I'm going to work on painting up all the figures from the Sentinels: Tactics board game over the next...  Well, however many weeks it's going to take to paint them all up.  The Proletariat is probably going to be the most annoying for me, painting up the same color scheme, pose, and all that six times running - though I'm probably going to stagger him out over the course of the rest of the figures.

Well, that's all I've got for today, folks.  I'll have more to post up tomorrow, so tune in to see how this super project starts rolling.  And until then, folks - paint on!