Masterson’s Sta-Wet Handy Palette

I saw this palette being used by Jeremie Teboul in his Painting Figurines DVD and decided to order one online. So I placed an order from Blick Art Materials. Three weeks and one snowstorm later, it arrived in my doorstep.

it comes with two sponges and around 10 pieces of acrylic paper. After “boiling” the paper for 15minutes, you wet the sponge and place it in the palette and place the paper on top of the sponge.

All you have to do is to place the paint on the paper and the wet sponge below will keep the paint wet even after weeks. here’s how wet the paper and sponge is after a week in the palette.

Can’t wait to give it a spin.

Peindre des Figurines avec Jeremie Bonamant Teboul

Just got this DVD from Kraken Editions delivered last week. It’s chock full of painting tips for both beginners and advanced painters.

It covers topics from Tools and Color Theory to TMP (true metallic paint) and NMM (non metallic metal) techniques. Here’s the full TOC:

Introduction
Pre-painting
     Painting materials
     Palette
     Paint
     Organizing
     Undercoat
Techniques
     Foreword
     Pull/Push
     Wash/Glaze
     Successive washes
     Intermediate
     Wet Painting
     Pre-shading
     Step By Step
     Details
     Corrections
Light
     Theorie
     Zenithal Lightning
     Focal Point
     Spotlights
Colors
     Introduction
     Theory
     Warm/Cold Tones
     Harmony
     Color Contrast
     Improvements
Head
     Face
     Eyes
     Hair

Steel
     Théorie
     TMP Metal
     NMM Metal
     TMP Blade
     NMM Blade
     Chainmail
     Rust
Practical Applications
     Gems
     Leather
     Blood
     Stains
Basing
     Introduction
     Base Choice
     Timberland Base
     Water
     Barren Base
     Ice
     Pavement/Stones
     Marble
     Industrial Base
     Title
Gallery
     Harlequin
     Dark Harlequin
     Article No.4
     Athela
     The Banker
     Furgol
     Grallapoussah
     The Hobbits
     Lioness
     Lans Quenelle
     The Big Orc
Glossary

Order a copy for yourself, you’ll like it!

Let there be light!

This just came in the mail today in a huge box from Woodcraft.com. Quickly got it out and installed it on my table and voila!

Looks cool, if only it’d work better. Well, maybe I was expecting something really cool but while it does enlarge the miniature, it’s a little, unwieldy. How? well here’s a list of gripes I have:

1. For you to position the miniature properly, it has to be pretty close to the magnifier, and while you can see it clearly, your brush doesn’t have room to move around especially when you need to paint from the front. Thus forcing you to move the miniature at least 6 inches further away. Hard to paint that way.
2. If you accidentally hit the magnifier, it wobbles a little, and being that you’re so close, the image wobbles too, formula for nausea!
3. You’d have to hold your breath, coz once you breathe out, the glass fogs up. Ugh.
4. Fluorescent light isn’t bright enough, perhaps I need to go change it.

Guess I’ll use it as a light, like this fellow:http://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft/32

Minis up on CMON

CMON is the definitive miniature painting / modeling community on the internet today. Run by a Singaporean, Coolminiornot.com allows its members to upload pictures and get the community to rate and provide feedback. Some of the best painters in the world are on this community. I just uploaded the minis that I painted and got them scored. Well, as expected, didn’t do too well, and I’m a 7 pointer painter. With the best at 7.4 for my Zoat Mage.

Looks like I gotta do much better with my next mini. Wish me luck!

 

Checkout my minis at http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/paintingrobot

Ripley – WIP

Was rummaging through my collection of unpainted old miniatures from a decade ago and found a female heavy weapon Imperial Guard. I wanted to try to practice OSL or Object Source Lighting and decided to make a big fireball right at the tip of the gun. To make things more complex, I took my pliers and started mangling a pathetic looking Thug mini and converted him into a dead thug, befitting his visage.

This is what I started with:

and positioned them in a more dynamic way:

Took some green stuff and made a metallic base:

Also modeled some GS into the flare for the fireball, and pinned the miniatures so that it’s easier to paint:

Simple stuff for the fireball, made it into a cone and twisted it to get the radial lines. and the metal grate base using the handle from my drill and rolled it across like a steam roller coming from both axis:

Attached the cone fireball to get this effect:

Got caught up with painting the dead thug and base that I forgot to take pictures 😦 Here’s the result:

Added some blood using red ink. Blood Red and Blazing Orange:

As for “Ripley”, started off with her tank top, based the fireball yellow using Iyanden Darksun foundation yellow, and did her face with the normal Bronzed flesh, flesh wash and highlight with Bronzed flesh and Elf Flesh, then darkened behind the eyes with black ink:

Painted her hair Blazing Orange, shaded with Red Ink and Black Ink, then base coated her pants green. Thinking of making a camo pattern:

The camo pattern made the miniature look gaudy, coz there are already so many colors being used. So decided to go with the Urban Camo pattern following this fabulous tutorial. Also painted the “bottle” of something, perhaps gas to power the heavy weapon:

here’s how it looks like from the back:

And then putting it all together on the base and added some empty shells. If only I can do flying shells, perhaps with some transparent peg or to hold it up, but I know it will clutter the model :

 

Model is still unfinished, need to complete these tasks:

1. Helmet (behind her back)
2. Tube for the weapon
3. OSL!! I think the biggest amount of work.

 

*Update : Dec 12

Finally managed to complete the tube and helmet and the flame. Still not very happy with the muzzle flash. Any ideas?

 

I’ve also taken a guide photo of how the OSL (Object Source Lighting) should look like. If I end up doing it. Still not feeling confident.

Fire Elemental WIP

I found this really old OOP Fire Elemental. I don’t remember where I got it from but it is from the same batch of elementals that I bought that I first painted for this blog.

I glued it to a really cool Dark Age Warmachine base and added GS Putty to simulate a base with flames.

And based it black. Which was a mistake actually, should have used white because I had to start the model with yellow, and everybody knows, yellow doesn’t go on black well.

First things first, paint from the inside out, get the flesh color for the elemental right. I decided to go with grey. Charadon Granite base, highlighted with Bleached bone 4-5 levels.

Detailed the eyes and teeth (can’t see here) and based the flames white, painted Sunburst Yellow, drybrushed with Blazing Orange, Blood Red, Blood Red + Black, and dry brushed the tips black.

Also added lighting effects on the body of the elemental to show the glow from the fire below. You can see the eyes and teeth here too. Again, because I made a mistake with starting with a black base, I had to rebase it white, then Sunburst Yellow. You can see how I gradually built up the fire effect that I used on the flames on the base.

Drybursh Blazing Orange.

Drybrush Blood Red.

Drybrush Blood Red + Black

Finally drybrush Black.

Touch up the lighting effects on the hands and found out that you can actually see the hands and the nails on the top of the smoke stack. Had to detail that too. highlighted the nails with Orange base and worked up to bleached bone.

what do you think of the lighting effect? my second try. Need more practice!

Nurgle Champion WIP

Here’s the basic Nurgle Champion model with a special base that I created with two OOP Nurglings.

I decided to spice up the base with a GS (Green Stuff Putty) molded “asshole” (yes I know it’s on the ground), and a rock slate using cork. Base still looks bland.

While trying to think of a way to improve the base, I received my Dark Age Warmachine round bases that I bought from CoolMiniOrNot and started to make a better looking base by combining two 40mm round bases and glued it on top of a 50mm round base.

There. looks better don’t you think so?

Now to start work on the Champion.

Simple GS putty to simulate pus.

Tentacles that extrudes from his groin. Inspired by Japanese Hentai. 😉 Had to make tentacles from soft GS and build a funky harness using my sculpting tools to hold it in place. Took 3 full days to dry and harden sufficiently. I tried to position the middle tentacle so that it’ll point at the “asshole” on the base. *hopefully*

Paint the robes and rusty armor. Robes – Catachan Green highlighted with Bleached Bone. Rusty Armor – Boltgun Metal, Chestnut Ink wash, Black ink wash, green ink wash, highlighted using the streak method with Snakebite leather and bleached bone.

Thought the robe was too clean, washed the bottom part with purple and green inks. Painted the nurgle emblems and the breathing apparatus

Again, not very happy with the robe, washed it more with brown ink and in areas close to the rusty armor to get the stained effect. Painted the gloves with the rusty armor method and sword and pus.

 

This is the best part I believe, the rifle. Dark brown washed with black ink. highlighted in certain areas to simulate wear and tear from holding it. Picked out the details with Shining Gold and weathered it using Chestnut ink wash, black ink wash, catachan green wash (great for rusting metal) and highlighted with snakebite leather and bleached bone. Also finished off the hooves.

Now to finish off the tentacles. This one had so many ink washes and highlights that I don’t remember all of them but roughly, based with bleached bone (2 layers), washed with Flesh Wash, washed with purple and red inks, washed with catachan green in certain areas, highlighted with Flesh ink and bleached bone, highlighted with snake bite, highlighted with bleached bone. Then coated with diluted chestnut ink and red ink wash. *phew*

There. done! I’m surprised I got the positioning of the middle tentacle correct. Now it looks like it’s actually sniffing/licking/touching the *ahem* thing on the ground. 🙂 If you look properly, you can actually see the “turd” that the right Nurgling has expelled onto the floor too.

Overall, a lot of work, but I’m happy with the result. It takes a lot more work to make the model look like crap than it is to paint it with beautiful and bright colors..

Workbench

This is how my workbench looks like as of Nov 10th 2007. Just collected many more colors and inks and new sculpting tools too. Here’s a tour, from left to right.

• Saw and files.
• GW PVA Glue
• Sculpting tools
• Plastic Epoxy
• GW Sand, Grass and misc scenery stuff
• GW Foundation Paints
• Loctite Super Glue (Best in the world)
• More misc miniatures waiting base coat / Conversion
• Miniature with added Green Stuff putty waiting to harden (with harness using extra tools)
• GW Paints
• GW Chaos Black Spray
• Magic Wash (1:4 Future/Water)
• GW Matte Varnish
• More miniatures waiting to be painted
• Yellow bits box
• GW Inks
• Wet Palette
• Pot of water
• more brushes & tools
• Extra baking paper for wet palette

Da Ork Boyz!

This is one hard miniature to setup. it had a ton of imperfections and I spent a week trying to pin it, remove excess metal etc… even had to use putty to complete it. in the end I used black base and a lot of metallics to hide the mess.

This is my first attempt at using lighting effects in this model. The front light shines over the rolled up tent and on the mudguard. What do you think?

Zoat Mage

I believe this is called a Zoat Mage. Some obscure lizard-centaur-ogre combination race that Games Workshop discontinued.

I found this miniature that a friend of mine painted 10 years ago which was pretty bad. I stripped the paint off and tried to replicate the same color scheme but with “hopefully” better painting. And this is my first attempt and trying to simulate chrome using NMM techniques.