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Craig

Guild – Lady Justice

Posted on July 2, 2015

This model was scaring me for a few reasons. I’ve never really been happy with my painting of Mei Feng, who should be the visual center of any crew she’s a part of. She was my first Malifaux model I painted, and I’ve since found that the details on most Malifaux plastics are a lot smaller and harder to paint. I felt like Lady J was another moment of “do it right”, that I shouldn’t mess up. Also, she has a lot of skin, and I haven’t gotten the hang of painting skin yet!

She turned out ok.

The skin was: Dheneb Stone, layered up with a mix of Menoth White Highlight. I thought it was Ryn Flesh…but no, Menoth White. The Dheneb stone is interesting, as it’s a pinky-grey colour, and not just grey as it looks in the bottle. Mixing it up with the MWH turned her skin much to light and washed out. I used the SW Flesh Wash next, but this turned her skin yellow which I wasn’t overly happy with. So I did another mix of the Dheneb and Menoth to re-highlight over the Flesh Wash, and I think it looks pretty good! Not to bright, not washed out, not chalky.

SW Amethyst over Mithril Silver is pretty great, I used this on her greaves and heavier on her sword.

The hair was odd. I started with Codex and Fortress grey, then SW Amethyst, which turned it purple with whiteish highlights. Seraphim Sepia turned it brownish and with whiteish highlights still. Then I applied some Ushapti Bone in single strokes, then that Dheneb Stone+MHW mix from her skin in single strokes, making sure to maintain the depth created by the earlier layers and I like it.

Similarly with the coffin, brown basecoat, Sepia, then a couple single-stroke sections to give it some variety.

Last, I watered down some Abaddon Black and lightly applied it into some sections that needed a bit more contrast. I’ve been finding that after “finishing” a model, I’ll look at it and find a few distinct sections that seem to blend together more than they should, and all they need is a quick line between them to create a larger difference. Lots of ways of solving this (including painting them contrasting colours to start with…) but this simple black line is working for me.

This Guild crew is coming along!

Featured Images

Guild – Brutal Effigy

Posted on June 29, 2015

This guy was an interesting comparison to the Judge. I started by mixing the SW Flesh Wash and SW Sapphire, which ended up just being mostly Sapphire as apparently it has a much higher pigment count than the Flesh Wash. Add some water and paint it into the recesses of his cloak, under the cloak and spread it very thinly over the top, and the red is suddenly darkened by quite a bit. I didn’t necessarily want it to be blue, but this is what I wanted when I painted the Judge. Not quite so brightly red!

Seraphim Sepia was the next layer after a few light ones of the blue+flesh, because I wanted to bring back the brown. This looked so good, I think I left the majority of the cloak there.

I did the base in the same way as the Judge’s, and because of the greater number of details on the front of this model, it means I could leave the cloak as-is because there’s a lot of interest going on in the front!

The glow is Elysian Green, a colour that I really like, but which isn’t really suited for the task of “glow”. I need to get to the store and buy some more brilliant greens for the rest of the Guild crew, because I have a lot of ethereal flames to paint!

The metal is Mithril Silver, a bit of the Sepia, a bit of Waywatcher Green and then back in with Mithril in spaces. I really like this combo, as it looks a little tarnished in places, and seems to swirl around in colour.

Featured Images

Guild – The Judge

Posted on June 26, 2015

I started the final work on The Judge first, because he has no skin on him. >.>

He was both a good test, and an unfortunate failure. As I said a while ago, I’ve been working towards the idea of “highlight up, then shade down”. It’s been working for me, but I’ve been too lazy in most cases to actually highlight up, so I’ve been starting with a single bright basecoat and shading down and I wanted to see what actually highlighting up, then using a larger variety of glazes and mixed glazes did.

On the one hand, this model looks pretty sharp. On the other hand, Mephiston Red (+layers) is such a strong colour that it’s difficult to get any good coverage to bring it down. I see Mr. Wappel making big changes in colour and tone with his glazes, but the best I could do here was to get the cloak looking a lot less bright and a bit more “in the mud”.

I used a lot of SW Flesh Wash, mixed with other things. I’ve noted before that I found the SW washes to to dry shiny, so I mixed it with the Red in some places. I used also used the SW Soft Body Black to add some slight darkness to the shades, and the SW Red Black for beneath the cloak. GW Waywatcher Green I used in spots to make a little change of colour, where I could. And lastly, Seraphim Sepia because sometimes you just have to get somewhere quickly. >.>

I brought back my old friend the Golden Fluid Matte Medium, because I read that if I mixed a bit with the SW washes it would also dull the shine, but without changing the colour, which is what I wanted. But I need to figure out the right ratio of it, because adding to much leaves the layer looking so thin it doesn’t do anything.

The base was drybrushed up with Fortress Grey over white, then some Seraphim and Waywatcher before drybrushing again with Codex then Fortress and then Waywatcher again to add more variety on the stones.

As an odd last step, I took some really watered down black and lined a couple areas that looked like they needed more contrast. I don’t usually do this, we’ll see where it goes. I had the black on the palette. 😛

Musings & Meta Work-in-progress

Sharing the Hobby

Posted on June 23, 2015

A year and a bit ago one of Miranda’s little cousins had come over and we built a model for him out of the bloodletter pieces I had sitting on my desk at the time. He’s back and staying with us, and one of the first things he asked was if we could build another model. So I pulled out the bits box, grabbed the ziploc bag of bloodletter pieces and the hobby stuff and we set up at the table.

A big difference from last year – I knew what to expect. I also decided that I was going to let him handle the superglue, after a serious talk about being careful. The words “touching your eye with this stuff, while it’s on your hands, is a trip to the hospital” were uttered. I watched him every time he picked up the bottle.

This boy is a wonder to hang out with, lots of energy and super smart, but listening and following instructions are things he’s working on. I’m happy to say that no one superglued their fingers to their eyeballs.

He took a bunch of half built bloodletters and put arms and banners on them, then asked if I could bring the paints out and if he could paint them. I did, and said “remember that talk we had about the glue?” “yeah” “none of that applies to the paint. Just don’t spill it. Have at!” He painted a sweet sword in black and Liche Purple (my favourite colour) with a light edge highlight of Ryn Flesh.

He told me that I had to assemble an army to oppose his daemons. I looked around my box to look for something that I wanted to assemble, and remembered that I had Sidir, a Wastrel and some Guild Guard in there that would be nice to have for Wet Coast (assuming I end up going).

One of my Guard came without hair! >.<

Like I needed more models. I’m painting at a decent rate to get a Guild crew ready for Wet Coast, but it’s not a crew that covers all of the holes you need covered to play Malifaux successfully. Mercenaries will hopefully cover some of those holes.

Work-in-progress

Blood Bowl – Lizardmen – One More Saurus

Posted on June 20, 2015

When I made my lizardmen team for AdeptiCon a few years ago, strangely I only built 5 saurus players. It’s strange, because I was building a team, and I knew that 6 saurus were the optimal number (also, the maximum number) and building a 6th wasn’t that much more effort than the 5…so why didn’t I? Laziness. So now I have to catch up for past-Craig’s laziness and paint one more player model for my team.

Here’s a base coat, which is much easier to copy because of the notes I made many moons ago on the colours I used.

I swear one of these days I’ll take photos of finished models…so busy…

Work-in-progress

Ten Thunders – Oiran basecoat

Posted on June 9, 2015

I got 2 of these ladies in a trade and wanted to be able to play with them in whatever Ten Thunders list I happened to be putting together. I realized they might be an interesting addition to the Death Marshall list because of their Wp buff.

I found this photo on the internet that I liked the colours on, and they’re a good difference to have what with the stream of red I’ve been painting.

I’ve also got finals for 4 other models to take photos of, but it’s pretty hot and I haven’t been motivated enough, which is why there’s been a few days of no posts. 🙂 Maybe a few more.

Work-in-progress

Pahaux Flamewalkers hire a pitch-side priest

Posted on June 1, 2015

A friend started a Blood Bowl league about 2 months ago and I joined up. I love playing this game, and the RPG-aspect at the end makes it even better!

2 games ago I saved up enough to finally buy my Kroxigor (the commissioner convinced me not to buy him initially), and the very next game I bought an apothecary so I could protect my guys better!

I came home from a night of training for our upcoming show (June 6th, Hats Off day in Burnaby, you should come if you live in Vancouver) and opened my bitz box and everything I pulled out of it gave me an idea for a project!

After the first photo I sent it to my club and trolled that I was converting my army to round base for the rumoured 9th edition change. 😛

Work-in-progress

Guild Ball – Butchers!

Posted on May 29, 2015

Not to be confused with my recent posts on the Malifaux Guild, this new game came into my mailbox after a relatively short Kickstarter and a bunch of us are super excited to play it!

In general, excellent models. Very light mould lines and some really dynamic poses! A few spots that are waaaay to small, like Meathooks blades. And the resin is really odd and…bendy. And some of those dynamic poses are going to be a pain to put in the case. We’ll see how it goes!

In addition to the entire Butcher line, I also have Gutter and Minx from the Union because they play well with Butchers.

Work-in-progress

Guild – Lady Justice base colours

Posted on May 25, 2015

Got a few base colours on the models. I didn’t start out wanting to do a limited palette, but that’s what I ended up wanting. Mithril Silver, Mournfang Brown, Steel Legion Drab (for the skin), Fortress Grey, Mephiston Red and Elysian Green. I’m going to take another pass with some highlights, and then go in with the washes and glazes.

Work-in-progress

Guild – New Crew!

Posted on May 22, 2015

I never thought I’d play Guild. Don’t like the undertones of evil theme. But then Tao challenged everyone to take a new Master to Wet Coast this year, and we all randomized Masters and I got a choice of Seamus or Lady Justice and there was a Lady Justice box sitting on my “to be sold” pile and…then it was open and being assembled.

I’ve bought a couple Guild extras as well. Miss Terious (purchased at the last Wyrd sale) became Fransisca, as folks apparently do. Brutal Effigy seems to go well with J, and I like 4ss models.

I don’t know what else to grab for Guild, as I’ve only played them once so I don’t know where the holes in the crew are, but this is a good start.

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