Christmas project for a friend

Here are some WIP photos of some Terminators, I am painting for a friend as a Christmas present. I am about done with general color blocking. When that is done they will get a coat of gloss varnish and then I will begin washing.

Kirai crew finished

It appears it is time to post the final pictures of my work on my Kirai crew. Here they are the Onryo and Datsue-Ba. One turned out a little Christmasy but I like the color combination.

As for Datsue-Ba, after a bath in Simple Green to remove my first attempt at painting her, she is now ready for a fight.

And just for giggles I'll post a group photo so they can all be seen together.

Now on to my next crew. Looks like Lady Justice is chomping at the bit for a touch of paint.

Custom bases for New Crew and Finished Seishin

My team lost to day so what better to do, to drown my sorrows, than work on miniatures. I have a new crew coming in hopefully next week and am making some custom bases for them. These will be stone themed. I made the larger stones from Sculpey and then broke them into the pieces I wanted. I then glued them to the bases. One base didn't look right so I decided to shave it down with a X-Acto knife. As I got to the bottom it broke in a few places and I had to fill in with smaller ballast stones. It actually turned out looking pretty good though. Another broke in a shape smaller than the recess in the base, so I decided to fill it with the smaller rocks too, and it turned out quite good as well. Here is a shot of the final product.

I am going to make casts of these, and since someone asked nicely, I will put up a how-to on it. After the bases were done I decided to work on the Seishin for my Kirai crew instead of finishing my Onryo. When I originally based it, I used Green stuff to hold it in place because the glue wasn't holding. Using the green stuff, I created a "mist" that the Seishin spirit was materializing from. I wasn't sure how this would look until I painted it. Now I have to say it turned out better than I had expected. The paint job was supposed to make it look like it started from a mist and then became the solid dragon at the top. I did this by airbrushing the lighter color as a base coat and then used darker coats as I went up the model. Similar to the technique I used on the cloak on the Ikiryo. This gave it a good blended transition as the spirit manifested.

As you might be able to see, I also created some mist tendrils coming up from the base. I still need to spray it with matte varnish but other than that it is done. Well that is all for now. Soon I should have the Onryo finished and posted. If you would rather me post these more in a step by step format so my progress can be seen let me know and I will try to do that instead. Otherwise I will continue to do this as a gallery of my finished work. Thanks for reading.

Ikiryo finished and Onryo WIP

Today I want to start by pointing folks in the direction of a couple of folks that have been inspirations to me in my paining. First is TheJoeyBerry from YouTube. She has a great channel and is one of the reasons I got into Malifaux and inspires me to keep my blog updated on a regular basis. Next is Les from AwesomePaintjob. If you haven't seen this guy's videos or blogs you need to check them out. He is an amazing painter and has a lot of great techniques. And finally, for this post anyway, is Chung at Wargamers Consortium. Another great guy in the YouTube wargaming community and has posted a lot of helpful videos about things from brushes to paints to airbrushes. I'll post links to their channels at the bottom of this post so you can check them out.

I decided not to enter the contest so I will show you what I have been working on. First up is the Ikiryo. This is the one I was going to use to enter, but realized I had published a pic of the entire crew after I had based. I decided with the Ikiryo I would continue the black and red theme I started with Kirai. Here she is completed and matte varnished, I just need to work on the base now.

I have also decided that my Kirai is done and applied the matte varnish to her as well. As with the Ikiryo, I still need to work on the base but I wanted the painting protected while I was working.

Now on to the next two models in the crew, The Onryo. Here is a WIP of them.

 

So until next time. Remember to have fun and check out the wargaming community on YouTube.

TheJoeyBerry - http://www.youtube.com/user/TheJoeyberry

AwesomePaintjob - http://www.youtube.com/user/awesomepaintjob

Wargamers Consortium - http://www.youtube.com/user/WGConsortium

P.S. I think it might be about time to build a light box for taking photos.

Time for a rework

The Datsue-Ba mini I posted is currently taking a bath in Simple Green. I was unhappy with the overall look of the mini and decided she needed a rework. I am also working on another mini. This mini is possibly going into a contest, and due to the rules, if I enter I can't post a pic until after voting has completed. As soon as I decide whether I am entering or not I will either post a pic or let you know I have entered.

Kirai update and Datsue-Ba

Painting again today. I decided to add some designs to Kirai's Kimono. So I decided on purple and a pink and painted some patterns on.

After painting the designs on Kirai I decided to get to work on Datsue-Ba. I found an image online of the mythical character of Datsue-Ba and decided to paint the mini according to that pic. 

According to the description of the image Datsue-Ba is the character on the right with the horses. And now for my paint job.

As you can probably tell I still have a few details to iron out on this mini, such as the base and painting the teeth and a few other things, but I am mostly happy with how it turned out. I think next will be the Onryo.

Kirai crew starting

So... I got busy painting today. I tried a new technique for painting today and am wondering how it all looks. I have painted my Kirai using almost entirely washes.

I would love to know what people think. Might continue using this technique on all of my crew.