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.

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.

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.

Trying Malifaux

After seeing many online reviews of the game I have decided to give Malifaux a try. I played my first game this past Friday and absolutely love the game. I would like to send out a thank you to Brian at New World Comics and Games, He is the resident Henchman and was patient with me through the learning process. I absolutely loved this game. I hadn't even gotten my miniatures based at this point so he let me use one of his crews to learn to play. I used Perdita Ortega and her crew, while Brian used a Lilith crew he assembled. I'm sure he took it easy on me since it was my first game, but I actually managed to come out with a win. The basic rules are easy to follow and I was able to pick it up fairly easily, though I am sure I still don't have a firm grasp of the game. All in all it was a fun experience and I did learn a lot. After a great time playing the game I am energized to get my crew mounted on bases and painted so I can play them and learn their tactics.

Because I love the Asian theme of the models I decided to go with the Resurrectionists Kirai crew. I have heard that the Ressurectionists are some of the hardest factions to learn to play but I guess I will soon find out.

The first thing I decided to do was design some bases for my crew. Being Asian themed I decided to make a bamboo floor base. I used some wooden toothpicks and cut them down to 1/2" lengths. I then created a square mat with alternating seams and cut out the circles to fit in the Malifaux bases. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during this process so I have no WIP. After the work it took to make the 4 I finished, I decided I wanted to simplify the process for any future models and made a silicone mold of the bases to cast in resin. Not knowing how this would turn out I decided to go cheap my first time and bought the Alumilite Mini Casting Kit from Hobby Lobby. The mold turned out fairly nice and I am mostly pleased with the results.

If I ever decide to remake the molds I will probably make the spaces between the ends of the toothpick pieces a bit wider, so I have more detail in the bases. After making the molds I then cast them in the resin that comes with the kit.

I didn't think to post a blog entry until I had already mounted all of the minis so this is one I had already tried grinding a slot into for the feet. I now have all of them based and it is time to start painting.