Weekly Update: It's all about the Stegadon

This was a busy week with a trip out of state. The house is a disaster and should be cleaned, but the studio is always a disaster and hanging out in there keeps the real work at bay. Lots of work was done on the Steg model today. The highlights are coming along nicely and I'm trying out some hatching techniques that I think have been mostly successful. By hatching, I mean the fine highlighted lines that run across places like the jaw, back legs, etc. It's often used to describe a shape when you're drawing or painting on a flat surface. I've seen other folks use it on models as well and liked the results. There's plenty of detail work left...

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Tip of the Week: Buy the Best Brushes

“The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.” - Confusious Lots of time observing, thinking, and painting makes a great painter, but starting with the right tools for the job is also necessary to produce quality work. Let's face it - applying color to a miniature isn't easy. It takes patience, concentration, a good hand, the right mix of paint, and on and on and on. Anything that gives you an edge is worth having and the right type of brush will help. Many mini painters will ask, "Why have all my brushes started to curl and fall apart, and what can I do to fix them,...

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You Have to See This: Wet Palette

A good friend on the Wisconsin Warhammer Fantasy Battles site put up a great tutorial on how to make a wet palette. I haven't tried this out myself, but I've seen the results of his work with it and they're mighty fine. Take a look and let him know if you have success with it. Click here for a nice wet palette. Wait that's not it... that's Karin Viard in her prime. Try this instead: Wet Palette mmm ...

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Weekly Update: Going East - to West VA

I'm in West Virginia today, but through the magical properties of Blogger, this post was created in advance to give everyone a weekly update. That weekly update is: My wife will hurt me if I don't finish packing the car and get out of here. And I'm making good progress on the Stegadon - pictures soon. Also found a Forgeworld Mammoth that I couldn't pass up, so expect some pics from that work in progress in the near future as well. Have a great weekend, a...

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Tip of the Week: Be the Jack Sprat of Painting

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat His wife could eat no lean…” When you’re painting, be like Jack, my fellow mini fans: Keep your paint lean. If there’s one immediate thing that every painter should do as they strive to paint better minis, it’s thin their paint. Great globs of paint pulled right from the tube, eyedropper, or pot are not suitable to apply to your models. It’s simple: Thicker paint goes on more thickly and covers up or smooths over the precious tiny details of your miniature. Thick paint also doesn’t allow you to easily create effective layering and blending techniques. Piles of pigment - not to be freebased Let’s...

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Tutorial: Glazing = Good

So you've got a base coat or an initial wash or two on your model. You've started building up the highlights and it's looking pretty good. If you've gone this far, your model is more than tabletop worthy and is probably already impressing the local gang. Want to take it a step further and try a new technique? Then glazing may be for you.Glazing over a model is just that - you're creating a thin and slightly tinted film of paint that will inform the colors underneath. Think of it like placing one color of stained glass over another.Glazing is a boon when used sparingly, but watch out. Too much glazing will drain your piece of it's immediacy...

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You Have to See This: Tiny Souls

Tiny Souls: You have to see this! Howdy Gang - This is the first post in a new weekly segment. It's purpose is to get you to other great corners of the internet that I have found inform or expand my interest in the hobby or art in general. To kick things off, I want to direct your attention to one of my favorite painters - Zordana. Her site is called Tiny Souls and it is not to be missed. She recently redesigned it's format and you can find a link to her archives in the siderbar of the new site. There's a bunch of great material and beautiful images of her work. Check her out: Tiny So...

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Weekly Update: Stegadons, Orcs, and Blog Revamps - oh my!

This was a productive week. I took some time to work on the blog - that involved some HTML and Javascript lessons. Awesome... I should be at about the skill level of a 13 year old MySpace addict now. My humiliation is the blog's gain! *AHEM* check the slick favicon *ahem* *cough*Here are the beginnings of some Savage Orc Command models for Warhammer Fantasy. I wasn't a big fan of the more recent O&G designs, but these guys aren't bad. At least they're wearing an animal... Wish I could pull this look off around work. These were actually begun with the leftover paint in the tray from the big fella below.I'm not a big fan of this model...

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Tutorial: Mordor Troll

My goal in writing this is to give you an idea of my working and thought processes as a project like the Mordor Troll comes together.As always, the model was primed white. I like both Krylon and Games Workshop spray primer, but I like the price of the former much better and used it on this project. This excellent website is a great visual reference for anything from the films and I used it again here: Lord of the Rings Image LibraryPainting on the troll began with a series of controlled dark brown washes on the flesh areas. By controlled, I mean that large pools of color in places where they didn’t belong were removed with a separate dry brush...

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Weekly Update: My favorite part of Mordor

Giant trolls. They're tough to beat if you're looking for big and ugly. While their rules in War of the Ring make them a bit soft, the fellow below will soon pretty-up a table for as long as he lasts.The Mordor Troll is a great model and a blast to paint. This project was begun and finished in about one week of heavy painting. The more recent plastic troll kits give you plenty of options, but none beat the more detailed sculpt of this metal giant. It's just unfortunate that he was one of the severe casualties of the recent GW price increase. If you can find one of these guys for less than the ludicrous amount those citrus suckers are asking,...

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Fell Beastie and his Witch King friend

Games Workshop makes two excellent fell beasts in their Lord of the Rings line. The model is fragile, but has some nice details and is highly evocative of the scenes in the film. Here are some collected images from my recently completed Witch King on Fell Beast model.The model itself was a challenge to assemble. There were many large gaps that needed a good amount of putty work, but who needs a few hours of their life away from something this cool?The beast was base-coated with a dark dark brown and built up with increasingly lighter shades of gray. Burnt umber washes were applied to many parts that I felt were getting too monochromatic gray....

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Krox and friends

Another weekend and another bit of work on the Lizard army. After spending some time with the 'completed' Kroxigor model this week, I decided there was nothing wrong with gilding the lily and worked back into some of the painted model and base to dress him up a bit. There is more flora and some highlights that helped flesh out some of the geometry of the model.No one should be alone in the world, so the Krox received a friend - another 5th edition model in the same painting scheme and with similar basing elements. I wanted these guys to have a naturalist feel to them and was thinking of a dense and humid Bornian jungle during their creation....

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One Cool Krox

I spent the Valentine's weekend with two things I love: My wife, and an 11 year old model of a foolishly named lizard-creature: the Kroxigor. One of those two is tucked into bed with me every night, and the other will do the dishes every now and again if I ask sweetly.This is the model that was destined for the product of 'Basing 202'. Again, I wanted the model to be based in the natural world and referenced a number of my photos from the local zoo before deciding upon a hybrid alligator/iguana color sche...

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A Poor Man's Oven

I'm impatient and I use modeling epoxy frequently. I also have a bad habit of sticking my thumb right into a painstakingly crafted sculpt that is not yet dry. Are you in this boat as well? No!?... Then go hang out on this website with my wife: (i like to party) For the handful of you not distracted by the lifestyles of the wealthy and woebegone - I present to you, a can. This will become our oven and mine originally held 30 oz of beans. If you can still find coffee in one of these, buy it, throw out or freebase the contents, and get to work. Is that Darth Vader's nerdish brother? Safety first with projects like these. I'll be using a rotary...

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Basing 201

The tried and true bases made of sand, painted in increasingly lighter brown colors, and finished with a hint of static grass are a functional way to dress up large numbers of core units. You can see some examples of these in the Dwarf of my earlier posts. I wanted to add more interest and higher relief to the bases of the larger critters in my Lizardmen army. What follows is a step-by-step walkthrough of how I tried to accomplish this - missteps and all. Follow along and succeed where I half-succeeded, intrepid reader!Here's the Kroxigor on the table today. The pose and bulk of these older 5th edition models is great. Looking at the model gave...

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