17 replies to this topic

[Kang]

Well, I'm finally ready to call this guy done. Actually, he was almost finished in the most recent posts of my WiP thread for this guy (lots more pix there), but a few little things have been completed since. This mini gave me a real headache when I tried to apply Testors Dullcote - it just wanted to stay super-glossy. Finally got the shine knocked back, (see the WiP thread and my Dullcote thread in the Painting Tips & Advice section for more about this). It's still just a little shiny; that, and the lights I used for taking photos, make it a bit hard to discern the highlights on the black cloak. They're there, though.

Since then, I have gone back with some brush-on gloss to make his slimy flesh and luminescent cave-slime glisten, as well as the green crystal tendrils on his staff. I wasn't sure about glossing the flesh, but Fieldarchy suggested I give it a try so I went ahead and did it (seen her minis; who am I to argue?). Anyhow, here are some more pix of the finished product. There's a good chance this guy will be TPK'ing my D&D players' party this coming Thursday - wish them luck!

The mini:



The base (HirstArts tiles, drilled-out Reaper skulls, and some white glue & model railroad sand for the slime):



Anything that may help me improve my skills can't help but help. So if you see anything you think I could have done better, please let me know what it is and how I could have improved it

Hope you liked it; thanks for looking,

Kang

[Beowulfthehunter]

I like the Slimy effect on the face/head. A solid job all around. I think the blending at the end of the tenticles realy sells the model. I think the only thing I would change is adding more drastic highlights as the rest of the paintjob seems kind of flat. In all a very solid above average paint job.

[Kang]

I like the Slimy effect on the face/head. A solid job all around. I think the blending at the end of the tenticles realy sells the model. I think the only thing I would change is adding more drastic highlights as the rest of the paintjob seems kind of flat. In all a very solid above average paint job.

Thanks, Beo'. Yeah, some of the highlights (especially in the blue of the cloak's liner, which was much brighter originally) got a bit lost in multiple botched Dullcote layers (upon layers), though even without the sealer overdose fiasco I suspect you'd have a fair point there. Still trying to master the smooth transitions and all... 'Above average' is as much as or more than I could hope for, really, given the small number of pieces I've actually completed since I got back into gaming & minis roughly around Y2K.

Thanks again for the comments,

Kang

[Versutus Vulpes]

Dang! He looks downright greezy.

Nice work - I like the freehand as well.

Keep up the good work.

[LordColdsteal]

colors look great.. base is wonderful.. but the slime... man o man... great job!

[fieldarchy]

very slimerrific! (Ooh new word!)

The only thing I would say needs work is lighting for your photos. What kind of bulbs are you using? Light set up?

[Legion]

Very "slice" (slimey & nice). Awesome work Kang. I love the extra attention to detail with the holes in the skulls and the luminescent slime is absolutely gross. Good luck with that TPK

[Kang]

Wow, I'm very impressed with how very impressed everyone seems to be (your cheques are in the mail)!
Thanks all, I'm blushing... Maybe next time I won't chicken out on the OSL & NMM...

V.V. - Glad you like the base - the munched-out victims' skulls, despite one of them unfortunately seeming to float just above the ground, are one of my favorite parts of this mini, though I think I had a better photo of them in my WiP thread, since you could make out the inside edge of both skulls in that one - you can only really see it on the Dwarf skull in these pix. You really like the freehand? It's actually tied with the "NMM" (I'm making sarcastic quotey motions with my fingers there) armbands he's wearing for my least favorite part of this guy, though I'm not completely disappointed. I had something more elaborate in mind at first, as well as less... pink. My first freehand attempt ever though, so I guess I can give myself a pass on that one... At least it gave me a chance to use one of my Micron pens.

L.C. - Do you mean the slime on the base (gooey, glowing cave-shrooms), or the slime on his head/hands? The latter looks as thick & viscous as it does as a lucky end result of many too many layers of 3 kinds of spray sealers followed by a generous helping of uthinned brush-on gloss from a damp brush. I guess it turned out for the best in the end, but man oh man was that whole Dullcote problem I had (see WiP and Tips&Advice threads linked above) ever annoying for a while there. The former is a bit of model railroad sand covered over then built up with multiple layers of white glue, painted, then brushed with the same acrylic gloss.

F.A. - As for my lighting, yeah, it could be better (you should have seen some of the shots I didn't bother posting!). I took these on my painting desk, which is lit by daylight-spectrum fluorescent tubes a couple of feet above the desk's surface. I also used a couple of lamps with daylight incandescent bulbs, one on each side and as close as I could get them without being in-frame, but one of the lamps has no reflector and the other has a broken spring-clamp and is therefore difficult to keep from falling off the desk, much less reposition. I know I need to hit Wal-Mart and pick up a couple of cheap gooseneck lamps with proper reflectors or something. If I can find some compact fluorescents that come in daylight colour, I figure they'd almost have to be brighter than the cheapo incandescents I'm currently using. If there's any other way I can improve my photos (or painting), I'd be grateful for any tips.

Legion - Note, I'm actually hoping it won't be a TPK; I already dropped, like, 20 bucks on the BBEG mini for their next adventure, after all!

Kang

[fieldarchy]

do you have a setting on your camera to get rid of the pinky flourescent look or the yellow tungsten look? It will help balance the color in your photos even with the lighting you have.

[Warlady]

Great slime effects and a really nice base!

[Legion]

Legion - Note, I'm actually hoping it won't be a TPK; I already dropped, like, 20 bucks on the BBEG mini for their next adventure, after all!

Kang

Ya know that's what dice are made for... Character Generation Plus it gives you more time to finish the next paint job as they work themselves back up to level

[Kang]

F.A. - I'll look into my camera's settings before shooting my next tiny victim; I assume you mean a 'white balance' setting or some such thing? It probably does have this function, but I am not sure. I guess I figured that with the 2 different types of 'daylight' bulbs, I'd get fairly true-to-life colours in my pictures, so I never checked. The camera I've been using here is my old one and I never really learned all the functions it has. It's a Fuji; my newer Canon's lens movement got busted when my son swatted it onto the floor out of the wife's hands about a month ago, and I still haven't gotten it fixed. I know that one has a way to do it, and oodles more megapixels to boot...

W.L. - Thanks, I'm really glad you and a few others seem to be getting a bit of a kick out of this guy. Anything here you'd like to see done better, though? As I've mentioned, the big challenge for this piece was really to get most of the mini to stop looking slimy. Since you mentioned the base (I think I mentioned this in my WiP thread but IIRC I didn't provide any links), for the stone texture of the base, which is made of HirstArts tiles cast in dental plaster, I used a technique I learned a few years back from Laszlo J's website, more or less (some great tips there, BTW - this one is under Advanced/Granite). It's really easy to do; all you need is an old toothbrush and some white, grey, and black paint. Just don't try to do it with an already-painted mini on top - unless you're painting a stone golem! I actually had the whole base built and painted before I had done anything with this mini other than to deblister him and saw off his original broccoli base so I could do a test-fit to determine how best to position the fungus pools and trephinated skulls.

Legion - LOL, too true, especially given how slow I work (although we use a point-buy system for ability score generation)... But if the PCs' brains are all too busy decorating this guy's innards, who's gonna drag their bodies back to the temple to get Raised in time to save the world from the Age of Worms?

Kang

[fieldarchy]

Yeah it's a white balance but my Kodak has specific settings if you are using regular bulbs that will give the tungsten coloring or if you are using flourescents it has a setting to get rid of the pinky color.

[Legion]

But if the PCs' brains are all too busy decorating this guy's innards, who's gonna drag their bodies back to the temple to get Raised in time to save the world from the Age of Worms?

Oh OK, I'll give you that one, but..... NPC's?!!

[fieldarchy]

oooh you're playing the AoW arch? Have you watered it down any? When I was running that I played straight from the campaign modules written and we seemed to have a character death every night.