18 replies to this topic

[warhorseminis]

Hello everyone!

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Kathryn Loch and have been painting minis off and on for a number of years. A few years ago, my painting started to turn the corner and really improve but then a medical condition flared up and one of the effects is severe hand tremors. Well, painting miniatures became a frustrating exercise in futility. I moved to equine models, which are larger scale (I'm a serious horse nut) and learned several dry pigment and pastel techniques in that hobby. But while I love my ponies, I also enjoy the challenge of painting a rider and armor and all that other stuff. I found myself gravitating back to miniatures.

I started working downward in scale and found I was learning to compensate for the hand tremors. Some days are bad and nothing works no matter what I do, but most days, I can actually get something accomplished. I started getting back to the "heroic" scale minis when real life hit with a job that required tons of overtime. I had to put the brush down and wasn't able to pick it up again for over two months.

But that job is over now and I can get back to the business of painting. I was also finally able to tackle some Reaper minis which were previously too small for me to even think about attempting.

First up is Gweneth Roanmane, female centaur. Since I read that the forums need to stay family friendly and she's topless, here's a link to her album on my photobucket account.

NSFW or kids! Shirtless woman on following link! You've been warned!

http://s245.photobuc...Reaper%20Minis/

With a name like Roanmane how can I not paint her a blue roan??? lol!

Now, I realize I still have a TON of work to do on her. After not painting for 2 months, trying to jump into heroic scale is rather nuts of me, but yes, I am insane. Plus, I missed a couple of big ole gnarly seams - which I'm currently fixing.

So I'm still working on her and fixing a lot of stuff.

I'm also working on the Griffon. At least he is a little larger. He's actually an experiment for something else I want to try. But I'm working with dry metallic pigments on him.

He's in the same album but for folks who don't want to click on the link and since he's okay to post, here's a couple of pics for ya.



Dry metallic pigments work best on a black base coat while regular dry pigments need to start on white (I don't mean weathering, I mean actually painting with them). This particular metallic is a dual color called Mink. When the light hits it one direction, it looks like a bronze color and in another direction you can see a soft green.



I also have a long way to go with him.



My goal is to make him a black griffon but with vibrant feathers. Have you seen a big ole crow or raven standing in the sunshine and noticed that their feathers have blues and purples and greens in them? I'm attempting to achieve that with these metallic pigments.



The wings were much easier to turn that direction but they too need more work (and flash removal lol!)

But anyways, I just wanted to post what I've been working on.

ETA: Instead of starting a new thread, I just changed the title with the two figures I'm adding
Cheers,
Kath

[warhorseminis]

Okay then - plugging right along. Got some more work done on these two but not huge leaps forward. And please excuse the disaster worktable.

For the female centaur, the link to the album is here:

http://s245.photobuc...h/Reaper Minis/

And here's the griffon:

[mousekiller]

I really like how this is coming along, and the fact that you are using metallics to make it happen.

Very interested to see this one progress, looking forward to it.

[warhorseminis]

Thank you very much, Mouse! I'm glad you like 'em. We shall see how it goes.

[warhorseminis]

Well, centaur lady is in a Dawn Power Dissolver bath. I was getting too much paint build up on the flesh tones trying to even out my highlights. So gonna start over with her. But in the meanwhile, I started work on a couple of dark elves.





Woops! It looks like I need to even out my highlights on the last one. lol!

And I got more work done on the griffon's other wing.



Hopefully I can get something accomplished tomorrow.

[MonkeySloth]

Loving the look of the feathers on this.

[Silas Coggeshall]

wow. This is going to look beautiful. Those wings are awesome.

[warhorseminis]

Thanks Monkey and Silas! Unfortunately, no painting today, had to do some cleaning and laundry. Ugh!

[Silas Coggeshall]

OUCH! I hear ya.

[beno]

Oooh, love the shiny-shiny! Been thinking of trying out something similar to do beetle-like carapaces so I'm really interested to see how this turns out. If only we could get a 3D view to see how they shimmer...

[warhorseminis]

Hi beno and thank you! The metallic pigments do shift colors but that effect works best using "duo" colors. For example I have a Blue Green Duo color and it's effect is much more obvious when the light shifts. I've been taking some video while I worked on this one, but haven't really gone through it to see if helps. I'll see if I can take a look at it tomorrow.

For right now, not much work on the poor ole griffon. I had an issue with painting and spent the last day or so trying to figure out what was causing it.

First, I have a b-day coming up this month and this situation just reminded me - I hate getting old! lol!

I posted some photos on CMON and someone commented that the mini looked almost textured. Well, I noticed that in the photos too but thought it was camera noise, my camera can throw a lot of noise especially when I don't use the flash. Well, Reaper minis are the smallest I've worked on in a very long time and age reared its ugly head, I was having a hard time seeing the details. So I used my magnifying glass that's on my model holder thingy (yeah, I know technical term. lol!) Anyway, under the magnifying glass I noticed the model looked almost fuzzy. I had this happen before when I used cheap primer and it was really humid outside but I'm using brush on primer now so I wasn't sure what the problem was - it just happened all of a sudden.

To double-check, I took a photo on super macro with no adjustments.



What in the world????

I noticed it developing on the other dark elf and on the centaur. Like I said, in the past it had been caused by primer, the primer I'm using now is Vallejo brush on primer. I thin it and it takes two or three coats to get good coverage. The only thing I could think of was perhaps the bottle was old when I ordered it from an online store and then I took a two month break and maybe that did it in.

So I experimented and tried a different mini to start from scratch and used Reaper's brush on primer. At first I thought that took care of the problem but then I saw it starting - the tiniest bit of fuzziness. Rats! What is causing this?

I ran through a mental check list of the things that had changed in the past day or so...well, remember how I posted about no painting because I was cleaning? When reorganizing my work area I found my Masterson's wet palette along with two sheets of supplied paper. I just recently started using a homemade wet palette because I wasn't sure where the one I bought was at - so I was like oh cool!

Well, it turns out that's the culprit, more specifically the paper. I guess this stuff doesn't age well. It's not dust or anything because I've rinsed it off several times. this time I used my Reynolds Parchment baking paper and tadaa! No more fuzzies!!! Yay!!!!

My homemade wet palette was okay but the sponges I got for it have large holes which trap air and dry out the paper. I tried a folded paper towel but wasn't thrilled with it. But I have some of those Sham Wow towels that I used at horse shows (they're great for drying off a horse after you've hosed him down on a hot day lol!). Anyway, I have a couple that were ready to be trashed, so cut a piece to fit my wet palette and it works like a charm! Holds the water very well and no air bubbles. I thought I might need more than one layer but a one seems to work just fine.

So here's my test subject.



He still has a long way to go because I'm trying something different with him but we shall see.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with the long thread! I'll try to work on the griffon tomorrow and post some pics of him.

[warhorseminis]

Finally! I haven't forgotten about you guys. My little project took longer and was more involved than I expected. But I have a short video up on my website and a couple more planned.

You can check it out at www.warhorseminis.com There's not much on there yet as I'm still building the site but I've got the video and a couple of blog posts.

I have made more progress on the griffon some of which the video shows. Unfortunately when I uploaded it the compression whacked the quality. So I'm going to see if I can fix that. Anyway there's that for now. I hope to get some more updates on the other minis pretty soon but I do need to get some painting in as well. :D

[warhorseminis]

I have some pics!!! Made some really good progress on ole Griff.

I took a number of photos at different angles and lighting to see if I could get the metallics to show their variety a little better...it kinda helped.












So I wouldn't overload y'all with pics, I put the rest up on my website. I also finished three videos of the work that went into him. Just the pigments though, I'm painting the body and the details with acrylics and he's far from complete in that regard. That beak of his is driving me nuts! lol!

Anyway, I hope you like him so far.

[warhorseminis]

Ya know...this darn bird is giving me all sorts of fits! But I think I finally made it through the worst of it. I got the beak to where I can live with it. So, now that this particular wall is broken, I can move forward again.






Oh and the background is just me practicing in Photoshop. I got it for my b-day this month so I'm having fun learning some new stuff.

Speaking of learning new stuff. I decided to really focus on layering. I do layer, and my paint is pretty thin but I primarily wet-blend when I get it on the mini. I wanted to work on layering without wet-blending. Wow! Talk about changing gears! lol!







Meh...not great but it's better than it was! lol!




Now on the dwarf, I'm working on layering as well - at least his beard is okay...sorta. But the leather jerkin - I have a technique I use specifically for this type of leather and I'm trying to see if I can adapt it to the layering technique.



It's kinda working. I think it may have potential.

I always like tweaking the process and trying new things, even though it can get frustrating at times.

I haven't been able to work on the dark elves. Just for fun, I'll show ya why.

This is a commission I'm working on, and I really want to get it finished and out of the way so I can devote my attention to the elves.



(Sorry, photoshop fun again! lol!)




I had to make this callout. I decided that the bits of metal in his skin was blow-out from his own cannon. Well as I was working, I couldn't help but think of Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny. Fortunately, my client loves the idea and has dubbed him Yosemite. Here's a better pic of him.



He's actually blind in one eye - I thought it would be funny to have a half-blind ogre trying to aim a cannon.

And if that isn't enough, I'm also working on a Firebelly for this commission too.



Whew! No wonder I'm tired!

Anyway, just wanted to post the progress pics. If I can get the commissions cleared off my desk (just these two, I still have another Ironblaster to go and my client just ordered some Reaper Sabertooth Tigers and some Reaper mages for me to work on - yikes!) then I can work on my Elves. But the second part of the commission isn't a big rush.

Crits are always welcome too! So if you see anything, have any ideas, or whatnot, just let me know.

[warhorseminis]

Yay! Yay! Yay! Black Griffon is done!!!!



Sorry for only one pic - he is really, really tough to photograph! Most of the time he looks really flat which he is not.

So, I'm still working on others, only took about 40-50 pics. lol! But I'm probably going to post him to CMON and maybe even put him up on Ebay - not sure yet.

Anyway, I hope y'all like him.