Princess Allura on the Black Lion

Here is Princess Allura (Kisa from Soda Pop Minis) on the Black Lion.  Because honestly why should the princess settle for the blue lion.  (Insert "once you go black (lion)" joke)
I quickly painted this one up for the WAMP Soda pop painting contest, I didn't think I was going to make it with all that is going on for me this month.  I had to trim a few corners here and there. I could have easily spent another 10+ hours on this piece fiddling with details and cleaning up paint mistakes but time was running short and I had to call it.  I also haven't had to chance to put any sealer on her since it's been raining nonstop for the past couple of days.  I would have liked to put a gloss on the base so the planet and ring would have reflected on the surface of the base and it would look 3D, but I have a feeling I'm going to be waiting for a long time before that will happen.
Anyways I hope you enjoy her as much as I do.  I promise my next piece will be less Anime and more dark and moody! :-D

CMON

Show us how big brother! - SDE Dragons

Well I finally finished up those Super dungeon explore dragons I started oh so long ago.  I went for something easy, silly and not too involved for this one. It was almost like instant satisfaction since I only had to do a small amount of painting and put them on a base.

Now i'm sure if you own SDE box you will notice my winged dragon is much larger than yours and no it's not available to the public. That is unless someone bugs soda pop enough for them to make it available but I don't see it happening, but I could be wrong. ;)   I should also include that my boyfriend sculpted these little buggers for Soda Pop,  ( Check out his Blog here ) which is why I have different sized dag-rons than everyone else.

Anyways this is my first entry for the Soda pop painting contest I posted about a few days ago. (scroll down for information)  Now I've started on my next one and she will take much longer to paint than this one.   I hope you enjoy these little dag-rons as much as I do. 

Soda Pop Miniatures painting contest!

Good morning everyone!  In case you didn't know WAMP forum is hosing a painting contest for Soda pop miniatures.  Get out your paint brushes because this is going to be a fun one!

Prizes
• 1st Place - Super Dungeon Explore box set
• 2nd place - $50 Soda Pop voucher
• Special WAMP Prize - $50 voucher to the entry that tickles my fancy, whether its a clever diorama or some funky conversion or just a great paintjob, go on impress me!


Deadline
4pm UK Time, 24th October 2012

4pm UK Time, 31st October 1012 for supporters


Rules

• You must be a Wamp Member to participate. Membership is free and you may registerhere.
• You may enter as many times as you like but each entry may only submit one photograph so if you need more angles it MUST be a montage.
• Images must be no larger than 1000 pixels wide by 3500 pixels high. (It is your responsibility to check this).
• any additional photographs of that entry will be removed.
• You give Wamp and Sodapop Miniatures permission to use your pictures for publicity (but you do retain ownership).
• You may post pictures of WIP or final shots both here and elsewhere.
• Judging will be decided by public vote.
• Submissions must be posted to the Contest Gallery You must make sure you select the correct contest option in the contest select box either during upload (if using the basic uploader) or via edit pictures after upload

You can find Sodapop Miniatures here:

Sodapop


best of luck folks

Kisa & Scratch - Soda Pop Miniatures

Now I've been waiting to paint this miniature since she came out only to find out that 54mm is "my" scale to paint in and she is so much smaller.   I found adjusting from a large scale to a smaller scale is difficult. I want to put all the details into the smaller scale and it just doesn't work.  I ended up painting her twice, the first time I was not happy with my colors so she got a simple green bath.  I almost stuck her in the simple green again right as I was finished but decided to let her live.  I also have her on her Cat Mech so I'll have another chance to paint her later.
I was originally going to put her in a sand scene to really play up the egyptian theme but when the time came to paint it I didn't want to paint yellows and browns so I dug out some blues, purples and even a little red for the sphere. I went with a green marble design for the slats which was actually very fun to paint.  So now it's more like she is out in space and the universe is forming around/for her instead of muckin around in the desert sand.
As always there are a few things I need to go in and fix after view the pictures but nothing serious. So even though I didn't get to paint all the details I wanted, she will still look fabulous on my miniature shelf.

Suicide Queen and Rollo

New mini is finished! Suicide Queen and Rollo by Soda Pop miniatures.
Now I don't know what I was thinking going from 54mm to a tiny 30mm  I know Soda Pop Minis are smaller than average and I should have known better.  Looking at my photos i'm mad about all the stuff I messed up and the paint that chipped when I put her on the base.  I also had major problems at the end taking Rollo off his peg and smashing 2 out of 4 feet with complete removal of one of them. So I had to sculpt some new ones and hope for the best.   Maybe I should rename him Stumpy.
Overall i'm pretty happy with her as she looks great in person. I'm also looking forward to the rules for Relic Knights to come out, as it stands I should have enough painted minis to play already.

I've just added her over at CMON and she needs a little love.  I always find the ratings on cmon interesting especially when I compare it to other ratings.  I find it very interesting that my Soda Pop minis get lower ratings than my other minis with one exception.  It makes me examine what a high rated mini looks like and what mine is missing from that example.

I call him Zorak

A couple more baby dragon WIP shots.

The blue one I call Zorak as his eyes were inspired by a suspicious Zorak from Cartoon Planet. 

WIP - Baby Dragon from Super Dungeon Explore

I'm working on something totally adorable!  I know some people have already seen them at or in pictures from Gen Con and PAX.... Here is the first of 4 baby dragons that will be available in Super Dungeon Explore  as far as I know you won't be able to get them anywhere else.  Once you see them in person you will want to paint them all.  [pimping]So seriously pre-order your copy today! [/pimping] ;)

But my little dragons won't be used in the board game, I'm working up a special scene for them on a scenic base.  I'm also planning on painting them all different colors because well I can!  I also plan on testing out some water effects that Jason bought for me from Japan.
Here is a preview WIP shot of my baby green dragon I still need to play around with his freckles, toes and eyes a bit.

Soda Pop - Sebastian Cross and Rook

Well I think I finished this bad boy in record time and let me tell you that is no easy feat! Sebastian is HUGE compared to the other soda pop miniatures i've painted.

So my boyfriend encouraged me to try to paint something with metallic paints. Now this is a big deal since i've been shying away from metallics since i've started playing around with NMM painting.  Just recently Miniature Mentor came out with a metallic painting tutorial and it was fabulous and helped push me in the direction with metallics I would be happy with and enjoy painting.  It was basically painting the same way I would with regular opaque paints and adding washes to enhance the colors and shading.
I had to take the miniature on one limb at a time due to the hugeness of him, which seemed to work out well.
I used all Vallejo paints both game and model colors combined and made washes out of the opaque paints I thought would work well.  I use PP mixing medium to make washes and while blending to prevent spot marks/rings and to release the surface tension of the paint so I don't have to press as hard when painting.
I used smokey ink for the browns, and a dark purple mixed with a dark silver for the shading.  For the highlights I used a light blue mixed in with a super light silver.  I avoided using any white to avoid making the metals look pastel.
As for the Gold I used 3 different golds and smokey ink as well as a bit of green to get the right look.

Little Rook was my testing grounds for the colors and you can see that I used some whites in with the silver to highlight and I think it worked fine on something as small as him but I didn't want to put it on the large mech.
I also experimented with glowing objects and I'm not sure i've got it yet i think i need to look at some more references and practice a bit more but I'll get there.
The base detail I sculpted right on top of the base he came with. I wanted to give it a tiled court yard feel so that the impression that he is protecting a sacred place.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way he came out.

WIP Pinup Preacher

I've finally got the painting bug again, I hit a major roadblock with this one due to the colors on her. I had a really hard time with the pink leggings so I left her for a month and came back to her and figured out I was neglecting my midtones and all was good.

Yes, Yes I know she doesn't have her head attached but I wouldn't be able to actually paint the back of her since her hair covers half of her back.

I take WIP pictures because they help me figure out what touch ups I need to do I already see a lot of blending in the skin and leggings I need to smooth out and a few blotches that need touched up. Plus her face is very lack luster but I was more concerned about getting her glasses with out making her face a blob. Now i need to figure out what the hell i'm going to do with her eyes since the glasses are hollow and her eyes are under there.

And for those of you wondering yes this is the miniature that will be living on the base from my previous post. This little nerd will be summoning some type of Elder thing of the deep into the world.

Ayu Beat - Starchild

Well it's been ages since I updated or painted anything for that matter. The rehab on my shoulder took a lot longer than i thought it would. But as of Dec i finally have full mobility in my arm with out pain.

My day job (seamstress) left my arm exhausted at the end of the day and I didn't have the energy or time to paint for the last 2 months. Finally it's christmas vacation for me and I was able to actually put some paint to this metal.

So this one is Ayu Beat from Soda Pop Miniatures and I have to say she was quite difficult to paint. Very very small miniature, I actually had to break out the magnifying glass lamp in order to finish her. It felt as if my eyes were crossing while I was trying to get the details on her. I actually didn't get the amount of detail that I wanted to get. I think how long I spent on her wore me out. (about 10 hours) and most of it was touch ups. Because it's not about how well you paint it's how well you do touch ups right?

She actually went through two paint schemes and I didn't like the first one so she got a simple green bath.

Overall i'm really happy with her and I need to do a few more touch ups as the goblin fairies (cats) came through and moved her around last night and scuffed up her base. I also noticed a few other spots I need to fix the color on.

Calico Kate

Just Finished up Calico Kate.

I went with some different colors than i'm use to especially the pinks and purples. Painting the blues felt like cheating honestly. I primed the mech black which is different than what i'm use to, it's been a long time since I actually primed a figure a color other than white. Kate herself was primed in white so I could get the brilliant pink colors on her suit.

A lot of custom pinning was done to get the mech in this pose as some of you know this mech comes in a standing pose and I really wanted it to resemble the original art work. So my Boyfriend was kind enough to pin it all in this pose for me. Cause seriously I just stared at it blankly while trying to figure out how I was going to pin it. But he is a pro and had it done in no time.

The bases also have custom wood planks that were all sculpted in green stuff. Since she is a pirate she is running along a deck of a ship before she messes it up.

Anyways this was a ton of fun to paint, it's also a beautiful model and well worth the price especially if you love painting to paint. I find it quite relaxing after a hard day of work.

And of course after taking these pictures I've already spotted areas I need to touch up.

Next up is something small from soda pop Ayu Beat