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 - TwilightKnight Pinup

Here is a little preview of what i've been working on. I still need to finish her touch ups and smooth out some blending in places. I also need to buy her plinth and get her base set up.

So this miniatures is the 54mm version of her and this is my first 54mm mini i've ever painting and i have to say i had a ball with it. Jason was looking over her and was like "I think you found your size" (of miniatures to paint) and I think he is right. I have a bunch of other 54mm figs on my wish list on CMON but have been scared to order the, now I will probably break my bank account buying more.

Game over man! - Leona Lobo

So I finished her up last night and waited until the sun came out this morning to take some decent pictures. After the last WIP pictures I really increased the shading and midtones on her skin and I found they translate a lot better than before. I'm much more happy with her now.

The Alien wall was a bit of a challenge and I didn't get exactly what I wanted but it was close enough that I didn't want to redo it. Next time I know I just need to punch up the highlights and midtones before I add the Tamia smoke gloss. I actually had a bunch of turquoise and green washes in some areas as well as purple and blues in others. Now you can't see them in the pictures all to well but they look fabulous in person.

Oh and I also sculpted the floor she is standing on with some green stuff and sculpting tools. I'm pretty proud of that since I suck at working with green stuff. I guess Jason's teachings are finally rubbing off. I'm sure he will be happy to read this.

WIP - Leona

A little work in progress pic to keep me on track. Of course the lighting i used sucked and the colors look off but you get the picture.
I've mostly been playing with her skin tones and trying to get them to look right. I've found that what i paint sometimes looks horrible in pictures compared to some of the master painters. So i'm trying to figure out what the difference is. I think i'm painting too subtle for the details to really show. Now i need to figure out how to make the shading and highlights pop with out her looking like a clown.

Summon - Kingdom Death Pinup Preacher

This is by far the most ambitious base I've attempted to make and I have to say that by the end I was very overwhelmed and just threw in the towel. I really had grand plans to do some crazy source lighting and well that didn't happen. I think I honestly made the base too large and that effects wouldn't have worked properly. I haven't sealed her yet so I can still go through and do some touch ups which i'm sure it will need after seeing these pictures. But i'm going to leave her in the display case for a bit first.

The base is made from one of those cheep miniature books you can buy at the book shop as well as a few sheets of styrene for the back pages as the real pages i cut out due to them looking like crap after I applied glue to them and couldn't get them in the position I wanted. The bookcase is made from balsa wood, books are card stock and styrene, scroll cases are aluminium tubes, and the scroll is paper.

As for the preacher I had a heck of a time getting the pinks right on her clothes she actually got a simple green bath after a few hours of noodling with paint and being very unhappy with it. I let her sit for a month before I even looked at her again I figured out what problem i was having with the pinks and it worked it self out after a couple hours of painting. once that was done the rest was cake.

She originally had another piece of loin cloth in the front and a warhammer but my smart self cleaned off my work bench and accidentally threw them away with a bunch of styrene bits.... ooops. Go Me!

Anyways I hope you enjoy!

Also extra points to those who can figure out who or what she is summoning.