Miniatures

Banquet – A Feast for the Eyes!

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Phew, been so long since I last posted. But at last we have now unpacked everything, and everything in the house is working! And my painting table is all set up with loads of HobbyZone modules (pictures come later!)

And we will be picking up our new (and cutest in the world) puppy this Sunday! I hope I have time to paint, cause I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be quite occupied by the little rascal.

Anyways! A few years ago I bought a set of Fenryll’s Banquet Table to paint for a customer (I actually bought 2, because an arm was missing and the table was broken in the 1st box) a little expensive, but I thought I would have this made in a short while… Boy, was I wrong! I ended up dropping the whole commission, because the time involved making the banquet scene would make the price ridiculously high, and gluing all the tiny pieces together would take somewhere around 8 hours…

So a few months ago, I picked up the set again, because we needed something like this for our tavern scenes. I am now very happy with the decision of dropping the commission, because this took me and my husband a huge amount of time. The result however, is absolutely amazing and brings so much life to our RPG!

My husband assembled the banquet table, and since we decided to keep both sets, we agreed to go all out on accessories. While I assembled and customized the party guests (my husband helped too) The arms are ridiculously long, so I had to shorten those. And fixing them on the benches, my husband put together the table itself with the use of all our bitz boxes. We each spent atleast 8 hours that day, so that’s quite a lot!

Here’s a few work in progress pictures of the table:

As you can see, there’s a heapload of stuff on it and from so many different companies (Fenryll, Ristul’s Market, Thomarillion, Maxmini, Fredericus Rex, Tabletop-art and a few Games Workshop items).
Only slightly bad thing is the crazy amount of time it took painting it. I didn’t count the hours, but I spent many evenings painting it. I went for a dark tablecloth to highlight the feast :-)

Banquet Table

I painted the party-goers in many vibrant colours and the man resting his foot on the bench to the left, resembled Roche from the Witcher games, so I painted him accordingly!
All the benches can be used in a variety of ways. We didn’t glue them to the table, so we can use the table alone with RPG heroes and characters for a session, or we can use the benches for street scenes, church pews with happy people, or up against walls in taverns for a more rich scene!

The banquet scenery looks amazing in our dioramas. I will need to take some more pictures along with some of our other tavern scenes!

I still have 8 characters left from the other set and some benches from the kitchen set to make more of these guys, but all in good time :)

New House and lots of Projects!

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Phew, we can now call ourselves House Owners!

Moving into a house wasn’t as fast and easy as we thought! We had to move both our business and our apartment into an old house with lots of plumbing and electricity problems, that made it even harder for us to get our shop up and running again! And on top of all, both my husband and I were hit by a stomach flu for an entire week! So we had to have my parents come up and help ship orders…

And despite a failing heat source (it’s freezing), we are holding up and only missing tables for our work and paint stations! So in a few days I will be able to paint again! And Spring is just around the corner, so hopefully my paints will thaw! :-P

Creepy Basilisk!

I still have a few pictures left from before we moved out, so here is my version of the ForgeWorld Basilisk! I’ve changed my mind so many times with colours on this one, but I decided to go straight for the Monstrous Arcanum description/artwork.

I’m not deeply satisfied with the result, but he looks really cute none the less. Here is the Artwork I based him on:

Basilisk_artwork

I might add some more details on this guy at some point, but for now he sits in our vitrine all pretty :)

Citizens of our RPG’s and an Evil Sorcerer

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Only 6 days before we move into our new house! And I honestly don’t think I can wait much longer!

Our tiny apartment is already completely cramped with boxes and I stopped counting my various bruises from bumping into furniture and doorframes trying to get around… And we still have all of our inventory from our shop we need to move aswell!

But I promised myself that I wouldn’t neglect my blog!! So here is a little post with some of my odds and ends that I snapped pictures of before they were gently placed in moving boxes! (In foam of course!)

Here is a group of Press Gangers from Privateer Press. They were some of our very first miniatures for rpg’s, and I recently stripped them of paint (from a rather shabby paint job) and gave them a new coat of paint and new bases.

I painted the female press ganger before the men and had already photographed her, hence the different backgrounds. The female is a very unique and humorous character with a luring expression and a firmly gripped mace hiding in her back hand! I painted her in Marienburg colours using Breonne Blue with the Ocean Triad for the blue parts and Rust Brown highlighted with 50/50 Rust Brown and Sun Yellow.

I repeated the combination on one of the male press gangers. I even had my first try on facial “stubble”. It ended up okay, I think. Definitely need more practise! I still haven’t finished the last one of the group, a guy with a sack which suspiciously look like it contains a man trying to break loose!

Black Chapel Steamheim Veteran

I stumbled upon a Spanish company named Black Chapel which produces a variety of miniature that fit perfectly with Reaper and Games Workshop’s minis. I bought different models from them including their Altreich Engineer, Alchemist, Guard of the Ancestors Chamber (dwarf champion), dwarf Blacksmith, and this Steamheim Veteran. I can greatly recommend these minis. Lots of character and very unique minis!

It was a rather “speedpaint” job, but none the less, he turned out pretty cool. I assembled him in a “pointy finger pose”, rather than pistol wielding (he comes with two arm options and two head options)
Since I bought this bunch, they have released several new minis including some very interesting Wood Elves, which I will definately pick up at some point!

Oldschool Tzeentch Sorcerer

Last but not least a good old Chaos Sorcerer! I decided to go nuts with blues, pinks, purples, greens, and my favourite colour: turquoise! (which proved difficult to spell in English!)

Tzeentch Sorcerer

It shows through that I spent most time on the facial features than on the rest, but it actually just started out as a fun test and practice with colours! I have recently shown progress with gold and non metallic gold techniques, but not on this one :-P I even painted a tuft on the base in different purples and blues and added some nail-glitter-thingies shaped as beach shells and starfish on the base and painted them in the same theme.
Pretty psychedelic and matches my passion for Led Zeppelin :-D

I used one of my old Games Workshop Screamers from my Warhammer Daemons Army as a reference.

SONY DSC

Village Children from Hasslefree and Fenryll

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2 weeks ago I wrote a post about some kids I painted from Malifaux to use in a campaign. I also finished these village minis from Hasslefree and Fenryll to use for my Nordland Campaign.

The bases are pieces from Freebooter miniature’s metal bases filed, rounded and glued on 20mm bases. I even put two kids on one base (yes, they are really small). They were a joy to paint however, and ended up super cute. The “little red riding hood” ended up with a freehand check-patterned blanket. They look really nice “in person” as they are so small that taking pictures involves very close-up shots!

Malifaux The Stolen – In a not so plagued version!

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Get out of my yard, you kiiiiids!

Before Malifaux/Wyrd went on to produce all their products in plastic, they were all small metal kits. I recently found this discontinued set with 3 Stolen (which is creepy pale kids inflicting disease and causes blight to foes)

I’ve been searching for some street kids (already have the Hasslefree medieval ones) but I really lacked some urchins. After seeing these I immediately had the idea to make them not-so-creepy versions :-D

Kids

The girl has already had a part in our Nordland Campaign as a nobleman’s daughter. The two boys are a lot more street urchin looking and there’s an orphanage in our upcoming adventure :)

All three of them are mounted on 25mm round Stone Floor bases from Tabletop-Art.

Nightmaw – Without Sayl the Faithless

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I’ve had this Nightmaw (from Forge World’s Sayl the Faithless) primed and ready to paint for a long time. But recently I decided to do some experimenting and learn how to get better at painting skin and shadows. So Nightmaw was the perfect choice! Instead of his more purple depiction in the Tamurkhan book, he is now used as a Tzeentch Chaos Spawn.
Nightmaw is actually the result of 3 of Sayl’s fellow apprentices being melted together (disgusting, right?)

Nightmaw

I kept the base very clean to highlight the skin on Nightmaw. I had to freehand a lot of the skin, as it was too plain without. But the details on this are amazing! Here he is from a few more angles:

I only used Reaper Paints for this which are “hands down” the best skin paints in the world. The darkest shadow is Tanned Shadow (using the whole triad with Tanned Skin and Tanned Highlight) Then went on to Fair Skin (and the Fair Highlight). I painted bloodshot eyes based with Redstone Highlight (which is perfect for painting lips and soft wounds without looking pink) and Fair Skin Highlight as the brightest (it’s almost white)
The wounds were painted using Imperial Purple and highlighted with Redstone Highlight mixed with the skin colours on my palette.
I used a little bit of Flesh Wash from Vallejo to make the shadows a bit darker. The wash has a very matte finish and is great in small amounts.
Teeth and claws were painted the same way as the skin but highlighted with Khaki Highlights (I always avoid bright white colours, as it gives a very cold and often chalky feel to the miniature)

I spent around two evenings on this one (not including preparations, basing and priming), and he looks really badass in my display cabinet! Oh and his master Sayl is patiently waiting for a paint job on my table (as he has done for the past two years)…

Night Goblin Commander on Giant Squig

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After a few days off in total relaxation (On the couch playing Divinity: Original Sin with my husband) I thought it was time to put up a post before returning to work!

Here is the latest addition to my Night Goblins, the champion of the Night Goblin Command group from Forgeworld.

I painted the Squig as having rusty armor with a few pretty additions made by the goblin in command! I also freehanded details on the goblin and highlighted his black robes with dark blue colours. A pretty handsome lad :-)

Oh and I decided not to paint his eyes completely red and just chose a red iris to give him more character.

I will need to find a substitute arm for the bannerman, since I used the banner for my goblin tree-city terrain, which I have been working on for quite a while now :-P

Happy New Year!

Classic Dryads to serve the Dryad Queen

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As I wrote in the previous post, I made a trio of dryads (old metal versions before the plastic sets came out) My husband and I laughed at the idea, as the miniatures look a little ridiculous. However, I used all my skills to make them look authentic for our Nordland campaign and to match Drycha!

Dryad Trio

Again, I used various brown colours from Reaper and finished off with very light browns (I never use pure whites, as they easily comes out as chalky and way too bright) Reaper’s Khaki Highlights and Scale75’s Thar Brown are the brightest colours I use.

Dryad Trio

I painted the guy on the left first, and somehow thought I used 32mm bases instead of the 25mm he is on (he was hiding in our cupboard) so I put the other two on 32mm’s. (Kromlech’s Windfall bases as usual) Oh well, it looked fine on the game board :-P

Here is the trio next to Drycha (Even though lower dryads don’t really have a gender and usually transform into female beauties when luring soldiers into the woods, I thought that the 3 dryads had to be men luring village women in :-P )

Trio with Drycha

I would love to paint some of the plastic ones as more obvious female versions, but I will have to buy 16 at a time and the pretty neat Branchwych (foolish name aside) costs a staggering £14 for a single plastic mini… So I might wait a while!

Drycha the Queen of the Dryads – Or Nowadays: Branchwraith

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As part of our Nordland campaign, we have quite a few Forest beasts and other monsters lurking in the background. One of those “things” is the Dryad Queen Drycha (which I took from my husband’s very old Wood Elf army and stripped of paint) Tried to paint her in a traditional way but with small freehand details and tiny dots to show that she is an “old lady” and has been in the forest for many years!

Drycha

Used Reaper brown paints, with Ghoul Skin highlights in her hair and bright blue eyes. The sprites are painted using Winter Blue with various highlights.

Drycha

The base is a 32mm Windfall round base from Kromlech (which I’ve used for many of my forest creatures so far!)

Painted a trio of dryads to go with her, that you can see in their own post :-D

Naughty Commission Piece – Joan the Captive

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As the headline says, I recently completed a commissioned miniature for an Italian customer! The miniature is from Russian company Brother Vinni, who creates a lot of female miniatures with questionable professions and more than a few minis with a more or less tragic post-war destiny (slaves, ahemm). Their miniatures are beautiful, detailed and well… naked :-P This one is Joan the Captive.

I painted this one as a convicted witch on her way to an unknown destiny (most likely accompanied by a witch hunter) Even though she has been through a rough time, she might still have a trick up her sleeve before she arrives at the stake!

Joan the Captive

I painted her dress as if it was made of vibrant silks and freehanded a few details. The skin is always tricky, but she ended up pretty good and she looks great in real “life” :-) I spent a lot of time on her eyes making them very bright and noticible. I added a few shades of green to her eyes for a more intense look!

Painted with Reaper MSP and Scale75 paints. Base is Stonefloor 25mm from Tabletop-art with a few Gamer’s Grass tufts. (cut up a few tufts to make them smaller to better suit the base)