A fur effect essentially means adding texture to a flat surface. There are plenty of minis of animals that use non-textured surfaces to depict areas where fur or hair would be short (horses, for example). Adding texture to these surfaces can make a mini quite a bit more dynamic. For example:

To attain this effect, I used a sort of basic base-shade-highlight approach, only all of the areas of shading/highlighting were invented as I went.

I started out with a medium brown (P3 Idrian Flesh which I tinted slightly toward purple in order to make the brown seem brighter). Then drew short lines of fur onto him with a thin brush in a much darker brown color (something like P3 Umbral Umber or Battlefield Brown). This is your shading layer, so while you are adding in these dark lines, make sure to also put this color into the areas you’e like shaded on the finished mini.

When drawing these lines, follow the musculature of the mini. Super Dungeon minis don’t have as detailed musculature as some other lines, but here you can see that the lines follow the muscles on his arms. More over, there are places on the mini that suggest tufts of fur (on his arms and beard, for example).

After that, it is time to highlight up. This is done using the same short line method, but now you should be using a lighter color. For this mini, I used the base color, then did several layers adding in more and more of a yellow-white to the mix (combined with the purple, this helps the brown seem brighter).

As you add more layers, treat this like most highlighting. Cover a smaller area with each pass, and highlight towards raised areas. The biggest difference here is that rather than blending the layers together, you are simply adding short lines as you go.

That’s about it. As I use this technique more, I’ll come back and update this write up with new insights.

March 15th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ok, I knew I had to get a copy of Super Dungeon Explore when I saw the Angry Bear mini.

One thing about Super Dungeon Explore minis is that they’re not as detailed as many lines. It is actually kind of like having a blank pallet in front of me, and I could do anything I want with it.

So, I decided to add quite a bit of detail myself. The most obvious is the fur- I used a technique that used to be popular on Rackam’s Wolfen.

But also, I added details to emphasize his anger. The gums showing, and red beneath the eyes were things that I felt brought out something in this mini that I hadn’t seen in other paintjobs of him.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that it is a lot of fun to paint outside the lines, and it becomes easier to do when there aren’t all that many lines to start out with.

And he might spend a little part of the game as a druid:

March 8th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Here’s a Brass Scorpion that I did for a commission a little while ago. I really enjoyed doing all kinds of crazy freehand and filling those panels. Filling them with grotesque images that would please Khorne was really quite a bit of fun, and worked well with the theme that the mini already has going for it.

Anyway, here he is, with a slew of detail shots.

February 24th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

An important part of making your miniatures look unique is to apply wear and tear. With a lot of minis, this includes things like battle damage scratches and such.

With some minis, especially tanks, I find there is a lot of depth that can be added by simply adding a little mud splattering.

Here is an example of a very mud splattered tank:

The mud splattering on the sides was created in a few steps. First, I watered down a medium and dark brown paint, and applied it like a wash to the lower portions on the tank.

When that was finished, I took the same paints and and old brush. I filled the brush with some slightly watered down paint and held it next to the mini while gently blowing through the brush onto the mini. This splatter application works quite well for blood also, and I find that the randomness of it helps out a great deal with the finished product.

One other thing to note on this tank is that the treads are painted in browns. These are the same brown paints that I used for the splatter patterns, and help unify the mini’s context.

Another thing I think I should bring up is if you are using mud splattering in conjunction with a base, you should use the same colors on the base as you use with the mud:

A base helps add context to any mini, and when you are adding mud to the lower portions of a mini, it is important that the base suggests everything else you’ve done with the mini. In this instance, I created a base of thick mud for this tank to be crossing, and used the same colors on the base, tracks and splatter.

February 9th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For those of you who follow this blog, you’ll know about the geek wedding cake toppers that I make.

You’ll also know that most of them heavily feature zombies and couples fighting off the horde.

Well, it has been a while since I’ve had some to post up here, so here are quite a few different couples:

This first one wanted to be the zombies themselves- so we have something a little different going on here.

This set had a few specific ideas in mind- especially the smirk on the groom, and matching the weapon to the brides own guitar.

These next two were similar in some ways, but the choice of weapons were drastically different. I’m honestly wondering if I’d prefer the shotgun over the M-4 assault rifle myself.  Also, it probably is easier to fight off the horde in ABUs rather than a tux.

Of course, it is hard not to think that the ideal weapon choice was discovered by this groom.

January 25th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tabletop Gaming News will be starting the voting today on their annual Reader’s Choice awards for 2011.

This  award is rather great.  Honestly, I think that every miniatures enthusiast should peruse their yearly nominations as it usually contains a short list of the best minis/games released in the past year.  The TGN nominations usually include some amazing sculpts that I somehow missed during the year.

So head on over and take a look at all of the great nominations.  And if you have an account (or are willing to create one) go and vote.

Edit:  Due to some hiccups in their system, the first round of voting didn’t show many of the nominees.  TGN has pulled down the voting for this week while they work out the bugs, and the voting will resume starting Monday.

January 16th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Reaver Lords is a miniatures company that is just getting started. At the time of this writing, I believe they only have a facebook page for an online presence.

However, they have previewed their first miniature: the Shadow Prince. And I’ve got to say, if they keep this quality up, they really have a winner:

January 4th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Well, normally I would post up some of these minis in groups, rather than having a single shot for each one.

But Janci couldn’t resist getting a single shot for each and every puppet that I painted. So this is a more pic heavy post than I normally put up here.

So, here is a set of minis from Wyrd’s Puppet Wars game.  Players of Malifaux will recognize Zoraida’s voodoo doll versions of their favorite characters.

December 27th, 2011 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Privateer Press has been slowly rolling out their plastic kits since they first started them with the Exemplar Cinerators, followed shortly by plastic versions of the basic warjacks for each Warmachine faction (and plastic starter box sets).

Many of us were wondering if the plastic trend was going to reach Hordes very soon, but it looked like they had other plans.  Mostly, when we saw the Ravagore and Scythean many people thought it looked like they were making an Everblight plastic kit, but then the minis were released in metal.

Well, it looks like that’s changing now.  In February, the Everblight plastic warbeast kit will be released:

Now, I’d like to point out that I honestly can’t tell the difference between these photos and ones from the more expensive metal kits.  To the point where I’m not sure if I have the right photos here.

But the other factions will require a little more sculpting to create a three-in-one plastic warbeast.

Now, we have photos of the new Circle kit:

These are all clearly new sculpts, and are pretty easy to distinguish from their metal counterparts.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing (although those feral and pureblood metal kits are some of my favorites).

But that does mean that they are pushing forward the plastic kits.  Honestly, the Circle minis would have been harder to homogenize than any of the others- Skorne Titan kits and Trollblood Dire Troll kits are certainly on the way too.

December 15th, 2011 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment