New commissons and a competition entry!

Hooray new commissions are in and the promise of more to follow! First up is Marco Columbo, warhammer fantasy's explorer character from the old dogs of war range. I've always wanted to paint this miniature so it was a pleasure to accept this commission.

Next up is El Curandero from freebooter miniatures. I got a slight magician vibe from the sculpt so I put some stars on his cloak.

Finally this chap is a kitbashed Courier with a steampunk vibe, made by inmygravenimage of dakkadakka.com

And finally I entered a competition recently, the idea of which was to get everyone to paint the same simple cheap plastic miniature but put their best paintjob on it, to see who's got the mad skills. I did quite well; I came fourth out of 17. Here's my entry

Handgunner Regiment

This is a bit of a batch painting experiment to test if I can keep up the same high standard paintjob across a unit. It went quite well.

 

And here's a gun captain I did for fun.

Painting River Trolls

I wanted to give my river trolls a greenish tinge to give them that slimy look, so I started with a wash of P3 green ink, P3 red ink and P3 armour wash in a 2:1:7 ratio. After that's dried I drybrush with white and wet blend vallejo skin tone into the fleshy areas. Next a wash of vallejo red wash (a very cherry red), followed by vallejo flesh wash and more red ink worked into the shadows of the skin and the mouth, finally I pick out details like the teeth and claws, the eyes and his bones n stones.

A River Troll and more from The Empire

Business has been slow so I'm working on my own models for competitions and just for the joy of painting. I love the bright colours of the empire, so here's what I've been up to.

Warhammer fantasy, Pirates, skeletons and Landsknecht

A few fun things I've been painting up, first of all a pirate! I made him a little wooden deck to stand on.

Next up Some skeletal warriors. I couldn't resist the goats skull. These are very quick and easy to paint because they are so thin!

 And finally an empire greatsword drummer. I really love the empire and their style. Having done my research I found out that they are based on the mercenary armies of Landsknecht (german: Land-servant) who fought for the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire. I think I will be getting more empire troops they're very fun to paint.

Painting High Elves.

I thought I'd do a little painting tutorial, nothing too complicated. So here are some bog standard high elves fresh off the sprue.

First I spray prime white, then apply a layer of watered down P3 red and green ink (equal parts), then when thats dry apply P3 armour wash thickly.Then I drybrushed delicately with white and wet-blended white highlights on every surface that faces upwards - this needs some artistic skill I would say, light and shade - that sort of stuff. I usually add more armour wash to deep shadow areas and any areas supposed to be ferrous metal, but high elf armour is supposed to be like mithril silver so I wont do that here.

At this point I would say its ready for colour. I wetblend in vallejo flesh tone (kinda beige) to any area supposed to be bright and warm, so gold, skin, blond hair, rope, leather.

 Next I use the vallejo wash range to add colour to areas - the washes are quite subtle and I apply them in layers. I've used just sepia for the wood and gold, flesh wash and then a thin layer of sepia for the leather

After the colours have been applied I highlight the wood and add grain with flesh tone, add flesh wash on the skin and pick out the gems with red wash, then gloss varnish.

 Finally I bring it all together, finish off the base and add shield.

Some reaper miniatures to brighten your day. Ones called foxy brown and the other one... I can't remember what shes called but she is wearing chaps. Very 70s.