Carrying On From My Last Post, Heres Some Pictures Of Me Pouring Resin On My Octopus Mini!

Carrying on from my last post, heres some pictures of me pouring resin on my octopus mini!

Got all my materials together. Resin, blue alchohol ink, measuring cup and my mini all set up with its resin dam from my previous post.

I like the patterns the alchohol ink forms when you add it to the resin. I'm doing 3 30 ml pours for this mini. I've found on previous attempts that doing the full 90ml all at once can soften the PLA I print my minis in enough for them to start peeling paint and distorting. This resin sets fast enough that I can pour the next layer after a couple of hours, so its not too annoying to have to wait.

First pour in! Doing these on a plastic plate, just in case any resin manages to get out of the dam. I've gotten pretty confident in making these dams resint tight, but I'd rather be right and waste a 2 dollar plate, than wrong and out a cutting matt and anything else the resin makes it too.

I was a bit incautious mixing this layer, and theres a lot of bubbles that never managed to rise out. I really should get a vacuum chamber if I'm going to keep doing resin stuff, I guess.

second and third pours in. Still a fair few bubbles, but much less than the first layer. I was a bit more careful mixing up these two pours, but I still ended up with a fair amount of bubbles in the end product.

I went back and took a closer look at my sharks, and I think I had the same issue with them, but the darker resin helps hide it. Something to remember the next time I do something like this I guess.

Resin all set, and dam removed! I didn't end up having any resin leak below the base at all, which is always nice.

I did have some marks left behind on the resin unfortunately, you can see them if you look closer. In a couple of places it happened right between resin pour layers, and I suspect those are because I was overzealous popping bubbles with my barbeque lighter, and I think I melted the laminating sheet a little. There are also some marks on the top layer, where the resin was still just a little soft and the sheet stuck to it. That'll teach me to be impatient I guess :/.

Adding some wave effects to the surface. This also has the neat effect of helping to disguise the lip of resin that forms from it clinging to the edge of the dam.

I just use Liquitex gloss gel for this, and shape it with a paddle pop stick. It looks pretty thick now, but as it dries over the next day or two it'll mostly turn transparent. Then it'll just need a quick drybrushing of white to pick out the ridges, and it'll be done! I'll upload a final pic when thats done!

I'm glad I finally got around to getting this guy off my shelf and into resin. He was staring at me judgementally while I painted other things.

I do wish the resin had turned out a bit better, but given that its not something I've used a lot, I'm not too upset about it, and I've got some ideas on how to improve with it next time so it wasn't a wasted effort.

While I'm posting things, I just painted this neat little ruined portal terrain piece! Just a real simple paintjob on this one, took me about an hour total, including waiting for paint to dry.

I had fun freehanding the little runes, and I really enjoy how the metallic paint lets the blend in most of the time, and show really strongly if the light is just right.

I did end up only putting them on one side of the portal. Because uh... it shows which side of the portal you're meant to stand on... yeah... not at all because my hand was getting tired, and i was starting to run out of ideas for runes.

:T

This is Ancient Stone Structure - Portal Gate 3D print model by Odgardian

Another Figurine!

I really love this one, it's just got such a dynamic pose, and it's pretty different to what I normally paint. It's good to shake things up now and then. I probably could've done a bit more work on the details of this one, but I was working on a time limit to get it done, and I'm pretty happy with where I got it all things considered.

I wasn't sure at first what sort of detailing I should do on the metal armour parts. I was considering just leaving it all silver at one point, but I thought it'd be just a bit too boring like that. I think the few gold details really help keep it all interesting, without being gaudy or overwhelming.

The panel lining isn't quite as crisp as I'd like, but it's not something I normally have to do on a lot of what I paint, so I'm ok with that. It really helps make things pop having that separation between panels. It was kind of hard getting wash into just the cracks though, since I wanted to avoid toning down the silver and gold. It's got me thinking that I should try oil washes though. Being able to put wash all over something, then clean it up off anything you don't want to be toned down seems pretty cool. I've just got to get over that anxiety of trying out something new without knowing how it'll turn out.

This figure is Mecha Knight Odessa by Dinamuuu3D.

New Character, wooo!

This is Frix, my Goblin Alchemist for a Wild beyond the Witchlight game I get to play in soon! (HYPE!)

This is one of those prints that I came across while browsing and just knew I had to print, so its quite lucky that I had a game coming up that I needed a character for!

Frix was really fun to paint, and I love how dynamic the pose is. I'm really proud of how the hair and ear-tips came out, I haven't had a lot of practice with gradients but these just look good!

I'm less happy with how her clothes turned out. I made the mistake of finishing off with a dark wash over them, and then assembling the mini without taking the mini out of my bright work light to check it, so I didn't realise how dark those coveralls were. In the photos, with the bright light from my lightbox they're pretty close to what I was seeing while painting, but in my normal room lights the colour just blends in with the boots.

The base for this mini was also quite fun to paint, having that tankard reacting to the motion of the mini is a really cool detail.

This mini is Knox the Goblin Alchemist by Twin Goddess Miniatures.

Clockwork minotaur and shield golem! Metallic paints are a lot of fun to play with.

The clockwork minotaur was a lot of fun both to paint, and to design a base for. I imagined this guy as being some sort of gladiatorial arenas trump card, for cocky fighters to get wrecked by. Its my first attempt at a base that tells a bit of a story about the mini, rather than just being an attempt at a terrain it might be found in.

Beholders! And an old gazer, because he makes me laugh. The beholders were the first thing I painted once I got my hands on an airbrush, and they made playing around with it super fun. The blue one got significantly less fun once I realised I'd commited myself to painting half a million tiny spikes though.

I also really enjoyed painting the big central eyes, particularly on the green beholder. You might recognise that eye if you look closely ;) .

The lump on the gazers tongue over on the right is from where I managed to snap it in two while painting, followed by hasty and poorly thought out superglue+baking soda repairs. I like to imagine he maybe got stung by a bee on it right there. Serves him right for licking the floor like that, the gross little eyeball :P

This hill giant was a bit of an experiment with the airbrush. I tried doing his skin by doing a zenythal prime, then spraying over it with transparent ink to get easy highlights and shadows. It sorta worked, but I'm not convinced by the skin tone and I kept having to start over because I'd try adding a wash before the ink had fully set. After the third time I had to start over completely on him I just couldn't be bothered to take another shot at it and left the skin tone as it was.

I also tried making his fur look a bit like grass, I thought it might be a cool idea if when sitting down he could be mistaken for a hill. It doesn't quite look right to me though in the end.

IDK, I'm just not totally sold on this guy overall.

A whole collection of buggy minis. Most of these are from earlier on in my attempts at painting, since the bases are all pretty plain.

It was when I was painting all those spider thingos at the back that I realised how boring it was having just a whole bunch of minis all in the same pose. Since then, I've made a concious effort to find multiple poses when I'm printing more than just 1 or 2 of a creature. It makes finding minis a bit harder, but I think its worth it for a more interesting end result.

And finally for tonight, this is either the first or second mini I ever painted, I'm not entirely sure. I've definitely come a long way since then, but I like keeping him around as a reminder of how much I've improved for when I get frustrated at a mini not turning out quite how I hoped :)

So I got a resin printer this weekend (Elegoo Mars 2 Pro), and the upgrade in quality just has me gobsmacked.

I reprinted Mars, my Elf barbarian in the game I'm playing in at the moment. Which is fortunate because she recently grew Antlers due to the somewhat questionable decision to eat some Fae moss found in a wizards basement.

Here are some comparisons between my new mars, and the original printed in FDM:

It was actually because of the resin I noticed that what I'd originally painted as shorts was actually her leg and the top of her boot.

I used to think I wasn't missing out on too much with just an my FDM printer, aside from having to steer away from some minis with lots of thin details, but even sections where I thought my FDM machine was handling quite well are just so much nicer in the Resin print.

I still think you can get decent table ready minis with just an FDM machine, but my new preference is definitely for Resin minis.

I keep just spending time turning this model around looking closely, because the quality is such an improvement. I'd never manage to get the antlers so crisp and clean with an FDM print. I also don't have to struggle with thin paint wikking away into layer lines, which makes the painting process much easier.

My Mars mini is Sony Jona from Artisan Guild, with some edits made in Blender to turn her from a Sorceress into a Barbarian. My limited Blender skill means I decided she just really likes apples, since I needed to put something round in that hand.