Double Post! I Realised I Never Actually Made A Post About This Halfling Smith I Painted Last Week, Which

Double post! I realised I never actually made a post about this halfling smith I painted last week, which is a travesty, because she's cool as heck! Also, she's a four fingered smith now, because I'm a clutz and dropped her while carrying her over to take pictures ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One of the great things about 3d printing, is that when I want to paint a mini like this to display on a shelf rather than use on a table, I can just scale it up a bit before printing, rather than having an oddly sized mini on a shelf next to a bunch of larger figurines!

I really like how all the different colours and materials came together on this paint job, I think I managed to keep everything cohesive but distinct.

I'm also pretty happy with how the skin tone came out. I tried something a bit different to what I usually do, by mixing my favourite light skin tone paint with a little bit of reddish brown paint to get a slightly more tan colour as a base I could work up from. I think it turned out great, and really suits this halfling smith!

This print is Helen, the Blacksmith Halfling by Bite The Bullet

Finished off my blue dragon today! Painted its perch, applied some washes to the wings and horns, and of course what dragon doesn't have its hoard?

This is definitely my favourite mini in my collection now. Its hard to not love a dragon, and this guy was tonnes of fun to paint!

I got asked about how I did my resin sharks, and I've had an octopus sitting on my shelf for ages waiting for the same resin treatment, so I figured I'd kill to birds with one stone, and take some pictures explaining the process!

Here I've got the octopus I'll be casting in resin, and a thick cylinder with the same diamater to the base we're using.

I 3d print my bases, so getting this cylinder was simple for me. I just 3d printed a thicker version of the base and called it good. If you're using a store bought base, you can probably just stack a few of them on top of one another and tape them together to make a cylinder. You only need about 2-3cm of thickness.

I've also put just a teeny bit of blutack on the cyilnder, to keep the base from shifting around while I do the next step.

Step 1:

Put the cylinder on the base, and tape them together like so. Make sure that the tape forms a tight seal around the top of the base. This is to stop any leaking resin from getting between the base and the cylinder and sticking them together. If enough gets in there and sets, they won't be coming apart.

(Also, be sure that any basing material or bits of the mini don't extend out over the side of the base, that will also cause problems with making a tight seal).

Step 2:

Now we're going to need a laminating pouch. I use A3 sized pouches, but for something this size you could get away with A4 easily enough. You should be able to find packs these from any office supply store for fairly cheap.

Cut the pouch were it joins together, so you have two sheets of plastic.

There should be a glossy and matte side, take note of which is which. The glossy side needs to end up on the inside of the dam we're making, so that the resin turns out smooth and see through. Be careful while handling these sheets, as any creases or dents will show up in the final product.

Determine how deep you want your resin to be, and mark that depth on the sheet. Don't forget to factor in the depth of the cylinder attatched to the base of the mini for this.

Here, I want this octopus to be the same size as my sharks, so I'm using one as a reference.

Make a quick mark at the height you want (on the non-glossy side of the laminating pouch), then cut the sheet about 1-2 centimetres higher than that. It doesn't have to be particularly neat.

This is the sort of thing we're going for.

(Apologies for the background, its kinda hard to get a good picture of something transparent :p ).

Note that we've got a neat, straight edge along the bottom, unlike the top where it was cut. So long as you have one edge that is neat and straight, you're all good to continue.

Step 3:

Take a small strip of tape, and attatch it to the matte side of the sheet. Then take the base and cylinder, and line the bottom of the base up along the long, straight edge of the sheet.

Carefully roll the base onto the tape, so that the bottom of the cylinder and sheet are flush with one another.

Be careful where you do this on the base, as there will be a small seam in the resin along the edge of the sheet going up from here. I've put mine at the back of my octopus, so it doesn't get in the way of looking at it front-on.

Step 4:

The sheet is long enough to wrap around the base with quite a bit of overlap, which we don't want. So before continuing, quickly wrap the sheet around the base, and find where it will overlap. Cut the sheet so there is only about a centimetre of overlap when it is wrapped around the base.

Then carefully wrap the sheet around the base, keeping the edge of the sheet flush with the bottom of the base. Make sure the sheet is wrapped firmly around the base, and is forming a straight tube, not a funnel. Use a small strip of tape to fix it in place.

Double check now that the glossy side of the laminating sheet is on the interior of this tube. If it isn't, undo all this and start over.

Step 5:

Now take a long strip of tape, and wrap it all the way around the base. Line the top edge of the tape up with the top of the base (not the sand on the base, just the top of the actual base). Keep tension in the tape while you wrap, the goal here is to hold the sheet close to the base, to form a seal that will keep resin in the tube, rather than leaking down the base.

Step 6:

Now put another strip of tape along the outside seam of the sheet. Don't be too woried about getting a really good seal here, the weight of the resin should keep the inner flap of the sheet pressed against the outer one anyway. This is just to stop sheet from moving when resin is poured in, so it stays as a tube, rather than turning into a funnel.

Step 7:

Finally, take a rubber band and wrap it around the base of the mini. Try and line it up with the top of the base (like with the tape from step 5). This just adds a little extra pressure to try and stop resin leaking out.

And thats done! We've now got a cylindrical resin dam ready to pour resin into!

I hope this helps anyone curious about my process for doing this!

I've hit the 10 image limit on this post, so I'll make another one soon showing my resin pours and the finished mini.

Update: post showing the resin pouring process here.

As promised, the finished Octopus, waves all dried and painted. Those bubbles are definitely in the way, but you can still make out theres an octopus in there, so its not a complete loss :).

Different angles, and next to one of my sharks. Tried doing the waves slightly different for the octopus, but I think I prefer the ones on the shark in the end. Oh well, still looks pretty nifty anyway :)

Making the resin dam: Here.

Pouring the resin: Here.

Finished painting this neat sculpt of Samus the other day!

I just did a fairly simple paint job on this one. Partly because I think it works well for the video game kinda look, and partly because I'd forgotten how poorly my orange and yellow paints cover, and I decided I wanted to deal with that as little as possible. I think it turned out pretty well though, the dark wash I put in the seams of the armour panels really helps make up for the lack of highlighting.

Theres a bit of an attempt at a glow effect in the barrel of her arm cannon, and on the bits of her armour mid-assembly. Its not amazing or anything, but I think you can kind of see what I was going for with it. Having lighting effects beyond just highlighting from above is something I've mostly avoided in my painting so far, but its somethign I want to start playing with. Its a bit daunting, but I think it will be rewarding if I can get it down.

I also realised as I was painting this that I've never actually played a metroid game. The most direct exposure I think I've ever had was watching one of my cousins play one of the games on his Gameboy at christmas. I feel like this is something I should rectify at some point.

This neat model is Samus Aran - Metroid - 25cm model by Printed Obsession. (The print pictured above is scaled down from 25cm to fit with my other prints).

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 :)