New Mini!

New mini!

This is Atropos, a half elf (?) bard, painted for Yoshikagequeens' character in an upcoming campaign! Atropos will be in the same party as Frix! I'm looking forward to it.

I'm weirdly chuffed with my choice of dark red for his pants, and I think the highlights along the creases look really good. I also got the opportunity to finally properly use some of the colour shift paint I got like half a year ago, to put some glitter in his hair, so that's neat. I put the colour shift just in the parts and underside of his hair, to kind of make it looks like some sort of underlayer shining through. I really like the effect in person, seeing the glitter shift as you move your viewpoint is quite cool! Photos don't really do it justice.

My least favourite bit of this mini is the base. I shoved a generic column into a generic base, rather than using the desk base that comes with the stl for this mini. I wanted to push the character more into bard territory, rather than the professor character it's originally meant to be. I think it works for that, and I like the column he's leaning on, but the ground of the base is just a bit too plain. I put some cracks in it with an Exacto blade and added some cut up grass tufts to give it a bit of texture, but it's still not quite right. In the end, I just had to stop fiddling with it before I made it worse.

It's a learning experience to remember next time I try and make a custom base though, gotta remember to have texture or something on there.

The mini used here is Professor Syiva, by Twin Goddess Miniatures.

The column used on the base is Socket Pillar, by Phillip Meys.

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!

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

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.

Just finished up painting this mini for @yoshikagequeen's character, Sunlil! She's an Air Genasi storm sorcerer, in a game we're both in. My character in that game is the Barbarian Mars, which you can check out here.

This is actually the second time I've painted this mini, the first one was done on my FDM printer, so I couldn't do the swirling air currents around the body, and it ended up being too fragile and breaking apart. (I glued the foot to the base paint on paint, which sure didn't help).

Now that I have a resin printer though, I can do cool minis like this. I printed the air currents and base in transparent resin, and tinted it with a little alchohol ink, which is an effect I'm in love with, and will definitly play with for any future spell effects I need.

I've also pinned sunlil to the base with a piece of wire into the foot, so it should be a lot stronger of a bond.

In terms of painting, I'm pretty happy with how this mini turned out. I like the colours on her outfit and the gradient in the hair. Skin continues to be a bit difficult for me, particularly a tone I'm not particularly used too, but I think it turned out ok. This is also the favourite eye I've done yet, I tend to lean towards painting the pupil/iris too small, and having it look a bit derpy. It sure helps that the other eye is hidden by hair, so I don't have to worry about matching the direction the eyes are looking in.

Overall, I'm looking forward to seeing this mini in play on the table :)

This mini is Ellie the Genasi Mage (Air), by Twin Goddess Miniatures.

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).