Author Topic: Sy's Mini Painting Journal (Read 116708 times)

sirean_syan · « **Reply #120 on:** Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 07:35:52 PM »

I finished up a couple more and this is a big one since I'm pretty sure it'll be the locking down of my color scheme. Now I just have to make an army.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #121 on:** Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:19:41 PM »

Did some good work this weekend and managed to spit out a few Night Goblins. Remember these guys?

PyroMenace · « **Reply #122 on:** Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:23:31 PM »

The Eldar stuff is top notch, I love the blue sword. Same with the goblins, the metallic stuff looks great.

On the goblin 2nd one from the left on his hood, did you do the yellow design yourself?

sirean_syan · « **Reply #123 on:** Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:26:59 PM »

Yeah. He's supposed to be the big boss of the group so I figured he needed a little more differentiation from the crowd. Blasted pattern took me longer than I would have liked. Keeping something of a consistent pattern of triangles was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #124 on:** Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:28:41 PM »

You did a nice job on it. Your freehand skills may not come quick, but the end results always seem to look good. I haven't seen you paint anything less than great in a long while.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #125 on:** Friday, July 25, 2008, 09:27:30 PM »

I'm not totally happy with how this looks, but at least I think I painted it fairly well. I was originally going to do a dark red scheme, but it started to look really bright, so I went a little crazy with it. The model was also really funky with all sorts of mold lines and chunky areas. Normally, I would fix that stuff before I painted it. Thing is, I primered this guy about two years ago when I was first getting back into the painting and I didn't want to fix the stuff only to primer him again and fill in details.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #126 on:** Friday, August 08, 2008, 07:57:18 PM »

The last couple weeks I've been toying around with terrain again. These are the best to come out of the experiments.

Ruined Building 1
Ruined Building 2

sirean_syan · « **Reply #127 on:** Thursday, December 11, 2008, 09:38:14 PM »

This is mostly for Que, but it does make me happy enough to show right now.

It's simply a sign of things to come.

Aimee gave me my Christmas present early this year, mostly because I guessed she got it for me when she reacted to something I said a few weeks ago. So, I now have a modular game board now for all the Warhammer goodness that'll happen one of these days. Even though I called her on it, it was still a huge surprise since I had more or less written off ever getting it. The thing is out of my price range for a single expenditure currently and I don't really need a set board to play the game. Still, it's freaking awesome to have something now.

I'm still sort of in the idea phase of how I want to paint it up. I know I want something that's close to a wasteland or a desert, but I don't want to do something too extreme that it won't work if I ever play a fantasy based game on it and I don't want to do a generic yellow desert. So, my best idea currently is to make it up to look something like Joshua Tree park. It's a desert, but sort of a pinkish white one with a far amount of scrubby plants with some really awesome granite formations (where the pink and white comes from). If I can get the colors right, things could be pretty unique and awesome. Here are a couple pictures from when Aimee and I visited there last summer.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #128 on:** Thursday, December 11, 2008, 09:44:48 PM »

Awesome! I don't know what else to say. I'm eager to see the many things you will do to it, and the games we can play on it afterward.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #129 on:** Saturday, December 20, 2008, 03:13:23 AM »

Change of plans. I've been doing a lot of little tests and trials and I think I'm going to go in a completely different direction. My initial idea of the granite desert didn't go so well went I couldn't get the rock colors right. So I started to go with something like the Outback or a savanna, but that isn't quite pleasing me.

So, I'm thinking of going green. The board would double as well watered plains and as a base for possible jungle stuff, which would be appropriate for the Nids. Now I just have to figure out how to make it look cool.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #130 on:** Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 09:58:34 PM »

I think I've got it now. I've made a couple sample pieces and I'm pretty happy with how things are looking. Once we get a whole board looking like this, it's going to be freaking awesome.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #131 on:** Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 11:02:50 PM »

Damn, those are looking nice. Our next battle is going to be epic if I can ever get the rest of my guys painted.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #132 on:** Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 11:21:58 PM »

Getting there.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #133 on:** Thursday, January 01, 2009, 02:19:18 AM »

So awesome...

TheOtherBelmont · « **Reply #134 on:** Thursday, January 01, 2009, 12:08:18 PM »

How did you do the skulls inside the hole?

Quemaqua · « **Reply #135 on:** Thursday, January 01, 2009, 01:24:44 PM »

They're actually part of the board. I think what he did was basically drybrush them then use water effects to make them look like they're lying in a boggy pool.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #136 on:** Thursday, January 01, 2009, 07:15:39 PM »

Yeah, that's pretty much it. All the details came on the board save for the vegetation that I've added. Today I finished flocking up the remaining boards (there are 6 in total). I'll start putting sealant on tomorrow and probably put a couple more thin layers of water onto the skull pits because that stuff shrinks a fair bit (the pictures were taken just after the initial pouring). All the hard work is done, so I should have a complete picture once everything dries and such in a couple days.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #137 on:** Thursday, January 08, 2009, 05:40:09 PM »

And it's done (with some scenery bits as well)

Lessons learned (that most of you probably don't care about)

- Cremacoat is the only cheap paint worth buying. It's twice as much as the cheapest cheap brands, but at $1.25 for 8oz it's a steal.
- Always check if you are spraying lacquer over enamel. If you are, make sure to cover the enamel very well with something else.
- Less is more with flock. It's stay better and look better.
- Don't use too much glue in an attempt to make the flock stick. It's easier (and prettier) to just accept that you'll probably have to touch up the flock later after use.
- Water effects shrink by almost half their initial poured height, if not more. Expect to make multiple pours for even simple things.
- Denatured alcohol is a must when working with water effects. It cleans, levels, and helps remove nasty bubbles.
- Expect at least a week long project when working with water effects. Assume longer if you care how they look.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #138 on:** Thursday, January 08, 2009, 06:34:17 PM »

Holy shit. That's epic!

sirean_syan · « **Reply #139 on:** Sunday, February 22, 2009, 06:45:14 PM »

Long time no update. Today I finished up some guys that I started probably sometime in September.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #140 on:** Sunday, May 10, 2009, 07:38:06 PM »

Got a little something new and sorta out of left field:

I went pretty traditional with this guy and I think I'll be doing more in the same way. It's easy to paint and looks pretty cool, although there are two subtle modifications to the usual scheme: The first is I highlighted the blacks with green to make it more interesting and play off of the glowing green stuff Necrons tend to have going. The idea is that it might be some sort of obsidian, which can sometimes tend to greens on the rare occasion. Plus, it would be fun to have an army made entirely of metals and rocks, you know? Second, I didn't dull the gloss coat that I use to seal/protect minis when I finish painting them. For some reason, it sorta works with these guys despite how dirty the metalics are. It's probably because metals still shine through dirt and it makes perfect sense if I'm saying the black stuff is obsidian.

So there you go. If I manage to get more than a couple of hours in the future, I might have a Necron army too.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #141 on:** Sunday, May 10, 2009, 08:49:48 PM »

I don't hear from you for a couple weeks, I know there will be an update to this thread or next time I see you there will be new recruits in the hobby room. Looking good! How easy and fast was it? As easy and fast as you were thinking?

sirean_syan · « **Reply #142 on:** Sunday, May 10, 2009, 09:32:21 PM »

Compared to everything else I do now (especially Orks, those dudes take forever), really fast. Maybe 1:30-2 hours. I did a couple of things twice so that could probably be shaved down. When I do them in groups, the per unit time will go down even more. Even my Tyranids don't go that fast.

Oh, and you didn't hear from me for the past two week because of school madness. Things are coming down to the wire and the next two weeks are looking equally bad. I finished up a huge project on Friday and treated myself to some more time off then usual this weekend.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #143 on:** Wednesday, June 03, 2009, 11:35:06 PM »

I guess I forgot to post pictures of the Orks I've been working on for the past months. So far I have about 25ish of the little buggers done and they're a lot of fun because each guy has a fair amount of personality. I also get to do some garish looking stuff, but it works with Orks. I'm also going a little nuts with them and putting on some Orky patterns on about every 3rd guy. These are things like checks, dags, or simple flame patterns. The problem is they take forever to paint and I need a break from them for a bit, so all Orky work will be on hold for a while.

Here's a sampling of some of the guys: Click for instant Waaaagggh!!!

sirean_syan · « **Reply #144 on:** Sunday, June 07, 2009, 12:01:41 AM »

Finished some more Tyranid stuff over the past week. First up is a Tyrant Guard, a beefy guy who's purpose will be to take hits for the Hive Tyrant I've slowly been working on for the past year.

Next up is a Gargoyle. He's a test for a group that I'll get to at some point. I wasn't sure if I would like the dark purple that I use for fleshy parts on the wing membranes, but it worked out fairly well.

Finally, I finished up another Ripper swarm and now have a game legal set. The newest one is the right base.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #145 on:** Sunday, June 07, 2009, 12:10:33 AM »

Nice! You've been busy.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #146 on:** Sunday, June 07, 2009, 10:15:35 PM »

More stuff and my first batch of Necron guys!

I really like these little buggers. They turned out great and actually have one of my favorite things I've ever painted: the dark green crystals. Really, I love these things. They're going to be all over my Necron army.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #147 on:** Sunday, June 14, 2009, 08:36:13 PM »

More Necrons!

idolminds · « **Reply #148 on:** Sunday, June 14, 2009, 10:16:10 PM »

Those look awesome!

Quemaqua · « **Reply #149 on:** Sunday, June 14, 2009, 10:24:50 PM »

I don't know why I even bother trying anymore. I should just give all my minis to you and let you paint them. It won't exhaust me and they'll look better to boot.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #150 on:** Friday, June 19, 2009, 10:44:21 PM »

I got around to making some more real jungle terrain for the board this week. Things turned out pretty well, I think. All the shots are a bit large, so here's the links.

All the new pieces
Detail shot 1
Detail shot 2

Quemaqua · « **Reply #151 on:** Friday, June 19, 2009, 10:45:57 PM »

Awesome. Can't wait to try 'em out on the new dining room table!

sirean_syan · « **Reply #152 on:** Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 02:26:38 AM »

More Necrons, but probably what will be the best looking one I'll paint and I believe one of the best things I've ever painted. This here is the Lord, the commander of the new army. You can almost think of him like a necromancer to your usual fantasy undead armies in that he's pretty much controlling the whole show. As such, I wanted him to stand out in a number of ways beyond being slightly bigger and more detailed than the usual Necrons (standard Warriors top out just below his shoulders). The most significant is that he'll be much cleaner looking than all the other guys I paint. The idea is, as the Lord whatever takes care of Necrons will put a lot more effort into maintaining his body and, almost more importantly, he completely stands out in the crowd.

So yeah, he's forking awesome. I'm really enjoying working on these guys. Tyranids my be first love and something I'll always love, but I'm really thinking that this could be *my* army.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #153 on:** Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 07:41:18 AM »

Wow, nice. Particularly good detail on the robes and the staff. I'll have to see him in person soon.

idolminds · « **Reply #154 on:** Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 10:35:59 AM »

sweet!

sirean_syan · « **Reply #155 on:** Monday, August 17, 2009, 07:47:46 PM »

More Necrons!

Quemaqua · « **Reply #156 on:** Monday, August 17, 2009, 08:11:14 PM »

I am impressed and I hate you simultaneously.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #157 on:** Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 08:40:50 PM »

Those glyphs you put in the back look great, they dont say anything do they?

sirean_syan · « **Reply #158 on:** Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 09:36:55 PM »

I can't actually take credit for the glyphs: they're decals. I've discovered a magic solution that makes the edges pretty much impossible to see, but beyond trying to place them straight they're pretty much just a cheat. As for what they say, I think they're just cool looking gibberish.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #159 on:** Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 11:35:10 PM »

They say "yo momma has a cheap exoskeleton".

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Author Topic: Sy's Mini Painting Journal (Read 116708 times)