Alexia Ciannor

This month's Colore ton Monde just had to be something from the Painting class that I finished off. To that end, I was the closest to finishing off Alexia Ciannor This is the sculpt of her released for use in the Iron Kingdoms RPG, not the one that is sold in the boxed set, which I have always found to be out of scale with the rest of the game.

I love this mini and sculpt. I have had her for a very long time, but had held off on painting her till my skills could give the sculpt the justice I felt it deserved, so there was really no better place to start her off than at the Painting Masterclass. Coincidentally, that's exactly what Meg Maples said about the other miniature I took to the class, the Elven King.

As I previously mentioned, after the class on how to paint eyes in seven easy steps, I tried to paint her eyes three times before giving up. The class was only 2 days long after all. I may go back and try again, but I doubt it, as there's far to much other lead for me to get through.

I may be unhappy with the eyes, but I am more at ease with the metallics on this mini. The two brush blending on the coat at the back isn't so bad either. I may be starting to get the hang of this painting thing. Faces aside.

Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 2

Day two of the Montreal Masterclass was yesterday, and I'll both done in, and wanting more. I'm super motivated to keep on going with the techniques I learned there, and to finish the models I started.
Another full day of learning, concentrating and soaking in all I can about painting techniques wiped me out, but there was so much information passed on by the wonderful Meg Maples that I'm still mentally digesting it this evening.

Using the same two brush blending, with a bit of glazing added in, we looked at skin tones hair and fur (with a side serving of feathers, but that tutorial can be found here) and OSL (Object source lighting), which, with the two brush blending and the right choice of paint, was made to look extremely easy. the other thing we worked on were eyes. The bane of my painting life these last 20 years or more, finally I have a technique that works, and works very well. I must admit I had seen tutorials for this way of doing eyes before, but it makes a huge difference to see it being done on front of you. She also spoke of doing freehand and water effects using UHU glue. Like I said, there was a lot of information to take in!

Here is the final condition of the minis I did some painting on over the weekend. As you can see, none are actually finished.

 

Now for some better pictures of the work I did over the weekend.

Elf King

This is a Reaper mini that I picked up for a WFB Wood Elf army. He had a little bit of everything we were practising at the weekend, so he has had a fair bit of work done on him. I'm not so happy with the metallics, but I do like his cloak. His hair was not painted by me, but by Meg, as an example of what to do (the hair on all the minis she brought was already done), so I can claim no credit for that. It was not painted to completion by her, she would continue it if it were her mini, but I didn't have the mojo to finish it. I did get into the right way of doing hair on the pink hair of the KoS below. I will be using his hawk to try painting feathers soon.

Alexia

 

I'm very happy with the metallics on Alexia's sword. The deepest shade on there is coal Black with Umbral Umber, which looks almost black in the recesses. I have yet to have a go at using glazes on metals as was also suggested in the class.

Her eyes were a different matter. I restarted them 3 times. In the end I gave up (for now?) and painted her eyes in an inverse of the taught technique. Giving her a somewhat soulless look, which is fitting for her, if not exactly of Masterclass level.

VASA Knight(s) of the void.

I had two of these exceptional miniatures on the go at the weekend. This one I managed to do the eye and the hair to my satisfaction. I started on the body, but that may have to wait. I will be using her to do OSL on the cybernetic eye as well. Meg used the second of these minis to show how to do the OSL (she was running out of minis to show things on by the end of the session, so borrowed ours), and that is shown below.

As a shout out to those who I spoke to at the event that have a blog,  may I point you towards The Amazing Captain Spud, (his words, not mine) and to Yaum la Machine. Both great guys and exceptional painters whom I learned from too (as well as the many others I spoke to who either have no blog, or I am unaware of their blogs)

I had a great time over the weekend, and I learned a lot! I also broke out the sable brushes on the second day (for the eyes) and oh my, how they make a difference.  I'm a little bit in love with these little darlings now!

Finally: note to self, buy more Sanguine Base and Coal Black. They work on everything!

Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 1

This weekend in Montreal saw the last Masterclass to be held by Meg Maples in North America before she moves over to Australia. As a Christmas gift to me from my family, I went along. This was my first painting class of any kind, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of how many minis I would need, how many minis I would get through.

We were given a list of things we would need to bring, and a list of techniques we would try to get through. The first day started off with two brush blending. Before the class, I was aware of the existence of this technique, but that was about all. After a day of doing pretty much nothing bu that (the techniques was explained first for the very good reason that it was the basis of the other parts of the class) I think I'm staring to get the hang of it.

The minis I put on the table at the start of the day. There was no way I would get through that many, but it was good to have a selection to work from.

Cloak on a Reaper Wood Elf King, my first attempt at two brush blending.

Black Wolf Raiding Party Leader, an attempt at the same technique on smaller areas.

Alexia. I love this mini, and I have had her for years, but have not had the courage to paint her, as I didn't have the skill to do so to the level I though she required. No time like the present!

This mini was one where I was using the two brush blending technique to work on the metalllics. Hence all the work on the sword. I am happy with the way it turned out,  but the pictures do not do it justice, I promise better pictures after the second par of the course tomorrow.

So, I am back home with sore shoulders from hunching over under my lamp all day, and a sore head from concentrating so hard. I have never spent such a long time in one sitting painting before, and it was hard work, but the time flew past very quickly indeed. I have learned a lot, including that I need to learn more about colour theory. In addition to the technique of two brush blending, which I will not go into here, as that's what youtube is for, I learned that to get proper shading, you need to go darker than you think. For example, with the elf king's cloak in the first image, I initially went with a darker green, as per normal colour triads, but it just didn't show up at all. I soon plumped for Coal Black (P3), a dark purple/green black, which turned out to be perfect. I used this as a means of darkening pretty much all the shadows from then on. Mixing the Coal Black with an Umbral Umber (P3) gave the darkest shading on the metals too, looking like a proper black at the deepest parts of the shadows, whilst still maintaining an natural looks. I think I'll be using much more of this colour.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, as there is a whole lot more to learn, and I'm really excited to get these minis finished.

Alexia, base WIP

This mini has been on the table for a while now, but I thought it was about time to post a few WIP shots of the base, and mini for Alexia. I had the mini painted mostly up for the Longest Night event, but I had held off on the base, as I wanted something a little more special for this lady. In the end, I opted for this base by Secret Weapon.

Here, Alexia's base all but done, some muddy water to add, and some touch ups to the mini after all the man-handling required to remove the horse from its previous base and pin it to this one.

I went on to touch up the paint work, and fill in the base with some water effect, stained with Secret Weapon's Sewer Water wash. Perfectly named I feel, and the colour works great as swamp water. I dumped some grass and leaves in the mix at the last minute, as I was too eager to get the water in there, I completely forgot how I had actually planned to place these before adding the water effects.

Furthermore, I had also planned to varnish the model before I put the water effect in, as I didn't want the spray varnish I use for a dullcoat clouding up the base! This will have to be worked around, as already the paint job has chipped again where I repaired it last night. I guess I'll have to paint on the 'ard coat, then mask over the base to spray with dullcoat.

Longest Night

I went along to the hallowe'en party at my FLGS last Saturday evening. The store was open for an all nighter, which meant the party started after the kids bedtime, hence my availability. They were running (amongst other things) a ‘Longest Night’ event. I thought this was a one off event run last year, when Privateer Press released eAlexia. Although it looked fun, I doubted I would be able to make it. However, it turns out they are supporting this as an event that can be run at any time, which is great. I may even get round to converting some skeletons to be used as the Longest Night Thralls.

Participation Badge

Once I made it along to the store, there was a little delay in getting started, but I managed to play 2 games before having to run for the metro. I played Legion, and managed to pick up a bunch of points here and there from the list at the end of the scenario (which includes things like making a tent for the scenario, taking candies to share, and being in fancy dress). It pays to read the rules. I found out the next day I had won (although I have yet to collect the medal).

The biggun' was so taken by the tent, we had to make another one for her the next day,

Home-made tent and Thrall

I tried to get eAlexia painted up for use (she plays for any and all factions in this scenario), but failed. I am however quite happy with the horse (although it is not finished, it needs some work on the face and the ribs). I decided to go with a blonde Alexia, to move away from the dark tones of the mount, but otherwise I'm sticking pretty closely to the colour scheme laid out in NQ37.