Grumpy Cave Bear

Thank you for the birthday wishes! I was recovering from a flu on my birthday, so didn’t check until today…

I’ve heard: “Always push the contrast while painting, until you’ve pushed it too much.” I was trying to push the contrast as high as possible while painting this mini as an experiment. I was worried I was pushing too far, but it looked good. Then the satin sealer coat cut the matte and pushed the contrast more, and the phone camera pushed the contrast in the picture up a just a little more still! I don’t think I have to worry about having too much contrast.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

I will try again! I'm much better at washes and glazes than layering or wet-blending. I'm going to try it for anything I want to get to the table a little more quickly. And I will try to get some transparent mixing white to see how that works with the zenithal highlight spray. Or maybe white acrylic ink.

"Speed paint" of Goldar. Total time painting was about 2-1/2 hours start to finish. I tried something new this time, which was painting all the shadow colors on the mini as a base coat, then spraying a white zenithal spray over the shadow colors, and finally doing washes and glazes, and edge highlights to add color back over white zenithal spray and tie it together the shadow colors. The result was a little chalky, but saved me the time of layering or wet blending the colors. It might have been a bit better if I could find a more transparent white to zenithal highlight the mini.

Thanks all! The skin was painted using Vallejo Model Color Purple as a base, with Model Color Basic Skin Tone mixed in for highlights. Reaper’s Violet Shadow was used for lining. The fur was Reaper Violet Shadow as a base, with blends of Reaper Snow Shadow dry-brushed as highlights. This model is where I discovered rosy skin tones are great for highlighting purples. I’m really tempted to make all my bugbears this color, convention be damned!

For some Halloween fun, I painted up the Punkin' Headed Bugbear:

I also prefer my orcs to be pig-faced. Does that make me old-school, I wonder?

More minis from my Shelf of Shame Long-Term, Partially-Completed Backlog: A trio of kobolds from one of the Reaper Bones kickstarters! These are some of the tiniest minis I've painted. Even so, it took about 2 long evenings to complete them. I did lots of practice of NMM steel and gold. I'm now of the opinion that NMM works better than metallics for small minis. The clothing was originally red, but I found it was too close to the orange of the skin color and just blended together from about 2 feet away, so they got repainted to a color/tone that was more distinct. I prefer that my kobolds be weird dog/lizard hybrid creatures, so they all got black noses. It looks good on these! That brings the total minis I've painted this year to 19! (With another one in the wings.)

I got off of work to start my birthday weekend, browsed onto the forums and got a pleasant surprise! Thanks all, for the birthday wishes!

Our neighborhood has common corner mailboxes, with about 20 lockable letterboxes for nearby addresses, and two shared large lockable package boxes. Anything that doesn’t fit in those gets delivered to our doorstep.

I use the “correct” primer for different materials. I’m always trying different primers to see how they adhere and react to various materials. Generally automotive primers for metal minis, solvent-based lacquer primers for resin figures and Stynylrez or Vallejo primers for plastic or vinyl minis and models. I sometimes experiment with multi-surface craft paint as a PVC primer, because it adheres so well. For minis, I prime with black and spray a white zenithal highlight before painting; for larger models, I try to prime in a color close to the final color. You can soften resin parts for reshaping by heating them in boiling hot water. That would have saved a lot — a lot! — of time spent cutting and sanding! More general advice — don’t model stuff that won’t normally be seen. It’s a waste to detail that cockpit or building interior if you can’t see into it; likewise don’t detail the backside of a figure if it is only displayed with the front showing.

First place: Apple fritter. The larger it is, the better. Something that will last through my entire oversized mug of coffee. Second place: Maple bar, with a slice of bacon on top. Tastes like breakfast. Third place: Old-fashioned buttermilk bar: My favorite with coffee. Only takes third place because it is fairly hard to find in this area.

Well, there was that dwarf apple tree from last year that produced no apples for us, because it kept a family of 5 raccoons fed for the the entire season. I ultimately decided to cut it down. Edit: How could I forget the woodpecker last spring that decided that rattling on our metal rain gutter was the best thing for attracting females? Right above the window of our daughter’s bedroom too. It’s about that season again, too… I wonder if he’ll be back to torment us at all hours this year.

I love driving for pleasure, like a leisurely drive on a rural road or over to the coast, but I don’t get to do that very often. Since I generally work from home and take public transit on days I go into the office, I rarely get to drive at all! Based on a real-life event I witnessed: An egg hunt, but the eggs contain valuable prizes (cash, jewelry, keys to new cars) and the contestants are all adults. Have them sign legal waivers, then film the resulting brawls from every possible angle. Somebody’s going to get trampled!