rubegon

Making progress - doing some NMM ... BTW - I joined up this year knowing I was going to be moving in Dec/Jan, so wouldn't be able to start painting until Feb (I'm not just super late!). So if you got a painter that wasn't going to start until Feb and you want to be surprised, don't look inside the spoiler tags!

Ok! I got my painting setup in our new house and got all my stuff unpacked. I now have paint on pewter!

Oops!

I got back from my trip last Wednesday to find my Secret Sophie package - thank you so much @Auberon for working to a deadline, and for painting these minis like you took all the time you needed - they’re beautiful! I love these sculpts by Derek Schubert and love how they’ve been painted. These will also be very useful for that Saltmarsh campaign I’m (very slowly) running. Here are some pics: In keeping with the aquatic theme, I got a full set of Pirates of the Dragonspine Sea and a set of Sirens and a super cool Barnabus frost. Thanks again @Auberon - this was a fantastic surprise to come home to. They are safely packed up and now headed for a shipping container where they will cross a real sea very soon! They’re somewhere in here:

So mine was apparently delivered today but I’m traveling so I won’t get to open it until Thursday when I get back home! 😫

I’m in, although my painted mini likely won’t go out until around the end of Feb 2023. We’re moving to a different country at the end of the year, so I probably won’t be doing much painting until we get settled into our new home. I’ll send my questionnaire in a bit!

Thanks folks!

Just got the package from my Secret Sophie! Very cute metal bard mini painted up very colorfully. I don’t think I’ve seen this mini before. There’re some cool older minis in the box I didn’t know existed and useful stuff for D&D - the stirges are great, I can definitely use that gloom stalker, and that Mephisto is very nice. I didn’t know that mini existed. The storm giant is awesome too. I’m not sure what my Sophie’s forum name is, but thanks!

I have finished painting, and packing. Shipping out tomorrow!

Thanks for posting the comparison! That looks like a great size. I’ve been wanting to start painting busts but the larger scale ones just seem kind of overwhelming to me. I just can’t get myself to start one. This looks like a great scale to step up to. Looking forward to it!

I really like this Lunette. Thanks for sharing the process. It’s really interesting to see the adjustments you make when scaling up. Bust version of Lunette also gets a belly button! So is the full figure 34mm to the eyes, and the bust about 2.2x that scale (equivalent to 75mm to the eyes if it were a full figure)? How tall is the full bust model?

Yeah, I ordered the wrong ones. I think I looked at the short handles and later came back to add them and opened the wrong page. It still seems weird to me that the size difference between the 0 and 1 travel brushes is so huge. The travel 1, 2, and 3 all look pretty close to the same size. Oh well

Thats weird. The image on thebrushguys site looks very different

I know - it’s such a weird defect too because it seems like the brush handle was cut too short too. I emailed them late on Friday, and haven’t heard back yet. I’ll post an update when I do.

So I ordered some of their Raphael Kaerell synthetics and picked up a couple of Raphael Precision synthetic travel brushes in sizes 0 and 1, but something weird happened. The brushes were packaged perfectly and shipping was quick and cheap, but the no. 1 precision brush is super chonky! The “1” is as thick as the Kaerell no. 6! I emailed them about it. Seems like the brush was labeled with the wrong number at the factory or something? It’s also really short compared to the 0. That Kaerell 6 is now the biggest mini painting brush I own - basecoats in 1 brushload!

Wow! I agree - great job on the face. Very natural looking

Count me in!

I can imagine - I painted only one of these and it was pretty daunting. I can’t imagine painting all of them at the same time! I like how the rocks turned out, especially the lighter ones!

It's cheaper and less work not to get an optivisor so you can't see the mold lines ... 😆

Another new technique I tried was digital sketching to try things. I often find myself with some free time away from my desk when I’ll be thinking about a mini I’m painting. I decided to try digitally sketching to test some ideas before sitting down to paint next. In this case I wanted to figure out the shoulder armor NMM. I took a pic of the basecoated shoulder, and sketched a couple of options in Adobe Fresco (free version) on my phone and continued later on an iPad with a stylus. Here’s the WIP photo: Sketching steel and gold NMM on the WIP photo in Fresco I decided to go with the steel, and then just had to paint what I sketched: This worked out really well. It let me get down ideas while I’m away from my painting desk, and it was pretty quick and easy to learn. I’ll be doing this a lot more from now on I think.

Finished Goldar tonight. I’ve been trying to improve my NMM, and worked on it here’s. The shoulder and leg armor went pretty well, but I had a hard time with the flat face of the axe. I tried a pattern that suggests snow diffuse my reflected in the blade but I don’t feel I pulled it off very well. The eyes are molded really roughly so it was hard to get a good result. In retrospect I should have taken a few minutes to smooth the eye sockets with a bit of putty - lesson learned. I like how the skin and armor turned out. I wanted to paint skin with high contrast and it ended up the way I pictured it.

If ordering from Jackson’s check out their brush protector tubes. They sell long pieces you can cut to length in a couple different diameters. They’re only a few bucks and nice to have if you like to put protectors on your brushes. I eventually lose the ones they come with or would rather have longer ones.

I haven’t tried them, but I’ve been looking for a good synthetic brush to complement the sables. I’ve been using WN Cotmans but not really in love with them. I’ll check those out - thanks!

I use Raphaels and gave up on finding a good US source for them. Blick is always out of stock of the sizes I need. I ordered from Jackson’s Art Supplies last time not realizing they were in the UK and they were awesome. Prices in USD, fast and reasonable shipping. They have a great selection too.

He looks really cool - great job! Reaper needs to make a Night Stalker in Bones 6.