Nissiana

Alas, I hit a stretch where my schedule really impacted my painting time - so I wound up doing a marathon session to finish out the hero mice -- and didn't stop to take WIP pics along the way. Sanael managed to snag some photos after they were done, though. Hopefully I can figure out a paint schedule soon - I need to get cracking on some painting for both my D&D campaign, and ReaperCon!

Here's the update Sanael promised! The recipient has requested that we follow the reference art for the characters, which you can take a look at here. I got cracking on painting before I knew we'd be doing a WIP, so Nez, the first character, is already pretty close to done: Next up is Filch, because they share a similar color palette and I was able to use most of the same paints thus far: I've been playing around with some of the stuff I learned in Wappel's Shaded Basecoats and Glazing classes at ReaperCon on these guys, and I've been having some fun with it. I haven't really painted much this summer, so it's good to get back in the swing of things!

I'll pop out of lurk mode to say I'm delighted by this news. Sanael and I will put together something for this, I'm sure!

I missed the update with the freehand - it looks excellent! I wonder if a damp brush with a dry paper towel nearby and a very gentle attempt at "erasing" with the brush (an old beater would probably be best) might help reduce the pencil marks? That might be a little less harrowing to attempt than painting over them. Just a thought - I've never tried the pencil before (but I probably will now)!

Off to a great start...that workspace looks great! Great start on the eyes...with peactice, you'll have more detail and consistency in no time. I'd definitely say try both TMM and NMM, and you'll find your preferred groove. I love the look of both, but definitely have an easier time with painting NMM. Looking forward to following along with your upcoming projects!

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. Mamageek, nice catch on the base. It's a Gale Force Nine magnetic base, and I think you're seeing a mold line from the rubber coating they put on the top/sides. I agree that it's pretty unsightly...I'll have to give wood putty a try! I'm on my phone at the moment, but I'll come back with some other shots when I'm back at the computer. Thanks as well for the pointers on the freehand, Dontfear. This is my first go at an all-over freehand design like this, and uniformity is definitely something I want to improve on for the next attempt. I'll be sure to put those pointers to use!

She's been done for a little while now, but I just managed to get the final photos taken this morning. The saga of finishing out her cape is detailed over in my WIP thread; in short, this was quite a learning piece for me, and I'm looking forward to continuing to level-up my freehand skills. The model below represents the NPC Laurana, an elven princess, in the DragonLance campaign I'm currently running. The party is quite fond of her, which has led to some fun role-playing opportunities. C&C welcome!

I've done a little more work on the heads, bringing up some more highlights. He's destined for tabletop, and I'm trying to get him done relatively quickly, so the blending is a bit rough, but I do like how the contrast is coming along. If I were in the notion to make a diorama piece, I would position a hapless adventurer right in front of those faces, getting stared down by all of this doom. Side shot - the center head has gotten a little more of the highlighting love at this point, which you can sort of see in the above shot, mostly by virtue of the brighter spikes. I'm not looking forward to trying to get finished photos - there's so much going on here that it's hard to find the right camera focus!

I really dig the colors, and the freehand is a nice touch!

I'm totally in that boat as well. I always feel like I've chosen the wrong angle when I highlight weapons for NMM, and TMM is just a real challenge for me in general. I feel like I can't see the paint properly, and end up overworking it. You're definitely not alone!

Nice conversion! Welcome to the boards :) Photos are great for showing us all of the things we wish we could improve...they're actually a great reference during the painting process for finding smudges of stray paint and other things you might overlook.

A lot of nice details that other folks have already mentioned: all of the blue elements work well and the book looks great. I love the removable pieces idea...it's great when minis can look good both on the game table and on the display shelf, too!

Those are some pretty great looking trees! I like the autumn look of the base, especially along with the natural colors of the dwarf and his dog.

My summer schedule has been, um, heating up, leaving little time for painting. Up until this weekend, I've been away from painting quite a bit. With some impending encounters for D&D coming up, the project above is sidelined momentarily. In order to be ready for prime-time, the bones hydra got a lot of my time this weekend--our party is destined to face an Iron Pyrohydra that's been abandoned in the bottom of a dungeon for a long time, so I decided to work on making him very rusty with a lot of orange and brown colors. With a BIG brush, I put in the base coat of brown liner, and then roughed in the main colors with the airbrush. I'm still working on figuring out that machine, so there's a lot of manual brushwork still ahead. As of this round of photos, I've mostly been concentrating on getting some of the detail to come out of the faces... There's a lot still to do on the necks at this point, so the following picture is only dry-fit - they're not attached yet.

I'm catching up on the forums this afternoon, and was delighted to see this all finished up! I love how the colors turned out. I know how it is with the first mini back after a hiatus - ol' rusty here is an appropriate choice to start off with :) Nice job, glad to see you back at it!