morganm

Finally finished my kobolds. Will be using them in an up coming game. I have 30 hours of pure painting into them. To me that's a lot of time invested into painting a mini but I have to keep reminding myself I did 5 figures at once so it's more like 6 hours per figure. I'm happy with how the turned out.

After 4 hours last night I've got 30 hours of pure painting into this group of minis. I'm calling them DONE =P Images above are the final shots of this WIP. The 30 hours does NOT include all of the time spent on taking photos, optimizing photos, uploading to photobucket, and posting. Takes about 2 hours every time I want to take photos and post them. I finished off the bases, redid almost all of the metal armor with metallics + washes + glazes, and then did some touch ups. Steel Metallics: Base: 1 drop Mithril Silver : 1 drop water : 1 drop brush on sealer Shadows: wash: 1 drop grey liner : 3 drops water : 3 drops brush on sealer Glaze: added about 5 drops or so of water to the wash Bases: Stone Base Color: 1 drop Rainy Grey : 1 drop water Wash: 1 drop grey liner : 3 drops water : 3 drops brush on sealer Highlight: dry brushed using base color. Cracks are filled in with grey liner. I also mustered up the courage to do all of the eyes... some are better than others but all of them suck =P I'm happy with how they turned out despite any mistakes and shortcomings. They really do look sweet on the game table. Can't see anything wrong until you dump about 400watts of full spectrum light on them and zoom in =)

Here's what I've noticed results in chalky paint from my limited experience. Adding Skull White to anything = chalky... the more I add the worse it gets. I now avoid it if possible and try to lighten colors with other lighter versions of that color. Too much flow improver when thining.

While I haven't painted on them any more yet I thought I'd share a pic of them all together in my new lightbox. They are almost done; hope to find some time this weekend and finish them.

Spray painted the inside of the box with what was left of my old spray one white primer; glad I found a use for that before I tossed it! Also lined the bottom and back with white card stock then the back wall with extra layers of white tissue paper as my background. Used some white tissue paper we had laying around and mounted it to the sides of the box to diffuse the light. A 100 watt full spectrum CFL on each side and two on top. I'm happy with the results but it's pretty delicate stuff. Likely switch to something more durable when this stuff rips. Here's some pics!

Finally built my poor man's light box but having trouble diffusing the light. Read lots of threads on here where people have used wax paper, parchment paper, tissue paper, tracing paper, white cloth (shirts, sheets, sheer curtains) I have 100 watt full spectrum CFL bulbs. 4 of them in 8" round reflectors. Want to diffuse the light coming into the light box. What is the best, cheap, material to use? Please advise; thanks!

If you're gonna buy one I'd highly recomend Dark Platypus. I think it's way better than the DDM and Otherworld version. Not a bad price either for what you get. http://www.dark-platypus.com/featured/gelatinous-cube

Hey glad it helped!

While I'm getting better at blending I certainly still struggle with it and I'm very much a neophyte painter. I think I'll go with metallic paint and shade it. Need more experience and practice =)

This is my first stab at Non-Metalic Metals... I have plenty of grey liner, rainy grey, and some other shades of grey all in good shape I thought I'd give it a shot =) The chainmail I'm not very happy with. It's a few washes of grey liner, a layer of raniy grey + grey liner, then pure rainy grey on top... it looks like crap if you look at the kobold with the axe. The plate has a few layers of thinned down rainy grey. It's all splotchy and looks terrible. The weapons I actually use Mithril Silver metallic paint. Glazed the axe with Grey Liner and glazed the mace with Grey Liner and Burnt Brown. I'm more happy with how those are turning out! =P I'm on the fence here on how to proceed... Also; I've put too much paint on the chainmail and it's starting to loose detail as the holes are getting filled in =/ Base coat all the metal armor again and start over with NMM? Bust out the metalics and go that route?

Please do and thank you for taking interest! One of the main reasons I wanted to cronicle this from start to end was so that others could benefit from it.

Almost done! Spent another 6 hours on them. Just need to finish the bases and touch up. Really happy with how they are turning out despite how the pictures look. They look great on the table; can only see the shortcomings under 400 watts of light and 3x magnification =P My favorite parts thus far are the red cloak, the flames, and the sorcerer's glasses. I went out on a limb and tried to make the glasses look as though the flames were reflecting on to them. I think it worked; not spectacular but it worked. As you can see the reflection of the fire in the glasses are actually incorrect... I had actually painted all of the flames incorrectly starting with red at the base and working up to yellow. Really pissed me off because it looked sweet as far as smooth transitions from red to orange to yellow. Then I saw Lazlo's advanced How To for flames and realized I had it all wrong! Went back lastnight and painted the flames all white then came up with what you see now. Didn't have the courage to redo the glasses as I think most of what you see there was luck! =) Worst parts are the eyes (tried on the seal clubber and spent 20 minutes fixing that attempt, not too bad on the acolyte, wasn't brave enough to try any more...) and the metal armor. I just don't know what to do with the armor. I tried to not use metalics and it's coming out terrible. I'm torn between slopping on some metalics and glazing/washing them down or throw on a basecoat of grey and try non-metalic metal again. Recipes: Sorcerer's Cloak: Base coat is just Blood Red - 3 drops Blood Red 1-2 drops water Shaded with Gore Red and Burnt Brown - Starting with the Blood Red I added 1 drop Gore Red and 1 drop water then kept working my way darker adding 1 drop Burnt Brown and 1 drop water; just kept adding those as needed and going darker. Glazed the ends with Burnt Brown giving it that dingy look on the bottom edges. Also used that around some of the holes in his cloak. - 1 drop Burnt Brown and lots of water... 5 drops? Maybe more... Highlighted with mix of Blood Red and Sunlight Yellow - 3 drops Blood Red and 3 drops water; add in 1 drop at a time of yellow and worked my way up... didn't get very far with highlights. Flames: Started at the tips with an orange mix; sorry I didn't really keep track of ratios.... basically Blood Red and Sunlight Yellow to get a burnt orange. Mid town is more Sunlight Yellow with a hint of Blood Red to make a more yellow-orange. Light color is pure Sunlight Yellow. Staves: Base coat of Burnt Brown Highlight of Burnt Brown + Oiled Leather - 1 drop Oiled Leather, 2-3 drops Burnt Brown, 6-7 drops water Cheated on some of the metal; I wanted to do NMM but on the axe, mace, top of the sorcerer's staff, medallions on the back of the sorcerer, clasps and buttons, and sorcerer's belt bucket I went with metalics. Basecoat of Burnt Brown then metalics over that. On the axe I played around with glazing them down using Grey Liner. On the mace I glazed it down with Burnt Brown; notice how it has a light hue of brown to it compared to the axe? I kinda like it; makes it look more like a tarnished, grubby, kobold weapon =)

Sorcerer:

Seal Clubber:

Axe Murderer:

Kobold Acolyte:

Kobold Archer: