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I haven't done a WIP here in a while, except for the occasional exchange piece, so I decided to give one a go and see if I keep up with it. Those of you that follow the "Getting to Know Each Other" thread will remember this piece, but for the rest here's a quick recap. We were asked to try something new. As I don't sculpt I decided to try my hand at something simple. Enter the Master Series Ellen Stone that I received in the Secret Sophie exchange. While she is a hot cowgirl, she is unfortunately not wearing a hot cowgirl shirt. I made her one, though I did run into a bit of a problem. You see, Ellen has a bandana wrapped around her neck and I thought I could work around it. Turns out that I couldn't (though an expert would have likely managed), and so she ended up with the collar on one side being a bit off. She's still good enough to paint and experiment with so here we go. This is what Ellen looks like after a bit of green stuff. You can see where the knot on the bandana got in my way. I should have pressed the collar down a bit more as well, but live and learn. and here is why. Proper style of shirt. I considered it likely that the hat would get in the way of painting her eyes so I left it off to start. I also added three buttons onto her shirt. They are heroic scale buttons, which is why they are a little larger than normal. So i started with blocking in a lot of the colors just to cover the white primer. Her duster is an excuse to try out the Scalecolor Fantasy & Games line of paint that I picked up a few months back. First impression - Blackert Brown is not a good color for basecoating, even over plain white. It took a few too many coats for solid coverage. With a good bit of the primer covered I moved on to the eyes. You can always make a pretty good argument that zenithal lighting + hat = no dots in the eyes but it seems to be the thing to do with minis. I guess everyone now is just used to seeing stage lighting and camera flashes (as the girl above). Of course, tiny white dots never end up in the right place on the first attempt. So we have to fix them. I touched up a few places while I was at it. Turns out that my old basecoating brush doesn't have quite the point that it used to. It still holds a lot of paint but the precision isn't there anymore. One last thing to do before attaching her hat is to get some color on her face. I put a shadow directly under the brim but did the cheeks and below in a fairly standard manner. Her face needs some more work but I decided it was good enough to stop and attach her hat. With the eyes done I seem to be able to reach the rest, and I don't want to call her face "done" and then screw it up gluing the last piece on. I don't have any major plans for tomorrow (beyond continuing to watch basketball) so I expect to make some good progress.

This week I completed the Ellen Stone, Cowgirl figure as I begin working on the Chronoscope set from the Bones I Kickstarter. This figure is notorious for it's missing nose; however, I wanted to see if with generous shadow and highlight, could get her looking more normal in her face. Also, as I studied how I wanted to paint her, I thought about painting the shirt white; and as I thought this it occurred to me that it might be neat opportunity to try and attempt a level of translucency to the shirt, as might occur with a thin white cotton shirt. I'm happy with how she came out; particularly the face, which I think is one of my best to date. Despite it's casting flaws I'm very pleased with this figure. For the complete write-up on how I painted her, please see my blog: http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/2015/08/ellen-stone-cowgirl-figure-168-of-265.html

I've been doing business with Reaper for a long time, and I very much respect the fact that they're BIG on quality control. There are apparently a great many things that can go wrong with casting, and if a miniature is not up to snuff, it goes back in the melt. And if they make a mistake and it gets into a blister, they're VERY good about working with you to replace the defective miniature, as in NOW. Very good customer service. I think that needs to change. Y'see, a while back, I took the Casting Room tour, at Reapercon. Learned a lot about how the miniatures are made! ReaperBryan cast up a whole batch of "belly dancer with sword" minis, just to show us how it was done! However... that particular batch of minis didn't come out quite right. The lower faces of the belly dancers were featureless. He apologized for the mistake, and spoke about quality control, and how normally, this batch would go right back in the melt, and they'd try again. I proposed that this was not necessarily a bad thing; what we had here was a batch of LIMITED EDITION VEILED BELLY DANCERS, and how, once blistered and ready to ship, they'd be worth far more to collectors than the regular model, due to their very limited quantity! He laughed. He thought I was kidding. Poor guy really takes his quality control seriously. Far be it from me to tell Reaper how to do their business, of course. However, I still have a Limited Edition Veiled Belly Dancer, available for auction, starting at $199 unpainted; only a dozen or so are extant. Anyone interested? PM me. But I digress... Last year, Reaper held its first big Kickstarter, which I understand was very successful, although it was not without its headaches; there are threads around here somewhere full of details about this event. Me? I got a Vampire box, and was quite pleased with my deal. Reaper'd made me a happy customer and fanboy, again. Until I heard about Ellen Stone. Ellen Stone, Cowgirl, #50003, one of Bob Ridolfi's fine works. Now I had this particular miniature already; like it just fine. I got another as part of the Kickstarter. But when I went to Reapercon the following year, Bryan happened to mention that the Ellen Stone Bone had been defective! As a result, this miniature would not be made available in blisters through stores! The ONLY way to get this particular miniature is to have been part of the first Kickstarter! Upon arriving home, I looked at the Ellen Stone Bone. Sure enough, she had no nose. Gave her kind of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with boobs sort of look. Oh, well. Mistakes happen. Not like it did any real harm, considering the great deal of OTHER minis the box had held. ...but then I thought about it. Limited quantities. Will never be manufactured again! Could it be that these noseless Ellen Stones could be turned to some kind of value? I looked more closely. And then I broke out the brushes. Submitted for your approval: The LIMITED EDITION ELLIE N. STONE, E.T. COWGIRL! Bidding will begin at $1999. Please note the limited quantity, and that this model will NEVER RETURN TO PRODUCTION! It's not a bug, it's a FEATURE! It's not a factory reject, it's a LIMITED EDITION! Let the money-- er, the BIDDING begin...

I received my Bombshell Babes from Patick's Kickstarter and I must say I love the miniatures. I backed the kickstarter when I saw Dusty's concept art, so once I got them I wanted to paint her up. To help me stay motivated and to get some advice I figured I would make a WIP. So here she is as out of the box She had some flash and minor mold lines to take care, but overall her details are perfect for the sculpt. Since she is overall simple I hope to have her finished up fairly quickly at least for me. I will try to show the mistakes I make also if I remember to snap a photo of it, to help some of the newer painters that have joined the forums as I know I learn from others when they share there mistakes. Which right away I started with missing some flash after I had her primed and glued to her base. I noticed it so I took to shaving it off with my scalpel and applying brush on sealer to help even it out. If you look close in this picture you can see the flash on her left hand by the fingers and the uneven spots on her coat by her left leg. Here is the after picture you can see the bare metal covered by sealer, I also put some super glue on her right collar to even out a soft mold line I missed also.

A few months back, Iposted a series of figures destined for use as PCs in a Firefly game. We've had a newcomer join the crew, so I had to paint up a mini for her. She fits in the same constraints as the previous set: White, Black and Oxblood Red, plus browns. Fairly muted bunch, for the most part. I'm pleased with this paintjob, mostly because it happened in less than 6 hours of work. I can paint quickly! If you're interested, the other Firefly PCs are here. C&C always welcome!