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I finished her. It's finished but not perfect. I could have messed around with things even further and cleaned her up a bit more. I really probably could have left her sitting for weeks trying to figure out what else to do which is when I decided it's done. Pretty happy with the eyes on this one. Also, the chaps were the first time I'd attempted to do distressed leather which I think look pretty good for a first attempt. Probably could have gotten clearer pictures but didn't want to fight with the phone any longer. ETA: C&C welcome.

I got quite a ways into this one before I decided to start this. I'm kind of stuck as to where to go next. Not sure if I want to just put eyes on her and call her done or something more. I definitely have some touch ups to do before she's "done." I have a middle progress photo but it's not saving for whatever reason. I want her to look similar to the texas ranger that I painted previously as this is a PC mini of mine I wanted to update. So any advice as where to go next? ETA: added middle photo

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.

Results of painting in tonight's hangout: 9 ghouls, 3 zombies, Rex, Ellen Stone, and a Strumpet. Still need some guy with a knife, some police, and possibly a vampire for a game Saturday evening.

So, I started these a while ago as a kind of a giggle. This is kind of a catch-up thread, as I am pretty far along with them. I had been feeling the need for more Githyanki / Githzerai figures. Anyhow, I had the abortive Ellen Stone, Cowgirl figure (link is to the metal version) from the first Bones Kickstarter, the one that never made it to retail because she hasn't got a nose. Someone (it may have been me, if anyone feels like digging through the old posts) suggested painting the bodged Bones version up as an alien. Then I noticed this guy from, I think, Bones II, 91001: Stone from the "Savage Worlds" line, who looks like a sort of zombie-ish revenant cowboy with a gaunt build and a skull-like, noseless face. And it all clicked together. My normal prep for Bones figures these days is mild flash removal and a wash of dilute Reaper Brown Liner. I don't have any pix of the figures at that early stage, but here they are with a thin layer of pale banana yellow on their skin (the male figure appears to have gloves, but I'm going with bare hands anyway to emphasize his alienness). I mixed it from my favorite Golden matte fluid acrylics in Yellow Oxide and Titanium White. The point of this pale layer is to give an undertone to the skin so that one is not dealing with a single flat color. After the initial layer I rinsed over the skin with a very fine wash of a more orange tone mixed from Hansa Yellow Opaque (a very bright lemon yellow) and Golden heavy body Pyrrole Orange. Then I started building up the shapes and contours of the skin with various subtle golden browns, mostly mixed from Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Oxide, and Titanium White, and add more bright yellows based on Hansa Yellow Opaque. This is where you can start to see the shapes of their faces and they start looking a little less awful.

Last Stand on the Icaria Plains This diorama was created for use in the Spaceship Superstar contest. Minis used are 80009: Rex, Dark Future Hero, 80010: Nova Corp:Sgt, 80011: Nova Corp:Guard, 80015: Nova Corp:Rifleman, and the discontinued Bones Ellen Stone, Cowgirl. A short WIP is here.

Here's my interpretation of the discontinued Bones Ellen Stone as a blue alien cowgirl. She's actually meant to be part of a much larger diorama, but it's not finished yet, so here she is by her lonesome. The shine on her base is paint (I didn't even have time for it to dry!) but the rest of what appears to be gloss is actually painted on. There's actually a little bit more work left to do on her, but I wanted to get her good enough to enter into the beauty pageant. The guns need work, and I'm going to put some wood grain on the stocks, and there are a few spots were paint rubbed off (I still have the bad habit of holding the mini while painting...) which I'll fix soon.

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...