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Back after a long-ish hiatus. I had to take a break from painting earlier this year because of some eye issues. No that I can see right again, I wanted to take a simple-ish mini to completion. I used the RCL limited palette theme for July. While the paint job on these maggots can be better, it's gratifying to be back to doing something I enjoy immensely.

Finished my first mini this year, and oddly enough it was a speedpaint, taking just over an hour... On the flipside, some of those colours work together really, REALLY well, like Sunrise Orange and Heart Throb Paint.

During my Shelf of Shame Project I started with the fairy. Since there is only room for one project on my wet palette, this one had to take the back seat during RVE. Today I finished another project, at least as far as the palette is concerned, so I can finally continue with my little fairy. Every aspect of this project was created by rolling dice. For everyone interested, here is a somewhat elaborate summary of part one: During weekend I usually put down my brushes. At the moment, painting is a stand in for my job that's on hold because of Corona restrictions, so there will probably be no progress until next week. I just wanted to set up everything so I can start right away!

Since we have lockdown where I live I was put on short term work. This gives me a lot of free time, a good part of which I am using to improve my painting. I have no formal art education whatsoever and am trying to make up for this by watching a lot of youtube and experimenting (and posting questions here on the board...). Recently I started a project where I challenged myself to using only a few paints for a mini. During my youtube research I found a lot of videos about mixing all your colours by using only primary colours. I found this concept really fascinating and want to try it out with my mini painting. The colours used for this were blue (rather dark, ultramarineish), red, yellow, brown (something like a burnt umbra) and a white. The video recommended using single pigment paints. Since the artist was using oil paints for his demo, I can't just go out and buy those specific paints, so I need their equivalents in miniature paints, preferably Reaper. Which paints would be best for this kind of paint mixing? For white, Pure White is probably a no brainer. For the rest, I lack experience. I would be thrilled for some recommendations from anyone who has tried such a technique already - or knows a bit about the properties of the reaper paints. Thanks for your help!

This was my Secret Sophie gift to Inarah. I had a lot of fun painting it, though I was cranky there wasn't much room to play with freehand! Let's see... the crystals are a combination of sculpey, green stuff, sprue cut into crystal shapes and actual small quartz crystals. You can buy them cheap online in bulk. Great for terrain projects. The colors are nightmare black, clouded sea and mint green, then after I was done highlighting, I glazed the whole thing except in the light effect area with pthalo green. It knocked down the highlights a bit and I like the more teal look it gives. The fire was pure white, sun yellow, marigold yellow, fire red and spattered crimson. I think I used some Golden brand carbon black for the deep shadows. Anyway, enjoy! I didn't do a lot of WIP stuff for this one, sorry! er, and my camera was dead so I had to use my phone. The balance is always funky. I decided I wanted to work on OSL, so I planned ahead of time while painting the miniature. I find this helpful for OSL. I decide where I'll have the light effect and then up the highlighting on that side keeping in mind the spread and direction of the light. Then when I add the colored effect, the highlighting is already done. I think where I see folks fall down on lighting is one of two things: remembering that light is brightest at its source and lessens outwards, or thinking that light is color rather than brightness or higher value. Meaning we have to highlight first before we add the light effect, or it just looks like paint, not light. If you take a black and white photo of a mini, you should be able to see the light and effect is closer to white. If done incorrectly, the light effect will disappear. You also have to darken shadows elsewhere to sell the effect. It becomes complicated, but in all honesty, you can do OSL with drybrushing, as long as you remember to highlight first! Enjoy! C&C always welcome! Here's what I mean with the black and white photo- see how you don't see the color of the light, but you still see the light?

Just finished painting a copy of the Bones version of Satheras using two hues plus black and white: I started him during our last paint day as an example of how you could use a single brown to get quite a few different looks. After I got home, I decided to keep on with a very limited palette. Paints used (all Golden Fluid Acrylics): Burnt Sienna Dioxazine Purple Zinc White Carbon Black Not intended as a competition mini, but it was a really interesting exercise and the result, I think, has some virtue as a piece of art.

I got this to be my first bust to paint, sourced from Figone. CMPA had the "Bust a Move" challenge, so I finally painted him up. Yep, first bust! Next time I'll try a human or humanoid. Mounting him was kinda a nuisance, but I did something basic. He has a magnet on his back, and I greenstuffed a magnet to a nail. I can change the base later if I want. He's the first of my limited palette challenges, and I used blue because blue is a pretty easy one and I thought he'd do well with it. I smooth blended the face, and semi-smooth blended the mane, and went back for fur texture with a tone just one or two steps off of the layer beneath it. I imagined him as a lion day dreaming of a fantasy world, and a bit whimsical. Eyes: NMM Gold Triad (Shadow, Base, Highlight), Dragon White, Pure Black, S75 Tindalos Red. The Majority of Stuff: Pure White, Ghost White, Morning After Blues, Sky Blue, Dragon Blue (base fur color), Midnight Blue, Nightmare Black, Vallejo Game Color Black Ink.

I've had these little buggers in my collection for a long time now, and I had an occasion to paint them up. However, when I actually looked at them closely, I discovered that these were both the worst incidents of mold slippage I've ever seen, and also hideous sculpts. They're cute, but hot-broccoli these are not Reaper's best. They're asymmetric: ridges of scales existing on one side that aren't on the other, the eyes are completely different on either side of the head, the back ridge is either a victim of mold slippage or badly planned (I think both). Different regions are often poorly defined. The mold slippage ran all the way down the center of Cheeto, at least a full millimeter slip - seen mostly on his tail, back ridge, and the base. His face was less effected, thank goodness. I think the tail may have had more than a millimeter. I attempted to file some, gloss-resin-blob other parts, and hide it with paint or grass tufts. Mountain Dew was bad, but not as bad. Except for Mountain Dew's wings, these are one piece - reaching the bellies and insides of their legs with a brush is miserable. They needed to be a single piece. And.... then I took a challenge. I decided to use a limited palette on these guys. I am unofficially dubbing this style "mostly monochrome". It isn't just X-Color + White (or Black & White), but a spectrum of paint within a hue, and potentially a little bit of flair (see the eyes). I did blue well.... so I went with other colors on these guys. Some parts veer a bit reddish, or blueish.... but that's okay. I'll refine the style on another figure. But geebus did I miss using purple and blue to shade!!! Cheeto is orange. I gave him mostly green eyes to match Mountain Dew, and then tried to keep him orange. Limited palette listed... Eyes: Linen White, Peacock Green, Marigold Yellow, Coal Black, Pure White, Vallejo Game Color Green Ink. Dragon: Pure White, Linen White, Marigold Yellow, Sunrise Orange (Base), Orange Brown, Rust Brown, Blackened Brown. Base: Pale Olive, Muddy Olive. Oranges have hideous coverage. Even the HD Sunrise Orange. ACK! That was.... painful. Okay, Mountain Dew, the green sibling. Some of the greens have poor coverage, but not all. Eyes: Linen White, Marigold Yellow, Dragon White, Viper Green, Peacock Green, Coal Black, S75 Tiamat Orange. Dragon: Dragon White, Linen White, Maggot White, Cat's Eye Green, Viper Green, Brilliant Green, Peacock Green, Coal Black. Mouth (hard to make look good in greens, I thought): Gothic Crimson, The Army Painter Mutant Hue. Base: The Army Painter Army Green, Reaper Shadow Green, Linen White, S75 Intense Wood. Alright, so the results of my Mostly Monochrome experiments on bad sculpts/bad molds.....

Hello friends, I've officially finished 2 of the figures I started painting a week ago at Starbucks. Here are photos of the Beastman of Reven, and the Wraith Harvester. Both figures were speed painted with the Beastman getting about 4.5 hours of work, and the Wraith about 4. Both were also painted using only 6 colors, the same six for both figures; Brown Liner, Red Shadow, Worn Navy, Brilliant Green, Splintered Bone, Sun Yellow. I used my Reaper Round #1 for some details, but mostly just used cheap utility brushes for the 90% of what I painted. These weren't painted to perfection, I just wanted to see what kind of results I could get with 6 colors and to get it done as quickly as possible as a personal challenge. Feedback always welcome.