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I haven't posted anything in a while now, but I have been painting quite a bit. Unfortunately I just haven't been able to get good pictures lately. I think it might be because I finished my hobby room now take pictures downstairs in the basement with less natural light. Sadly It means I had to abandon my dungeon setting for pictures and go to regular photo back grounds, But at least I now have a set up that works for taking pictures now. So I'll be playing catch up for little while with posting some things I've gotten done lately. So With out further ado, this was my Gencon MHE contest entry for this year, a Noh Empire squad. I actually got a bronze this year even though my group base was still really rough. I was super happy about that Bronze! Like I said my group base was really rough and unfinished, but I don't think it counted against me since it was sort of optional anyway. Marikan To was my first major attempt at lining. Mostly on her wraps and on her quiver. I think her skin needed more highlighting but I'm not really sure how to highlight smooth skin yet. The Beastmaster I think turned out pretty good. I was very happy with the faces on his armor. His skin looks like it could use a touch more shade, but otherwise I'm happy. The Hounds of Nozuki were a bit tricky since their fur had no detail I had to try and figure out how to make it look interesting (I had the same issue with Marikan To's hair). I think they turned out ok. I was getting a little burned out on the bases by the time I got to these guys. Marikan To's bird companion. His base took the longest and he was just about the last figure I finished since I wasn't entirely sure how and where I wanted his coloration. Thanks for looking. Let me no if you have any comments, critiques or advice for next time. I'll post some other stuff I've finished tomorrow.

I don't usually post my non-Reaper minis here, but I wanted to share this one with you all. This is Princess Malya, Questing Knight and her cypher Mr. Tomm from Relic Knights. She was the first of the new resin minis from Soda Pop Miniatures that I got my hands on, and is a beautiful sculpt and was fun to paint. I agonized over the last little bit, and between never getting to play Relic Knights and this model’s rules being garbage, she slept on the shelf of shame, waiting for her Prince Charming to show up. I finally finished her off last month, so she can join Mr. Tomm, who’s been done for a year now. In case the inspiration isn’t obvious, I’ve based her paint job on Alice from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. The base is one of my favorite parts, and I love how it came out – you can even see a bit of reflection in some shots. I definitely got fed up with the dress at points, and just had to leave it in order to move on, but overall am fairly happy. The white in particular, I probably could have redone it using some of the tips from Jen Greenwald’s class that I took last year.

Here are a couple of my Relic Knights characters that I've painted up. I guess the force colors are showing pretty strongly here. I don't know that there's a whole lot to say about them, so go have a look:

I’m happy with how both of them came out, and now I just need to paint up a knight so I can field them in a game. I’m thrilled with how the freehand came out, it was worth the effort. Lug could probably stand to have a bit more shading on the non-yellow parts, but I don’t mind if he looks a bit plasticky. Unrelated to these two, but here's another Relic Knights mini I finished. Yes, this is totally a game piece.

Woo! Finally done! I've been working on One Shot here for a few months. Overall I'm fairly pleased, but there was a lot that I just said "heck with it" in the name of finishing the model. Unfortunately, Jessi (the driver)'s pose (and where the pin ended up) kind of hides her, even though she's probably the best painted part of the whole thing. The gun is stolen from a Dust Tactics model because I thought she needed an upgrade if she was going to compete with the likes of Kasaro-To (the only other Relic I have assembled and painted). I used a lot of airbrushing and edge highlighting in neutral greys on the relic to match the rest of my Black Diamond force. Jessi is more colorful, because when you bring your own walking artillery piece to the fight against the end of the universe you can wear whatever you want. In this case, it's a bomber jacker, goggles, short shorts and pink leggings under armored boots. Because anime. Also pictured is Fritz, her cypher. The pictures suffer from glossiness - I didn't want to risk the fuzziness seen on some other models I've painted recently and the weather was nice enough for spray sealer.

Here is my Darkspace Fiametta that I painted up for my Paladins in Relic Knights. She has some issues with size- she's larger than the humans from the faction. So I decided that the best option was to make her not be human. Clearly the Tonorrians have a huge range in possible sizes (just compare Kisa and Austrican). I figure this is because they're cat people, and can be based on some wide varieties of felines. So, I figure it'd be ok to have a size of Tonorrian that's in between the two. Her ears are green stuff, her tail is a metal wire that I filed round at the edge.

I got Tomoko from Hasslefree Miniatures to use a proxy for a Viper in Relic Knights. Tomoko is pretty obviously based on Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell, and that’s also what Viper is based on (though not nearly as closely). Of course, I had to give her purple hair like Motoko. It also turns out that Motoko’s clothing already matches my Black Diamond color scheme pretty well (neutral grays), though that is more of a happy coincidence than anything intentional. I got Tomoko on Thursday and had her done (except for sealing) by Friday evening. This is very close to my ideal – a good paint job fast. You may notice that she has the SMG that comes with the resin Tomoko but I have the metal part number up above – I ordered a sprue of the sci-fi SMG and did a weapon swap, and it’s a pretty fantastic job if I do say so myself. I started by priming her with VMC German Gray, then airbrushed VMC Basalt Gray and RMS Rainy Gray for the initial shading. I used glazes of RMS Black Wash to create the black clothing, and mixed a little white into Rainy Gray to create a lighter color gray for the bodysuit. I picked out a few edges, laid down some subtle highlights and shadows on the clothing, then painted the skin with RMS Olive Skin triad. The hair is RMS Carnival Purple with some of the Imperial Purple triad for highlights and shadows. Still experimenting the the matte varnish. I think that pushing it through the airbrush is just a bad idea. I don’t mind how it looks in hand (super-matte, but “fuzzyâ€), but I think applying it with a brush I can avoid the fuzzy while keeping the majority of the matte-ness. And the super-closeup of the face which makes it look bad. (but not quite as bad as previous closeups – am I getting better or is the camera just out of focus?) Also... I'm supposed to be working my ReaperCon pieces... but this counts, doesn't it?

After a long slog of painting, I have finally finished up my unit of Suspect #7 from Relic Knights. I think she has the coolest story in the whole Relic Knights universe - apparently she teamed up with herself from several different alternate dimensions to do ninja-y mission; she has been confirmed dead six different times, thus the #7 part of the name. I decided to paint each of them in a different scheme, and ended up with purple, gray and red. The swords are all NMM, and while I got the blends done pretty well, I'm not sure I got the placement right. They are all just a straight gradient from Pure White to Blue Liner. I didn't think I'd ever seriously use Breast Cancer Awareness Pink, but it made a nice contrasting color to the purple. The white socks also have a bit of that color mixed in. These models were some of the worst I've dealt with from the Relic Knights line. The poses are a bit awkward and only have one connection point with the figure leaning way over; the detail is pretty bad; and there was a giant mold line running right through the side of their faces. The one with the Hannya mask is an awesome design, even if the execution is flawed. The unit is supposed to be pretty good in the game though, so I'm looking forward to trying them out.

Finished up my first figure for January. It is one of the Super Dungeon Explore/Relic Knights crossover figures. It was my first time painting a SDE figure. It will work fine for play but the paint isn't very smooth and I found a couple mold lines I missed after I started painting. In the past this figure would have been sent unfinished to my drawer of shame but I decided to push ahead and finish it because of the Resolutionary Painting Challenge.

A friend asked me to paint his Malya. No pressure. It's only his Relic Knight. Life made it take a lot longer to get done than it should have, but here she is. Thanks for looking! EDIT: Sorry, Mr. Tomn. I didn't leave you out on purpose. I especially didn't leave you out because you have all of a toe down for your base to attach too. No. Not for that at all.

I finished up Amelial from Relic Knights yesterday. The sculpt has some weirdness, but was enjoyable to paint. Some parts are fine, but some parts lack detail (the face in particular has none). Out of the package she has a flying base that attaches to both of her feet and perches her on some cloud thing. I was not a fan, plus I have been using the bases to distinguish factions - Amelial is "Void," so I wanted a base that seems dead or dying. I used a lot of desaturated colors on her, in order to make the saturated parts pop out more - also, again with the "void" aspect, she kind of sucks the life/color out of things. I was going to paint her entirely in desaturated colors, but then I discovered the fantastic saturated purple that the Vallejo Game Ink Violet gave me (it's less blue than it looks in the pictures). I enhanced this saturation by going over the inked spots with gloss coat at the very end. Gloss coat + NMM probably wouldn't score me any points in a competition, but it only looks weird if you think about it. Speaking of NMM, I am very happy with most of it, the tops of the wings and the sword being the exceptions. The blending is fine on the top of the wings, but something is off about the placement. The sword isn't right either, but it looks much better than my first attempt (which can be seen on my blog, if you're interested). As far as the game goes, Amelial is a fantastic unit, so I'm looking forward to adding her to my cadre. C&C is welcome.

Well finished this fellow up last night while streaming to my Monday Google Hangout. Colours are inspired by General Grievous. And with his Pikachu themed cypher Static;

Here is Darkspace Iron Chef, aka “Solid Chef†or “Solid Snack†for Relic Knights. In the Relic Knights lore, occasionally versions of characters from alternate dimensions show up in the Last Galaxy. In this case, Iron Chef (who normally fights for the Star Nebula Corsairs [space pirates]) instead works as a special operative for Black Diamond [space mercenaries]. For scale, Solid Chef sits on a 50mm base. The primary colors are various shades of grey, matching the rest of my Black Diamond rank and file. In order of darkest to lighest: VMC German Grey, RMS Armor Grey (there's not much of this), VMC Basalt Grey, RMS Rainy Grey. The primary component of his fur is RMS Chestnut Gold. I’m very happy with how the carrots came out, but I am most proud of his eyes. They are fairly large and I was able to get dks eyes going on and he doesn’t look too walleyed. I used the same matte vanish as on my Black Dragons but didn’t spray from so far away, which has eliminated most of the graininess.

I entered this mini in the painting contest at Gencon but now that I look at her again I'm less happy with how she turned out over all. She still looks fine on the table but I think I could have done better on the face. Questions comments and critiques are welcome.

Another mini to tick off the list for this month's painting projects. The Royal Wrecker, from Relic Knights. I was trying to make it as shiny looking as I could, and this is about as good as I can get it currently. in hind sight I probably should have started with more of a saturated red as opposed to pink.

I didn't feel like painting my Black Diamond today, so I thought I'd start cleaning a Pacer Bot - a fairly simple model in the Cerci Speed Circuit faction. Then I figured I'd assemble it. And then prime it. Oh, and while I have the airbrush out, I might as well prime the base, directional highlight the mini, base coat the mini and base. Then I looked at the studio paint job and decided to get started on that - just the blacks and whites. Then I did them all. And decided to do a little bit of freehand (the design on the upper pods) to match the studio job. Then I got the airbrush back out and painted the yellow lines on the base and sealed the mini. Long story short, I painted a mini, start to finish, in an afternoon. Seven hours, including watching several anime episodes. The base is Badger Opaque Green over white primer. The street is 80 grit Emery Cloth sandpaper, with VMC Yellow Ochre lines painted with a stencil I created out of plasticard. For the mini, I used Vallejo German Gray Primer, then Vallejo White Primer from upper angles all the way around. I then used VMC Fluorescent Magenta as a base coat. RMS Pure White and RMS Pure Black for all the accents, with some leftover VMC Basalt Gray and RMS Rainy Gray for the highlights of the nozzles and exhaust. It's a vehicle, so it has a nice gloss coat, which unfortunately interferes with my pictures. Also, the pictures don't properly capture just how bright that magenta is. It's the same color as the studio paint jobs for Princess Malya and the Pacer Bot.

Here is my Austrican (from Relic Knights). I really love this mini- very characterful. I was glad at the harsh lines on his face- that gave me plenty of room to make high contrast areas across his face. Otherwise, this color scheme is designed to match the Sebastian Cross I did before. I also posted him to Coolmini for anyone who cares to vote.

Here they are, the completed Black Dragon squad and their leader Sophia Drake (previously seen here). Painted primarily with VMC German Grey, VMC Basalt Grey, and RMS Rainy Grey with some RMS Light Blue for the glowy bits. Interestingly, the matte sealer I used (Liquitex Matte Varnish, applied with an airbrush) noticably brightened the grays. These guys are a great example (to me, as least) of the difference between 2 inches in front of your face and 2 feet away on a table. Close up, I see nothing but flaws, but far away they look great. The shields are the roughest bit - I think I need to learn more patience with blending.

This is Sophia Drake from Relic Knights, leader of Black Diamond's elite heavy infantry force, the Black Dragons. My WIP of the Black Dragons is here. She's apparently a little camera shy, so here's a lower angle that shows her face.

Nothing like procrastinating on something else to get work done. So here is my progress on the Black Dragons unit from Relic Knights. Also included is their leader, Sophia Drake. Miniatures are in various stages of complete, with the one on the far left being fully completed. Sophia is not wearing a helmet, and her head is off to the side. I may need to strip it and restart - the German Gray primer doesn't work great with the light skin and pink/purple hair she'll have.

Hello, all. Back into painting after hitting a little bundle of snag during January. As life is stabilizing (a very little bit) I have blown the dust off the brushes and tackled a few of my Kickstarter minis. First up, Relic Knights. Decided to start with the Doctrine and painted up a 35 point force. Hope to have my first game Friday. All together. My knight, Delphyne, and her cypher pal, Ekhis. Del alone. Ekhis solo. I really like the idea of the little girl and her monstrous protector, and as a result these were some of the models I was most looking forward to from the Kickstarter. Librarian. Better return those books. The head on this guy was rather poorly cast, too bad as this was another model I looked forward to getting and which helped me pick Doctrine as one of my factions. Oh well, he's the Libranaut now. Novitiates. Dead kids walking, if you believe the game reports. Silly models. I like 'em. I'm not sure you are ready for that book, junior. Academy guard. More bullet stoppers. I fear they look tougher than they will play. And a boost token! Cute little thing. As several of the boost tokens are rather nondescript, I picked the mine to use for whatever for now as I like the design the most. I also finished off three chumpo Strain from Sedition Wars that were started before the boy was born. Not terribly exciting, but they bring the completed Sedition Wars models up to this: Still not much, really. I wonder if I will ever play that game. It's nice to be working again. More Relic Knights to come (in a separate thread, right?), Noh and Cerci, more BONES, and some MYTH. Thanks for looking!

This is a mini I decided to enter into Starship Superstar. She is the plastic version of One Shot from Relic Knights. Don't know that there's a whole lot else to say, so here are a pic:

Here comes Black Diamond to save the day... if you've got enough cash, that is. These models are from Soda Pop Miniatures game Relic Knights. This is the contents of a Black Diamond Starter Box. I was in the Kickstarter so I have a lot more than these, but somehow it happened that the starter box items were first. First up, we have Leopold Magnus and Static. Static was posted earlier here. Magnus is EVIL, in case you didn't pick that up from the model. He's the boss of the cadre, and tougher than all the rest of these guys put together. I had a hard time getting smooth blends on the cloak (and eventually said "good enough"), but I probably just need to use more intermediate colors. I couldn't figure out how to shade the body, so I did edge highlights only. Next are the Diamond Corps. These are the run-of-mill minions. They pack a good punch, but can die to a sneeze. The main thing I'm unhappy about is how long it took me to paint them. I probably spent over 20 hours on them total, which is way longer than I felt they deserved. This is the first full unit of something I've painted. I tried to make them fairly boring overall, since they're not the stars of the game. Last up is the M8 Blitz Tank. It's a Chee, which are a race of sentient robots. He's been posted previously as well. The purple bases are standard for Relic Knights, and the base inserts are also from SPM.

This is the Doctrine Starter Box from Soda Pop Miniatures game Relic Knights. Not much to show, really. I assembled these guys so that my Black Diamond would have somebody to shoot at. Palomino Gold bases because Doctrine uses yellow (creation) esper. Primed white then washed with Secret Weapon Sepia wash. Something funny happened with the wash on Ekhis and the male Novitiate, but I'm not inclined to spend any time fixing it. Delphyne (red riding hood) and Ekhis (big bad wolf) are the Knight and Cypher combo for this cadre. Ekhis doesn't properly fit on his 40mm base, so he got a cork extension. The big golems are Librarians (the starter box actually only comes with one), and the other humans are a squad of Noviates.

Since I'll be finishing the minis in my Doctrine WIP thread pretty much one at a time, they'll each be getting their own Show Off thread. First up, SDE Kisa: Her varnish didn't go on quite evenly, and dried all weird. I managed to smooth it out, but had already taken the photos (and I'm lazy). As always, C&C welcome.