Search the Community

Well reposting my work as said,.. This is Alastriel. One of my first try on freehands, Together with her pet dragon Furnace.

This is my Spring Exchange mini - per some discussion with my exchange partner, I decided to give her a 'wand' of sorts, instead of a sword. I dunno why but the snake just happened. It seemed to fit. Anyway, to convert her sword arm to a wand, I basically cut and rotated the arm at the wrist, GSd a bunch of the now gaps (including one that happened on the back of her cloak). I whittled down the sword, cut off the hand guard and ended up making a kind of wooden hilt/handle for it (not sure the wood grain comes across). I'm not 100% enthused with how her cloak came out, still trying to really master blending and highlighting. I am pleased with her eyes though, as it's really the best I've managed so far, her skin is ok at a distance, but isn't as blended as smoothly as I'd like closer in. I kinda went with 'better part of valor'* at this point, and decided not to mess with it anymore, for fear of making it worse. The base I decided on a simple overgrown dungeony type, to fit in with her being a RPG mini. Spoiled incase intended recipient would rather have a surprise ;) And also because not sure if her bare one cheek is PG enough or no for the forums.

So, since I have a Narthrax on my table to build and really haven't done *anything* with Bones yet, I figured I'd buy a 3-pack of skeleton swordsmen to practice a bit on. Unfortunately, my kids had other ideas and after they got done painting, I had a 0-pack of skeleton swordsmen. Luckily, my local gamestore keeps some starter sets around (a bones figurine and 5 paint bottles for $15) and one a month or so back had all 5 of the colors being ones that I didn't have, I picked it up, which meant that after the newly minted painters finished, I still had something to work with before tackling Narthrax. Not really sure that I like how she turned out - I had some issues with the paint sticking to the plastic, particularly in the crevices, and I've not really figured out how to dry-wash right yet - but that's true of *all* my minis, not just her.

Alright, so I started this little lady in one of my classes at Reapercon - Brice Cocanour gave her to us to practice on and I decided to finish her up when I got home. This was my first serious attempt at NMM on the sword and my first attempt at painting a crystal, as well as just putting into practice the blending and proper highlighting that I learned in class. I could have spent the rest of my life working on refining her, but it was time to call her done and move on. Thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions in her WIP thread (which is here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/71503-77203-alastriel/ ) I really appreciate the comments and help. Although I'm calling her done, please don't hesitate to give any additional C&C - it'll help me to keep improving!

Ok so at Reapercon, I took a bunch of beginner classes because I figured I needed some good instruction on the basics since I taught myself to paint through tutorials, videos and feedback here on the forum. I loved all of the classes but in Brice Cocanour's Everything I Wish I Knew When I Started Painting, proper blending, highlighting and contrast really clicked for me. He gave us this mini, pre-primed in both black and then white for the lighting and had us choose our own colours and practice on her cloak. I chose MSP Tropical Blue and MSP Spectral Glow. Here's where I was after class (excuse my hastily taken hotel picture): And now here she is after tonight (excuse my terrible lighting): I can see where I need to work on the blending a bit more, but I'm pretty proud of how she's looking. Comments and criticism welcome, as always!

I painted this up yesterday evening. I'm pretty happy with it overall but there's a lot of nit picky things that I would adjust, which I might go back and do later. It's for one of husband's RPG campaigns so it needed to be done ASAP. I got my light box but it's missing a piece so until it shows up I'm stuck with not so great cell phone photos. This was my first attempt at subtle makeup. I'm not even sure if you can really see it in the photo though. I'm happier with the eyes than I usually am, hopefully this means I'm getting a little better at it. Comments and advice are greatly appreciated.

This was heavily inspired by James Wappel who painted the model in similar fashion.

These are two figures I did for table top. I started Lysette awhile back before I learned a different way to do eyes. When I picked her back up, I decided not to redo the eyes so she has a "deer in the headlights" look about her. I tried several different things on her - glazing, a little "what happens if I add purple and yellow to her red hair?", and a touch of two brush blending. Alastriel also got to be a guinea pig. She got my first dark skin tone, two brush blending, and freehand. It was a good lesson in what worked and what didn't and how to improve on the next one. Alastriel isn't based yet. I think she may get some sand. Anyway, I have just been trying out some different techniques and trying to up my skill. I want to enter a painting competition so I need more practice!