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For my ReaperCon entry this year, I painted my Iron Cobra and a chest that I sculpted for one of the Bones KS's. I'm not entirely happy with these pictures, as the blue seems to be diminished in them (the background and steel colors are actually light blue; maybe it is my monitor?). I may adjust them later and re-post, but for now, they're pretty close (as close as I can get when photographing metallic paint). Oh, and I placed a Gold Medal with this in the Open Category.

Hopefully an easy question regarding NMM. I hear a lot of talk about doing NMM vs. TMM but my question is, what are the advantages of NMM over TMM? I know that typically, NMM will likely take a bit longer than TMM (unless I am just misinformed) but the main advantage that jumps out at me is that NMM are better on your brushes, which I suppose could mean that you can use better brushes with it, which in turn may yield a better result. I'm guessing there's more to it than that though so I am curious as to what everyone's thoughts on it were. Are they simply that much better once you get the hang of it? Is it just for the challenge/enjoyment aspect of doing it with NMM? Something else? I'm not really sure that I'm ready to try tackling it yet anyway but am just curious as to what can be done with them and if its something worth putting into the ole idea file so to speak. As a beginner, using TMM has certainly been nice for creating that metallic feel but I see enough comments on NMM that I'm guessing I'm also missing something. ;)

After not having painted in a while, I speed painted the Bones brass bull this afternoon. It was a bit of an experiment as I had not used any paints from my new VMA metal set yet. It would be nice if they had a little more opacity, but heavily oxidized is good too.

practicing my shaded metallics technique - has brought me too Garrick AKA Sir Forescale aka Justin Forscale.

Working on my TMM not sure about the blade, more happy with the shield. basing chosen to reduce the monochrome.

Ok, I finished enough to not feel too bad letting her leave the desk and sit on the shelf! Whooo! This is Shennay, one of the busts from the Spanish company AresMythologic. I'm enjoying painting busts so much when I tried to go back to 54 mm this weekend I got irritated that I couldn't put all the detail in the face and eyes like I wanted! Heaven forbid a return to 25 mmm!! She's 1/12th scale resin, comes all in one piece and was fairly easy to prep so she's a friendly starter bust. For this project I decided to practice my transparent cloth, whites, freckles, red hair and TMM. I wanted to play with complementary colors, so this is done mostly in red and green. I used the red to shade the green as well. My WIP is here with some details including the colors I used. Enjoy! C&C always welcome and if I can explain anything or help out, let me know! Because of the transparent cloth effect, I've linked the naughty pics: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0k4trgyx0daer7a/shennay19.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/3752mpjqpnxzh17/shennay22.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/nvi7xiy96hxbzd9/shennay23.jpg?dl=0 Here are a few others that are safer: Sometimes she reminds me of Ce'Nedra... except, er, bustier.

Right. So since I'm set to teach of skin this year as well as "hard colors" I'm taking every opportunity to push my skills and try new things so that at least I have some good examples to share. I was just going to paint this one and be done with it, but I ran into a snag, did take a few in progress shots, so I thought I'd share my "failure" in order to use it as a learning experience. I say this because I think it's important. Everyone makes mistakes. They are all fixable. The mini does not have to be dunked in simple green and stripped. Even something that makes me cringe, I know I can salvage. It just takes patience and a bit of work. Gotta be positive! At any rate, that said, here's some learnin'! I picked this bust up because the euro took a dive over the summer and I'd been eyeing some of these minis, so I laid in a small stock. She's purty! So, progress: I fiddled for awhile trying to decide what color to use for the leather. So, color theory: Red + Green = WIN. Since I wanted a redhead, I decided some bright green was in order. I'm mixing it into the armor and the corset. These are good for contrast because they're complementary. When using complements I have to be careful not to make both of them too intense. So the reds here are desaturated to some degree- they live in the iron oxide instead of cadmium family, so hey're softer. I can get away with a brighter green in exchange. I'm trying to keep the colors value different as well. That's one of the things that trips minis up. I usually use this example: Same value = no contrast So when picking colors I'm careful to try to vary them as much as possible. If that makes sense. Next, I want a freckled redhead. Cause' reasons. Plus, need to work on my layering and how better to do that than to work on skin markings! So, I start by setting down some freckles. Notice how they look tacked on? Skin marking live in the dermal layer of the skin. Skin is bunches of slowly dying flat transparent layers over top of a bunch of other living material. The pigments live deep. The same goes for tattoos. So, it stands to reason that if I don't put some layers of my skintone over this, it won't look right. Ok- gotta actually go do my real job. I promise to get to the great mistake of doom soon!

14391: Overlords Onyx Phalanx Not sure on the direction I want to go on this one. Right now I am working with 2 different colors: Gunmetal for the main armor and Honed Silver for the highlights, etc. I may end up tinting the metal, but i'll cross that bridge later. Suggestions would - as always - very much welcome, seriously I would appreciate peer review style comments! Here is two different lighting for a start comparison.

03190: Blacktongue, Gnoll Ranger By John (Tre) Manor The WIP: 03190: Blacktongue, Gnoll Ranger Brothers Of Tooth And Claw Sige -------- Barton -------- Pa'oul -------- Dagmar Dust of the Colosseum - Part 3 I was sitting on the opposite end when he sprinted to a stop after the gates rose. Before the dust could settle he was already reaching for an arrow. We had never seen a beastman archer before but then again no one had ever seen what had happen that day. That bow of his, black as night. They say it was made from the root of the elder tree in the Nether forest. But I think it was his eyes that capture the attention of the crowd; piecing ebony stare. After he let fly his first arrow the crowd yelled out his name, “SIGE, SIGE, SIGE!†The sound of his arrows screaming across the battleground made him a crowd favorite. It was truly freighting to think of an entire pack of these fellows hunting you. Name prononcation: [siig] like signature _____________________________________________________________ *White balance only* Thanks for all the encouragement. I feel the force growing in me! How does everyone feel I am progressing? C&C Welcome!

One of my January painting goals was to branch out and paint a mini from a company that I had yet to paint a mini from. I chose the Kingdom Death hard plastic pinups in part to see how well their assembly goes and in part to see how durable the hard plastic they're using is. Another goal I had was to try something new, which for January was the Scale75 flesh paint set. For anyone interested in the details you can get them in my WIP. Of course, we're now into February and I've pretty much set the same goals for myself. This time the something new was attempting to paint marble. I ended up going with a white marble with blue-grey and ocher veins. I like how it looks from above, but my freehand on the backside didn't turn out as well. First the 360 view: From above the gold mask and my attempt at "natural" reddish-brown hair: And a few views of how the marbleizing effect turned out. And last a bonus closeup. She was a fun mini to paint. I'll have to find the time to work through the rest of the box, but first I have a quick and easy mini primed and ready to go.

02785: Sabertooth Tiger Man The WIP: 02785: Sabertooth Tiger Man Buckler and base Conversion for the Sabertooh Tiger Man Brothers Of Tooth And Claw Sige -------- Barton -------- Pa'oul -------- Dagmar Dust of the Colosseum - Part 2 The bars of the gate… blood stained: What they hold back is The Dagmar of the Jungle. Four guards stand in wait for the signal. Spears trained on the beast, none of them will be lazy again after the last time. In his cell The Dagmar stood trying to talk to his guard, “Why are you watching over me?†The guard’s eyes glanced toward the naked beast man. “No answer… I’veff had many of dayss in the bloods of my enemiess, today I'm bound to destroy peoples I do not knows… Grind-my-tooths, this’s not honorable, not best for anyone but this king… Blahh! I swear upon my brethren I will see my tooth an' claw upon his fresh beating heart!†The guards glance turned into rage. Pressing into the bars the guard rattled the cage out of anger over the words spoken about his king. “That is the King of… AHhh gahh," taking advantage of this opportunity, Dagmar reached with both hands grabbing the guard. In one swift movement the guards head was sheared off from his body and his abdomen splayed open. Standing behind the bars Dagmar leans into his stance every muscle tense for the trumpets call. The spears of the guards ticking the fur on the beast man’s back... _____________________________________________________________________________________ This Buckler is my first attempt at free hand. It is suppose to match the design on the hilt of the sword. The face is a new endeavor as well: Those are Whiskers... from my own hair. What do you'll think, yah or nah? I was particularly proud of the wet blending on the fur. I would really enjoy hearing back from you guys about ways to improve. C&C Welcome! :) :) :)

True Metal Metallics vs Non Metal Metallics I found this blog post very informative and thought provoking. I'm solidly on the side of TMM over NMM and have been for a while now, but reading what a pro like Meg Maples says about it is really interesting. Also curious what the rest of the community has to say about their preferences after reading this post.

I've been painting for nearly a year now, but I've never been happy with the TMM work I've done. This community has been really helpful in giving advice on some other pieces I've done, so I decided to pick out a handful of mini's with a lot metal on them, and put up a WIP. Hopefully, by the time I'm done I'll be much better. The finalists are: From left to right - 77055 - Anval Thricedamned, Evil Warrior - 77094 - Trista, the White Wolf - 77168 - Battleguard Golem - 77023 - Barnabus, Human Warrior - 77058 - Almaran the Gold, Paladin I've started prepping Almaran, hopefully I'll get some time to paint this weekend and be able to get some pictures up. References: http://mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=878 http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1232-painting-metallics http://monkeyman7x.com/articles/metals-silver/ [edit 5/16/2014: added references]