Taking it to the next level

This figure is "Capt. Nee Sun", a 28mm scale resin master from Hasslefree Miniatures. IMO, Kev White sculpts the best human figures in 28mm scale. His "resin master castings", though more expensive than Hasslefree's regular resin or metal models, are extremely cleanly cast, and capture most of the detail of the original, epoxy putty sculpt.

I started this thing 18 months ago, and worked on her face during a 2015 painting seminar with Rick Taylor.

I decided to finish her after recently leafing through Angel Giraldez' book, "Painting Miniatures from A to Z: Masterclass Vol. 2". Angel's painting method uses both airbrush and bristle brushes to accomplish prodigious feats of painting. His style is marked by very high contrast between highloights and shadows, and pure white highlights and catch-points to emphasize cast light. Sometimes there's not even a lot of blending, but rather bold slashes of colour. I find the style very painterly, like old Dutch masters such as Peter Paul Ruebens.

I started as always with zenithal highlighting, using an airbrush to blow Testors Acryl flat white at a downward angle over P3 black primer.

Below, I used the Vallejo face painting set to lay in the basic colours for the face. Note the photo of British actress Natalie Dormer, with her head shaved for the role of Cressida from the Hunger Games movies, used as a photo reference.



Here's the full shot of Ms. Dormer:

Below, oils laid in. Note that I cannot seem to paint eyes with just acrylics. Contrast is a little less, since this is a female figure and I wanted to soften some of her features.



The stubble effect on her shaved head was done with very thin dots of Winsor and Newton indigo oil paint mixed with Liquin, kinda patted and pushed around the flesh of her head with a clean brush.



Details of the face. The face had been "done" since last year. Last week, I used  Weber's Pro Mix colour system to slightly lighten her cheeks below her eyes. I also went back in and with tiny amounts of alizirian crimson, burnt sienna, peach black, and titanium white, added more contrast, respectively, to the lips, right eye, nose, and left upper eyelid,



Her hair was painted with various tones, mixing titanium white, gold ochre, and burnt sienna oil paints.



The visor was highlighted shaded with mixes of indigo and titanium white oils. A couple of white catchpoints were added, showing reflections off the visor.



Her weapon,interestingly, is described by Hasslefree as a rifle firing either 10mm depleted uranium slugs, or flechette rounds. I used a Nuln Oil wash to darken the rifle, used the Vallejo NMM set's  Turquoise acrylic to show some reflections,  and picked out edges and tiny details with titanium white oil.



The 25mm resin base is from Studio Mcvey's Sedition Wars line. The base was glazed with Vallejo Stone wash, and weathered with various oils and Vallejo powders. Details again picked out with titanium white.



I used several glazes of Citadel Thrakka Green over the armour, just enough to tint the armour in highlighted areas, with more layers for shadowed areas. I lined around the armour plates with Winsor and Newton Greensih Umber, and picked out some catch points in pure titanium white. Various scratches were added to the armour, using Sennelier Peach Black oil paint, highlighted generally at the bottom of the scratches with titanium white. I weathered the armour with oils and Vallejo weathering powders.



I painted a similar Hasslfree resin master almost two years ago. The techniques I used back then are very similar. However, for the present fig I have used much more contrast, used more catch points of pure white, and weathered the armour and base.

More Hasslefree Dwarves

First off, I have to say "thanks" to my fellow Conscripts Dave, Greg and Byron for keeping up the blog this summer. I can't actually remember my last post here off the top of my head but I know it's been a long time (since I've even picked up a paintbrush)... but anyway, "Winter is Coming" and it's time to get back to painting.

I've gotten back into it with a cracking bunch of figures from Hasslefree to round off the Dwarven warband I've been building for Otherworld fantasy skirmish.

I painted this female dwarf to be the interim leader of the warband, although I do have another Hasslefree character on the paint bench who might fill that role later. Anyway, "Adalheid" (for it is she) is a fantastic model and was "a joy to paint" as they say. Just enough detail to be interesting without overwhelming, and the face and anatomy are spot on.

The rest of the group are from the good old "Dwarf Multi-Pack" of four dwarves with hand weapons. I converted this one to be the standard-bearer for the warband. I'm not thrilled with the banner though, as I'd used a transfer for the Griffon device and painted it over, but some of the edges didn't adhere so well. Easy enough to rip off and redo later. The finial is from a Mordheim sprue I think.

Here are the three other lads in rather aggressive posture.

And here's the entire warband so far. We'll get at some skirmish gaming with these soon, I reckon. Anyway, here's hoping that this is the start of a fruitful winter painting season :-)

Sedition Wars Project - Vanguard Update

This past weekend I finished three more special characters for the Vanguard: Captain Kara Black, Specialist Barker Zosa, and Corpsman Morgan Vade.

Zenithal highlighting: primed with Black P3 spray, airbrushed white highlights. Multiple thin glazes of Games Workshop Asurmen Blue, and Gryphon Sepia washes for the uniforms and weapons. These three figures were not in armour, so I used a variety of acrylic washes and thin glazes of oil paints to bring out the details of their clothing, boots, web gear, and accouterments. Oils included Sennelier's Peach Black, Mussini's Burnt Sienna, Winsor & Newton's Burnt Umber, Gold Ochre, Titanium White, and Winsor Blue, and several neutral tones from Weber.



I used various shades of gray and white oil paints for the reflections off the blade of Kara's sword...



...and Barker's tank top and exo-skeleton (with some rust stains added to the latter).





The photos don't show it well, but I used thin glazes of a Weber light flesh toned oil paint on Morgan's gloves to make them look like latex over flesh.





I now have a compact force of various Vanguard infantry and drones.



The Strain are next in my painting queue, but I do have future plans to add to my Vanguard:

• Three more plastic Samaritans from the boxed set and a Studio McVey resin Grenadier will bulk out the armoured Samaritan  infantry. 
• To represent Gnosis Battlesuit Kara Black I ordered  one of Studio McVey's just-released resin heavy powered armour models. I love everything about this new line of minis.
• Several of the in-game SW characters are based on other movie and TV franchises. To represent SW's Hexen Phaedrus (the android "Six" from the re-boot of Battlestar Galactica), I have a metal casting of Hasslefree's HFSF115 Gina. To represent Dr. Susan Ridley ("Ripley" and "Newt" from Aliens) I purchased a couple more Hasslefree figs, HFSF001 Signee and HFSF002 Billie the Hunted.

Sedition Wars Project - Mini-update

I just finished a figure representing Tech Comm Kara Black for Sedition Wars, using a resin master of Hasslefree's Sci-fi Scout Prototype 1.



Zenithal highlighting: primed with Black P3 spray, airbrushed white highlights. Multiple thin glazes of Games Workshop Thraka Green (now Biel-Tan Green), Asurmen Blue, and Gryphon Sepia washes for the armour, under-suit, and plasma carbine, respectively. Visor under-painted in GW Golden Yellow, Blood Red, and Red Gore, then detailed and blended with Cadmium-Barium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Scarlet, and Titanium White oils.



The lighter armour works for a Vanguard officer figure, but is not too dissimilar from the rest of the Samaritans' armour, especially the helmet.



Some nice little touches on the figure, like the overall stance, and right forefinger's knuckle underneath the glove. Kev White can surely sculpt.



In the game, Tech Comm Kara Black provides several "Tactics Counters" to the Vanguard tac-net during each turn, providing a lot of support to the infantry under her command. This game mechanic represents both combat skills and the networked capabilities of the Vanguard command, control, communications, and computing systems. I think Tech Comm Kara is a more interesting character than her clone sister, Captain Kara Black, the latter of whom is more the Hero-Hammer type of leader.

Tech-Priest, Dwarves, M113s, oh my!

Trying to squeeze in a few more posts before the end of the year... here are some models I've just finished for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge.

First up is an old Citadel Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest from the Rogue Trader era. This was a model I picked up recently from the estate of Tim, a friend of the Conscripts, who passed away suddenly last year. Godspeed, Tim.

The next group is some Hasslefree dwarves. These are really cracking little models, and very easy to paint.

The weapons and weapon hands are cast separately for flexibility in assembling your models.

For some reason I've been on a real fantasy kick lately - mainly due to the very cool stuff that "Oldhammer" aficionadoes have been posting on their blogs. Really gets the juices flowing to remember a simpler time, before skulls and "listhammer"...

Another order to Hasslefree is imminent.

Lastly we have some M113s from Baker Company, for my Eureka MOPP-suited Americans. Modern escalation has really been on lately - my Russians have scored a BMP-2 and Hind, so the Americans deserve an upgrade too.

The Baker Company models were a birthday present. As it happens, they are quite poor models and took a lot of work to get into acceptable shape. Baker realized this and sent a pack of Vietnam War US Army infantry with shotguns (!) as a sweetener, but unfortunately they're no good to me.

The stowage came from an ebay seller I've nicknamed the "South Korea Store" after the infamous "North Korea Store" that used to peddle those 1/48 Kitech armour kits for cheap. The resin stowage is great - albeit smelly - and you get a ton in a pack. This pack was designed for a Sherman tank but stowage is stowage, right?

I sculpted gas masks on the crewman to fit with the rest of the MOPP-suited force.
 

One of the tougher things to get my head around was the tactical markings that should go on these vehicles. After a ridiculous amount of Internet faffing about, I decided to go with "Reforger"-type exercise markings. At least with WW3 stuff no-one's gonna tell you you got it wrong!

Well that's my break done, back to the painting table and "Leafs/Red Wings 24/7". Stay warm kids!

Hasslefree Miniatures Space Elf

(Click the photos for larger images.)

As readers of the blog can easily guess, I am heavily into space elves. However, such pointy-eared freaks are not limited to Games Workshop. Hasslefree Miniatures has a very nice one in their 28mm scale line: HFS001 Ieuan.

The sculptor, Kev White, sculpts with great skill, having a very good sense of anatomy and stance. This figure radiates a real sense of power.

After cleaning up the figure, I added a plastic gem to its chest, cut from a GW Dire Avenger accessory, and I modified the stance slightly to take into account the slightly sloping resin base I got from Dragon Forge Design's Lost Empires line. I pinned the fig to the base using brass rod into the left leg.

The figure was primed black, and zenithal highlights were airbrushed in with flat white.

The face, gemstone and bio-weapon were undercoated in various acrylics and layered in thin glazes of artists' oil paints. The figure's face has a lot of character, and oils allow me to bring that out.



The hair and bodysuit/armour received multiple layers of Citadel washes. The white of the zenithal highlighting really shines through, making areas like the shoulders and calves pop.





The base also received Citadel washes. As with all my figs, I added some felt to the bottom of the base.





I am using the figure as a Fire Dragon Exarch armed with a Dragon's Breath Flamer. It is not usable in "official" Games Workshop events, but that may be less of an issue now in North America, since GW is no longer supporting their Tournament Circuit nor the 'Ard Boyz tournament series.

(From what I hear on the grapevine, Ed Spettigue is gone from GW. He was the organizer of these events. I had a great time at last year's Throne of Skulls torunament in Las Vegas, NV. It was well organized, and we players were treated very well, what with the included meals, open bar in the gaming hall, and the like. The biggest hobby events, like Adepticon, are all run now as independents.)

I've already used the figure in one game. Contrary to my usual experience, this newly painted fig survived the battle!

In addition to Hasslefree, there's several other companies making figures that are eminently usable in Warhammer and Warhammer 40K games. Examples include Raging Heroes, Scibor Miniatures, Avatars of War, and Chapter House Studios. They offer unique alternatives for heroes or specialists, or to fill gaps when GW doesn't manufacture a model for a unit listed in their codices.

For these photos I used an OPTEX Portable Studio and Lighting Kit, the same make and model that Conscript Dallas purchased awhile ago. I reccommend it highly.