How to Strip and Clean Metal Miniatures

I won an auction for some GW Ork Kommandos earlier this week, I'm looking forward to painting them in the near-ish future, I have a few other mini's on the go and want to finish at least 3 before I start 5 more!

So after a little search on stripping metal miniatures, note METAL miniatures. You will melt plastic and probably resin ones. I chose Acetone, and make sure you use personel Protective equipment (PPE) and clean them in a well ventilated area.

Here are the minis before I strip them, they had a rough time in the post so arms and blades need to be bent back to a nice pose.

 I removed the backpacks and bases, put the bases aside for possible recycling.

If you live in New Zealand or Australia you will have heard of Bunnings that's where I picked up some Acetone. Make sure you use gloves and do it out side, the caution is there for a reason! Pop your mini's in to the acetone and wait about 24 hours. What ever you put them in make sure you have a lid other wise the acetone will evaporate.Then you can scrub them clean.

After 24 hours the paint was coming off with ease, I tried after about 12 and the paint was a bit gloppy so left it longer. I used an old toothbrush to scrub them clean. After I had cleaned them up I washed them in hot soapy water and voila.

The acetone melted the glue holding the head and arm of one ork. There are a few mould lines to clean up.


Happy Painting

Sons of Medusa Final

Finished my Space Marine Sons of Medusa

 

You can vote on Cool Mini or not for him here

I'm Very Pleased with him and feel its a step up in my painting voyage.

Next up we have Rackham Thermo Dwarves, they are for  painting exchange with Zab and Demi over on Cool Mini or Not. you can find Zabs Blog here.

Happy Painting.

Sons Of Medusa WiP 3

Chipped armor with cracks and NMM Plasma pistol work.

I felt like I needed to make his armor and chain sword beaten up and the pistol clean and crisp to stand out.

You can see I have finished the freehand shoulder pad and started the Chips by making the black outlines and filling them in with the VMC mahogany and 2b2 the sand over the top to get a little colour variation. A white line under and black line around the whole chip helps to make it look "realistic" in a comic book way. You have to have a look at Camelson's work, He inspired me to change the style of chipping. Thanks Camelson.

I was not that happy with the look so I have made the cracks on the armor larger and tried to spread them out. I have gone over some of the white with the black lines so will have to re do them later. Below is the original with out so many cracks.

NMM Brass/Gold Plasma Pistol.

The colours used are much the same as usual but I added Dwarf Skin to the mix to make it a little more brass-ish, I think its turned out pretty well not so yellow.

I 2brush blended the initial colours then when back and glazed to get a finer finish.

NMM Brass/gold colours.

You maybe wondering where I used the Purple, it was for the darkest parts of the NMM work used only as a glaze to darken the Brown.

Thanks for looking comments welcome :)

Sons Of Medusa WiP 2

A little more work done yesterday. .

 Instead of telling you how I did it, I will show you the link from Dre4mit who came up with the idea for this type of base.

The Colours I have used before on the Chaos Lord Base, I did change it a little by also using Livery Green in a few small areas around the feet area. A final highlight of 50-50% white and wolf grey only for the highest points and areas I wanted to pick out.

Its not over yet there will be a few washes and pigments used to tie it in further.

Black lining with German Grey, for the sword Signal Blue then darkened with GG. I added a little glaze of Hexed Lichen purple to the shadows of the metal also. You will be pleased to see I drilled out the Plasma gun too.

Sons Of Medusa WiP

Sons Of Medusa

After seeing a WiP post on Cmon, overdosing on all things Sons of Medusa, and getting Kumi's Mini which is my last post. I felt the urge to paint one up. Due a rainy windy day I got the chance, getting 2 hours of painting in before my family got home.

Colours used;
white, golden yellow, livery green, splinter blotches, sick green, and signal blue.

Formula

Base - SG
Shadows -  SG,SB 40-60
highlight - LG, SB
second - LG
third highlight 30-30-40 LG, GY, W
(Metal basecoated in Stonewall grey)

You could skip SB if you wanted and mix LG and SG.

Glazing

The deepest shadows received SB
The Lightest parts received W with a tiny drop of GY
Last a SB across the transitions to smooth them out, the best part visible transition is the chain sword.

The glazing really pulls it together,I'm still thinking about the base so stay tuned for a surprise.

Links

SOM warhammer wiki
Lester's youtube paint job.

kikumiku7 Imperial Fist Marine

Today I have a little show and tell.

I have been following Kikumiku7's youtube/google+ channel for a while, after contacting him for a swap he was kind enough to send me a gift. Typically it arrived while I was at work, my wife called to say a package from Poland had arrived I knew who it was from but I didn't know what was inside!

While talking to him I offered some favoured space marine chapters and said "paint something that takes your fancy, a space wolf, crimson fist, or imperial fist", expecting it would take a while I surprisingly got a message back a day later "its done and in the post!"

 It's just AWESOME!

I'm very impressed with the colour combinations and the shades of yellow used. Battle damage is simple but effective. The Zenithal lighting is great and also pulls your eye to the most exciting parts of the mini. It's great to see a slightly different take on painting the bolter. Thanks Kumi, this will help improve my painting skills and give me something to look at while I'm at my desk.

On a side note readers, you may know about Massive Voodoo  but if not check them out, they have a wealth of info and here is the tutorial on Zenithal lighting if you're interested.

Happy Painting :)

Chaos Lord Showcase

Mega Mean Chaos Lord!

So after a rather long time and a new baby girl I have a finished mini I would like to share.
Higher res than on Coolminiornot but same images.

Enjoy, if you would like to swap him for an unpainted mini that would be great other wise I will be selling him in the near future.

Chaos Lord

I'm really looking forward to finishing the master of chaos, I have had some good feed back from CMON and some painter visitors I've had round.

I have done the basing and cleaned up a few things, still need to fix the back shoulder I had a mould line that went unnoticed and ruined the look. The horns on the other shoulder also need to be done.

 I'm temped to get some pigments on to the base to tie in the blue and red maybe, not so much dirt or mud just some colour. last but not least some specs of lava or heat crackles in the sculpted spear head.

Paints used for the base, I used the french mirage blue for the rocks and did 2 dry brushes of 50/50 wolf grey and FMB then a lighter final WG just across the top and edges. the others I used for the skulls, for the darkest brown I mixed in some FMB also. From my class last month black is not so good for shading.

Other news, I have pulled out a heldo rado mini that I started a while back and want to finish him. An interesting read that I found a few days ago Kinetic. Its a free magazine that has one issue at the moment it was a good read, nice articles on sculpting and painting with some of the top painters around.

I'm a little daunted buy the imperial fists mini at the mo I still need to sculpt the missing foot and other parts to make his stance look good, its slowly taking place. . . I have a few other  minis that have sparked my imagination and I'm busting to paint them.

Feb Wrap up.

Hi guys its been a busy month, I have not had as much time to spare as I would have liked but I have enjoyed looking after my 5 week old.

So Pics are better than words .

 Small amount of work on the spear blade NMM next step is to get some crackles of lava on the blade. The horns have been painted also, I used a few glazes and blends.

I went to a Master Class run by Meg Maples in February which was extremely useful, So to anyone out there who has been thinking about such a course I would highly recommend it. She teaches 2 brush blending which is the main focus of the course and you can get some great effects with it the steam punk Dorothy has been painted that way.Here is the link to the other students work enjoy.

Imperial Fists Basing

After playing around with the base and carving out some moon rocks for my scene, I think I have got it looking much better.

Here are the 2 options for his right hand, a bent elbow or a semi straight one with the same bolter. I Think I will go for the semi straight one, My reasoning is that it creates a triangular shape and the top of the triangle is his head which will be the focal point. Any thoughts on severed head position under the foot? 

I need to suck it up and fix the marine into position and sculpt his joints that I've cut to get the stance. Not forgetting his right foot, I might have to pop some extra milliput under and resculpt some moon rock for a steady footing.

Then I will hack up the genestealer (GS) in a dead pose. I am a little concerned about the size of the GS thigh it looks fine IRL but quite big in the shot, I'm thinking with the darker colours on the base to simulate sunrise it wont draw too much attention.

Imperial Fists, Base Re-Think

I have had an hour or so each night for miniatures, I'm currently addicted to getting the scene right for the imperial fist marine.



So after putting a base together I decided it looked too static and cut the mound off. I  looked up some scoria and squeezed some brain juice for a dynamic looking rock.


After thinking about it all day while on Daddy duties I had this idea.

I made the cork smaller and removed some of it so the finished piece will be a similar size to the cork.(once covered in milliput)

I think it looks much better, slightly positioned diagonally from the top view to create some depth also. 

 I was going to make it removable but my goal is to improve my painting skills not really use them for gaming. After fluffing around deciding if it was going to be socketed or not I reduced the height. THEN Thanks to Zab I cut another 2 layers of cork off so it looks much more like the sketch.

I have just glued the new formation to the old base, 2 hours to set. In case you are wondering what I used to glue it, expanding epoxy adhesive. That way I didn't have to bother getting a flat surface between the two pieces.

I will have to put a bit more milliput on to fill up the joint so I can sculpt it later.

Stay tuned. .

Miniature Conversion / Modifying Miniatures

In my research I have discovered modifying miniatures is called Miniature Conversion. In my last post it was pretty basic chop up a marine and blue tack him together to get the feel I was looking for.

Pinned the joints that I have cut, green stuffed the angles that I'm happy with and left it to set.

 I also put a magnet in his torso and waist so I could see how he looks with out going blue tack mad.

I have a fair amount of trouble getting the stance looking good, I had to widen it so it was equal to his shoulder as it was looking a bit out before.I've raided the Sean Connery head head from another kit, will need some TLC as there is a tiny mould line down the right side of his face.

I'm really starting to think about a banner for him to hold rather than the gun, it might loose the original concept, although if you lasted the night with monsters looking at you for dinner I think it would be a victorious morning.

Space Wolf Rune Priest Update

Looking at the base for the priest I just felt it needed to have that one last highlight so I did it, I think it looks a lot better now.

Happy Painting :)

Modifying Miniatures and Inspiration.

I quite like the Imperial fist marine done buy Thor here is his link and his finished mini below. Now its seems to me that a high end painter starts a trend with an award winning miniature and every one else replicates the idea in their own style and finesse. 

Thor Modelling Studio

So Thor painted his one for a client who was was inspired buy Volomir's work on Brother Fonsel. This was His entry in GD Germany 2008, it was awarded gold in single 40k.

Volomir's Blog

If you go to his blog you will see where his inspiration came from too!

 My Project pre stage 1

I'm still working on getting the pose right. I think I will have to shorten the bent leg's thigh to get it looking better.

Chainsword arm, cut his wrist and arm to adjust the sword to rest across his Knee.

I think I will swap the helmet for a face and put the helmet on the ground.

Change the helm that he is standing on for a geenstealers head.

Do I keep the bolter or swap it for something else or just give him a clenched fist and adjust his arm too.


I have chosen plain chest armor so I can hopefully nail the yellow transition and have it look really neat, I could be diswaded for a different on as I could need some thing to break up  the yellow too?

Scene

My Mind is thinking "Ridick" styles, monsters in the dark kinda thing. So having a dawn theme with him looking out to the sunrise on a clif type thing and a defined line on the base where darkness is below and a corpse of the headless geenstealer lays. It feels pretty epic to me.

Its Bold enough to challenge my skill with a different angle light source and modifications are all new to me. Currently stuck together with blue tack and missing half a foot Im still playing with compostion. Once Im happy with how he looks I will snap some reference shots so I can pin and milliput his new pose with references.

Ideas and expertise are appreciated.

New Baby Girl

On wednesday 15th, I had the pleasure of meeting my little girl. Her big sister is very chuffed about the "buba"

Baby duties for a week and a half and then back to work.

Descent Second Edition and happy New Year!

Happy New year to all!

 I am still deciding what my goals are this year for painting. All I know is that I want to keep on improving, Being active in the CMON forums is a great help so I will keep on with that. I'm looking forward to Meg Maple's Master Class in February, I expect I will learn a lot, somethings I know about and others I don't even know I will learn until I do!. 

I would quite like to score an 8 on CMON buy the end of the year, we will see what happens.

I'm going to enter the Wellington Golden Brush again this year run buy the local games workshop. I will try for all categories, I have until September to get them all done, So Ideas would be cool. I know they have been getting hauled over the coals for a while now but I still like their miniatures and try to paint a variety of brands. On a side note I'm looking forward to painting some rackham steam dwarves with Zab too.

News. .
My brother and I have been painting the board game Descent off and on for almost a year, having finished most of the monsters.Last weekend we  decided to start some hero's.

Our goal was to make the hero's as much like the cards as possible. Bear in mind these are works in progress, the only monsters that are finished (just need basing) are the fish bad boys!

Fish Monsters

 Dragon 1 the other will be green like the card, a few extra highlights to be done and details.

 Base colours have been laid, next is details and some small pure white highlights.

last but not least table top Ultra marine.