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.

Space Wolf Rune Priest

Thoughts on Basing miniatures, a simple base can be just as effective as a big base it all depends on how well it is executed. The colours I have used will aslo be used to paint parts of the miniature. Im going overboard with the colours on this base as its a little bigger and and I want it to reflect the harsh cold nature of Fenris and tie into the Power weapon and runes on the space wolf.

So After looking around at some fancy basing and spending A LOT of time over at Massive Voodoo. I have decided to deviate from the standard rock drybrush. Starting by airbrushing some colour variation on to the rock base before I go for the highlights.

The colours I used are Matt Black, German Grey, French Blue, Livery Green, and Wolf Grey. I didnt use pure Livery Green I mixed it with the blue and grey to get a teal colour.

A shout out to Zab at Almost Perftec nice Idea to put the paints in a pic so you can match to the closest colour you have, and I can remember later what I used too!

Next I used a mixture of the same colours for each area but lighter than the airbrushing, I started off with near black and brushed with a slightly wiped brush into the deepest cracks and areas where there would be shadow. After that I used wolf grey with a touch on green in places and wolf grey with a touch of french blue in places, then pure Wolf grey. I have not highlighted up to white as I'm not sure if I the white will get lost in the snow effects.

I have decided that I'm going to go with woodland scenic soft flake snow and a mixture of  realistic water for an icy feel and pva for softer powdery snow. Still waiting on my snow to arrive, post man must be busy.

 

Arcane Paintworks

So I have recently found out that Meg Maples is coming to Australia and New Zealand for a tour and will be holding master classes across the two countries.

I had a look for something like this months ago and now I have this opportunity. I have enrolled and I'm looking forward to the 2 day course.


 I'm looking forward to painting the Steampunk Dorothy from Guild of Harmony for the class.

Meg will be covering the following topics in my class and leave the remaining time for open Q&A. ( I hope I can squeeze in some basing Q's)

• Mini prep--cleaning, gluing tricks, priming
• Basecoating--paint consistency and undercoats
• 2 brush blending
• Glazing
• Freehand
• Faces, skin and hair
• Colour theory
• True Metallics vs NMM vs Sky-Earth NMM
• Pigments--weathering, color shifting, pearlescent, dayglow
• Display base discussion
• How to store minis
• Competition vs tabletop vs display
• Palettes; Well vs Wet

So Im looking forward to the class in Feburary and Im sure it will arrive faster than I expect.

Chaos Lord

I have been quite busy getting things done before Christmas but I managed to lay down some colours on the inside of the cloak, I will put a few glazes to define the folds on the cloak.

Blocked in the grey for some NMM unsure if Im going to pain the shoulder guard gold or silver.

I'm a bit sad I took of the chaplains shoulder pad to paint the bolter and came back from the wedding last weekend and have tuned the desk upside down, I do know that my little girl was giving my keyboard a good mash, So its possible I have lost it or once I paint a new one it will turn up. I will have to wait and see.