Twiggy and Squiggy

These cute little guys from Malifaux might spoil your camping trip!  The personality of these was definitely more unique and characterful than the typical GW Dryads.

They don't look terribly aggressive, you never really know...

I think that Twiggy and Squiggy get up to all kinds of hi jinx in the woods, messing around with hapless humans, putting out campfires, etc.

They are definitely more "whispy" than the GW versions, so assembling them can be more of a challenge. However, it was well worth it, as it was very fun to work with greens, oranges and other interesting tones in the mid tones and even the shadows!

I am Groot

These Malifaux Dryads were really interesting to paint, and certainly very different from the GW versions!

I was able to do some fun things with the muted tones... working in plenty of greens and even a few purples here and there to create some of that "hidden" contrast.

I think you can see some of that in these views.  To compliment those greens and purples, I also incorporated some of the Secret Weapon rust colors.

By virtue of the types of textures that I was dealing with, I could do a lot of glazing, which is fun.  These didn't just darken colors, but they also tinted them towards one shade or another.  Stay tuned for more!

Give that Dog a Bone!!

Here's another version of the Malifaux hell hounds.  Just as I did with the first hound, I made a series of glazes to establish the darks and shadows.  The fur texture on the figure was very fine, so I had to bring more of that out with actual brush strokes.

I worked mostly with the Reaper Liner paints, which are fantastic in that they can be thinned down to a great degree, and yet keep their color integrity.  They remain dark and heavily pigmented.  By adding a light, opaque color to them, I was able to create some nice mid tone fur colors as well.

I always enjoyed painting wolves in 2D, so I have fun whenever I get the chance to paint them in 3D! :-)  When I did the original set of Painting Pyramid instructional videos, painting fur certainly had to be part of it!!  

Here's a few scenes from that video:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/07/whos-afraid-of-big-bad-wolf.html

Chew Toys

It has been a long time since I have had a chance to paint a Malifaux figure, so this set of hounds was a treat!

There were a lot of glazes involved with each one, but on this hound in particular I made sure to include some of the grayish blue glazes that I was using on some of the other hounds that looked more like wolves.

By making the highlights a bit more yellow, the grayish blue registered as more greenish to the eye.

I am always talking about context in miniature painting, and this is another area.  Basically making the eye think it is seeing one color, when it is actually another.

This can provide more depth and interest to your figures without having to mix and place endless layers of opaque paint, especially when you also have to deal with a very fine texture such as the fur.

It was not very pronounced at all, which meant that I could adjust it by freehand applications in the highlights and shadow areas.

Since these figures are a similar color, you can check out this YouTube live session where I talk about this concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbiEdQGIqu4

One more time

Here's the last of Cathy's Malifaux.  Some of you might recognize the barrel.  This was something Cathy sculpted a while back, and it was the inspiration for a part of one of the basing videos.

Ironically, this barrel turned out to be almost the exact size of Cathy's sketch, sight unseen :-)

So, all that needs to be done is some painting!

Taelor made...

Here's another one of Cathy's Malifaux crew.  This time it is Taelor.

It looks like she had a lot of fun with this base!  The Secret Weapon Miniatures torsos proved useful.  I like the hand reaching up out of the water!!

Student of Conflict

Here's another installment of Cathy's Malifaux crew!

More to come!

Cathy's Malifaux Ronins

OK, back to Cathy's new Malifaux crew.

Here are the three Ronin characters, which she meticulously posed on her sculpted bases.

If you remember her other designs, positioning the gals was even more delicate!  Those will come later.

It will be very cool to see these all painted!

Another dose of Malifaux

This morning we have one last collection of Malifaux figures.  I enjoyed painting this one... especially making the base from sculpey and flex paste.

Some very unusual zombies!

A Victoria...

Steampunk spider!

Wyrd Miniatures Gallery #2

Here is the second installment of the Malifaux gallery of images.

This first piece was a bit worrisome, since you had metal bird men is each tiny hand at the end of a spindly arm.  Remember what I said a week ago about true scale?  This is quite dramatic, but I would have preferred heroic scale hands, etc.

Wyrd miniature Gallery #1

Here are some miniatures I painted for Wyrd that you have probably seen at a GenCon...