Cold Snap!

This unusual Ice elemental posed a real challenge with all these different facets pointing this way and that!  It also meant having to work in a narrow range of blues, blue greens and even blue-gray.

The shadow areas not only required more of that blue gray, but also some teal mid tones in order to convey some semblance of translucency.

I do have a Facebook live video on another ice elemental from Mierce Miniatures which gives you an idea of what I am talking about:  https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10212023583879015/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

I will definitely try to create another full scale tutorial on painting Ice Elementals at some point, so stay tuned!

Travelling Trolls

Here's a combination of different trolls from various manufacturers (I don't remember for sure which one is made by whom), starting with this interesting and quite tall chap.

As you can see, there's a wide variety of pose and personality to each sculpt, but I tried to keep them unified via color scheme and basing.

There were a few basic elements to that color scheme, and the basing was kept unified by utilizing the same type of bulletin board cork and the sculpted mushrooms.

The Vallejo Environment Moss paint created an interesting color/texture effect on the rocks and mushrooms which contrasted nicely with the muted, cool grays. 

The Evil Eye

I have painted a lot of trolls over the years, but I must say this is one of the more unusual!

The bulging eye was pretty wild, and gave me a chance to paint a lot more of the eye than I would normally have. I could work around the outer edges of the eye, creating veins, etc.

I also used the Vallejo Environment Moss and Lichen.

That does have an interesting effect, which is super matte and a slight bit of thickness as well.

I put some Secret Weapon Miniatures Realistic Water over the eye to give it a little gloss.  That is something I do a lot more these days, as having that gloss effect allows the highlight on the eye to "track" wherever the lights happen to hit it.

Cave Dweller

This is one of the more entertaining trolls that I have had to work on... he definitely has an attitude!

He had to be painted as a cave troll, to match a few others that were part of the group, which meant I had to get as much depth as I could with various grays.  These were shifted cooler and warmer, with some purples and magenta being used as accent colors.

I sculpted a few mushrooms for the base, which you can see a little better in the image on right.  I also used the Vallejo Moss and Lichen environment medium, which was really interesting.  That is the yellowish color on the mushrooms and on the stones surrounding it.

That has a bit of a texture to it, and it really does look more "dimensional" than if I had just used some regular paint.  I will be using this on some more figures which are part of this group, so I will try and do more of a step by step for you.  Stay Tuned!

Swingin' the Blues

One more of the blue Vikings for you!  These guys are done in the style of my Army of the Dead, just substituting blues for the greenish glow.

Here's a peek at those Army of the Dead:

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2016/06/and-dead-shall-rise.html

The Army of the Dead will also be part of the Army Painting series (the $15 level) on the Patreon Page.  I will take your through the basing process all the way through the glowing and corrosion effects.  I have the figures prepped, and the paints are ready!  

There's already 3 complete series up on the page now, and each set of episodes contains 10-13 hours of videos.  Here's a link to the page:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Blue Notes

It can be very interesting to see how the same technique can look quite different depending on the primary color choices that you make.  In this case, the blueish ethereal glow was requested, but with the "weathered" look I had done for my Army of the Dead.

Here's a view of some of those Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead:

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2016/04/army-of-dead.html

Just as I did with the Army of the Dead figures, I tried to change the intensity and hue of the blues.  In some areas, the color was more pure, and in others as grayed down as possible.  This time around I had the Secret Weapon Weathering paints, which is very handy!

I will be redoing my Army of the Dead force for Lord of the Rings, and this time around I will be filming it in tutorial form for the Patreon Page.  Once I get that painted, terrain videos and battle reports will follow!

Staying in the Game

Here's another one of the board game style figures... made from the same type of semi hard plastic you typically see from a Zombicide set.

As I have mentioned before, the sanding sticks have been extremely helpful in getting rid of the mould lines, which are usually a major pain to deal with.  I get the packs which have a variety of grits, which means that I can use the heavier grit to take away the mould line, and then the finer sticks to sand away the rough scratch marks left behind by the coarse sticks.

I am very glad that I learned about that particular trick before the Song if Ice and Fire minis came in, since this method was very effective in getting rid of the mould lines on those too!

More from the Deep

We return to the unusual combination sea creatures once more!  This was also the first figure that I tried to use much more saturated oil colors. Up until this point, most of what I had done with the oil paints had been earth tones and more muted colors.

That turned out to be very helpful on a much larger creature such as this, where there were so many color transitions to carry across the entire figure.  The extended drying time meant that I could work my way around the figure, blending along the way.

It was particularly important to have that ability here, since those transitions between very light colors (which are normally considered opposites!) would have been much more difficult.

Here's a review on the basing:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/06/bark-and-branch-under-sea.html

This blog post has some links to the original kickstarter where this series of figures was released, and to a live session where I painted another these large creatures using oils:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/06/what-lurks-under-sea.html

From the Wastes

The latest Mystery Mini is part of another project that involves a number of Mad Max style minis.

This one was a resin/plastic cast, and almost seemed like a "game piece" of some kind.

It was requested that the skin tones not be the usual Ork green, so I tried to utilize purples and more standard skin tones to make it seem like this was more of a mutated human kind of creature.

There's many more of these on the way, so lots of Mystery Minis to identify!!  Stay tuned.

Super Soldiers

I do not know who made these guys, but they have been an interesting addition to all the other projects going on.

In this case, all of these are being painted with regular acrylic paints.  As usual, I try to "mesh" together various projects that use similar colors.  I have a few others that utilize many of the same greens and browns (in acrylics), so that is one reason why oils are not being used.

For instance, even the logos and numbers were being done on many other figures while I was doing these... you will see those soon as well!

More individual and group pictures are on the way from this set of figures, so stay tuned!

Horse and Rider

Here are some more images from the set of figures done completely with oils.  As I have discussed in previous posts, the advantages offered by oils have been very nice to work with!

I already talked about those hard to reach areas, etc., but this set of images shows how much fun you can have with NMM and painting something like the horse.

Both of those elements have a lot of subtle color transitions, and being able to blend that wet oil paint across the surface was a huge help!  The horse had a lot of decently sculpted musculature on it, as well as a good face.  Getting the tan/grey fur colors to transition into the much darker colors on the legs was a matter of blending, as opposed to several layers of glazing!

Here's a live session that really shows how this blending works!

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10212917227339543/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab