Eyes in the Sky

These little fellas will serve as Void Rippers for Five Parsecs from Home. Possible also giant bats in The Liche's undead army and other roles as well.

Figures from Ral Partha Europe's Das Schwarze Auge range.

Post Fest & Pre Deadcember

Forgot to post a few more things I picked up while I was gaming at the FLGS.

Fairly inexpensive, thought they would be good additions for theoretical future gaming.

The other thing I was checking out was board games suitable for solo play. I'm going to drop some heavy hints for Christmas. I'm leaning towards trying the D&D Temple of Elemental Evil board game as an entry level game. Open to other suggestions.


Deadcember and My Bleeding Eyes

Not much painting going on. Eyes are still having some problems, but hoping that I can start seeing clearly, and painting again by the end of the month. That brings me to Deadcember. I have some skeletal units started, I'd like to finish them, plus a few "wishlist" items that I'm not sure how to proceed with (don't have the figures!) Here's my plan for that...

Horde (40) of old plastic Citadel skeletons.
Regiment (20) of old Citadel & Black Tree armoured skeletons.
Horde (40-ish) of non-human humanoid skeletons (mixed manufacturers)

(...plus wishlist...)

2 really old plastic citadel skeleton cavalry (have 8, need 2 more)
2 skeleton standard bearers on skeletal steeds
2 skeletal characters ("lesser liches" or skeletal necromancers) on skeletal steeds

I wouldn't mind painting up a skeletal monster too, but I don't really have anything on hand at the moment.

Last Push for KoW Slaughter Fest

Trying to wrap up the last of the Nightmare Legion to form a horde for Slaughter Fest this weekend. (KoW tournament.) Need some highlighting, rust, and the shields. Just tonight and two more evenings to finish...

Unfortunately, I haven't been painting much, as my eyes are bleeding...

...literally.

I've also been finishing a couple of custom resin toys for an exhibit at Designer Con...

Musings

Eyes

I've started painting up some Westfalia hobbits. 16 figures. 13 crossbow, 1 gunner, and the wizard & apprentice. I think I've hit a turning point in my painting "career": I don't think I can paint the eyes.

I mean, I *can*. And I may paint the apprentice's eyes. But for most of the rank & file they're just too damn small. That's a good thing, in terms of the sculpting proportion & scale. Beautiful figures. But I don't generally paint eyes on 15mm figures, and although these are still a bit bigger than that, I don't think I'm willing to invest the time in it. My own, actual, functioning human eyes are aging. I'm in my mid 40s and I've recently been experiencing some changes in my eyesight (and general eye health, which I won't go into) and I've been trying to just take it as part of the natural aging process and not freak out too much. I did paint the eyes on the sample figures I got from Westfalia last year. I can actually see the eyes on these hobbits just fine, and my hands are still steady enough to do it. But as my time shrinks and there is some extra focus (haha) required to do these details well, I think I'm going to pass on painting eyes on some 25/28mm figures for the first time in my life. I know a lot of people don't bother, even on the human sized figures. And I understand and appreciate the logic behind that, especially in the greater context of what we see at various sizes & perspectives, and the representation of that in any art form. But I've always prided myself on doing a decent job with eyes, and always painted them. Until now.

(The previously painted hobbits.)

Paint

I've run into a bit of a paint problem. There are a few off-the-shelf paint colors that I can't live without. I sometimes get a bit OCD about this, and go on epic quests or start hording paints in order to stay supplied One is a sort of dark burnt sienna color whose use evolved from an old Poly S color, which I then found a good equivalent in Ral Parha's (I think) Minotaur Fur Brown, briefly I may have used a Citadel color, but then switched to a Vallejo Game Color equivalent. I can't read the label of the almost empty bottle in front of me, but looking online maybe it's Pestilent Brown? Sort of frustrating, because I need more. I am literally stretching the last bits of paint & pigment as far as I can. But I don't really have any good options (that I am aware of) for buying Vallejo locally. I've been trying to find more accessible alternatives but that has not worked out. I now have an Imperial ton of brown paints of various shades and qualities. I'm on the verge of just trying to mix my own. Like I said, it's sort of like a burnt sienna... but not quite. It's darker, but still retains that subtle reddish color that gives it a great touch of warmth.



Garagehammer

I've also been thinking about my plans for the Year of Gaming (aka my mid-life crisis, gaming style, in 2021 ;) ) and have some thoughts. Our new house isn't really a great space for gaming. But one of the trade offs we made with the small house, is a larger yard than our previous homes. And our garage is pretty clean and has, thus far, been unused (by us) for cars. So maybe I could try inviting some friends over for some Garagehammer in the summer. Long day of gaming, cook out on the grill, etc. My table tops are already stored in the garage rafters at the moment. I'm even tempted to make one or two more in order to accommodate larger games. If they're going to be out there, I may as well take advantage of the space, right? Especially if I want to try some all-day gaming. So... just something else I'm thinking about while hoping to get back to some sort of gaming ASAP.

(Previous photo from the old attic.)

Oh, the drama of a dedicated lifetime miniatures painter. ;)

"Eye Could Use a Little Hand With This"

The hand & eye were part of a 3d printed designer toy I customized for the release show at Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago next week. He's a little bigger scale.  ;) Just finished him up & put him in the mail.

Eyes

A recent forum discussion of Wargames Factory figures brought up the topic of the eyes on their latest figures. As I painted some of the newest figures, I had some personal experience. I thought I would try to show some close-ups and explain why I like this style of sculpting.

Click the images to enlarge.



Here's a step by step of a pair of really quick heads I painted as an example. Mind you, these are really close up, so every little irregularity of my painting is advertised for all to see. I think they look fine when viewed normally.

The way I've done the flesh & eyes is the same as any style of figure: base coat of flesh, followed by a wash, followed by some highlighting & maybe a bit of color. Then the whites of the eyes are painted. In any case, this is a horizontal line across the eye. In the case of the majority of figures, there will be eye lids sculpted on, so you run your brush along the recessed portion (the eyeball itself. In the case of WF and some other figures, there is a sold orb. So the way I paint, the horizontal line is the eyeball, and the part above and below, which are left flesh colored, are the lids. Lastly add some dots for the pupil & iris.


I drew up a quick diagram (in profile) on the paper covering my work area while I was waiting for paint to dry. :) This shows the two styles of sculpting...


So the top diagram would be like the WF figures in the photo above. They have a solid orb. The lower diagram shows the eye with sculpted lids.

The reason why I prefer the solid orb style is that when you are putting the brush to the whites (or pupils) of the sculpted eyelid style, it is easy to accidentally get your white or black paint on the edges of the lids, since you have to maneuver the brush past this raised area, to get to the eyeball below.

An alternate method for the lower (well, for either, really) would be to paint the eyeball first, then go back and paint the eyelids over the top of them, but that seems like an extra step to me. I also tend to paint the flesh on most figures very quickly, as its usually the first step. Plus it's tedious enough painting eyeballs, I'm not sure I want to paint eyeballs, then carefully paint the lids after.

As with any painting techniques & sculpting styles, this is a matter of personal preference.

But the point I wanted to make is that the solid orb style eyes are only "eggy" looking if you paint them that way. Furthermore, the sculpted lid figures still require the painter to carefully paint on all of those details, otherwise they will produce equally awkward results.