Kingdom Death Pinup Savior [sans cloak]

Excluding the Pinup Savior's peacock feathered cloak, painting on my second Kingdom Death miniature is essentially complete. It was a joy to paint the Pinup Savior's hair because it was wonderfully sculpted to the extent that individual strands were visible. I went with a dirty blond hair look as I felt it was better suited to the overall colour scheme of the miniature. Additionally, her sword scabbard was painted up to match her vest while the staff had a very simple object source lighting (OSL) effect from the lamp attached to it. Other work comprised her "scarf" and necklace.     

Kingdom Death Pinup Savior sans cloak

OSL effect of the lamp on her staff was kept to an absolute minimum

Sword scabbard was painted in a similar colour to the Pinup Savior's clothes

Staff was painted grey as I felt it was a better fit to the overall colour scheme

Where possible, I painted each individual strand of the Pinup Savior's hair

Hair on the Pinup Savior was beautifully sculpted, in my opinion

From the side, you can see she is leaning slightly backwards, likely due to the absent cloak's weight

A nice angle that accentuates the Pinup Savior's curves

Painting the two Kingdom Death miniatures has given me the confidence to tackle more miniatures of a similar nature. While I am generally pleased with the Pinup Savior's final paint job, there is definitely room for improvement especially on the skin tone transition from shadows to highlights as well as on the eyes. With more minis in the pipeline, there will be ample opportunities to practise.

And then there were two - Pinup White Speaker (left), Pinup Savior (right)

One reason for not painting the Pinup Savior's cloak was the time and effort that it would have required. With the amount of detail in the cloak (see below), it would have taken me a very long time to finish painting. When my brush control improves to a higher level, I might consider painting the cloak. But for now I am happy with the Pinup Savior without her cloak.

Very detailed cloak showing peacock feathers

Originally, the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior was depicted as a redhead in brown-red garments. Although I do like the original colour scheme, I decided to mix it up a little by going blonde/blue.

Pinup Savior in her original brown-red colour scheme; notice her peacock feathered cloak on her back

Without a doubt, I need loads more practice before I can paint better skin tones and eyes. One thing I could try is to strike better balance between thinning a paint versus the resulting chalkiness that arises from being diluted with too much water. Some added flow improver/enhancer could be the solution. Certainly wouldn't hurt for me to try it out in my next miniature. Till the next post, thanks for reading!

Kingdom Death Pinup Savior [WIP - Clothes and Shoes]

For the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior's clothes, I decided to paint a blueish-grey colour scheme with a checkered pattern for her skirt. Initially, I wanted to go with a red colour scheme but after painting so many Word Bearers, I felt I needed to mix it up a little. It was a toss up between green and the colours you see below. I did, however, manage to incorporate some green into the checkered design.

Checkered skirt design for the Pinup Savior was actually inspired by Scottish kilt designs

Natural flare of the skirt helps accentuate the skirt's design

For the checkered skirt design, the vertical lines were not as pronounced as the horizontal lines

Bird eye's view of the front of the Pinup Savior's skirt

Bird eye's view of the back of the Pinup Savior's skirt

Some concept work prior to actual painting of the Pinup Savior's clothes

Final results of the checkered skirt were not as detailed as I initially envisioned. Painting the design was more difficult than I had anticipated which meant less lines were painted on the Pinup Savior's skirt. Ideally, the final results should have mimicked my concept art (see above) but I decided to quit while I was ahead before the whole skirt became a jumbled mess of paint splatter. But with every miniature that I attempt to paint comes a better grasp of what is needed to improve for future minis.   

Can you spot her big toe sticking out of a leather shoe?

Meanwhile, the Pinup Savior's boots were given brownish-ochre colours to stimulate treated leather. Having her big toe pushing out of one of the leather shoes was a nice sculpting touch. I tried my best to do justice to that little bit of detail. Below are some other shots of the work-in-progress Pinup Savior. Her sword (not shown in the photos), staff, hair and base remains unpainted.

Normal front view of the work-in-progress Kingdom Death Pinp Savior

Existing clothes colour scheme is screaming for a blonde hairdo

Metallic designs on her belt hints at a gothic attire

Her unpainted hair reminds me of the silver hair of Daenerys, a Game of Thrones character

Next up for the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior will be her hair. I am currently leaning towards her having a blonde look as gold/yellow goes well with blue. More progress pictures soon ... hopefully!

Kingdom Death Pinup Savior [WIP - Skin Tone]

Long neglected, the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior finally got the attention she deserved as I started work on the miniature by painting her face, skin and stockings. Thus far, she has been a pleasure to paint as the sculpture is fairly detailed which makes a painter's job that much easier.

Kingdom Death Pinup Savior with completed flesh colours

To paint her skin, I used a paint recipe developed by a painter whose work I admire, Jen Haley. It involved the use of Reaper Master Series Paints comprising colours such as Fair Skin, Golden Skin, Tanned Skin, Ashen Brown, Fair Skin Highlight. For her eyes, I used Citadel colours such as Skull White and Chaos Black as well as the Reaper Brown Liner, which I also used to paint her garters. I plan to do a more in depth review of the Reaper Master Series Paints at a later date. 

Holes in her stockings was a nice touch to the resin sculpture

Painting the Pinup Savior's eyes was a tough challenge for me because I wanted to try painting in the light reflections on her pupils. While the overall result was not all that I wanted it to be, I hope to improve over the coming months as I have a lot of miniatures in the project pipeline that will require the painting of eyes as well as flesh/skin tones. This is one skill I am determined to master.   

On her left thigh is a small hole which is meant for the assembly of her sword

For the Pinup Savior's stockings, I wanted to achieve a see-through white nylon stocking effect. I was happy with the final result, and the sculpted holes in her stockings helped provide some depth and contrast to the overall paint job. Kudos to the sculptor for adding the stocking holes.   

Garters make the stockings stand out even more

Initially, I had used the Reaper Brown Liner on her garters as a means to block out the area before painting a more dark and opaque colour. However, I really liked the translucent effect the Brown Liner had on the flesh, not unlike what you would see on some real-life stockings, so I left it as it is.

Small of her back had been damaged slightly from a previous incident

Although the paint job on the small of her back was quite rough, I had expected this because of a certain incident with this miniature. This particular area had the worse of it when I tried to remove the initial primer with a hobby knife, resulting in her back being damaged by knife marks.

Long legged beauty

Even looking at her sideways, you can tell that the miniature has been wonderfully sculpted

From this angle, the shading on her abs is more visible

Well, I can't wait to continue painting the Kingdom Death Pinup Savior. Currently finding a suitable checkered design for her skirt. I am also trying to decide between painting her as a blond, red/auburn or black haired beauty. It will have to match the colour of her skirt which will be predominantly blue. Stay tuned for further progress reports on the Pinup Savior! 

Salvaging sanity from a moment of madness

In my previous attempt at painting up a Kingdom Death miniature, a bad chalky and powdery white undercoat meant that subsequent paint layers were a challenge to lay on smoothly. While the final result was better than I expected, it was still not what I was aiming for. With that weighing on my mind, a moment of madness saw me taking a hobby knife to the second Kingdom Death miniature that I was painting - the Pinup Saviour - in order to scrape away the undercoat as well as initial layers of skin tone I had applied up to that point. Try not to wince when checking out the following photo.

Early stages of the butchery done with my hobby knife

It started harmlessly enough with me thinking that I could smooth out the rough paint texture by lightly and carefully scraping the hobby knife over the painted areas. Soon enough, some frustrated flicks of the hobby knife saw even the white undercoat paint coming off thus displaying the plastic beneath. The madness soon took over as I found myself using the hobby knife to take out nearly all the paint from the miniature. I tried to salvage the situation by painting a light undercoat comprising a mixture of Chaos Black and Skull White (see below) but it just didn't feel right.

Even more damage to the Pinup Savior

Pleading ignorance wasn't an option as more seasoned hobbyists had advised putting the miniatures in a Dettol-Water mixture to remove the paint without damaging details. But at that moment of uber craziness, it never crossed my mind to use the antiseptic disinfectant. After a lot of hands-on-the-head moments, a semblance of sanity prevailed and out came the Dettol. I decided to put another early work-in-progress miniature of Gandalf into the mixture as it also had a badly applied undercoat.

Gandalf the Grey has a case of chalky and powdery white undercoat

Both the Pinup Saviour and Gandalf were dumped into a mixture of Dettol and Water

Luckily enough, I stumbled across a very good guide on using cleaning products to strip paint from a miniature on an online forum. As Gandalf only had a light coating of Skull White spray, it took just a few hours of soaking in the mixture before some scrubbing with an old toothbrush removed all the white undercoat. In comparison, the Pinup Saviour needed to be soaked overnight to remove about 95% of the paint. Some stubborn paint layers embedded into small crevices could not be removed. Sadly, some scratch marks were obvious due to my butchery with the hobby knife.

White undercoat removed easily using the Dettol-Water mixture

With most of the paint removed, the Pinup Saviour did not escape unscathed with her left hand breaking off the main body

So with paint successfully removed from both miniatures, the next task was to find an alternative primer/undercoat spray. While I think the Citadel Skull White spray-can is still perfectly usable for miniatures painted to table-top quality, or even beyond especially when applied in very light coats, I have found results too varied especially in the hot and humid weather where I am at.

That being said, the Citadel Chaos Black spray-can is still by far the best black undercoat spray I have used to date. But if I am going for a lighter undercoat, I now mostly use the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer (Light Gray).

I have observed experienced painters using the undercoat/primer spray-can in two ways i.e. either applying an extremely light "dusty" coating of the undercoat/ primer - sometimes just one to two passes of the spray can on each side of the miniature, OR applying a light even layer of primer/undercoat which involves perhaps up to five passes or more. I decided to go the middle path of somewhere in-between.Which of the two (or three) methods above gives you the best results?

Gandalf primed with the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer

Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour primed with the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer

Lessons learned from this undercoating/primer mishap:
1.Spending more time prepping a miniature is always a good thing, even to the extent of going back with your hobby knife to remove mould lines that become evident after an initial light primer coat.
2. Never underestimate the importance of a good undercoat or layer of primer. Your future layers of paint will thank you for it.
3. When you are itching to slash and butcher your mini with a hobby knife, take a deep breath and step away. After a short time away from your mini, you would be able to think more clearly.

That's my misadventure for the week. Hopefully the hobby gods are treating you more kindly.

Seeking inspiration from Hollywood and Mother Nature's palette

After spending months working my Black Legion / Word Bearers army (with not much progress to boot), I am literally running on empty and have been left hankering for more variety in my miniature painting projects. Having always fancied a go at painting fantasy-based miniatures, I decided the time was right for me to start painting my diorama involving the Lord of the Rings Dragon and the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour miniatures - that has a working title of "A Marilyn Monroe Moment".

Marilyn in the iconic white dress from the film 'Seven Year Itch', 1955

An iconic Hollywood image - re-envisioned in a fantasy setting

Work on the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour is still in the very early stages and all I have done is to begin work on the skin tone. Painting on the miniature has gotten off to a rough start because priming it with Skull White spray caused a powdery (as opposed to a smooth) layer to adhere to the mini. I will need to shop for a Tamiya Gray Primer as it should be better for minis with more flesh showing.

Very early stages on the skin tone

Work on the Dragon is even further back in the progress timeline with its basecoat yet to be finished. While it might seem silly to seek a different challenge in my projects and still paint red - more so when I have just finished painting some Word Bearers - the reds for the dragon will eventually be much brighter and warmer than the dull-red of Lorgar's warriors.   

Work on the dragon's basecoat is ongoing

While trying to find the best possible colour scheme for the red dragon, I decided to see what Mother Nature had to offer. In particular, two animals caught my eye namely the Scleropages legendrei (red arowana fish) and the naja pallida (red spitting cobra). Both their red scales looked very beautiful and will be the inspirational foundation from which to paint the dragon.

Scleropages legendrei

Naja pallida

Meanwhile, I decided to also continue working on the Word Bearers without neglecting the creative diversity that I sought. That meant resuming work on Cyrene Valantion which is actually a Kingdom Death White Speaker Pinup miniature. One of the reasons I stopped was because I unhappy with way the mini was turning out. But I decided to suck it up and proceeded to repaint the skin and fix my earlier mistakes. While it still needs more shadows and highlights, the skin tone is now looking much better than my earlier attempt. Other parts of this mini is still at the basecoat stage.

WIP - Kingdom Death White Speaker Pinup, my proxy for Cyrene

My approach to both the Pinup Saviour and Dragon will be to start with the mid-tones first and then work towards shadows and highlights from there. It is a bit different than the usual base-to-midtones-then-to-highlights approach that is usually recommended by Games Workshop for beginners. Starting with the mid-tone actually lets me have more control over the application of shadows and highlights. Thanks for checking out my progress on the diorama and I hope to post more updates soon, especially pictures of a completed Cyrene Valantion.

Beginnings of a diorama ... and more Kingdom Death

To this day, a visit to a model shop when I was just a wee little boy of five remains burned vividly into my memory. In that shop were many beautiful miniature dioramas depicting various World War II scenes involving beautifully painted tanks, soldiers and scenery. I was in awe and wished fervently that I had an iota of the skill shown by the painters. Well more than three decades later, I am giving it a go ... finally ... and sincerely hope I can do the wonderfully sculpted miniatures justice.

Mary and her little 'lamb'

Pic from a slightly different angle

Hot dragon breath ...

It is still at the 'conceptual' stage in that I am not too sure who I want to use as the protagonist in the diorama. The antagonist will be the dragon miniature from Games Workshop's Lord of the Ring series while the protagonist, for now at least, is the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour miniature.

Pinup Saviour (Front View) minus the cloak

Pinup Saviour (Back View) minus the cloak

I have a few other candidates in mind, one of which is in my latest order from Kingdom death.

Yet more miniatures from Kingdom Death
I just couldn't resist it when I saw the limited release models on sale at Kingdom Death. Two particular miniatures grabbed my attention instantly. One was the 'Illuminated Lady' which I thought would make a wonderful Object Source Lighting painting project while the other one was the 'Beyond the Wall Mini Diorama' which would make an excellent piece to incorporate into future dioramas. A third - the Pinup Architect - was an impulse buy as I really liked the overall look of the figure.

Kingdom Death's Illuminated Lady will be an excellent choice for an Object Source Lighting (OSL) piece

Kingdom Death Beyond the Wall - An alternative candidate for the diorama's protagonist

Kingdom Death Pinup Architect ... possibly the coolest architect since Ted Mosby?

Head is missing the left horn ...

Practise run for painting a female figure
As I have never painted a miniature which so much flesh showing before, I had best practise before I start on the diorama. Looking over my current collection, the only miniature that came close to the Kingdom Death girls were Lelith Hesperax. I plan to try a colour scheme that is completely different from the one done up by the 'Eavy Metal team. Looking to do a more 'softer' look and should have some pictures ... warts and all ... of my progress with Lelith over the coming weeks.

Lelith is ready for priming.