The Newb's Do's and Don'ts of CMoN Posting

DISCLAIMER - Everything presented here is the viewpoint of a newb.  If you believe that I don't know what I am talking about, you are probably right.

So I had been lurking on the coolminiornot.com (CMoN) for over a year now and I've only recently been bold enough to post any of my work on there.  I hadn't built up enough confidence with my skills and I lacked the proper setup to make quality photographs for presentation on there.  Just recently I posted pictures of my finished Inugami and was surprised to see it get a rating of over 7.0.  That's not too shabby for a newb!  If you are interested, you may find my gallery post here.

I mainly attribute that success to my observation of how the CMoN community operates in general and over the past year I've gotten a very good feel for what does well there and what does not.  To that end, I've compiled a list of my own do's and don'ts for a successful CMoN posting:

1. Finish painting the damn thing!  There are a lot of what are tagged as works-in-progress on there.  Based on my observations over the past year, these are generally not well received in the gallery.  Feedback in the gallery tends to be very sparse at best mostly because it seems the majority of people on there do not seem interested in writing up meaningful critiques.  They generally just want to see pretty pictures. There are exceptions but in general comments are only made on the extremes of the quality spectrum.  So if you are looking for feedback, go to the forums or network with other artists if you can.
2. Understand what the gallery is, why it's there, and what kind of audience you are presenting to.  It primarily functions as a source for inspiration for other artists.  If people like what they see in an image post there, they will generally rate it favorably on their 10 point scale.  It's also important to note that there are a lot of biases for/against different artistic mediums, styles/genres, and manufacturers.  This really is a function of how saturated that audience has become of a particular item.  For example, I think space marines are boring and there are way too many of them to keep my attention.  I really don't bother rating most of them and that's just my own bias.
3. Get a halfway decent camera and lighting setup.  Mine was fairly makeshift but moving forward I will be using my mark II light box which should yield better results.  There are a lot of tutorial resources out there on how to do this so I suggest you check them out.  You may be surprised how affordable such a setup can be if you know what you are doing.
4. Get as many angles on your work as you can.  Take shots of the front and back at least.  Doing so demonstrates that you have given attention to the whole model and not just the front.  Also, if you've painted some really intricate details that you are proud of get a tight close-up shot of them to show them off.
5. Do not post the same model as different posts but at different angles.  I know CMoN only allows you to upload one image to a single gallery post, but the problem with this approach is it doesn't give you an evaluation of the work as a whole and some people just get annoyed when they see that.  The best rated artists work around this by merging the multiple angles/close-ups into a single image file.  You can do this in just about any image editing program that's worth its salt (you don't really need Photoshop for this).
6. Get the highest quality picture that you can.  Make sure the model is well lit, in focus, and accurately shows the colors.  There are a lot of decent posts on there that lose points simply because of poor photo quality.
7. Put a good descriptive title on your work and say something about it.  Nothing says "I don't really care about this" more than when the title is nothing more than a question mark.  If you don't care about it why should someone else?
8. Be responsive, respectful, and friendly to those who do comment.  Do not feed the trolls.  Any online community will have them and CMoN is no exception.  Also it goes without saying... do not be a troll either!
9. Do not apologize upfront for anything and do not self-critique.  If you have to say you are sorry for something (poor photo quality, for example) it becomes an automatic red flag.  Doing so alerts the audience that something is off and its simply asking for a lower score.  Same thing goes with self-critique.  No matter how bad you think that one problem is, you really shouldn't draw attention to it.
10. Be open to criticism and be realistic of your expectations.  But at the same time, allow yourself to be optimistic if your only real critic so far has been yourself.  Chances are you aren't going to get any comments unless you do something exceptionally awesome or horrid so don't let this hold you back.
11. Keep everything in perspective and don't be obsessed with the rating.  It can give you a very definitive measure of your skill level but at the end of the day it's just a number.  Don't let it take away from the joy of the hobby!

Impact! Miniatures - Chibi Asian Adventurers Limited Edition Inugami

 

So it's been awhile since I last posted anything.  Life's been a little hectic lately.  Between work, winterizing the apartment, and having to deal with a minor medical issue I've not had any time to devote to painting.  But now that I've fully recovered I'm back at it.

 

So about two months ago I got into Impact Miniatures' Chibi Asian Adventurers Kickstarter and pledged for the limited edition pewter set.  This is one of those figures which arrived in the mail not too long ago.  This will be both a walkthrough of my technique as well as a bit of a review of the figures themselves.

 

So to start off after much work was done sanding and polishing the surface of the model, I decided to prime with a brush-on primer since it was too cold outside to use a spray primer.  All paints were Reaper Master Series (RMS).  Most of my work was on the hair and I used various shades of RMS reds for this.  One thing that I noted was that the RMS reds are EXTREMELY transparent and once a darker shade is down it's next to impossible to override it with a lighter shade.  I remedied this by highlighting using Fire Orange and then going back over with Brilliant Red as a glaze.  The blade on the sword was painted with Show Shadow, Ashen Blue, Ghost White, and Linen White.  The hilt was done with Tanned Leather highlighted up with Buckskin Pale and Linen White.  For her clothing I chose to go with a bit of an aquamarine color to complement her red hair. Skin tones were primarily just Rosy Shadow layered up to Caucasian Flesh.  The ears were painted with Chestnut Brown with Rosy Shadow on the inside of the ears.  The shoes/socks were just black and white.

 

Chibi eyes seem intimidating but really they are quite simple once you understand the basics.  For this particular model I chose to start by outlining the eyes with Muddy Soil (all outlines are done with Muddy Soil, by the way) and then use Pure White for the white of the eye.  This goes against normal convention of using an off-white for the eyes but for this style I am going for maximum contrast over realism.  I've tried off-whites on other chibi type projects and it looks too muted for my tastes.  I rendered the iris by first painting a red circle on both eyes and then outlining that with the Muddy Soil.  Then I painted Muddy Soil over a little more than half of the upper iris leaving color on the bottom.  Two white light catches were placed on the dark portion of the iris.  The pupil is more or less implied at this point (it was never really rendered explicitly).  As a finishing touch I highlighted the color of the iris with a little bit of Fire Orange.

 

Once I was satisfied with the paint job, I coated it lightly with dullcoat, flocked the base with some Scene-A-Rama (Woodland Scenics) Earth, and added a couple of Army Painter swamp tufts.  For the remainder of the figures in the set, I will likely use the same terrain on the bases to maintain a sense of unity.

 

Now onto the review section of my post.  Artistically, these are great figures.  I love the concept and the design of just about every single one of them.  I started with this one because she's my favorite of the bunch.  There isn't a single figure out of the bunch that I don't like and I do believe my money was well spent in that regard.  I have to be honest about the overall quality of the figures themselves, however.  Earlier I had hinted I had to do a lot of sanding and polishing.  That's actually standard for just about any metal figure I get my hands on but this seemed more so than most.  All of the figures seem to have a lot of bumps and ridges that I simply have not seen from other manufactures.  If you look closely at the rear view bellow you can still see some of these ridges showing through the paint.  I could have covered that up with some putty but that would have taken a bit more work than I was willing to put forth on this particular project.  So in terms of artistic design and concept I give Impact an A- but in terms of quality I can't say it should be any higher than a C.  I don't believe that metal is their strong suit, however.  It will be interesting to see what quality level they can produce in resin once they fulfill the bulk of the Kickstarter pledges next year.

 

So the "finished" product is shown below (I am still doing some tweaking) in my makeshift light box.  I'm hoping to get a better light box put together shortly, however that will be easier to deal with:

 



 



That's all for now.  I will probably post another one in the next week or so depending on how my schedule works out.

Building a Better Police Box (Part 3)

It's been awhile since I last posted an update but I have made some progress on this weekend worth talking about.  I want to backup a bit and talk about why I am doing this first though.

What I want to do is build a small display diorama with the Doctor and his TARDIS which I could potentially exhibit at ReaperCon in April.  There are actually a couple of different pre-made versions that I've seen but I really don't like either one.

There's this one, which looks completely wrong to me:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/234409?browseid=7009747

Then there's this one:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/331987?browseid=7009747

The first one (from Fenris Games) has the right overall dimensions, but the panel details are completely wrong.  It may be possible to rework the panels but I would rather not do that.  The second (from Ainsty Castings) looks more correct but it has a number of dimensional issues.  The size in general is too wide, the columns are too wide, the panels are slightly off, and the roof is pitched too steep.  I know, I'm picky...

Interestingly enough, Reaper is adding a police box to their Bones line-up in their latest Kickstarter campaign and it actually looks pretty close to what I want.  Unfortunately that won't be out until around this time next year and that's too late.  With little else out on the market, I have to build this one from scratch.

So here's what I have done so far.  The basic box  was relatively easy to put together.  I started by cutting out four 45.25mm x 18mm rectangles measured precisely with digital calipers:

 

 

Each of those were then glued to one of the 3mm square rods using plastic cement:

 

 

Finally those bits were assembled with a 21mm square base at the bottom and an 18mm square at the top to seal the box:

 

 

I went through a lot of trial, error, and frustration on this next pat but I finally made a breakthrough that made this work.  I was originally thinking I could cut out the 6mm x 7.5mm rectangles for the panels but this proved to be far more difficult to execute than I had anticipated.  Typically what would happen is I would get close and then wind-up going over the target measurement.

 

So back to the drawing board, I decided to make some compromises to the measurements and the execution of the panels.  I decided that I would get better results if I reduced the amount of fractional measurements and use precut strips.  I had actually tried this approach last year but I had issues with adhering the pieces to the model.  Plastic cement couldn't be used because it would melt and distort the strips.  That left super glue which wouldn't distort the pieces but I didn't have a whole lot work time either.  The pieces would have to be placed in a matter of seconds before the glue would set.  Not good when you are trying to get a precise placement which can take... several minutes.

 

What I didn't know at the time was I actually had a 3rd option for an adhesive: gloss varnish.  Using VMC gloss varnish I was able to place the strips fairly close to where I wanted them.  Then I painted over the piece with  more varnish to seal it into position.

 

This approach took me 4 hours to complete the panels (1 hour for each side).  Here is the result of last night's work:

What I will need to do next is clean-up work on the panels.  While this looks much better than what I did before I still need to fix the following issues:

1. The precision of the strip placement is a bit off on some of the sides, making the top rectangular areas for the windows much larger than what they should be (1mm+).  This looks bad and I will probably just need to redo the slat placement.  I can kind of see it in the side shown above but it's not the worst offender.
2. There are multiple gaps that will need to be filled in with putty.  Most of these are at the bottom.  In the photo above, there's a rather large one on the top left slat that would be directly below the window.  I have to decide if the slat gaps can be filled or if I should remove the slats and replace them with tighter fitting ones.
3. The 20mm square on top should line-up perfectly with the extra 0.5mm added around the outside of the box and it doesn't.  Putty should clean this up.

After I get those clean-up issues resolved, I will need to add the trim, which will be additional plastic strips glued on with the gloss varnish.  The headers will be the next major step and at that point it will look a lot more like the target object.  I was originally planning on constructing them with the sign inset into the bar, but I am probably going to make another compromise with the design and go with solid rods for simplicity.

Anyway, it may be awhile before I have another update on this.  I have a Shadowrun game to prepare for and I probably won't have much time for this project again until November.  That's ok, though because I have plenty of time and the figure that I want to use for the Doctor isn't going to be released until November anyway.

Two Night Challenge - Reaper Bones Isabeau Laroche (Female Paladin)

So I feel like I've been neglecting my blog a bit so I am going to compensate a bit by doing a single Reaper Bones miniature in two nights.  For this challenge I chose Isabeau Laroche, female paladin.

The first step (as with any miniature I do) is to clean off any mold lines and degrease it.  This is especially important with plastic miniatures like this one so that the paint sticks better.  Bones do not require application of a primer.  Normally I would prime regardless on these with a 50/50 mix of black and white brush-on primer, but in the interest of time I will skip that and proceed with basecoating.

My strategy for the basecoating is to simply block out all the individual parts with the basic colors.  For that I've chosen RMS HD Twilight Purple for the cloak, RMS Tanned Leather (tabard and other dangling cloth), RMS Russet Brown (vest, gloves, and hair), and VGC Cold Grey for all the bits that will be metal.  I also used RMS Muddy Soil to cover all the dark areas that will be hard to reach and to create some initial outlining.  This is the result:

With the basic colors established I go through the process of shading and highlighting.  I do the skin and hair first.  After that I do the cloak and the rest of the cloth parts.  Finally, I finish off the metal bits and other small details.

The shield has a very large blank area so it needs to have something on it to keep it interesting.  Isabeau Laroche is a French name, so I've chosen the fleur de lis for the basic design of the freehand.

All said and done, this is what I have after two days:

 

 

There's still A LOT left for me to do.  The blending on NMM needs  to be cleaned up, there are 3 gems (2 on the sword and one on the shield) that need to be painted, and there is still the detail on her chest/abdomen that I have yet to do much with.  I also want to go back and give a bit more depth to the fleur de lis on her shield so that it's not just a flat 2D pattern.  But for 2 nights worth of effort, this is ok.

Building a Better Police Box (Part 2 - Creating the Master Plan)

I went in and replaced all the real world measurements on the diagram I found with the scale millimeter measurements I calculated and came up with this:

So working with this I start laying out the basic build of the box itself.  When I did this before I simply constructed a rectangular box and then built around that.  This time, I am going to take a different approach.

To help me visualize the design in 3D, I'm using a program called SketchUp Make (formerly Google SketchUp and now owned by Trimble).  I start with the basic box construction which will look something like this:

Note, the 21mm x 21mm square sheet on the top actually extends over the dimensions of the inner box.  The panel assembly will fit into that section and will be flush with that part.



 

The next part of the assembly (which will probably be the most time consuming) will be the panels.  There will be four of them with the following design:

 

Another somewhat involved part will be the headers.  I first created a "T" block in SketchUp and then drew in lines to indicate how the individual pieces will fit together:

 

The roof will be a bit tricky because I have to cut angled pieces.  All 4 of the roof sides will be cut as trapizoids and will slant up to the central column as shown here:

 

Fully assembled, the model will look something like this:

 

 

As a sanity check to make sure I got scale correct, I put in a couple of reference objects in the model (the 4th Doctor scaled to 32mm in height and a quarter which is ~24.17mm in diameter):

 



 

 

Yes, I know... this is going to be DAMN SMALL!

 

I still need to figure out what I am doing for the lamp on top as well as the other details (windows, door handle, etc.).  But for the most part, the design is mostly complete and I can start in on this as soon as I get the materials which SHOULD be in the next week.



Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 4)

Ok I'm FINALLY done!  Here some pictures I took of the finished product in my makeshift lightbox:

So rather than go with the VGC Fire Orange, I decided to use RMS Phoenix Red followed by RMS Fire Orange.  These models aren't particularly detailed which actually gives painters some opportunities to add detail in.  In this case, I stippled in both RMS Fire Orange and RMS Buckskin Pale in an attempt to hint at a scale texture.  I also used gloss varnish over the eyes and in the mouth to give those bits a bit of a wet look.

I could have done A LOT more.  I could have removed all the mold lines, gone much thinner on the paint in general, and maybe put some reflected highlights underneath.  At this point, however,  I feel it's at the target quality level I was going for.

Now on to something else!

Building a Better Police Box

So Starfire is taking much longer than I had anticipated and part of that is due to the fact that I have been fighting the lighting in my studio area for some time now.  I believe that I may have a solution to that but I will cover that in the 4th installment of that series.  So I'm setting that down for a moment to do a bit of planning for my next major project.

To give a bit of background, last year I put together a Doctor Who themed diorama as a Christmas present for my girlfriend.  This is the result of about 4 weeks worth of effort:

It wasn't bad, considering my skill level at the time and the paints I was using.  I know I can do much... MUCH better now!

The build itself was pretty basic working from the inside out.  I started by building a box out of styrene plastic conforming to the inner dimensions of the police box.  Around that, I built the panels, the four columns on the corners, and the top bar.  I then topped it off with the roof which consisted of one square of styrene topped with another.  The roof was sculpted out of epoxy putty and sanded down.  I finally topped that with the characteristic lantern... or at least the best I could do to reproduce it at the time!  All of the text was put in using custom printed decals which... sort of worked.

So as I look to re-approach this project, I try to think of how I can do better.  So I looked at what I had come-up with for plans and turns out I had very LITTLE planned out at all!  I had taken some scant measurements and then just went with it.  For what I want to do, that's NOT going to be good enough!

The first thing that I need to do is determine scale.  This helps me translate real world dimensions into the scale world that I will be building.  This will be critically important since this will need to be part of a diorama with other figures of roughly the same scale. What I want is a constant value I can use to translate a real world measurement into the scale world I am going to create.  We can assume that any figures I chose for this diorama are going to be in the 28mm scale range (the scale for MOST miniatures currently in production).  The best calculation I can find to convert real world measurement to this scale is a 1:56 ratio.  So, anything I see with real world measurements can be divided by 56 to give me the 28mm equivalent.

So with a bit of Interweb magic research, I found the following diagram with measurements that should prove useful (source found here):

At this point, I could get into some real serious calculations and spend a lot of time trying to figure out how all of this translates into the scale that I am trying to create.  What I really want to do is normalize these measurements into a metric form that fits easily into the scale that I am working with.

I think that anything beyond 1mm is going to be very... VERY difficult to perceive so I will be rounding all measurements for simplicity (rounding to the nearest millimeter).  Starting with the base, which is showing a real world measurement of 50"x50" = 127cm x 127 cm = 1270 mm x 1270 mm.  1270 / 56 is roughly 23mm.

I'm going to simplify things a bit here.  23x23mm is going to be VERY close to 25x25mm.  So if I take all the measurements as presented above and divide them by 2, I will have approximately what I need in millimeters.

So here is the build list I will be working with (some of which I already have):

1. Styrene plastic sheets (1mm and 0.5mm thickness)
2. Square styrene plastic tubes/rods (3mm x 3mm and 2.5mm x 2.5mm) that can be cut to form the outside columns and the top beams
3. Styrene plastic strips (0.5-0.75mm wide)
4. Milliput standard epoxy putty

That's about all I need.  Hopefully I can get started on this in the next week or so after I have the dragon done.

Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 3)

Before I get too deep into shading and highlighting on a model I like to do the face and eyes first.  This makes it easier to clean-up any sloppiness that may occur while attempting to fill in those details.  It also gives me a bit of a psychological boost to see that character's face come to life early on in the process. 

I've deviated a bit from what I originally specified in my previous post because I determined I had better colors for what I wanted to do.  First I block out the eyes with the charred brown.  Then I layer on the filthy brown to create the iris, which for lizards fills the entire visible area of the eye.  I finish it off by painting in the pupil with RMS Brown Liner.  I could get fancy and add a drop of white for a light catch but I'm actually going to do something different to get that effect later.  With that done I focus on the mouth.  For that I simply filled in the recesses with RMS Crimson Red, then layered on pink for the tongue, and the blonde highlight for the teeth.  It's not 100% clean but will do for now.

Ok now it's time to deal with shading and highlights on the remainder of the model and then I will be 90% done.  To get a good reference for the placement of light and shadow I took pictures from different angles with the model under my work light:

 

This is more or less how I start laying out the paints on the palette for shadows:

 

The top reds are going to be for the majority of the model that is to read red. There will also be oranges that I will mix on the other side of the spectrum.  The bottom row of colors was an attempt to shade down the khaki with RMS Muddy Brown.  I think it dulls the color down too much so I will likely use something else.

 

 

At this point my process becomes more organic and I won't be explaining a whole lot of what I am doing.  Mostly I simply focus on creating the lights and shadows using the colors I selected and I may decide to pull additional colors into the mix for added effect.

 

Here is where I am leaving off on this tonight with some rough shading/highlighting done.  Hopefully in the next few days I can get to the finishing touches.

 

 

 

 

Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 2)

So now that I've got Starfire primed it's time to start thinking about what kind of color I am going to use.  I've already decided on VMC Red 70.926 for the basecoat and VMC Burnt Cad. Red 70.814 for shading.  To help figure out what else to use I turn to one of the masters of fantasy painting, Larry Elmore.  Here is his classic artwork that many are familiar with from the old D&D red box:

More or less, this gives me a roadmap of the colors I would want to use.  Primarily, the dragon is predominantly red, orange, and gold.  There's more that I'm seeing here but I will save that for later.  For now I will focus on the colors needed just for the dragon.  So I will pick three additional colors to build-up highlights: VGC Orange Fire 72.008, VGC Filthy Brown, VGC Gold Yellow 72.007.  I can also see some cool deep shades and reflected highlights, but for this model I am going to keep it simple.  The underbelly, horns, back spikes, wing webbing, and claws will be basecoated in VGC Khaki 72.061 and a more greenish golden tone will be built up on those.

 

I also need to put a bit more thought into what I'm using for the stonework on the base.  Since the dragon is going to be primarily a warm color, I am going to choose cool colors to produce better contrast.  For that I'm simply going to use VGC Sombre Grey 72.048 as a basecoat.  Then layer on progressively lighter layers using  VGC Cold Grey 72.050 and VGC Wolf Grey 72.047 if I need higher highlights.

 

I will also need to pick out colors for the mouth, and teeth.  For the darkest recesses of the mouth I will use VGC Charred Brown 72.045.  The teeth will be based with RMS Russet Brown and layered up to RMS Blonde Highlight.  For the tongue I will base with Burnt Cad. and layer up with RMS Blush Pink.

 

For the eyes I will use Khaki layered over Charred Brown with Charred Brown for the slit pupil.

 

Now that I have my palette selected I'm ready to start painting.

 

I've started by basecoating the base completely with the Sombre Grey.  Some of the paint got on Starfire but I will clean that up in the next step.

 

 

Because red is highly dependent on the colors underneath it, I don't want the Sombre Grey that I got on Starfire to effect it.  So I will clean that up by painting pure white over those areas before basecoating the dragon.  Once the white paint dries and I'm satisfied that I've covered up the slop I start with my basecoat of red over the entire surface of the dragon except for the eyes and mouth, which I will treat differently.  After the red paint dries I will then apply a second basecoat of the Filthy Brown to the underbelly, claws, horns, spikes, and wing webbing.

 

After applying the red basecoat the model looks like this:

 

 

And here is the model after applying the khaki to the "golden" bits:

 

 

 

I think that the contrast of the khaki against the red is going to work well here.  There is still a bit of clean-up work to do on this tonight but I should be ready to begin shading and highlighting tomorrow.



 

A Cure to the "Vallejo Shine"

So one of the frustrations that I've had with Vallejo paints (both Game Color and Model Color) is that when I go to first use some of them, they come out glossy.  Reds in particular have been notorious for this.  I call this effect the "Vallejo Shine" and I recently found the cure.

While I was at GenCon this year I attended a class taught by Zack Lanier.  He recommended doing additives, which I had tried to no avail.  Then one of the other students in the class mentioned something really simple that turned out to be exactly what I needed.  His recommendation was to add an agitator to the bottle.

The problem with the Vallejo paints is they need to be mixed thoroughly and just casually shaking the bottle isn't good enough.  An agitator is simply a solid object dropped into the paint bottle to help mix it when it is shaken.  When you use spray paint and shake the can you'll hear something inside the can clanking.  That's an agitator in there.

Here, for example, is one of my VGC greens that has the Vallejo Shine.  Notice that not only is it shiny but it's also kind of transparent?  This is straight out of the bottle with no thinning.  What happened is the mix that came out contained less pigment than it should have and more of the binder and medium.  This is not what I want.

So what I am going to use here for an agitator is a simple screw I picked up at the hardware store.  Note that it must be small enough to fit into the bottle.  You can use anything as long as it's not going to corrode and effect the paint.  It also has to be dense enough to penetrate the thickness of the paint all the way to the bottom of the bottle.  If it just floats in the paint mixture it's not going to help much.

In this example I'm placing a zinc-plated screw into the paint bottle head first.  It probably doesn't matter which way you put it in but logically with the screw head down it should help pull more of the denser material up.  Also there might be better choices than zinc-plated, but they are cheap and appear to do the trick.

Once the agitator is in I give the paint a good shake.  If you can't hear the agitator clacking against the inside of the bottle, it might not be doing much.  Now I take a drop of the paint and redo my sample swatch on the bottle top.  I do this without thinning or additives.  The idea is to determine how the paint will behave straight out of the bottle.

 

There's still a bit of sheen and that's mostly because it's not completely dry.  It's still also a little translucent but that's normal for some paints.

So there you have it.  The solution to a problem that has plagued me for months and now paints that I had shelved as useless are once again useful!  I hope this has been helpful and if you have any additional tips for dealing with this problem feel free to share them in the comments below.

Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 1)

Starfire is probably the largest figure I've attempted to paint thus far. It's also the main boss monster from the core game and therefore deserves special attention.  I've actually had the model assembled for some time now, I just haven't had time to do much beyond that.

The first decision I had to make was whether or not to prime the model black, white, or grey.  I decided that since I am going to paint him red, white would be the best choice because it would support red the best.  Black would make it look dark and grungy and I'm out of grey primer so white it is!

Now at first, since I'm shooting for a good tabletop quality I wasn't concerned about cleaning-up any of the mold lines or filling any of the gaps.  But once I saw how it looked after a few light coats I changed my mind.  I decided to scrape off some of the mold lines with a curved blade and fill in the gaps on the limbs with epoxy.  The epoxy I used worked well and now instead of a stark line where the two bits met it looks more natural.  I tried filling with Vallejo plastic putty but it didn't fill very well and just left messy crumbs where I tried to use it.  I should probably shelve that stuff until I can figure out how to best use it.

Anyway, I'm pretty much done with priming and it's about ready for some pigment!  There's still some mold lines showing and some crumbs in the finish but I'm not going to worry about those since I'm just going for tabletop quality.  Working from the inside out, I am starting with a mid-tone grey for the stone pillar and everything else that looks like stonework.  The main body of the dragon itself will be base coated using Model Color Red (70.926).  From there, I will likely shade it down with burnt cadmium red and then highlight up using oranges.  It should be relatively straightforward but because of the size of the model it will be time consuming.  So I'm thinking I will most likely have this done sometime over this coming weekend.

Speaking of the Vallejo Model Color paints I will be using, I had shelved a number of them because they were coming out too shiny.  I asked about this in one of my classes at GenCon and the advice I got was to put an agitator (like what you'd have in a spray can) in the bottle to help mix the paint better when you shake it.  So I added a screw I had laying around, shook the bottle of red paint up really good, and it worked!  My once super shiny red and burnt cadmium paints are both matte now!

Blog Intro and Current Project List

Hello and welcome to my blog, IRNewbPainter.  Just to give a quick background, I first attempted to paint miniatures in 2009 and I quickly found myself frustrated at both the cost and time it would take to get any good at it.  3 years later after deciding to try painting a few minis with my girlfriend (November 2012) and decided I was going to try to stick with it this time.  So far, I've been able to and I've now decided that it would be of benefit to blog about it.  This blog serves two purposes. One, it is a way for me to keep track of what I've done and how my skills have progressed.  Two, it serves as a way to share with the Internet community at large so that I can get feedback that could potentially advance my skills farther.

Here's my current project list.  This may get adjusted or added to as I go along.  I TRY to stay focused on one project at a time but sometimes I find myself in a lull while one project is in a bit of downtime (like waiting for epoxy to cure or a layer of paint to dry).  I also sometimes get bored with what I am working on and find it helpful to have one other project that I can jump to keep my interest from falling off.  But I try to limit this to just one other project so that I don't lose focus.

1. Starfire - Dragon from Super Dungeon Explore
   Treating this as a project separate from the rest of the SDE figures because of its size.  Since this is the main boss in the core game I will be spending extra time to get a good quality paint job on it.
2. Rexx x2 - Mini-bosses from Super Dungeon Explore
   These guys are also pretty big and will probably require additional time to complete.  I also want to try to put some freehand tattoos on them to make them a bit more interesting.
3. Remaining bad guys from Super Dungeon Explore
   I've tried speedpainting large numbers of figures before and it just hasn't worked well at all.  I will see if I can have better luck on these guys as I don't intend to spend more than 1-2 hours per figure.
4. Police Box version 2.0
   I had made a police box for a diorama that I put together as a gift for my girlfriend last Christmas.  It was primarily constructed from plastic with some miliput sculpted for some of the items that were difficult to fabricate with plastic (like the roof).  After it was painted I applied custom decals for the lettering.
   In this version I am going to do a number of things different that I think should yield a more impressive result.  First off I'm not going to attempt to sculpt in the windows.  I can probably get a much more impressive result if I freehand them in and imply a 3D effect instead.  Second, I don't plan on using any custom decals.  All lettering is to be done in freehand.  Third, there will be a lot more work done to add wood texture to the box.
5. Doctor Who themed diorama
   While I made one last year as a gift, this one will be mine.  I plan on using the police box from the above project.  Scene/story will be determined later but I want to make sure I have figures for both the Doctor and the Master.
6. Spells & Chrome (Shadowrun themed diorama)
   This was a project that I wanted to complete for ReaperCon but got shelved due to issues on the conversion figures that couldn't be fixed in time for the convention.  The conversions (a male elf street mage and a female ork street samurai) will be redone and this time I will NOT use a dremel to do any of the cutting.  That caused more problems than it solved so I will just have to invest in a decent jeweler's saw instead.

So that's what I'll be working on and writing about here.  My next entry I will be focusing on the dragon and what I've done up to this point on it.