Hi folks, I'm back from Pax South where I repped Reaper Miniatures at their Paint & Take booth! I got back home really late last night and had to go right back to work early this morning. I'll be sure to write all about it soon :)
Las Vegas Bound
I'll be going to the Las Vegas Open in early February! LVO is a Tabletop Gaming Convention, sponsored by Frontline Gaming, that hosts competitive Warhammer tournaments, games, and hobby classes. This is the first out-of-state convention that I'll be attending and I'm both nervous and excited. I've signed up for a few classes, including one I'm really looking forward to in particular, Aaron Lovejoy's four-hour NMM Masterclass. I'll be staying with friends on their comfy couch, which is what made this trip possible– otherwise, I couldn't afford it so soon after our vacation.
Now that I've bought my entry ticket, booked my flight, and chosen a few classes, I'll need to decide what to enter in the contest. The Las Vegas Open's painting contest is hosted by the Draconic Awards, which have a few different categories to choose from. While you cannot enter anything you've already won an award for, I'm hoping to enter new miniatures in to the Fantasy and Sci-Fi categories. I'm also playing with the idea of entering my 75mm Steampunk miniature in the Large Model category. However, we'll see how much I have time for. Here's what Carla looks like currently:
I think I'm insane for tackling a miniature of this size without an airbrush. The amount of time I've spent on careful blending is staggering. If you don't like blending, don't bother with these larger-scale miniatures (or get an airbrush). Either way, it's a wonderful challenge for me– I just wish it didn't take so much time. I'm working on blending her bodice up to an off-white to mimic satin fabric. I'm going to have to do some freehand on her somewhere since there's just so much surface area to fill up! Freehand is insanely time consuming as well, so I'm not sure if I can complete her in time. However, I'm going to try!
I'm also considering entering my Infinity miniature into the contest. I started her as a practice in painting difficult colors, mainly orange and white. I repainted her chest armor (old photo here) and this time, the orange is much more vibrant.
While basing remains my weakness, I decided to suck it up and make some bases this week. I used some wood chips, moss, oxide paste, and various ballast to create these below. One's going to be for my Infinity miniature and I'm looking forward to priming and painting them. I hope the moss holds up to the primer/paint. We'll see! These are currently setting overnight and I'll prime them when I get home from work on Monday. I'll add more rocks or foliage as needed, but I'm fairly pleased with how the initial stage turned out. Chances are, I'll need to break out the Milliput to fill some of those gaps in between the wood chips so it better mimics rock. I'll be sure to take WIP photos as I go along.
Creative Catch-up
This week I've been getting settled in as I took a few days off after we got back from the vacation. I don't enjoy jumping right back into work and these extra few days awarded me some time to play creative catch-up with some overdue hobby time! I cleaned up my desk, experimented with basing, started a new painting project, and ran some errands– one of which included shipping off my Secret Sophie exchange package to my mystery person halfway across the country.
I was also pleased to discover that my own gift arrived (all the way from Canada!) Not only was there a beautifully-painted miniature inside, but basing materials like leaves, snow, and flowers, as well as some delicious tea and chocolate! Traxia is so generous and it truly made my week. I will display her painted miniature proudly and I can't wait to use some of the basing materials, as I've been experimenting with basing lately. I can't wait to thank her :)
The week before I left for my vacation, I was really inspired by James Wappel's myriad of basing techniques he features on his blog. I decided to purchase a bottle of Vallejo Oxide Paste that Jim frequently uses in his basing adventures, along with some new super glue, cork, and some wood chips. I was excited to get back and start playing with these new materials!
I don't have a lot of basing materials (though I have more thanks to Traxia!), so when I took a break to walk the dog, I took a pair of scissors and a ziplock bag to bring back any interesting natural materials I found along the way. I found a few good-sized branches, some dried berries that would undoubtedly make some good alien eggs in a sci fi base, and some tiny little flower buds that would add some plant/vegetation interest (and is different from the grass & flock I already have).
I combined some of these elements and came up with this 30mm base below. I worked in some clay-based gravel, bits of cork, and the Army Painter battleground ballast that I always have on hand. The next step will be priming it– I think the various textures will turn out quite interesting!
Since I was on a roll with bases, I finally attached Carla to her primed base with careful pinning– this will make it much easier to handle her as I finally get her finished.
In addition to the basing adventures, I started on a new project: a group of harpies. What do you call a group of harpies? A flock? A brood of harpies? Anyway, I knew the assembly would take awhile so I made myself a Hibiscus Mimosa on Sunday and sat down to get to work.
It took awhile, since it was a mix & match free-for-all, but the hard work paid off. I glued, sanded, washed them before priming.
I wasn't sure what color I was going to paint them, though I knew I wanted them to be an interesting, non-human flesh tone– I figured a red-violet base color would make for interesting color scheme. So far, I'm using a mix of these Reaper paint colors:
- Briar Rose
- Dark Elf Highlight
- GREL Flesh
I'll start highlighting up from this base color so they'll end up much lighter than they are currently. Now I just need to decide what to paint the wings– I'd like them to blend into a different color (even if it's just a lighter or darker variation on the skin tone). These harpies have leathery wings that hold gruesome items like skulls and severed hands. I'll be doing my best to keep them hideous, so I may go for a darker wing hue in order to make the chains and skills stand out by contrast. My only worry is the clean plastic rods that I'll need to use to attach them to their base. The harpies don't have many obvious points of contact for this, so I'll need to get creative!