Hey, it's Post 6

   Yet again it's time for another Post 6. This time I wanted to write a little bit about where I have been which should, hopeful, explain why I am late with the latest update. I do realize that all of you would like to see how I based my models, as well as the finishing highlights and shading that needs to be done.

First of I had to send my girlfriend off. She is currently spending the summer with her family. And should be returning later in the fall. It has been a very stressful couple of weeks for us both as is the case with impending international travel. This leads me to the next event that took place. This past Saturday was Lock and Load. An event that was organized by the folks at Privateer Press that is akin to Games Day and Golden Daemon. Needless to say that I had a very enjoyable time there, played a lot of games and got to see some very amazingly painted miniatures. I have a few pictures of the event itself. If you want to see the painting competition minies you should mosey on over to the Privateer Press website.
So without much ado here are the pictures that i took I hope that some of you are in them.

Sparkly

Even Thagrosh made it. What was your excuse?

Saeryn

Ok, so it was really a costume contest.

  So there you have it. We had battles, Costume contests And I didn't really get that much sleep. Well I should head back to working on the next entry. I will see you then.

Hey, it's Post 6

Well it's time for  new post. So here is a short update. The weather outside is warm, the sun is out and I want to go play out there. All the while I am planning the next set of posts. Since they are going to be a bit complicated as far as the photography is concerned. To make things worse my Juggernaut broke and I can't find the head. So i will either need to find a replacement head or sculpt one from scratch. If i go with option two I will use it for a blog post. However as this is supposed to be a starting out set of posts i will delay until I am don here. Well with all of that typed up, I will go out and enjoy the sun. I suggest that you do the same. Pity that it is such a good time to primer though.

Starting out part XIV

  Hello an welcome to the latest installment of A Brush, a Paint and a Mini. In our previous episode we had begun the base coat process on Sorcha. A very beautiful and yet chillingly cold character. As I have mentioned earlier, the challenge that we face on painting her is not only to paint her to match her war machines, but to also convey her icy personality.

 However, before I begin please allow me to introduce to you the newest members of the Slow Burn League. Everyone give a warm welcome to Bryce and Rod. These two joined our league some three weeks ago. Bryce fights for the Motherland and Rod? Well he is an Elf Supremacist or a Retribution player.

Incidentally, I have noticed that this blog has gotten an international following. Yes I do check the stats despite my infrequent updates these days. I would like to extend to you a warm welcome, from a region that is more damp and chilly this time a year. He he he.

So moving on to Sorcha eh? Well in the previous posts I handled most of the base coat and spent some time planning on how to tie her with both the infantry in the army that I have collected and her 'Jacks (tm)? I would also like to remind you that Sorcha was drawn from the ranks of the Winter Guard and as such her color scheme will reflect that background.

So I will continue this update with the above picture. What I did, before the shot was taken, was to touch up the red plating on the armor. It took about two more coats of Khador Red Base before I was satisfied. One thing that few if any painting tutorials ever cover is how much depends on personal taste. Much like cooking, now that I think about it. The odd look that her legs have is because I washed the red part with Thamar Black. This was done after i looked at the studio version of her color scheme for reference on how the painters at PP decided to paint her up. For the broader areas I used mt basic brush. It has a rather tattered look, but the bristles are still good for a few more models. For some of the areas that require more precise control, like the black hoses on her armor I used my fine detail brush. It reaches places that a larger tip can't.

I also touched up the black on her pants, hair and gloves. As for the fur trim and her hat that was a one part Bootstrap leather and two parts 'Jack bone. With lighter layer of 'Jack bone. While i was toying with partial highlights I thinned down some Ryn Flesh and gently applied it to her face. I am going for a cold and pale look.

At this stage I retouched her cloak with Greatcoat Gray, to remove and cover up the stray brush strokes from when I was painting up the fur trim. I opted to shade the fur with Coal Black, for two reasons.
1) I like Coal Black as you may have gathered from earlier entries.
2) I opened it by mistake and had it ready. So letting my  favorite paint go to waste was something I wanted to avoid. I have three pots of it....
I wasn't too happy with the initial wash so I added some Thamar Black to the mixture and washed the furs again. Although it came out too dark, it will be fixed with the highlight.

 The highlight was a two stage process. I mixed 'Jack Bone and Morrow white at a 1 to 1 ratio ad then dry brushed lightly. After that I used my fine detail brush to pick out the raised areas with straight Morrow White. Although time consuming it isn't as difficult as I make it sound. At times I just tapped the brush against the miniature.

With the highlights on the fur done, it is time to move on to the cloak... coat? Coat. Ahem. Since her coat is made of what I assume to be cloth we have to keep it from becoming shiny. To do this we will have to make washes from paint and avoid using glazes and inks. This is also less expensive as you won't have to buy inks, but I digress. The first thing that I will do is add the first stage highlight. This will be a 1 to 1 ratio of Morrow White, already wet on my palette, and Greatcoat Gray. I found this part to be a bit tricky as it is difficult, sometimes, to load a brush with just the right amount of paint. Too much and the paint will form a thicker coat on one section that farther down the stroke. Too little on the other hand and you are looking at either a wash, if the brush is wet, or a dry brushed look. This takes time and practice or about 15 minutes if you don't have to take pictures.

Pictured above is an example of what I was striving for. as you can see its a somewhat even and yet flat looking coat. Going for a 100% coverage is inadvisable as cloth doesn't have a consistent light reflection. Take a look at your own clothes if you want to see what I am talking about. I also wanted to take a short brek from her clothing and so I added the metallic paints to her weapon. Like the Destroyer and Juggernaut I used Pig Iron and Brass Balls.

Below you will notice that the holster is painted brown. This is the first stage to painting a well worn leather gun holster. The gun handle and holster were both painted with Gun Corps Brown. I will go into detail on finishing these at a later time. Definitely before the final highlights though.

Well that is it for now. Until next time.

Starting out part XIII

 Hello there, I see that it has taken me too long to post this update. I wish to apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. I am at this time working to rectifying the situation so as to insure that I can post on a more regular basis.
On related note, the Slow Burn league has gained a few new members. I will post their pictures and short intro as I get them taken, written down and of course get permission to post them. Yes I do ask for permission. So now then lets get to the meaty bits of this post eh?
Previously on A brush, a paint, and a mini; I applied the initial base coat on Sorcha.
In this post We will finish up the base coating process and I will also expand on the aspects of painting a character model. So shall we begin?

First I should mention a little more about painting character models and what that entails. Character models in all games and miniatures lines are extra special pieces, they usually have more detail and tend to be a little fancier. They also have more personality to them and that presents a few more challenges than painting regular non-character models. In the case of Sorcha we will need to keep in mind what her personality is like. According to the fiction writer at Privateer Press, Doug Seacat, she is as cold as ice, a frost maiden. We will need to keep that in mind when we paint her while at the same time not allowing this fact to keep us from painting her in a way that keeps her tied in with her army. While her armor should provide the tie in, it is her face as well as some of the secondary effects that we will paint that will show her personality. Painting Sorcha will also give you some experience on painting infantry models as well, so it is like killing two birds with one hand cannon shot. As I have already covered the preliminary base coat on the model in my previous post I will skip that step and move on to the next one.

In this case I will do a little bit of clean up, touch up the base coat and reevaluate her color scheme. As I was looking at her I decided that the gloves needed to be painted black. And some of the armor plates needed an extra coat of red paint. While the boots also get a treatment of Thamar Black.This also helps tie her in with her 'Jacks.

While I am at it, I painted her hair black. This way her hair will provide a greater contrast against the pale skin tone that I have chosen for her. One thing to note is that I have already painted her weapon Coal Black, when I was working on the Juggernaut and Destroyer.

Next I start to look for where all of the leather parts will be. In this case its her gun holster. There are some straps as well, but I think that I will paint some of them black. The handle of the gun as well as the holster will be painted with Gun Corps brown. I then water down some Gun Corps Brown and proceed to paint.

I got a little overzealous with the water and thinned the paint too much. So I took the above picture to show you what happens when you put in too much water when thinning down paint. Not to worry, it's not the end of the world. And while the paint was still wet I opted to use it as a base color for the hat as well.

While I am waiting for the paint on the model to dry, I will mix some Jack bone with the Gun Corps Brown that I already have on my palette. I was going for a 2 parts Jack Bone to one part Gun Corps Brown. This mixture will be applied to the hat and fir trim on the coat.

Make sure to rotate the model as you pain to catch all of the details as you go.

Now that the fir hat and trim have gotten their base color. Its time to mix up some thing for the skin. The skin is one of the trickier parts on a model to paint. Unlike other materials, like leather, metal or even cloth. Skin has seemingly contradictory properties. It is smoother than cloth for example and often times can appear shinier. However it is softer than metals and duller and at times rougher in texture than leather. We have to keep this in mind when painting faces, hands and other fleshy parts. On the plus side base color for flesh is a mid tone. So that you can shade and highlight as you see fit. With that in mind and also keeping in mind that a person's skin isn't always uniform in color I begin to mix my base color for Sorcha's face. To do that I add two parts of Ryn  Flesh to one part of the Jack Bone mixture that I used to base coat her hat and fur trim.

Looks cold, doesn't she? Good.
Well that is it for this week. In my next post I will, fill in that primer colored spot on her chest, clean up the weapon and base coat it, as well as her side arm. I might even get to do her preliminary highlights and shadows.
Until next time.

Starting out part XII

So a couple of posts ago I wrote that I would be basing the warjacks(tm) and then move on to Sorcha. This was not meant to be, as I mentioned earlier in Post 6. I have decided that it would be best to finish the base painting and base highlights on Sorcha before moving on to the finishing touches. So without much ado lets begin.
For tonight's post I would like to introduce you to a new color.

Great Coat Grey. It has a bluish tint to it and it gives a heavy felt appearance to any clothing that you paint it on. Then again that could be just my imagination. All the same I picked it because it is part of the color scheme that Privateer Press uses for their Winter Guard models. That and I haven't had the chance to play with it yet. I might even paint it on the Juggernaut and Destroyer to give them a better tie in with Sorcha. Sorcha's in game fluff should answer any questions as to why I would want to match her to her infantry units. (was that a spoiler? maybe.)
Now for the rest of this post I will be using my trusty base brush. It's a size 00 that I had lying around and it is still in decent enough condition.
I will also use Khador Red Base:

In the middle

So now we move on. Here is Sorcha. She is primed and ready for painting. I believe that I covered the cleaning and primer process in earlier posts.

You will notice that her weapon is already base coated with Coal Black. I did this at the same time as her robot friends and for the same reason.
So to get started I load up my brush with Great Coat gray, spread it on my palette and then thin it down to a two parts water and one part paint ratio. Then I begin to apply it to the model.

Like all colors, paints etc. I prefer to apply about two to three thin coats instead of one thick coat of paint.

It takes longer, but at the same time gives you more control where the paint goes and how much coverage you get. Plus its also easier on your brushes as well.

You don't have to start with the Great coat gray. Though the same applies for whichever color you choose to start with. For the Starter box I opted to paint her cloak, coat and sleeves gray.

Although the sleeves are a little hard to see.

As I add the red you will be better able to differentiate between the Great coat Gray and the rest of the model. I would like to mention that it is better to apply 3 to 4 coats of thinned paint to a model than to do a massive cover all coat. This way you can keep all of the detail and not wear out your brushes too soon.
Now let's move on to the red.

I will apply the Khador Red Base to her armor plates to tie her in with her robots. Err 'Jaks(tm). Since red paint isn't very opaque it will take several coats to accomplish this task.

This is just the first coat. The color becomes brighter with each successive coat of paint.

She looks much better doesn't she?

This one was taken after the third and fourth coat.

Well, I will leave you now as I need some sleep. I will post and cover the rest of the base colors for the leather straps, hat and fir trim as well as the weapon.