Monday Miniatures: Yephima
This week, as if it was somehow timed to coincide with the release of Thor (it wasn’t,) we bring you some beautiful cloud giant’s. Perhaps if we honor them well enough, then they will intercede to prevent weather delays for my upcoming Thanksgiving plans.
This week there was only one mini project that caught my attention.
Arcanengine – This is another custom 3d printing mini project. The future is now, or maybe it was last tuesday.
This weeks mini looks so much better in person. I was shocked at how many flaws the camera shows – I was very happy with the final result until I saw pictures of it. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun. My biggest challenge was the color scheme I chose. The white toga and the ivory mace ended up looking much the same color.
Magnus joined us again this week, and chose a similar but brighter color scheme. He carefully avoided the color conflict issue I described above.
Jessica, this week chose to paint smurfette, and she turned out just smurfy! I’m kidding of course. Jessica did the best work this week in my opinion; I love all the detail she packed into this model. The patterns are detailed, consistent, and lovely.
Tonya was unable to finish but sent a WIP shot it anyway. Tonya’s skills basically blow my mind. Look at the eyes, and the color blending (the subtle stuff on the limbs and the not so subtle work on the cloak.) Truly outstanding.
Rounding out the mix, we have Clint. How his color scheme can be so subtle and coherent and, you know, better than mine every week, is something I will likely never be able to understand. I’m pretty sure his paint rack is enchanted to +3.
Update: David got his in just before I went to bed. He went with a particularly vibrant palette with his giant. I really like how it turned out, but I half expect it to glow under blacklight!
Update 2: Here’s another late entry from Godlike.
Astrid – Send your Astrid’s to Caffeineforge@gmail.com before 2100 MST on 11/24!
Caffeineforge 
These are all really gorgeous! Thanks to everyone for sharing, I particularly love the variation in everyone’s color palates.
Fantastic work, everyone! Jessica’s freehand work really impresses me, and I love the blending on Tonya’s. Magnus and I did nearly identical colors. That always tickles me to no end.
I wasn’t too happy with my work this week. The pics are of the third paint job on this model — the first two were disastrous. Inks wouldn’t behave, my baby blue paint kept turning to chalk and my hands were too damned shaky to do any real details. So that was a rushed eleventh-hour job. My talented wife actually finished up the model, getting rid of stray brushmarks and spots of color, added gems, then did the base for me. Thank you, Laura, for once again saving my biscuits. 🙂
Clint, your giant’s club is very close to what I was thinking of doing, but I got short on time and had to stick with the “all stone” look. Seeing how good yours looks, I might have to go back and add on to the detail on mine!
Also, I’m particularly pleased at how my giant’s skin turned out. The initial basecoat was way, way too blue, so I had to keep whitening it out to tone it down. I’m still learning to properly thin and layer paints, and I was happy at how smooth I was able to keep the skin despite multiple layers of paint.
Great job everyone! Once again, the variety is impressive!
Magnus, I wound up in that boat myself. My first round of blue was way darker than I anticipated – I’m thinking about doing some more lightening still as I continue to work on her. Nice job on maintaining smoothness!
I have problems with my blues going on chalky, as well. Once they’re mixed, it usually gets better, but that first coat on the skin for me was rough, let me tell you.
This week, the similarity of color schemes makes a lot of sense. Martin Jones’ paintjob on the studio model is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I’m stealing ideas from it wholesale.
I’m looking forward to a variety with Astrid next week – she’s the kind of subject that really lends herself to creative interpretation. Then again, all of the painters here seem to be tapped into the same creative pool somehow, so we’ll see!
Martin’s paintjob is jawdropping indeed. I tried cribbing it for my first attempt at painting this mini and failed miserably. You have a much better grasp on it than I did, Tonya.
Freaking Bones, man. I had gritty paint in my giantess’ skin, no biggie, usually I can scrape those out with a hobby knife. Oh no, not on Bones. That results in peeling away large sections of paint. Even with two coats of primer.
Ha, you’ve got that right! Every time I’ve tried to scrape out some stray dust or something that got caught in the paint, it comes off all the way down to the plastic. I need to find a priming method that I like for Bones – I’m having a hard time adjusting to the thicker basecoat needed for painting directly onto bare Bones.
Yeah, that “straight outta the bottle” thing doesn’t work too well for me, either. I’ve added surfactant to most of my paints, right in the dropper bottle (not only am I ‘pre-thinning’ my paints, it helps prevent clogs.)
Hydrophobic plastic sucks. If you find something that works, let us know. And I’ll widdershins likewise.
Thanks Clint! And David too…
I had a lot of issues with the skin on this one too. I found it really hard getting the shadows as dark as I wanted while also getting the light spots as light as I wanted. I am happy with the ultimate result, but I think I’d work with a more gray-blue if I were to do it again.
Hey, Jessica. There’s a guy on the Reaper forum asking advice about your color scheme, if you’re interested.
http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/51528-monday-miniatures/page-5
I’m always impressed with everyone’s work. You guys are amazing. Keep up the fantastic work, it’s the highlight of my Monday! 🙂
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How tall is this mini?
4 or 5 inches. It’s a big one.
Nice! That clinches it then, I am picking her up. I like the paint schemes too, you guys all did really
You should pick up one of the models we are going to do and paint along with us.
… great. Really great! This this interrupted me..
Where do I see which you are doing?
They are posted at the bottom of reach week. https://caffeineforge.com/2015/03/09/monday-miniatures-ghoul-queen/
Just scroll down and click the links, if any of the strike your fancy, feel free to jump in!