Monday Miniatures: Stone Golem
This week’s colum starts with the note attached to one of the minis that was sent to me this week.
“Thank you for including me last week! Attached is my golem. At first I really found it hard to get started on this mini, I just wasnt feeling inspired and almost gave up on doing anything this week. Then I decided that I would use it to experiment and I am so happy with the results. It needs work but I am still proud.
The point is making that if it wasn’t for your blog then I would have just put the mini aside and probably not painted this week instead I pushed myself and learned some new things. So Thank you!!!”
I love seeing all the variety that comes of watching a dozen people paint the same mini, but it is the motivation to work on painting every week that really moves me. I’m glad to see that it has the same effect on others.
This week there were no mini related Kickstarters of any kind, near as I can tell. So instead let me talk about the lightbox I just picked up. As anyone who reads this column with regularity knows I have been complaining about the quality of my pictures on a near weekly basis. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing all the painstaking details of a well painted model obscured by lousy lighting; it is easy to tell who takes the extra time to do it right, and who doesn’t.
That’s why I bought a lighting setup off of Amazon. The below results will speak for themselves, but so far I am very happy with them. The lightboxes themselves are easily foldable, and the two included lights are very bright – easily the brightest lights in my house.
This week I chose to go with a jade golem and a little freehand brushwork. I was not the only one to make either choice, but I had a lot fun doing this one. The model was well cast and had plenty of detail to play with.
Alexander took great advantage of this detail and did a great job with the drybrushing.
Jessica’s OSL has really come a long way, and established some great visual interest.
Arjen went with a brown stone and Verdigris color scheme.
Daniel did a great job of making his mini look stony. It looks far more ‘solid’ than some of the other minis this week, and I’m not actually sure what element of the paint job conveys the effect so well.
David’s effort borders on impressionistic, and is particularly lovely.
Magnus went for a granite paint job, with some particularly pretty gems.
Clint’s efforts also look very rocky, and I love the glow effect he did on the eyes. I wish mine had come out half so well.
Kylie’s efforts were just outstanding all around, I was surprised that we made the same choice on the freehand runes and everything, though I think that this mini came out slightly better than my own.
Tonya, as always does an outstanding job on this week’s mini. I love the veins in the rock; it’s a wonderful effect, and I am surprised that she is the only one that thought of it.
Update: 3 more pictures showed up in my inbox this morning.
Albert also took a marbled approach, and choose am interesting color scheme for the veins.
Another David (we’re everywhere!) Went for more of a Frankenstien’s monster vibe, complete with greenstuff chains and exposed brain.
Lastly, Andy created a particularly frightening magma golem. I’d i had it to do again, this is the theme I would try.
Great work everyone. I look forward to seeing what you can do next week.
Sarcophagus – Send your pictures to Caffeineforge@gmail.com before 2100 MST on 12/22!
Caffeineforge 
Awesome minis this week, everyone!
Hi, awesome work all. I am curious about your techniques. Daniel, how did you get that awesome stone color, did you mix in some bronze paint? David and Kylie, what do you use for painting those very fine details? Is there a trick to it, or is it a very fine brush tip with a very steady hand? My brush tends to hold either too much paint or none at all.
Albert, I think yours is the most creative one, great execution as well.
For the free hand runes I used a size one brush for the first 2 layers, and a size triple zero brush for the last three. I started with a dark red layer, and created brighter and thinner layers of bright red, orange, yellow, and white. It took some time but want hard.
I like how it turned out.
I used a “Citadel Fine Detail Brush” for the runes – they are about a size 0 but Citadel doesn’t do sizes for some reason. I don’t always use a Citadel brush that just happened to be the brush I had.
As for keeping it steady I held the mini flat on his back against the table and the hand with my brush was braced against the table too. Then I just made small strokes.
My technique was the same as David in that I layered from dark to light. colours. I watched this tutorial – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmtdTFjjqTg
Hope this helps. 🙂
Everyone did a FANTASTIC job on the Golem mini! Super impressed over here! I feel I have to say that David (umm- the middle David) did an awesome job making his model look like a comic book illustration! I have no clue how you did it, but it’s way cool.
You guys are rad! 🙂
I think everyone’s minis were amazing!!!
David, I was surprised to see the runes on yours too! I thought yours had a much stronger glowing technique and I really liked that – I think I am going to have to try the stronger layering of colours next time!
I think Margus’ granite was really well done and Andy’s magma was such a great idea!
Thanks for the tips. The vIdeo is indeed nice.
I love all the variations of the one miniature. Great ideas and painting all around. Those freehands are great, going to steal those ideas. I say that everytime I see freehand runes, but i always forget. 😛