Monday Miniatures: Janan
Now that the hydra has finished decimating our free time, this week we return to our normal practice of a smaller miniature every week. This week is Janan, the dragon slayer. Though the range of colors is not as much as it might typically be some weeks, the level of detail is really staggering. Take a look.
Darklands – Mierce Miniatures launches their third project on Kickstarter, further extending their line. They have some lovely sculpts, but are using Kickstart as an online store rather than to raise money on something speculative enough to warrant crowd funding in my opinion.
Blue was a common color this week. I chose to go with it as a contrast for a red dragon’s head. The head is the piece of this week’s efforts I was particularly proud of. As to the rest of the model, it turns out that the upside of muddled casting is that you can ignore most of the mold lines and turn this warrior into a dragon slayer in a chainmail bikini.
Magnus went with a golden knight by way of contrast, though again gold was a common color this week. Magnus, your picture has deeper colors than past weeks: did you alter your lighting set up?
The Vogel’s were really out to wow us this week. Dirk painted Kitiara of dragon lance fame. It only stands to reason she would slay a gold dragon. I love the details on this particular rendition, there are almost too many to list. The snow, the blood, the glowing eyes of the dragon, and the high lights on the scale mail – all of them are fantastic. Dirk: how many hours would you say you invested in this truly exquisite mini?
Not to be out done, Antonia matches her husbands blue and gold color scheme with her gold and blue color scheme. I love all the little details she adds every week. Not only does blood spatter her armor, but there is a nasty looking wound that has been carved into her right leg. Let me ask you the same question: how long did this beauty take you?
This weeks efforts were outstanding, and I already have a submission for next week. Thank you all so much for participating. I will never get these bones painted without the motivation your company provides.
Malek, Necropolis Mage Send pictures to caffeineforge@gmail.com by 4/6/14 at 9pm.
Village Rioter – Let’s see some OSL this week.
Caffeineforge 
Unfortunaltely I hadn´t as much time to paint this week as I hoped for, so I skipped layering and highlighting and worked only with washes this time. After the base colour was finished, I used multiple layers of washes, especially the army painter quickshades, and worked from lighter shades to darker ones.The scale armour e.g. got washes in blue and black. I think I needed approximately 10 to 13 hours to finish, including a nervous breakdown at the end as some snow effect oblittered Kitiaras breastplates, which I had to repaint.
Hi Dave, hi all!
I’m glad you liked our minis, they have (as always) a story. After Dirk decided to paint Kitiara I wondered which character would do a nice contrast and came up with a paladiness who comes after Kitiara to seek revenge for the death of a (her?) golden dragon. Seems both ladies are without mounts now…
@Dave: I think painting the mini took also about 10-12 hours, like Dirk’s, since we painted sidy-by-side 😀 In hindsight I could have done more for her face, but one the other hand I wanted her to look more natural in comparison to Kitiara who I figured is wearing make-up. At least lipstick 😉
That’s why she has much more blood on her, too: As a more down-to-earth approach I figured she would have waded through much of the blackish-red dragon’s blood, so I gave her bloody boots and footprints. Wow, perhaps I wrote a bit too much about all this stuff, sorry! :p
Love the colors on your dragon head, by the way! Very subtle.
@Magnus: You have wonderfully vivid colors, especially the gold. Is it GW/citadel paint, or which ones do you use?
Wow, the amount of detail you guys pulled out of this figure is amazing! I didn’t think the figure’s detail was that great, and Janan seemed smaller than most of the figures I’ve done lately so it was hard to do anything with her eyes.
To answer your question, I have indeed been playing with a different light setup. I’m glad that it seems to be improving picture quality! Now, if only it could improve the paint quality, too… 😛
The easiest thing you could do would be to try using some washes to pick out details that are too small to paint. I really like the games workshop range of washes myself.
I have worked a long time with GW Paints and like the washes, especially Flesh wash (my shading medium for flesh and blood and leather…). Recently I tried the army painter quick shades and was positively surprised (at first I was sceptical washing the whole figure in brown, but carefully used it looks good). It seems to me that the flow characteristics are better than GW washes.
And yes, Yanan is really smaller than other figures. First I thought that she could almost be a halfling 🙂
I really like the “Vengeance” one. I like the idea of this “Monday Miniatures”, and I will look into it from time to time.
Earlier this year, I also painted my “Dragon Slayer”, part of a diorama that can be seen here : http://www.gulix.fr/blog/spip.php?article284
Very nice diorama! That second red Dragon does not look particularly pleased to see her.