Monday Miniatures: Delayed Edition
So I went on a hike this weekend. An epic 18 mile affair. It’s possible I might have pushed myself a little too much. As a result, I am so sore I had to take the day off work. That will teach me to have hobbies outside of painting.
Nature turns out to be a wonderful painter in her own right, though.
I had no chance to look at any new Kickstarter projects this weekend. Anyone want to link the latest and greatest to me?
This week I reid a new technique: I base coated the whole mini in a light grey, and then built up colors with a series of washes and glazes. At the very end I added red and white highlights where appropriate. I’m really happy with out it all turned out – it allowed for some really subtle blending techniques.
Magnus went with a similar color scheme, but did a much better job on the eyes. I found them to be particularly impossible on this model.
Newcomer Wolfie907 went a completely different way, and his result was much more technicolor. The flesh came out particularly well on this one.
Speaking of technicolor we have Kylie’s harpy up next. I LOVE this color scheme. Very stylish and inventive.
Arjen sends us a compelling WIP shot. I love this color scheme, and am convinced his harpy will turn out great!
Last, but certainly not least, we have Dirk. For the second week in a row, he is repurposing one of the bones to be a character in one of his Warhammer armies. Notice the bit of Bretonian flare… Great stuff, really!
Oh Rats! – Let’s knock out another group of minor minis! – please send pictures of your harpy to Caffeineforge@gmail.com by 2100 MDT on 6/29
Familiars – Paint your favorite, or two or three – it’s up to you.
Bat Swarm – I think this is one of the weakest minis in the entire bones collection. Let’s see what we can do to fix that.
Caffeineforge 
Thanks for the compliment David! I dont know that Id call it inventive – she started out being based on the World of Warcraft harpy but I ended up changing it a bit as I went. I consider her a sea harpy who lives on the cliffs by the sea-side. I am really happy with how she turned out – Im glad you like it too!
I think everyone did a great job this week and its great to see the different colour schemes!
Dirk – the blood makes her look positively vicious – I love it! :p What did you use for the bloody remains on the base? They look great!
Arjen – I really like where you are going with this mini, I too think it will look great!
Wolfie – Welcome! I agree with David, your flesh looks really good, I look forward to seeing some of your other work 🙂
Magus – Your eyes are looking amazing. I also like the dark skin tone for her. I think she looks really good.
David – I think the blending you did on the wings turned out really well! I also like the wing feathers too – I think they have great tones & Highlights through them!
Kylie, I really like your color scheme, as well – it looks great!
I ran into some problems when I went to seal my figure; the matte spray “fogged” the figure pretty badly. I mentioned it on my blog post (http://magnusmercury.blogspot.com/2014/06/monday-miniatures-harpy.html), and while the oil fixed the cloudiness it left the figure rather glossy. Hopefully I can tone that back down so my harpy isn’t so shiny… 😛
This week I like David’s mini best. It has subtle color shades like most real-life birds, and yet there is a lot of variation and all details stand out very well.
I had trouble bringing out the feathers when I did the griffon, so this time I tried a wash of diluted white over a brown basecoat and it works rather well, though that may not be very clear from my picture. I may have picked this idea up from one of the other griffons you all posted, so I consider it the bonus of hanging around with you guys on this site long enough.
@ Magnus: have you considered NOT spraying your bones minis? I never do and the paintwork, unlike with the metal ones, holds out well.
Thanks for the feedback Arjen. Like you I have had no problems with flaking paint on bones models, and no sealer has been used so far.
@Arjen: I haven’t really considered omitting the sealer. In some cases, I depend on the matte spray to tone down the semi-gloss that results from some washes. I’m hoping this time was either the result of the humidity here, or putting on too heavy a coat.
Reaper’s brush on sealer is a decent matte coat if you want to avoid the spray matte sealer.
I, like Arjen, don’t tend to find I need to have the sealer – I use reaper paints and Vallejo washes and don’t usually ended up with a very matte finish. Occasionally, I will use a gloss varnish on gems to make them shiny.
I have considered using a sealer – particularly on minis I plan to base with grass, but don’t currently have any. However, as of yet I have not had any issues of chipping or anything. We do play with our minis (pathfinder games) and they get attacked by my cat sometimes. As for storage, I store them in plastic divided boxes (like this one – http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/400640655495?var=670192851253&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649) the lack of padding is not ideal but they aren’t rubbing against each other – and they are really easy to pack away. Each of my boxes have a theme (casters/melee/animals/demons etc) so I always know where to find a mini.
Id be interested to see what others have to say.
On another note – I do check your blog Magus, and enjoy reading your process and why you make your choices. I have a similar blog 🙂
I am also curious about Kylie’s blue-rimmed feathers: is it done by meticulously painting them one by one or is there some trick you could share?
Hey Arjen – with my feathers I painted them black, and the with a small dry brush of pale blue I went over the edges of the feathers – I tried to keep away from the centre of each feather. It is one of the first times I have tried to use a dry brush technique on such a small and specific area. But I am happy with the results! 🙂
@Kylie: the harpy-unit has the skeletons from a horse and rider (ought to be an eaten bretonnian knight) devided among the bases. the bloody remaines behind the reaper harpy is part of the horses´ ripcage. I covered it in red, as it was freshly gnawed off, and after I flocked the base I let more red flow on the grass.
to the varnish subject: we didn´t sealed our models until now, and they are resting in a glass cabinet. But as the number of painted models grows, some of them has to go in the near future ;).
I use foam cases for my armies, and the human-size reaper minis will go in one of these too.
I like to seal the models beforehand, as I fear the paint can scratch off through handling or – later – play (as we use them for our roleplaying groups).
During the painting process I recognized that the paint is easily scratched off on prominent parts, such as armour spikes. After finishing this problem didn´t occure, but I dodn´t want to take a risk.
We mainly use army painter colours, but also games workshop and Vallejo. Does anyone has experience, which colours are best suited for bones minis?
by the way: I like all the harpies, my favoured colour sheme is Kylie´s.
Given how much time I put into painting a figure, I feel obligated to add a protected coat to at least minimize potential damage to it. 😛
For reference, I use mostly Vallejo Game Color paints, with some Reaper MSPs. I actually prefer the way the Reaper paints flow, and plan to slowly transition more to their line as I use up my VGC paints.