Varashia, Vale Archer Sergeant

Varashia, from Reaper's Warlord line sculpted by Werner Klocke.  Painted and sold in February of '12.

I just love this figure, she has that look like she's counting how many arrows she could put into your heart per second from 100 yards out...

The thing I remember most about this mini was having to repaint her cloak from the first version as I thought it was too busy.  Took about an entire day to redo it!  But in the end, she has a cloak any elf would be proud to sport.

Shaedra, Female Paladin

Shaedra, Female Paladin from Reaper's Dark Heaven line, sculpted by Werner Klocke.  Painted and sold in February of '11.

Artemis

Artemis from Hasslefree.  Resin, 40mm.  Painted in oils and sold in May of '08.

My first experiment with oil painting on minis.  The "large" scale of this piece was the excuse I was looking for at the time to see if I could paint a mini using oil.  Over an acrylic base of course, aint nobody got time for an oil basecoat!

Reeve the Pious, Holy Warrior

Reeve the Pious, Holy Warrior from Reaper’s Dark Heaven line sculpted by Bobby Jackson.  Painted and sold in November of ‘12.

Pathfinder Trinia Sabor

Trina Sabor from Reaper's Pathfinder line sculpted by Patrick Keith.  Painted and sold in April of '12

I painted her to match closely the art for her character used by Paizo.

Talisman Witch Elf

This Witch Elf mini is from the old days of gaming and is a classic by now for sure.  She's from the Talisman board game 3rd edition.  Painted and sold in May of '11.

I like to paint these old classics and try to make them really pop with a modern approach to applying paint.  On this piece, her hair...yeah.  That hair!   I'll probably end up painting this piece again because I'm painting all the old Talisman figures according to their traditional paint schemes on their character chards.  Big project but of course I will post the results of that here eventually!

Shaeress Nassanneth, Dark Elf Queen

Shaeress Nassanneth, Dark Elf Queen from Reaper's Dark Heaven line sculpted by Werner Klocke.

I painted Shaeress to be an ice queen in January of '12 and sold her in the same month.

If I paint this mini again, I will make her a proper dark elf, she's a very complex sculpt with multiple parts and I had to attach her arm with a resculpted shoulder to support the thin connection there.  That's why she has a 'puffy sleeve' style up there, that's all putty work to add support.

Female Huckster, Two versions

The Female Huckster, from Reaper's Savage Worlds line, sculpted by Bob Ridolfi.
 Both painted and sold in May of '12.

I like to work on color schemes, it's a fun part of this particular artform we enjoy.  Coming up with different looks on the same miniature is always gratifying when you take the time to see it through.

I tried to give her a little variation in everything from hair color to skintone, makeup to her gear selection and of course her outfit and getup.  I even tried varied those tiny playing cards up a little from hand to hand.  I spent a little more time on the brown version since she has that fancy brocade pattern on her dress.

Tiviel, Tiefling Conversion

 

Tiviel, Tiefling from Reaper's Dark Heaven line (sculpted by Derek Schubert).

This was the first Tiefling I ever painted up, back in May of '11, and sold in June '11.

I converted her from the base sculpt quite a bit, which I'll go into detail here.

First I twisted her torso and legs a bit to give her a better contrappasto feel as I felt the original was too flat (which is a drawback to many one piece sculpts due to casting concerns unfortunately.)

I then repositioned both of her arms to have a more dynamic placement.

I gave her more hair to help fill the volume of her head out and balance the shapes.

I resculpted her mouth and a little of her face to give it more fullness.  Very subtle changes.

Lastly I resculpted her abdomen and lower back to help the new anatomy to match the torso twist I gave her.

Blending her tail tip and base was done with oil paint and I used the same tone as her hair to help color balance.  Sometimes I like to convert the default Reaper minis, but it's too time consuming so I rarely do it.

New look for Darkstar's Mini Blog is live!

Just a quick note to say I'm thrilled to present the new look for my blog here!  I worked pretty hard this week on all the design elements and now it's finally done.  So going forward from today I can now focus on content, content and more content instead of worrying about the design, and let's face it, that's why we go to these blogs right, for the content.

I know the design is busy, it was a deliberate aesthetics choice of mine.  What can I say,  I just enjoy looking at all the pretty colors haha.

Jolie, Female Scribe

Jolie, Female Scribe, from Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends line (sculpted by Werner Klocke).  Painted in August of '04 and sold in September of '04.

I remember seeing the "wing" sleeves on this mini when the inspiration came to paint her robes with butterfly colors.  In the end what do you know, it kind of worked out.  My blending skill left much to be desired back then, I think I was still using Future as an additive! But I still like the way her book looks today with the different color illuminated lettering and little painting on the page.

Maybe one day I'll revisit this piece with a modern paintjob, I still really like this sculpt.

Kazala, Efreet

Kazala the Efreet from Reaper's Dark Heaven line (sculpted by Ben Siens)

Kazala is an older piece painted in August of '04 and sold in September of the same year.  That's almost 9 years ago!  One of the purposes of this blog is to help showcase my work, new and old and so reaching way back in time to pull these images out is kind of fun.  I can really see how my style has changed and how much I've learned when I look at these older figures.

I'm still fond of his red skin and freehand designs on his pants, although my highlight placements for the NMM were a bit off (and let's just ignore the sword altogether shall we) as I was still getting the hang of it.

Back then I was using inks for shading and they really make the shadows of the red skin have depth to them don't they.  I also was using Future floor wax as a flow enhancer and here and there you can even still see the shiny finish left over from that as I wasn't fully indoctrinated into using the Dulcote spell to coat my minis back then!

Still, I like this old fella, it's nice to let him out of the bottle for awhile again.

Cleric of Calistria

The Cleric of Calistria.  28mm metal, Part of Reaper's Pathfinder line (sculpt by Patrick Keith).

I don't know much about Pathfinder so I had to look around the web and find some info on what exactly a Cleric of Calistria was, since by all rights to my un-indoctrinated eye she looked more like an Rogue Assassin of the Badlands with all those pointy weapons and leather!  I did find out that Calistrian clerics favored the deity's color of yellow, so I wanted to incorporate that in there somewhere so I chose her inner leggings.  Part of the fun for me is exactly this kind of research before tackling a project.

Painted in March of '12 and sold in April of '12.

Now this paintjob was an exercise in differing leather types.  I love painting black leather because when you take your time and approach it with the right work up, you can get some pretty convinving effects at this scale where the eye starts to believe it's seeing actual leather.  It's one of the easier materials to replicate with paintwork in my humble opinion, at least for me it is.

Leather is everywhere in this hobby! All forms of minis from historical to sci-fi to fantasy, leather is ubiquitous on our minis. Coming in every color and condition; having many approaches to tackling the different types of leather is extra useful for a painter.

I will do a tutorial on the various leathers and how I approach them one day when I start work on my tutorials section for this blog.  One day very soon as that is on my agenda moving forward.  Adding content like that, tutorials, tips and tricks, methods I use and thoughts on technique is something I want to express here in great quantity, so if that's your thing....this will be a good place to watch.

Bella, Succubus

Ahh, Bella the Buxom Succubus. Sculpted for Reaper by Patrick Keith. A very unique take on the subject matter! I was very happy to see this sculpt since it's not often that we break free from the barbie-esque super heroine mold that most female minis are cast in.  No pun intended.

Believe me I'm first in line for those classicly over the top feminine chainmail-bikini type sculpts when they're released, as there's a special place in my heart for the familiar Fantasy archetypes tropes we've all come to to love (or loathe) over the years.  But it's refreshing to see another perspective on things as after all, bodies come in all shapes and sizes, so why shouldn't our little minis ya know?   Very cool!

This is to be given as a gift to friend of mine, to help him study skintones as he picks up some painting techniques from me.  If there's one mini with loads of skin to study, it's this particular gal!  I had fun painting all the soft blends on this one, skin is one of my favorite things to paint, in all the manifold varieties.

Ariseth, Necropolis Chattel Conversion

Here we have an older figure from Reaper's Warlord range, Ariseth, Necropolis Chattel (sculpted by Stefan Niehaus).  I felt the original sculpt was a little flat and along with the contorted pose looked like it needed some help.  I sculpted for her some hair and the visor skull helmet to help balance out her proportions.

I also sculpted for her a shoulderpad on her left arm to help bulk her up a little and gave her a loincloth hanging from her backside to help sell the idea of the flowing hair, since I could place a wind direction on the loincloth as well.  Painting all those little straps everywhere was tedious!

I worked on this piece off and on from '09 to '12 and sold her in February of 2012 after she was completed and photographed.

The two swords have a kind of mystical rune pattern thing happening in the paintwork there and they came out really nice and soft in the photo.  I'd say I'm happy with the way the silver NMM effect came out in the photos almost makes for a convincing metal effect against the blue background!

Alahazra, Iconic Oracle Version 2

A mini so nice, I had to paint her twice.  Here is my other take on Alahazra, with the silver staff head.

Alahazra, Iconic Oracle, Pathfinder mini Version 1

 

Sometimes I like a particular mini so much that I get the urge to paint up multiple versions of a piece.  Alahazra, from Reaper's Pathfinder line, (sculpted by Julie Guthrie) was one of these.  Here is the first the version I painted, which I refer to as the "light" version. 

Her base was made from lab stone, hand carved, over which I applied raised relief that I made from taking castings of a piece of jewelry I special ordered for this piece.  The castings are also lab stone.  All painted to lend the impression of well-worn-and-weathered desert sandstone.

This piece was painted in August of 2012 and sold (along with her matching counterpart, the dark version) to her buyer in Hong Kong in September of 2012.  

Tomorrow I will post the second version I painted of this fantastic mini.

Lorna the Huntress

Starting today I'll be updating this blog finally.  I have so much work to share from the past couple of years since creating this blog that it would be too time consuming to post all of it at once. Instead I will post one miniature a day here on this blog, and over time I will finally have a blog worth looking at.

I'll be starting with this little gal here, Lorna the Huntress from Reaper's Dark Heaven line sculpted by Bobby Jackson. Painted in January of 2012, sold in February of 2012.

I've always liked this simple figure and wanted to give her a tribal warrior type of look. I chose her color scheme based on a complement to her skintone and eyeshadow, which color I was inspired to use by an image of warrior from a South American jungle tribe I referenced on Google.

 I made the base from hand sculpted and carved sculpey stones that I layered one by one.  Time consuming, but one of my better simple bases.  The vines and leaves were made from rolled out Magic Sculp, the moss from sand.

 

Here's a closeup of her face that  I took that shows off the eyes pretty nicely.  Ok, that's it for the first post to this blog after I decided to resurrect it from the ashes. More to come tomorrow and for many days after that.  So thanks for stopping by and if you like this kind of stuff, be sure to stay tuned as they used to say.

A compilation of Warhammer Quest minis I've painted this year and last.

I was asked if there was a way I could get all of the Warhammer Quest minis that I had painted this year and last together for a group shot. Since most of them are already gone to their homes around the world the best I could do was make a compilation of shots I had taken of them.

These sculpts were the ones I liked from either the Adventurers or Wizards box set (circa late 1990's and early 2000's). Now that I'm done with my retro painting binge I'm looking forward to moving on to painting more recent and modern sculpts. Also, first post to the blog.