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.