MiniatureWars.Com » Colonials

Dancers, pt 5

Michael Cannon — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:32:11 +0000

Here’s the final birthday present. The dome came from Glass Domes and ran around $12 with shipping. Their shipping and response times were very good so I can recommend them. They also have a wide range of domes available.

King of the Khyber Rifles

Michael Cannon — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:03:51 +0000

King of the Khyber Rifles by Talbot Mundy is a real period piece! The hero, Athelstan King, is a British Intelligence Service officer in India during the early 1900s. The mission given to him by his superiors is to prevent an uprising on the Northwest Frontier. In the course of the adventure he disguises himself as a native, comes across his brother, gains access to a hidden mountain fortress, penetrates to the heart of the revolt and (almost) gets the girl. If you enjoy Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert Howard, then this novel is for you! I can’t go into too much detail as it will spoil the plot but it is a fast-paced adventure yarn. You can make two or three scenarios for Northwest Frontier gaming from this: a fortress besieged, infighting between Pathan tribes, and full blown revolt on the frontier with random reinforcements attacking British columns or railway teams.

Dancers, pt. 4

Michael Cannon — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:19:14 +0000

Almost finished! Last night I sprayed the figures with gloss varnish and Dullcote and matched the figures together.

I am quite pleased with how these turned out. There is a little bit of chipping where the figures came off of the painting base but I’ll touch this up later. Now I need to find a small glass dome I can place them in and it’s presentable!

Overall this was a fun miniature to paint. Not a whole lot of tiny irritating details like Confrontation figures have and a reasonable price, even with shipping.

Dancers, pt. 3

Michael Cannon — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:47:23 +0000

More time on the figures. I have taken the gent and shaded the suit a bit more. I did not like the way the shading looked initially so I applied a layer of thinned clear blue (a Reaper Master Series Paints) to smooth out the paint. I also worked on the vest, tie, and shirt.

Today I worked on her hair and tiara. Since she’s a blond, this was pretty straightforward. I need to add some midtone glazing to bring out the folds on both the man and woman.

Dancers, pt. 2

Michael Cannon — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:59:28 +0000

I had to go back and redo the gent’s face. I applied a glaze over it to reduce the glare from the highlight and I think it now looks much better:

I have spent time on the lady tonight and I did better on her face in terms of making the paint flow more smoothly. When I got to the dress, however, I ran into the same old problem with paint that was too thin. I think that I try to put too much paint out and so keep diluting it to get use all of it. That’s really false economy on my part as the paint is pretty cheap.

I need to go back and redo the lining around the collars and shirt and dress sleeves when I get the flesh done the way I want it. I plan on doing the hair a reddish blonde like my wife’s so don’t think she’s got white hair! I am using Reaper’s rosy triad for her skin tones and the tanned flesh skin triad for the gent.

As always, comments appreciated. It’s hard to be your own critic.

Dancers, pt. 1

Michael Cannon — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 02:51:21 +0000

The 1st of August is my wife’s birthday and since I can never find anything that she likes, I’m going to paint her a figure from Eureka miniatures. You can see the dancing couple here… I have the center top figure. I appreciate Nic’s assistance as I asked to get one of the dancing figures in conjunction with a 100 club order. I will be posting in-progress shots as I go along. Here are the first:

I mentioned in an earlier post that the bad thing about photos is that they show every little flaw. You can see several here. I am, overall, pleased with how the face came out. The error I made is that I used paint that was too thin on the face which caused it to look chalky up close. Fortunately it does not look that way from a distance. I have green eyes and brown hair (no moustache, though) and so that is how I painted him. At Reapercon I was taught that the next step in doing eyes is to do a small dot of white in the iris for the reflection of light. I tried it here using a shaper brush and actually did it satisfactorily! I outlined the face with brown liner and ran a line through the part in the hair. I also added a touch of grey at the temples and edges of the hair.

I don’t know if I am going to strip this and start over or leave it the way it is, but I’m thinking of just running with it.