Subtle Star Raider

Here's one of the Star Raiders from the initial Star Schlock skirmish game Kickstarter. For this model, I tried Jeff's "fat over lean" technique for the first time. The Star Raider was already primed with Leadbelcher, so I couldn't change that, but I did begin with a Nuln Oil ink wash. After that, I drybrushed very, very light coats of acrylic silver paint over the knee pads and parts of the rifle. Next, I used the same drybrush technique to coat parts of the armour in a pale metallic blue. Finally, I used brown contrast paint for the bandolier. As a result there's no lumpy paint, but on the other hand, there are no bold colours. Perhaps that's fine for this model? 
 

Bernadette with a Blade

There's a fellow in Spain who creates very nice miniatures, but who for some bizarre reason takes as his inspiration characters from The Big Bang Theory. I believe this one is based on Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, portrayed on the show by Melissa Rauch. 

I started painting this figure before Jeff left his notes about painting fat over lean, so once again the results here look pretty clumpy. Jeff also notes that I should really use a pallet; I used to, but I've gotten lazy and I'm often painting out of the pots. So, time to return to that good habit. 

Still, I can scarce believe I managed to paint Bernadette's glasses, and the drybrushing of her dress, while imperfect, is better than I'd hoped for. 
 

Arcade-Inspired Astronaut

Here's the first human figure, "Packman," I've painted from the first Star Schlock Kickstarter. Naturally, I chose colours inspired by Pac-Man. 

Here he is with a couple of robots from the same Kickstarter.

Rear view. 

Butlerbot and Alertbot

Here's Butlerbot, the best black glove service 'bot in the known galaxy!

And here's Alertbot, with his light-up dome and warning klaxon! When your ship or squadron goes to Red Alert and you're not close to a console or alarm, Alertbot is there to let you know there's trouble brewing! 

Brazier and Fireball

A few months back, my Monster Scenery Ice Wilds terrain arrived. Most of the terrain is beautifully painted, but a few bonus pieces came unpainted. This roaring brazier is an Earl special, and I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. 

If your adventuring party includes a spellcaster, the fire in the brazier can be removed to represent the fireball spell, flying through the air to doom your foes. 

Primed for Car Wars

Sean and I Kickstarted the sixth edition of Car Wars, the tabletop game of vehicular carnage. Our giant boxes arrived a few months ago, but only now have I finally primed the included vehicles. One step closer to actually playing the game! 
 

Scored Four Dungeon Doors

Here are four more dungeon doors from one of the Dungeons & Lasers sets I Kickstarted. I used drybrushing to paint the wood surfaces and teeny weeny brushes to paint the metal and stone bits. 
 

Double Dungeon Door Display

Here are two more finished dungeon doors from one of the Dungeons & Lasers terrain Kickstarters I backed. Not bad! 
 

Turret

Tonight I painted the turret you see here defending a donkey and a high fantasy version of Sylvia. (The Sylvia model is from the HeroForge full-colour 3D-printing Kickstarter I supported a while back.) The turret should keep low-level raiders and hostile wildlife at bay. 
 

Victim of the Car Wars

Here's the first playing piece I've painted for the sixth edition of Car Wars--a wrecked car flipped over on its backside. 

I painted the main body in thin coats of yellow with red and metallic accents, then used weathering pencils to add sand and smoke stains. 

I also smeared on some Armageddon Dust to serve as dried mud. 

This model will serve the purpose, but truth be told, I'm not terribly happy with it. It looks messy and ill-formed to my eye, but I'm not sure what I would have done differently. 

Eight Doors

Recently I painted eight doors from one of the Dungeons & Lasers terrain sets I Kickstarted. I think my favourite is the bio-organic Alien-esque door--the one in tones of green. The portal door and the vault door might be my second and third favourites. Really, though, I'm reasonably happy with all of these. 
 

Things You Might Find on Boot Hill

Today I painted this collection of stretch goals from a Kickstarter project offering Western-themed miniatures. The cowboys themselves are great sculpts, but I thought I'd start with the easy stuff: an old-fashioned water pump, a rattlesnake, three gravestones for Boot Hill, and a snake coming out of a pair of cowboy boots. 
 

It's Impolite to Point and Paint

This is a beautifully sculpted miniature from Spain. so finely detailed that I was afraid to paint it. Well, I overcame my fear and this is the half-decent result. 
 

Against the Grain

It's hard to tell from this crudely-shot photo, but the Vallejo "Wood Grain" paint Sean introduced me to really does a great job of making plastic look like wood. Thanks Sean! 

Inkwashed Tower

Here's my Modular Realms tower, finished at last inside and out. I'm pretty happy with it. 

Cobblestone Tower

Here's the tower that came with the Modular Realms Kickstarter project. As with the cottage, I'm trying to make this look as though it's been built with many different kinds of stone. I'm going to call the outside finished aside from an ink wash. After that, I'll do it all over again with the interior walls . . . 
 

Wee Stone Cottage

Here's another item from the Modular Realms Kickstarter, a little 28mm-scale cottage. I tried to paint this to make it look like the cottage was assembled with assorted stones, some wood, and "painted" (in the world of the game) "wooden" shingles. 
 

Pride Flagstones

I'm a little late for Pride Month, but I wanted to see what Pride colours would look like on this 28mm-scale 3x3 magnetic flagstone tile. It's the first tile I've painted from the Modular Realms Kickstarter I supported last year. I think this is one of those cases where I should not have added ink wash. They do give the tile a bit more depth, but they also mute the colours. Luckily I have several of these tiles, so I can try again. 

Stone Bridge

Tonight I experimented with this miniature stone bridge, the first piece I've painted from the massive Dungeons & Lasers project I Kickstarted last year. Having spent an entire evening painting last night's miniature for rather mixed results, I knew I needed to attempt some of the tricks that other painters use to speed up the process. This is important because I have literally hundreds of pieces of terrain to paint, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing it. The idea is that these bits of plastic and resin and steel are meant to be played with, so finishing is important. 

In the case of this stone bridge, I threw caution to the wind and tried to approach the piece more by feel than analysis. The piece was molded in dark grey plastic, a good base, I thought. I started with a base coat of slightly lighter grey, then inkwashed it. After that, I drybrushed a coat of still lighter grey overtop, just letting my hands guide me without trying to second-guess where the brush strokes were taking me. I painted the flowerpot tops red to represent roses, dotting the bridge with a couple of fallen "petals." Finally, I added just a tiny bit of dark wash to each flowerpot. 

The bridge has "wooden" supports, so I painted that entire square section dark brown, inkwashed it with brown wash, and then used metallic silver to carefully dot the rivets - probably the slowest part of the process, but even then, I tried to let my hands stay in control. 

All told, it took me about 20 minutes to paint this bridge. As a bonus, I'm much happier with the results than I am with yesterday's lich. Feels like success. 

Wall Test

Some time ago I supported Modular Realms on Kickstarter. They produce modular, magnetic 28mm-scale terrain pieces you can fit together into various dungeons, rivers, city streets, and so on. My order came with one misprinted part, quickly and painlessly replaced by the folks at Modular Realms. 

But the misprinted part hasn't gone to waste. As you can see above, I used the extra part to test some paints. The brown works for the wood sections, and I like the dark grey for stone. I'm less taken with the light grey and the yellow, used for some of the stone block pieces. I do like the black and copper.