Tag: bust (Page 2 of 2)

From the workbench: Tribe Chief Morrow, part 2

April 5, 2015 / David / 5 Comments

I’ve been having a ton of fun painting Tribe Chief Morrow. He paints up super quickly, so I only had time for a few sets of photos before he was finished. When I left off in part 1, I had just finished the skin and leathers. Next I tackled the metals.

A lot of the takes on this miniature have extremely corroded metalwork, but for mine I wanted it nice and clean, to really show the beaten metalwork texture. I’m really happy with how it came out.

At this point he’s pretty much finished. I want to clean up the hair around the breastplate a bit, and I need to obtain a base. Luckily on the second count I have a friend who makes marvelous wooden miniature bases, so I’m looking forward to what he comes up with. I’m still thinking about tweaking some things, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

From the workbench: Tribe Chief Morrow, part 1

March 19, 2015 / David / 1 Comment

Last weekend I received a nifty little package from Germany. Inside was Forged Monkey’s Tribe Chief Morrow bust, a sweet little gorilla bust sculpted by Raffaele Picca, who is a great sculptor in addition to being one of my favorite painters. The cast was amazingly clean, with only one small bubble and almost no mold lines. Cleanup took only ~15 minutes, and I have very high standards for cleaning a cast before I start painting. I was so excited I started painting at once.

This is the first mini I’ve primed black in a long time, but given the black gorilla skin and many metal areas, it seemed convenient. I started with the face, as that’s the most important thing to get right on any figure, but especially a bust. I always like to find relevant reference material before I start painting, and for this bust, I was inspired by this adorable baby gorilla.

I originally went with red for the leathers, but wasn’t happy with how it looked and switched to yellow. It still looks a bit odd, but I think that once the metals are painted it will fit much better, and provide a nice warmth contrasted with the black. Of course, this was when I started kicking myself for priming black, but a few coats of menoth white highlight provided a good base for the yellow.

Zebra-skin provides striking patterns, and seemed appropriate for a gorilla chieftain. The larger stripes are how most of the body looks, and the finer stripes underneath are from the zebra’s head. No Zebras were harmed in the production of this blog post.

This guy is incredibly fun and quick to paint. I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself!

From the workbench: steampunk Leia, part 2

October 25, 2014 / David / 1 Comment

I’ve made a bit more progress, and taken a few more photos.

You can see the lighting effect a bit better now. I’m really happy with how that came out. She’s still WIP, but at least there’s no more primer visible (except a few spots where the paint rubbed off, but those will get fixed).

Sorry about the inconsistent lighting on the photos. They were taken outside since I still need to obtain a decent photography setup. But at least they weren’t taken by my phone this time, so there’s that.

Please comment if you have any questions or comments. Critiques are always welcome and appreciated!

From the workbench: steampunk Leia, part 1

October 22, 2014 / David / 1 Comment

My current project is a steampunk version of a certain famous character.

Steampunk Princess, work-in-progress

This is actually the first bust I’ve painted, and has been a lot of fun so far because it’s a much bigger scale than I usually paint. My normal fare is 30mm models, which is about 1:60 scale. This bust is closer to 1:10 scale. It’s a lot of fun to be able to put in details like irises and eyelashes. The miniature is Steampunk Princess Bust, by Cool Mini or Not, cast in resin.

The color scheme (with the orange lighting effect) was inspired by a scene from Star Wars:

Princess Leia; image copyright 20th Century Fox

Image copyright 20th Century Fox; used without permission

The lighting effect is not too dramatic from this angle, but it’s much more dramatic from her left side. I’ll take some more photos from different angles when I’ve made a bit more progress. There’s still lots to do, not just the pistol!

Please comment if you have any questions or comments. Critiques are always welcome and appreciated!