Tag: Studio McVey

Miniatures manufacturer

Kifaro

December 29, 2016 / David / 0 Comments

This is a miniature I painted a few years ago, in 2012 actually, but never managed to take decent photos of. My camera really doesn’t like him for some reason. These photos are a definite improvement over my last attempt, at least.

Kifaro comes from Studio McVey’s resin line (which I miss very much, since they stopped making them). He is sculpted by Allan Carrasco, who is probably the best monster sculptor in the world of miniatures and has a wonderful feel for anatomy, of both the real and fantastical variety.

Because he is rhino-ish, I went with a realistic rhino coloring, which is a plain, slightly yellowish gray. This presented a bit of a challenge, to keep things interesting despite the plain gray coloring. One of the things I did to add interest is add a tattoo. I was inspired by “tribal tattoo” designs, but ended up with something abstract of my own invention.

The other thing I did was add color into the grays. I used a lot of very dilute ink glazes to vary the gray tones, and also added red-orange colors to places which often have a bit of extra fleshy color in other animals (though not rhinos, as it happens).

The base is built mostly of cork tile, with sand and putty added to vary the texture a bit, and hide the flat parts of the tile. I quite like building bases this way, because it’s very easy to rip parts off and glue them back in a slightly different position to alter the overall form. Because this sort of moving and reforming is similar to natural processes, you can also get great organically random textures as a nature side-effect of doing this.

Kifaro’s base was the first I built which just sort of rises up out of a wooden plinth, without filling it to the edges. It’s not something you see very often, but I quite like the effect. I have done it several times since, most recently with Desert Wanderer.

Of course, when the sculptor is a master of anatomy, it’s important that the sculpture is anatomically correct. Actually, Kifaro’s caster decided that right between the legs would be a marvelous place to place an injection point, leaving a big chunk of resin there, rather than accurately sculpted anatomy. Some very delicate reconstructive surgery was required to correct the deformity. Just one of the joys of being a perfectionist in this hobby. 😉

He’s posted here on Putty & Paint. Not

Ar-Fienel—finished

September 30, 2015 / David / 0 Comments

So it’s been almost a year since I posted the first WIP of this figure, and I’m finally ready to post the finished mini.

Sorry it took so long. I also meant to post more WIP photos, but that didn’t exactly happen. I promise to do better with my next project.

Here are some up-close views of the dryad.

She placed 2nd in a hotly contested single figure category at Gen Con 2015.

You can also rate her on CoolMiniOrNot.

“2084”—finished

August 15, 2015 / David / 0 Comments

This figure by Studio McVey is so much fun to paint, I’ve painted it twice.

Some of the pictures came out better than others. I really need to improve my photography skills. But I think you can get the idea.

I had so much fun with the graffiti. I discussed what it all means in my WIP blog post about the base, in case you missed that one. Some of it is quite obvious, but other bits are more niche references.

Painting the hoverboard was also a lot of fun. One of the things that makes Lisbeth such a neat mini to paint is all of the different surfaces that just cry out for freehand. The characters at the top read “freedom” (not that I can read Chinese).

The other thing I had fun with is different textures – weathered concrete, scuffed plastic helmet, aged sign, scratches on the edges of the board. More and more I’m trying to convey textures when I paint minis. Sometimes it comes out great, but others not so well. But that’s always how it goes!

This was one of the pieces I entered in the Gen Con mini painting competition, which is why I waited so long to post it. It placed third for technical merit in the “Rainbow Brush” contest that Marike organized in response to Indiana’s terrible anti-gay “religious freedom” bill, and won a judge’s award and a bronze in the single figure category.

From the workbench: “2084”, part 2

February 22, 2015 / David / 1 Comment

Yes, that’s a 10mm tall portrait of Edward Snowden.

2084-base-1

I imagine Lisbeth inhabiting a dystopian future with constant worldwide surveillance. I decided to cover the concrete blocks she’s flying over with graffiti protesting that situation. The front says “Snowden ‘never forget'”, “You call this democracy?” and “The NSA is watching.”

On the back you can read “Always use Tor” (with the Tor logo), “Don’t drone me bro,” and “xfmro77i3lixucja.onion,” which is an onion address for the Imperial Library of Trantor. In addition to being a reference to Asimov’s Foundation series, the Library of Trantor is an online collection of DRM-free digital books. (I really wanted to use an address for Wikileaks instead, but sadly they don’t seem to have a functional onion address right now.)

This graffiti was partially inspired by the 8.8.8.8 graffiti Turkish citizens used to evade the DNS block Turkey placed on Twitter last spring. I imagine citizens in a future Orwellian society using Tor to keep websites up and available despite state attempts to take them down, and using graffiti to tell each other how to access them.

The sign says, “No privacy by order of the National Surveillance Agency”. Originally I painted the sign as “No entry by order of the National Security Agency”, and then painted over “entry” and “Security” as if someone had graffitied over an official sign.

The portrait of Snowden was the most time-consuming part of the graffiti. I copied Laura Poitras’ well-known portrait of the whistleblower. (Used under CC-BY license.)

I think I made a pretty good likeness, although when I put them side-by-side like this, I see a few details I need to fix.

Parachute pants!

February 16, 2015 / David / 0 Comments

I’m super excited about my current project, which will be titled “2084” for reasons which shall soon become apparent. The figure is Lisbeth, by Studio McVey. This is the second time I’ve painted this figure. She’s a total kick to paint—I love the gigantic parachute pants, and there are lots of surfaces which just scream for freehand. Plus, I gave my first copy away, so I wanted a second to keep.

Starting with the prep work. My cast had a bit of an offset running between the folds in her pants, which was a bit of a pain to clean up.

I also decided to do some minor conversion work. Lisbeth comes with a backless tube-top-like-thing which I don’t much like, so I turned it into a full (if short) shirt. I also reshaped her hover-board into something a bit more snowboard and less surfboard.

I added a sign to the base, and started penciling in the graffiti I plan to paint. I smudged some of it with my thumb, but the face you see if going to be a portrait of a guy with a goatee and glasses.

The red is a lot more vibrant than it looks in these photos. I’ll try to come up with some better ones, later.

Old concrete usually has different colored stains, which I’ve tried to simulate here. It won’t be terribly visible once the graffiti is added, but will help the whole thing be a bit more realistic.

At this point you can probably guess who the portrait is, and why the title is “2084”.

New photo setup

January 23, 2015 / David / 3 Comments

I finally have a more-or-less permanent photo setup in my apartment, which should make it a bit easier to post photos for the blog. I broke it in by taking some new photos of miniatures I painted a while ago, but never had any decent photos of. Hope you like them!

Akarui – Studio McVey

Ar-Fienel – Studio McVey

Kifaro – Studio McVey

Queek – Games Workshop

Ur-Fildyr – Studio McVey

Comments and critiques are always welcome.

From the workbench: Ar-Fienel, part 1

November 13, 2014 / David / 1 Comment

I wanted to share my current WIP, even though it doesn’t have any paint on it yet, because I’m very pleased at how it’s coming so far.

The base is finished at this point, so the only thing left to add is paint.

One of my favorite things about the base is how it has very different silhouettes from different angles.

For the base, I used:

Resin cube—from Secret Weapon.
Cork tile—I really like using this as a structural base, even in cases like this where it will all be covered.
Plastic card—textured for the stone blocks, and smooth for the outer edges.
Resin bits—stonework faces from Scibor Miniatures and some broken pottery from Baueda Wargames.
Brass-etch leaves.
Brass chain.
2-part epoxy putty.

I can’t wait to add paint, but I want to finish some other projects first (like the steampunk bust which is still in progress).

Welcome to Althai Paints!

October 20, 2014 / David / 0 Comments

I’m a miniature painter best known by my online moniker “Althai”. I thought about saying a bit about myself, but I decided I’d rather let my work speak for itself.

Ruby – Studio McVey

“Riot Grrrl” Lisbeth – Studio McVey

Troll Axer – Privateer Press

Commander-Adept Nemo; Photos Courtesy Privateer Press

Commander-Adept Nemo – Privateer Press