Lead Painters League finished!

So the Lead Painters League Season 5 is finally done.  I finished my final entry last night at 4:30 AM.

Over 10 weeks I painted 62 new miniatures and got much less sleep than I normally do.  Anyways, here are the remaining entries (not including the final one, which has yet to be revealed in the contest.)

I also a month or so ago received the mini that I sent away to Tristan back, although I never posted or photographed it for some reason.

Here she is facing off against a couple of frogs.

I’m most of the way through my next set of minis to send back.  Painting has been on hold for the past three months…  Sorry everyone!  You should start seeing things in the mail in the next week or two.

So I suck

Seems like it has been forever since I last posted here.  Partly, the problem is that I found I’ve got my first child on the way, partly because I’m taking part on the Lead Adventure Forum’s Lead Painter’s League.  The stuff painted over there from everyone is amazing (72 entered this year) and well worth checking out.  Here’s been my four entries so far. (Click on pic to increase their bigness).

The fifth round is going on right now so I’m avoiding sowing pics of it, but if you’ve got some time to kill I’d recommend heading over there and loking at all the beautiful painting that has been done this competition.  I’m currently sitting at 38th out of 72, which is honestly a little higher than I should be.  It has been great to be pushed like this. 

On the plus side, my painting and speed has improved.

18mm Samurai

I’m taking a little diversion from the 28mm world and working on some 18mm figures for gaming on the road.  Most of my gaming takes place away from my house, and transporting large boards and figures gets to be a pain.  I figure, If I paint up some 18mm figures and mount them magnetically to a tray they should be easy to store and ready for a quick game.  I’m working on a 2×2 board for on the road gaming.

Plus, it is great to be able to paint a figure from start to basing in about 45 minutes.  Quicker once I get the assembly line going.

Here’s the ashigaru archer, forced into service by his lord and ready to fight and (almost certainly) die.  Both are from Old Glory.

As well as his samurai superior, who is desperately in need of a dullcoat to kill some of the shine.

These were both test figures to check colors and painting techniques.  I’m learning that on 18mm figs I need to paint with a lot of contrast to make the colors really pop out.  The red is much too dark to really be seen.  The ashigaru yellow and grey is better,  but still not what I’m looking for.

One of the great things about 18mm is that you can use some 28mm stuff next to it and it becomes much more epic.

Bird Knight and Vampires

Have another couple WIPs.  First is a bird knight (well, actually a knight with a bird on his head.  Very Jim Henson like) and his squire from Zombiesmith.

 

I’m also almost finished with the Vampire Count BSB that I started a million years ago for Gkgnight.  

I’ve still got a couple hours of work on him, plus the banner to finish, then a new hand to sculpt, but progress is good!  Sorry Gkgnight.  He will be back to you soon.

Doom Serpents and strange demon guys

Here’s what I finished up the end of last week.  I’m trying to decide on a final color scheme for the demons.  I think I like the one on the left better.  I’m going to be painting up the other 18 in the unit as soon as it gets warm enough to prime.

October 2010 Painting Statistics

Ok, so after being out of the saddle for a little while (2 months?), I feel like I got something done hobby related this month.

Painted for others : 0

Painted for me : 15

Minis purchased : 14

I purchased a set of minis from Zombiesmith to use in my Movie Set Competition over on Terragenesis.  I’m recreating (somewhat) the Goblin City from the movie Labyrinth (see the thread here for stills from the shots and the progress I’m making).

 

Getting back to hobby stuff

For me, hobby stuff seems to be feast or famine.  I’ve got to paint and build more this week than I have in the past three months combined.

First, I got back a box from Tristan who offered to paint up a mini for me.  Well, I opened it up and here’s what was inside…

The assassin looks great.  I love the studded leather.  He paints with a series of washes and the results are great.  Washes are one area that I’m extremely weak in, so I admire the skill that it takes to use them well.

Here’s the guy ready to shank some unsuspecting beastman.

I’m slowly but surely working on my Athenian army.  I love the Black Tree Design minis, but sometimes things go out of stock and take months to be filled.  My last order was partially filled in a week, but the other half took 5 months, and it still isn’t complete (with just some cavalry minis left to be shipped to me).  John over there is a super nice guy and throws in extra stuff whenever we have an order snafu, but it seems like I’ve been having a lot recently.  Word around the Intarweb is I’m not alone in my experience, although I have never had them take my money and give me nothing.  I always get it, just not in the timeframe I’d expect.

Anyways, here’s 5 members of the phallanx, and a couple of slingers.  They still need shields and spears done.

I’m also slowly painting the Vampire Count BSB.  I’ve had this one for so long and someone is waiting on me to get it back to them, so I feel awful that I’ve still got it.  The skin and shirt is done, so just the details, sword and banner left to do.

This evening, just for something different, I painted up one of the dragons that came with the Descent board game.  The game is fun (although it takes forever and there are a million tokens involved) but the minis are pretty sweet.  You get a good selection of larger monsters.

Here he is with that same beastman for scale.

I’m not quite sure why the dragon has 4 arms (two are attached to the wings, but it’s still a little weird) but overall it was fun to paint.

Back from vacation

I’m back from vacation and ready to pick up the brush.  Vampire Count BSB is next.  If you’ve got any minis for me to paint let me know.

Genestealer and harlequin finished

I finished up the Genestealer and the Harlequin tonight.  The details on both of them were actually not too bad, so that worked out well.  

My next min is the Vampire Count BSB.  The mount is mostly finished, but I had some problems drilling the hole in the vamp’s hand to hold the banner.  I finally got it all straightened out, but then last night I accidently broke the banner off again.  I think it is going to take some putty work to get the hand to be beefy enough to hold the flag.

Harlequins and ransomware

So I’m finally slowly getting back into painting.  I’ve been working on the harlequin since it seems to be inspiring me at the moment and I go to post the pictures online and… virus on the computer preventing me from doing anything!  Joy!

After a couple hours battle with SpyDoctor or whatever (who infected my computer and then tried to get me to pay $49.99 to install the “cleaner” to remove it) I’m back to about 90%.  Removing the bugger is tricky since if I miss a single reg entry or autorun it reinstalls itself.  I know I’m still missing a piece because Google Chrome randomly stops downloading pages, but at least I’m mostly running again.

Here’s the harlequin.  The instructions were “do whatever you want, since they are all supposed to look different”.  Well, at first I was going to do some ultra colorful purple/yellow or something, but then I realized that I can’t paint black or white, so I decided to try both…

The black and white are done (although I might go over the black with another glaze to soften the highlights again), but the teal still needs to be finished.  There are a couple of gems on the guns and the boots that need to be done, as well as the large gem in the center of the chest.  Overall I’m pretty happy with it.  Still trying to figure out black and white though…