Dirz #3 Dawn warrior wip

I’m still painting.

Rarely.

Slowly.

But still painting.

I’m showing this as a work in progress, both because I am planning to bring out a few highlights still, and because I hope I’ll be able to take better pictures. The colour of the cape, in particular, is quite off in this one.

The sculpt is gorgeous and I tried not to ruin it too much. I took a couple of bold risks going for two cold colours for the metal and the cloth, and placing such a cold mini on a desert base. I did work some yellows here and there, but it does not show too much. Does the mini feel unbalanced to you?

Also, painting desert sand turned out not to be the easiest thing in the world… Do you have any suggestions?

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Nomads #1 – Alguaciles wip

Two snapshots of one of the three Infinity Nomads Alguaciles I’ve been painting. They look too much militaristic to feel like real anarchists, but well that’s a common problem in miniature painting, ins’t it?

I decided to begin with a close reinterpretation of the studio colour scheme. The challenge there is that you have the same red on two very different textures – the pants and the armour plates. I solved this using white and turquoise as highlights for the armour and brighter red for the pants. On this particular model the base colour for the armour is a darker red-purple (obtained mixing turquoise and red), while for the other models I chose to have the pants slightly darker than the armour.

The upper part of the vest is dark grey with highlights in the same turquois, as are the boots and the weapons – all made with slightly different amounts of shade and highlight. Does the mini feel too homogeneous? The head came out a little too bright in the picture, but I should probably add some more shadows to the hair anyway…

The two other Alguaciles are almost ready and soon I should be able to start working on the bases.

Dirz #2 Viper wip

Another work in progress, since my bases are still lost in the mail… So, here’s my initial work on Ysis, a named character of the Dirz faction.

The original paintjob for the card, as you can see, went for a nice blend of different off-white tones for the suit and a dark steel for the weapons.

I wanted something to match with the crossbowmen, so opted for a red suit and contrasting, pale blue nmm metals. As it stands now, I think the metals may be too monotonous, even though they suggest the idea of some kind of mechanical prosthesis, which I would be quite fitting. I’ll try to add some yellow reflections coming from the ground. I will also have to add a visible yellow spot somewhere, probably the lens on her mask.

The figure is suitably slender for an assassin and its pose is charged with tension. Even though it’s difficult to capture it on photograph, the sculpt is literally dynamic: when you have it in your hands your are constantly invited to turn it and it works well from every angle.

In relation to the rest of the Dirz miniatures, Ysis should provide a link between the crossbowmen and the armoured knights that came with her in the starter box, by combining the red tone of the cloth I used for the former with the blue-grey tones of the armour, which should be predominant in the latter.

She still needs some touching up, but what do you think so far?

Dirz #1 Work in progress

I didn’t want to post pictures of the new project until I had finished the bases as well, but since I still haven’t received them I’ll go on and share some of the Dirz models I’ve been working on.

 

Click for a larger version and a better look at the CGA armour.

 

The first model is a Scorpion Neuromancer – which is almost, almost, too badass a name to be cool. This mini I had won years ago at a painting competition for kids and painted in a horrible, flat, dusty-looking, pea-green cloak. Every time I was looking at my Rackham models he was screaming for a better paint job. I worked some ice blue and purples and darker green in the cloak, darkened the tunic and completely reworked the armour, which used to be TM gold.

Now for the armour I tried a new technique based on the high intensity 4 colours CGA palette. Here:

Or, better, here:

https://imgur.com/a/Beicb#eO0dHdZ

I’m not going to use the CGA palette all the time, and I think it would be difficult to pull it off on a whole miniature, but for some smaller and weird looking NMM I really think it’s a nice idea.

Next, I was working on three Dirz Crossbowmen. Unfortunately I had bought the models second hand and they came with some layers of glue and paint on the junctures that I wasn’t able to remove entirely, but the beauty of their vaguely inhuman sculpt still shows without problems.

I decided these are going to be either homunculi or alchemically enhanced humans, so I added cyan and yellowgreen to the very pale skin tone. The only drawback, since they are going to sit on desert bases, is that they’ll need a lot of sun lotion.

 

Their izaars are done in the usual transition from purple to red that I like, to which I added some highlights of good old Citadel Ruby Red from a veteran pot of paint which has been with me for around 20 years.

I’m not sure how well the dark miniature will fit with these lighter minis – we’ll have to see if common bases will do the trick…

I hope you like this new project, next I’ll probably show the assassin and possibly the first Nomads, who are currently on the workbench.

Alchemy and Anarchy

I have begun working on two small groups of miniatures from different ranges, Rackham’s Alchemists of Dirz and Corvus Belli’s Nomads. Even though the styles and background of the miniatures are quite unlike each other, I am still planning to use similar techniques and a somewhat common palette, so that I’ll be trying out some ideas on one set that I can then translate to the other and vice versa.

The Alchemists are a faction in Confrontation made up of clones and clones masters, mutated beasts and drug enhanced ritual warriors. Their mechanics and design are centred on controlled mutation and the range includes some very neat, skinny, humans and some very dark beasts. Here’s a gallery of the original artwork and pictures for the game cards, from the website that also hosts the community supported version of the ruleset.

I will start painting the core force from one of the starter boxes from a late-ish edition of the game, plus three of the old school iconic crossbowmen and a Neuromancer that I had won in a painting competition as a kid and that, ironically, I ended up painting very badly.

 

 

The Nomads are anarchists, in space. Which didn’t fail to please me and was in itself reason to be drawn to Infinity. I can recommend the game for those who like ultimately quite realistic but cleverly and not obviously designed gameplay. The range of miniatures includes some spectacular models and overall the quality, detail and design choices of Corvus Belli’s minis are very good. With their ultra-clean lines and high-tech vibe they are a nice change from GW grittier and messier darkness. Here’s a link to the Nomads gallery: unless GW already got them firmly in their hands, watch for your wallets!

For this project, I am going to paint the vanilla starter pack, which includes a nice variation of armours: three Alguaciles, who have a tricky mix of protection vest and suit in the same colour, a Spektr infiltrator and Grenzer sniper in darker outfits, and a Briareos-like full body armoured Mobile Brigada.

Enough for now, I’ll write more about the project as soon as I have pictures to show, and I am also waiting for some desert and urban bases from Micro Art Studio…

 

Bizmarks # 14 – Groupshot

And here they are!

I have to say that this is probably my first finished project ever – or at least the thing that comes closer to it. It feels nice to know that I can pull something like this off despite the many and often all too serious demands of real life.

Greeting from the Underhive, until next time!

PS

I know the lasgun ganger in the back on the left looks way too dark now compared to the others, even if his suit is technically blue. For the moment, he’ll be the stealthy guy – he’ll get a new suit at some point.

Bizmarks # 13 – Leadership

Here’s the final two retouched minis for the gang. The ganger with the boltgun got a subtle shading on the gun itself as well as the usual work on the suit. The leader got a particularly thorough work on the pads and some touching up on the blade and flamer/plasma.

This concludes this Necromunda project, for the time being. Once I get hold of a heavy stubber miniature and some bits for the bases I will go back to it and add some more oomph. Stay tuned for the groupshot!