Totally NOT a miniature... or, On Second Thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.

The love of a child for her stuffed dog-
Totally NOT a miniature painting story.

Many people remember the stuffed animals of their childhood. When I got my Snoopy, the year was 1976, and Snoopy was about as big as I was.
In the 70's it seems like everything was stuffed with styrofoam beads, and Snoopy was no exception. At some point, being hugged so much caused small holes to appear in his seams, and soon, styrofoam beads were leaking out.
Mom stitched him up when she noticed, but good old Snoopy was deflating, and eventually he was relegated to the box of old toys.

This is my project to revive Snoopy.

 Below: You can see he was a bit flat, and also quite dirty, having accompanied me on many childhood adventures, as well as the sicknesses.

Below: Here we witness the opening up of a seam in his leg, to let the rest of the stuffing out. Who knew styrofoam balls would be so messy?

Now he is flat.

Time for a bath.

I put him in a tub to soak, hand washed him, and tumble dried him on low.

Below: In all his poly-fill re-stuffed glory, with his friends, who were all anxious about his operation.

My first painting competition.

We showed up at Adepticon 2007

not knowing what to expect.

A couple months before the convention, 

I was sent the Master Class miniature.

Those of us who wanted to participate all received

the same miniature.

"What the hell is this supposed to be?"

is what I said when I saw it.

Below: Here are the pieces,

with holes I drilled for modification.

It was in dire need of modification.

Now you will see that modification take shape.

Below: First the assembly, gap filling,

and paper clips. And a rudimentary head.

Below: Next, the Green Stuff.

It was still early days in my experience

with Green Stuff, and you can tell.

Below: Final result, and of all the people

who painted this same miniature for the 

Adepticon Master Class competition, mine

was chosen Best In Show.

But that was a long time ago.

Dark Angels Khorne Berserkers Part III - Finished...

Here they are-

Ten Little Space Marines

Dark Angels or Chaos? Part II...

Below: Starting with a group shot of the finished Khorne Berserkers, before 

I show some Work In Progress of the freehand, and initial washes.

Below: As you can see, in these two images, I usually paint my miniatures pinned to dowel rods.

The Space Marine backpacks are painted separately.

I was replicating the freehand I did on the original two Space Marines (see yeserday's post).

Again, all the yellow you see is the groundwork for non-metallic gold.

Below: These two images show a little more detail, shading and highlighting.

 Not done yet...

Tomorrow, I'll post pics of each of the ten 

Berserkers with multiple views.

Dark Angels or Chaos? It's Space Marine time...

Dark Angels or Chaos?

You decide.

It was about four years ago, when I was working on my

Dark Angels army, and wanting to make them playable as DA and Chaos.

That's when I came up with the idea of merging Dark Angels bitz

with Chaos bitz to make Khorne Berserkers.

Hardly an original idea, but whatevs.

These are the two I built and painted, and put on eBay.

They sold right away, and I got an email from the buyer.

Can you make me eight more, so I have a ten man squad?

Um, sure...

Below: These are the original two converted Space Marines.

Below: The original two and the finished bases for the next eight.

I like to finish the bases before I paint the miniatures.

I'm weird that way.

Below: A closer view of the bases.

Below: Here are the eight other conversions in all their

bare plastic glory.

Below: Initial base coats of color. The yellow will all be Non-Metallic Gold.

Later comes the freehand.

To be continued...

Shadows Over Camelot Quest Objectives; Grail, Excalibur, Lancelot's Armor

Above: The Holy Grail finished.

Below: Grail work in progress.

Above: Before the brown wash was applied.

 Here's my palette of colors for the marble effect. I never did use that dark brown color you see.
After I got the marble done, I used a dark brown wash from the Vallejo line of washes. I didn't bathe the model in wash, but carefully added it to the recesses, to give the model added depth and bring out the details. I touched up the metallic gold with the same wash as well.
Again, you can see how I put all colors on the palette, and paint and mix as I go, with my soda cap full of water to thin as I go.

Below: Excalibur, as handed to the King of the Britons

by Nimue of the Lake.

Below: Lancelot's Armor, a work in progress. Primed gray, and metallics applied.

Lancelot's Armor finished!
I used my new brighter, less orange yellow. Mixed it with a little purple for the shading. FYI, mixing bright yellow with a dark red-purple makes an equivalent to the old GW color Snakebite Leather. I use this combination a lot in my NMM gold.

Thanks for following along. Coming up next, the Siege Engines, and then Anglo-Saxons and Picts.

I best get painting!

Turns out it takes less time to make the blog posts than it does to paint the miniatures. 

You remember Sir Kay, right?

 The post about Sir Kay's face was a couple weeks ago, but here's some more about him. He's finally finished.

Here's his character card, which I used to determine the colors.

You remember his face right?
Awesome detail, as you can see.

 Here's the silly face I had to paint on him, because you can see that there were no actual facial features. Only suggestions of features.

This is the palette of colors I used. 

The blue is for Sir Kay. The red was for King Arthur (previous post).

You can see how I put out several colors, ranging from my lightest light to my darkest dark.

I lay them all out on the palette so I can go from one to the next over and over, rather than painting one layer, and getting the next color out, and painting that layer and so on, while each one dries.

This way, there's more opportunity to take advantage of the still wet paint for blending wet into wet.

 Et finis!

And Sir Galahad...

  

The yellow cloak would prove to be a challenge, but mostly because as I returned to painting after a couple years, I had to throw away a lot of dried up paint, which left me with only one yellow to work with, and that was an orange yellow. It proved to be too dark for what I wanted to do. Adding white to it didn't help much. You can see the orange color in the picture above, and how different it is from the artwork on the character card, which is what I was trying to match.

I called it finished, in frustration. 

A couple days later, after picking up some new paints, and finishing all the knights, they were ready for a matte varnish, to finish them off.

If you'll remember me mentioning Sir Tristan (the purple knight) and my problem with the Reaper purple ink bleeding with the application of the clear coat, you'll notice Galahad's tunic. I used some of the same purple paint mixed with the ink here. When I went to clear coat him, the purple ink bled into the brush and before I knew it, that color was all over my yellow cloak, making it more orange and even darker. I set him aside to dry.

With the new yellow paint I got, lighter and brighter, and no orange in it, I repainted the cloak. Here's the finished Sir Galahad:

So the Knights of the Round Table are done, but the game is not over.

The next post will show the painting of Excalibur, the Holy Grail, and Lancelot's Armor, the three objectives the knights may win by completing quests in Shadows Over Camelot.

We're Knights of the Round Table...

Here are four more knights. I have no work in progress shots of them, unfortunately.

It turns out you have to train yourself to stop and take pictures as things progress, and I painted them before I realized this.

Sir Tristan, the fourth knight shown here, was the surprise pain in the ass. I used a Reaper purple ink mixed into my paint, and didn't realize it was water soluble until I was brushing a clear matte varnish on. Surprise!

It was more a surprise when I went to clear varnish the next guy, who had a yellow cloak, and the brush was not as clean as I expected. More on Sir Galahad later. He's not featured in this post.