VASA Archangel

Inspired by the rekindling of the Void community online, and this post I wrote for the Viridian Wars blog, I finally got round to painting one of my favourite models from the Void range (I have a few). The Kev White Archangels are sush simple yet elegant sculpts. The minis were so successful that they were used in Urban War for a while too, before being replaced by (to my mind) inferior scuplts. For a great many years I did not paint them, as I didn't have the skill I to paint the wings in the way I knew I wanted to.


I finally bit the bullet, and painted one. My inspirational bird of reference was the Kingfisher.

I doubt I'll paint a whole unit in this sceme, but it was fun to do one.



Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 2

Day two of the Montreal Masterclass was yesterday, and I'll both done in, and wanting more. I'm super motivated to keep on going with the techniques I learned there, and to finish the models I started.
Another full day of learning, concentrating and soaking in all I can about painting techniques wiped me out, but there was so much information passed on by the wonderful Meg Maples that I'm still mentally digesting it this evening.

Using the same two brush blending, with a bit of glazing added in, we looked at skin tones hair and fur (with a side serving of feathers, but that tutorial can be found here) and OSL (Object source lighting), which, with the two brush blending and the right choice of paint, was made to look extremely easy. the other thing we worked on were eyes. The bane of my painting life these last 20 years or more, finally I have a technique that works, and works very well. I must admit I had seen tutorials for this way of doing eyes before, but it makes a huge difference to see it being done on front of you. She also spoke of doing freehand and water effects using UHU glue. Like I said, there was a lot of information to take in!

Here is the final condition of the minis I did some painting on over the weekend. As you can see, none are actually finished.

 

Now for some better pictures of the work I did over the weekend.

Elf King

This is a Reaper mini that I picked up for a WFB Wood Elf army. He had a little bit of everything we were practising at the weekend, so he has had a fair bit of work done on him. I'm not so happy with the metallics, but I do like his cloak. His hair was not painted by me, but by Meg, as an example of what to do (the hair on all the minis she brought was already done), so I can claim no credit for that. It was not painted to completion by her, she would continue it if it were her mini, but I didn't have the mojo to finish it. I did get into the right way of doing hair on the pink hair of the KoS below. I will be using his hawk to try painting feathers soon.

Alexia

 

I'm very happy with the metallics on Alexia's sword. The deepest shade on there is coal Black with Umbral Umber, which looks almost black in the recesses. I have yet to have a go at using glazes on metals as was also suggested in the class.

Her eyes were a different matter. I restarted them 3 times. In the end I gave up (for now?) and painted her eyes in an inverse of the taught technique. Giving her a somewhat soulless look, which is fitting for her, if not exactly of Masterclass level.

VASA Knight(s) of the void.

I had two of these exceptional miniatures on the go at the weekend. This one I managed to do the eye and the hair to my satisfaction. I started on the body, but that may have to wait. I will be using her to do OSL on the cybernetic eye as well. Meg used the second of these minis to show how to do the OSL (she was running out of minis to show things on by the end of the session, so borrowed ours), and that is shown below.

As a shout out to those who I spoke to at the event that have a blog,  may I point you towards The Amazing Captain Spud, (his words, not mine) and to Yaum la Machine. Both great guys and exceptional painters whom I learned from too (as well as the many others I spoke to who either have no blog, or I am unaware of their blogs)

I had a great time over the weekend, and I learned a lot! I also broke out the sable brushes on the second day (for the eyes) and oh my, how they make a difference.  I'm a little bit in love with these little darlings now!

Finally: note to self, buy more Sanguine Base and Coal Black. They work on everything!