so many updates omg BTS #91

What up, mini family?! It's been two weeks since I did a BTS post so we have a lot of ground to cover! I had my friends over for another hobby session to work on our kill teams and because I am never satisfied with literally any process, I decided to do some experimenting.

I want to paint the sisters of my KT with cream colored robes, so after my basecoat I wanted to apply some shading. On the leftmost image, I attempted to paint in harsh, rigid shadows and then airbrush a transition in between the basecoat and the shadow. I noticed it was very difficult to get the perfect dilution of paint + pressure + distance from the model such that the paint actually did something, it didn't splatter, and it didn't spider web immediately. I know people do this, but I don't necessarily know how. For what it's worth, starting with a shadow that isn't as dark might've been better. Also, how small/large you make the shadow will effect the overall "impact" of the shadow. The middle image was an oil wash that was thicker that I wiped away. Not perfect, but it shows some potential. The rightmost image was an acrylic wash which was the faster, but also looks the worst imo. 

My other friends (husband and wife team) also worked on their Tau kill team and they're kind of crushing it. They recently added a bright orange spot color with some fluo orange ink and it's really coming together. 

Last week the Sepulchral Guard and myself had a challenge to paint a model with a 5 paint palette and this was the model I chose. It's Kayden from Hasslefree miniatures. She's about 20mm tall so pretty itty bitty. 

I chose my palette by taking my available tube paints and doing a grid of mixtures to see what secondaries they would produce. These paints are nice because they each contain 1 pigment which makes for a better time mixing paint because multiple pigments aren't fighting each other. I also mixed in white to each mixture to see what its bias was, either warm or cold. From this, I picked 3 colors (red, yellow, blue) and white & black which formed my palette for the model I painted above. It's not done at the moment, but I did enjoy the process because when the options are removed, the thinking is almost simplified. I don't have to get up and stare at paints, I can only use what's in front of me. How about some more painting?

I worked more on this lovely character from Cursed City both on stream and off-stream. By the way, if you want to catch my livestreams I'm on at 1:00 PM CST on Fridays at twitch.tv/miniac. It's often quite a riot! On stream I finished up the red jacket, white fur, and grey hair. My wife and I had a little art session and I did the yellow sash and trim on his jacket. I wanted to use magenta to shade the yellow but might've gone a little too crazy with it. How about EVEN MORE PAINTING?

As most of you know by know, I painted the new vampires from Warhammer Underworlds in my latest video to date. With the model I painted that became my TMM example, I used molotow chrome. Something interesting I learned was that in order to get it REALLY chrome-y, you have to apply it kind of thickly through the airbrush. You can see how the rock on the base isn't as chrome as the model itself. Later, Vince Venturella told me that applying via a paint brush results in a very nice, mirrored finish. I'll have to try that sometime in the future. OK, how about some not painting stuff?

Through streaming on twitch, I've developed a bit of a relationship with reaper minis so they sent me this friggin' insane care package. I am super excited about the terrain. I can also see their models have jumped in quality since I painted one last. I am guessing they use a new technology called "Siocast" that allows them to maintain their price and somewhat rubbery/durable finish, while being way higher fidelity. Alright, something I haven't talked about in a long time.

A lot of you remember that I am working on a Kickstarter at the moment. Fewer of you likely remember that I am also creating a metal brush box, likely. It's been slowly worked on for a while now and here are some samples of the interior foam that might go in them. They're "alpha" versions, so the finals won't look like this, but this was sent to me to get an idea for approximate sizes of the brush slots, for the finger holds, and other things. I'm still working on this and of all the KS items, this is the one that I'm worried about finishing on time. I've made a model before, so I understand the process start to finish, but I've never produced something like this, so I'm kind of relying on people who know more than me to make progress aside from me saying "what's the status" about a million times, haha. There's one final surprise for the KS that I haven't divulged yet, and I think we'll keep it secret for now.  Lastly, some wood elf updates

These two models are not the same, which might be a little obvious upon closer inspection. The right one is the 32mm version and he's a bit thicker to make casting easier. I'd like to make 32mm of all the wood elves, if possible. I'm super happy with how virtually identical it looks to the 75mm one, it's great! Also, Ben Kantor sent me his first draft of the course he has planned for The Witch model (it's 20 pages long!) and it's a literal masterclass on light and color. It's gonna be awesome. Speaking of the Witch, she's in the process if getting casted at the moment. I believe I'll have physical samples mid May (wooo!). That's all for now, don't forget to PAINT MORE MINIS!

<3 Scott