Barbaros

Not really sure how much to say about Barbaros here. I painted him at the same time as the two plastic Young Nephilim that I just posted yesterday so he has a very similar look to them. His sculpt is similarly very nice although his giant comb-sword was a little weird to work with because of its shape and angle. I tried to give it a little extra dimension by some shading/highlighting, but it still tends to be pretty flat looking. Nothing much else to say that wasn't already said on the Young Nephilim.

Young Nephilim (plastic)

Let me start by just saying that I love these sculpts, particularly the one in sort of a leap/run pose (on the right). I've had a pretty mixed experience with plastic models before but these are some of my favorite thus far. I really enjoyed painting them. The one carrying the head was a little more challenging to work with due to the tight spaces and awkward posing. I left off the small piece of guts that would normally be attached only to avoid creating more of a basing conflict situation.

What went well:
* Enjoying the sculpts counts for a lot. I could easily see myself painting another one of these just for fun. Maybe even for a competition.
* The wings aren't amazing or anything, but I like how they turned out. They work with the base to help frame the entire visual look of the models.

What could have been better:
* The red sashes sort of jump out oddly. Particularly in the pictures. I think it's cause of the broader use of color for the skin and dramatically less so for the red sash.
* The spines (or whatever) on the wings are sort of odd for me. I tried to create as much visual separation of them from the wings as I could, but I just don't feel like I pulled it off well.
* Little details could have gotten more attention to really make them stand out, but I'm in a full court press to get my Lilith crew on the table so I cut a few corners.

Young Nephilim (metal)

These sculpts were sort of annoying. There's a few gaps I just didn't fill properly but these were fast paint jobs. Nothing specific more to talk about on these so once again, pictures stand on their own.

Cherub

Continuing to roll out the backlog of finished stuff with the Cherub. This model was sort of half success and half failure for me.

What went well:
* Skin tones worked out well for him. I think he really evokes the dark energy feel I was going for.
* Using a pin to attach him to the base was certainly better than what I assume the standard method is supposed to be, which is gluing the tails of his wings to the base. Ick! This is much more stable.
* Despite a pose that is a bit confusing, I feel like I kept the focus of the model appropriate to the action it looks like he's supposed to be taking.

What could have been better:
* Not a fan of the wings. I tried. I failed. They don't look horrible, but I really don't feel like I accomplished my goal of making them seem glowing from within.
* Not a fan of the pin for flying models. It's always a challenge. I need transparent aluminum instead!
* Bow and loincloth both could have been better executed, but then again, those aren't my main focus of the model.

Ok, and done. On to more projects!

Lilith

And here's Lilith, mother of monsters. I have to admit a certain amount of dissatisfaction with this paint job. I struggled quite a bit with this model for some reason. I think part of it was too thick of a primer coat. But still, lots of struggle. However some things went well. In any case, I'm really looking forward to rolling her out.

What went well:
* Challenging myself to paint her eyes to a higher quality than my normal. I feel like I succeeded here. Her eyes aren't amazing, but I feel like I did better than my usual. This was an important goal for me as I'm aiming at having a good entry for the Lock & Load painting competition this year and will need to be able to paint faces and eyes well.
* Metals went well. My process is getting better and I really like the contrast on the metals overall.
* Overall color composition. I wanted the boots to balance out the large sword, and then the various straps help balance out her flesh. This elements were key for me to try to balance given the striking red/blue core combination that I wanted to use.
What could have been better:
* No good color tie-in to the Nephilim. Oh well.
* Face just seems "off". Lots of anecdotal ways to explain it, but when working on it I just never could find a way to correct it without starting from scratch.
* Smaller metals are a bit rough, and I wish the tinting was a bit stronger. Just couldn't pull it off as well as I'd like, but still getting better.
* Totally failed to paint the lacing on the back of her jacket. Superfail.
* Perhaps I will end up painting a second one eventually.

Ok, and that's it. I'm still slamming through updates and there's more to go.

Terror Tots (plastic)

More tater tots! Liked these sculpts quite a bit. I was a bit lazy though on the gap filling, but camouflaged most of the issues with paint. Not a whole lot else to say about these, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Terror Tots (metal)

These little guys were like popcorn for me. I think I spent almost as much time getting the bases made and painted as I did on these. They are so tiny. These were actually the very first of my Nephilim paint scheme that I painted. It was sort of a leap of faith that it would work out ok, but in the end I'm quite happy with the result.

These particular sculpts are not terrible given their size. They were a little tricky to get together since they are so small. I certainly learned a lesson here about drilling pin holes into the feet before doing all the assembly and painting. That's something I'm going to make sure to do for all metal models going forward.

What went well:
* Using small models to test out a new color scheme so it's a smaller investment.
* Using color in a different way to reduce the need for smoother blending.

What could have been better:
* More contrast on metals.

Really not much to say on these. I've got a bunch more Nephilim to post and others that are in progress. Once I wrap up all the Tots/Young/Mature Nephilim, I'll do a post about the color scheme itself if people are interested.

Scather Crew

Ok, this post is chock full of pictures of the Scather Crew, despite the fact that this was a serious speed paint job. Honestly though I enjoyed painting it quite a bit. I'm going to forego the normal analysis of a project and just dump all the pictures here and close out by saying that it was a nice color distraction to work on Legion again after having been so focused on Malifaux lately.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #49

This will be a fast and sloppy post cause it's late and I think I've caught the flu.

Made significant headway on the next batch of Nephilim. Pictured here are Barbaros and 4 Young Nephilim. Their skin is essentially done and I've base coated the sashes. Painting all 5 feels a lot like painting a unit. I'm trying to assembly line them however at some point I'll probably pull out Barbaros and go the extra mile on him specifically. In the mean time, there's still a lot of work to do. The wings in particular will probably cause me fits. But getting this far has definitely given me a good head of steam to keep moving forward.

And here are the Scather crew members. After getting a start on the first one at last week's painting hang out, I got inspired to knock out their robes real fast. Two-brush blending really does accelerate work on larger surfaces like robes. I was swapping back and forth between these guys and the Nephilim to keep progress moving. However once I got the robes done it was easy to just keep working through them.

And I also primed, base coated and washed the Scather itself.

And finally I got bases done for the Nephilim, including 2 large for the Mature Nephilim once I get them started. This was actually a far more amount of work that I had planned for this week.

And that's it. Busy week, but still lots of work to go on the Lilith crew. I still need to post up pictures of the stuff that is done which I'll try to do this week.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #48

My productivity has taken a hit due to Breaking Bad. I need to finish shotgunning down all the episodes quickly.

My desk is a bit of a train wreck right now. I've been dabbling around with my efforts and haven't actually finished anything. It's different than my normal process and for some reason I can't figure out why my muse is touring me around like this. There must be a reason but I have no clue what it is.

As you can see from the picture, my desk is populated with the start of my Lilith crew (Lilith, 6 Terror Tots, and a Cherub) which are nearly done. Bases are ready and the models are sealed. I just need to attach them and do final metal highlights.
I've also started the second wave of that crew (4 Young Nephilim and Barbaros) with base coats for their skin.
I also carved and started painting the bases for the second and third waves of the Lilith crew (5 medium bases and 2 large bases).
And finally I've also got base coats started on the Scather crew.

This last week we also had painting night! It was a blast and I think all 3 of us had a great time and got something out of it. Henry was stoked to have finished his Nicodem model. Lance took advantage of the slot to get feedback on his various Convergence sample metal tests. And I used the time to get a bunch of work done on the Cherub as well as demo two-brush blending for both of them, hence the start on the Scather crew members.
My portable painting kit worked out great as well. I don't really think that it needs major changes. I'll just be challenged when I start bringing project that need more colors to work from.
I can honestly say that I think all 3 of us are looking forward to doing this on a monthly basis. It was also fun to close out the evening with a couple games of King of Tokyo.

And that's it for last week! I expect this coming week to result in several things getting finished and lots of progress on the Young Nephilim. That is assuming I don't get too distracted watching Breaking Bad while painting.