Visions in Color - 2000 Special
Author: Miniature-Painting.net © 2000
The fourth Visions in Color event started on 01.07.2000 and ended on 30.09.2000.
This Visions in Color showcase was created, because the third VIC showcase was delayed. And because the miniature proved to be popular the Blade Maiden leader from Target Games was chosen to be painted.
Dominic Heutelbeck
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Tyson Tu
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Paolo Guion
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Robert Sakaluk
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Patrick Chambers
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Jennifer Haley
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Marko Siitonen
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Clarke Payne
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Clarke Payne
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Daniel Cook
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Guido Günther
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Dirk Stiller
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Ian Herrmann
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Brad Morton
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Keith Suderman
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Chern Ann Ng
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Dominic Heutelbeck
This miniature was a straight paint up. But I will make some comments about some things of the paint job that I think are interesting.
The stripes on the fur cloak where done by painting solid lines of dark brown onto the cloak. Then I quickly cleaned the brush and blended the edges into the surrounding fur with the clean damp brush. This is
very easy because of the texture of the fur.
The blade of the sword was first painted in plain GW Mithril Silver. Then I applied several thin layers of a mix of RP Dark Blue and GW Brown Ink to establish the shadows. Finally I blended back to mithril silver with a strongly thinned version of the silver paint in several layers. All these layers (shading and highlighting) where again
smoothed out with a clean damp brush.
The golden parts where simply shaded with several layers of GW Brown Ink.
The skin was done with GW skin colors.
The hair was painted RP Dark Blue and highlighted with this color plus some white. Then it was washed with GW Storm Blue.
The main idea behind the choice of colors was that I didn´t want her to be blonde. So I chose a more exotic color. Watching Japanese animes brought be to the conclusion that almost any color will make a cool hair color in a fantasy setting. Well, it is not very realistic but looks quite nice in my opinion.
Dominic Heutelbeck
Tyson Tu
The main thing that I wanted to do with this fig was to learn how to do decent skin tones, specifically the pale skin tone for a red-head (that was the first decision). It looked like an amazing fig, and I particularly
liked the expression and pose on the figure (the sword arm has a bit of give regarding the angle of the blade, but too much and the upper arm doesn´t match up with the lower arm).
Since I wanted to portray a pale figure from the northlands (who would go barechested in the land of snow and ice, anyway?), I first started with GW Dwarf flesh, a mix of red, brown, and a dab of gold for the hair, Space Wolves gray for the fur cape, and a black coat for exposed metal. After waiting about 6 months (gotta let that first coat age a bit :P) I washed the entire mini with a brown ink (mixed with matte varnish to lighten it up a bit), and did a first drybrush coat on the cape with the same gray I based it with. The backside of the cape was painted tan, and washed with Chestnut ink. Metal was picked out with Chainmail and Brass, and the hair was drybrushed with its base color.
I mixed up a pale skin color with Dwarf flesh, pink, and white and added varying amounts of Chestnut ink for different shades. This was my first try at blending, and I´m not sure if I even ended up with different shades on the mini, but she still looked pretty good, so I´ll probably just leave her alone. The eyes were painted with a green stripe for each socket (cleaned up with Dwarf flesh above and below) and the white were added with a dot to either side of the green. I´m not sure if she´s actually wearing an earring, but it looked like it, so I painted it gold. The cape received one more drybrush with white, and the metal was drybrushed with silver or gold (over the chainmail and brass, respectively).
I decided on a snowy base, so I put down a liberal coating of white glue, and added a small pebble and some modelling grass (not static grass but the stuff they sell in bundles). After the glue dried, I added another layer to give it a bit more thickness, then painted the whole thing white, drybrushing the white up onto her boots and the scenery.
Tyson Tu
Paolo "DragonPaint" Guion
Here´s the pictures of the Blade Maiden from Chronopia, one of the best miniatures from Target. First of all I have decided to paint her well tanned, she´s a warrior that live most of the time outside and in her adventures she´s wandering on some mountain pass, just with a wolf or bear fur to protect herself from the snow. Then I have selected the hair color, red to add a strong color to contrast with the fur. She has some of her own hairs also on her loincloth, probably cut when she become a warrior. The next step was to select a color for the leather string and for the internal of the fur cloak, I have selected the olive green because the green is a complementary color for the red and because the normal brown will disappear on the skin.
The miniature was primered black and then I have started painting the eyes with a white line and a vertical black line for the pupil. Then I have trimmed the contour with the black and covered all the skin areas with a coat of Vallejo Mahogany brown 846. Next step was to add more highlight with a mix of Mahogany brown and Medium Flesh 860. I have painted them using a semi transparent paint obtained adding water, in this way I don´t have to shade the colors on the miniature but just add more passes to build the lighter areas. After a couple of passes with the previous mix I have painted one using only the Medium flesh, then one mixing the Medium Flesh with some Beige 917 and finally adding some light with the diluted Beige.
For the hair I have used a base of Carmine Red 908 and then highlighted the hair using the side of the brush with just a bit of Scarlet 817 for the first pass and then a mix of Scarlet and Light Orange 911. Using the side of the brush instead of the normal drybrush add more control when you have to highlight the edges of something or small lines as in this case. Then I have shaded the hair parting with some Citadel Chestnut ink.
The leather was painted with a base of Olive Green 967 and the highlight with a mix of Olive Green and Beige.
Nothing strange with the fur, the base was a mix of Black 950, White 951 and a bit of Ultramarine 839 (blue) and then drybrushed with the same mix adding more White. Same thing for the metal, just Citadel Gunmetal with some black highlighted with Gunmetal and then Citadel Mithril silver for the sword and the chains and Vallejo Brass 801 for the gold. The shining gold on the sword was obtained using a undercoat of bright yellow and then Citadel Burnished Gold.
The base was covered of white plaster and I have just added a couple of pieces of glass that comes from a car accident to represent ice rocks (yes, sometime you look on the ground and find the right thing for your bases...)
That´s all, hope you like it ;)
Paolo "DragonPaint" Guion
Robert Sakaluk
Well on the subject of nipples....
Anyway when I first saw this mini I thought yeah finally a politically correct barbarian girl, after all all the male barbarian have bare chests. I approached this mini with an absolute lack of imagination having seen a pick of the regular Blade Maiden in the Chronopia rulebook I pretty much painted it the same way. So I´ll just describe some of the areas of interest painting wise.
First part to paint was the skin, I painted this my standard way with GW paints: Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh, Skull White, and Vermin Fur. To see my method have a look at my painting skin tutorial on http://www.geocities.com/rob_jedi. I suppose I should mention painting the nipples since they stand out a bit. I painted them pink and then used Chestnut ink to deepen the colour.
The next area of interest is the hair which I have tried to give the look of darker roots with blonde hair. I started with GW Bleached Bone then washed with GW Orc Brown, Then a darker more controlled wash of RP Cleric Brown. I also used GW Brown Wash (Ink) along the edges of the hair and along the part in the hair. Finally I put some highlights of Bleached bone.
Third area of note is the Kilt/Loin Cloth which I painted in a tartan pattern. First I painted it GW Goblin Green (a mid tone) then I painted a grid pattern of GW Rotting Flesh (a very pale colour) finally I painted another grid ofset from the first one in GW Dark Angel Green (Dark tone). I´m quite happy with the finish but it is fairly difficult to keep the lines neet doing this method.
Apart from these bits the rest was pretty straight forward. The fur was washed and drybrushed. The armour was painted black, drybrushed GW Chainmail and washed with Brown Ink.
That´s about it really.
Robert Sakaluk
Patrick Chambers
Patrick Chambers
Jennifer Haley
I wanted to give her a deep, rich skin tone with an Eastern feel, so I first washed the flesh areas with GW Bestial Brown. Successive layers were built up with Armory browns and buffs mixed with an acrylic blending gel. Nomadic warriors rarely carry makeup bags, so lips and eyes were highlighted with warm browns. (And yes, her right nipple is larger than the left; the peculiarities of friends somehow tend to find their way into my miniatures.) I used Micron Pigma pens, size .005, in brown and black for the almond eyes.
Furred areas were given a wash of black ink, then shaded in smoky grey and white. I decided this could be a snow leopard pelt, appropriate for a northern warrior and providing a good cool contrast to the skin. The inside of the pelt was scored with a file to give it a texture like roughly tanned leather, but I didn´t achieve the effect I wanted. Her armor and sword hilt were painted bronze, washed with brown ink, and highlighted with gold to bring out the chasing. The hide loincloth needed some embellishment, so I added dark blue scrolling designs, again with the Pigma pens. Twisted silk cords and tassel in a warm Chinese red seemed appropriate, as did the red jewels, which were gloss-coated for extra shine. Perhaps she lost the top right ruby wandering in the snow? I used a microbead "snow" powder over a layer of gravel and static grass, and brought a little up over the toes of her buskins.
Jennifer Haley
Marko Siitonen
This miniature was painted already in 1999 to be a Mourning Wolf-chieftain in another of Target Games´ game, Warzone. So the look of it is very basic, with limited use of colours and a "naturalistic" look.
The moment I saw this mini I imagined it to be blonde, a bit of arctic character even though the clothing doesn´t quite point to that direction. This original vision;) is also the reason for the cape, which is supposed to be somekind of a snow animal...maybe a big cat. The only things which don´t quite match with the naturalistic look are the metallic parts, and the reason to that is that I still wanted the character to fit in the scifi -setting of Warzone.
The painting job was simple after deciding on the colours. The cape, hair and loincloth were done with multiple washes and drybrushing. The metallic parts were done by painting the base black and drybrushing with metal. After this the copper was painted in.
The skin took the most of the time, basically because there´s a lot of it and because it IMHO needs to look good especially in this mini because it is the thing the viewers eye concentrates on...and I don´t mean only the pointy nipples here! I blended the highlights of the skin to be quite strong and painted an equally strong makeup for the same reason.
The base is a basic base for my gaming-minis, sand glued on, painted green and drybrushed up to yellow.
All in all I liked this miniature immediately when I saw it. Actually enough to ask my brother (whose mini it is) to be allowed to paint it...;)
Marko Siitonen
Clarke Payne
This was the first Blade Maiden mini I painted. Her paint scheme has filtered down to the rest of the Blade Maidens that make up her warband. I like red and thought it would bring out her skin, so that´s why I chose it for the pelt lining and her "clothes." For the "kilt" I first painted it red and then added a grid pattern of forest green and orange to give it the tartan look. To go with the rest of her celtic sort of look, I put the light blue markings on her face. The strip of red-brown in her hair was just something that seemed like a good idea at the time- I thought she looked fine with totally blonde hair but a little something extra would set her out from the rest of the warband and show she´s the leader. For the pelt, I imagined it came from some huge wolf-like creature that she had to kill at a certain age. I started out with a dark brown base and added slightly watered down patches of lighter browns until I was happy with the look. For the base I figured that she´d be in some mountainous/forest climate, so I made it half rocky and half grassy, with a scattering of "snow" to give it that cold appearance.
Clarke Payne
Clarke Payne
This Blade Maiden Leader represents a warrior angel in a now defunct RPG campaign. The angels we´re talking about aren´t your typical angels, these are the kind that go out and kick demonic asses for fun. TO give her a more aggressive stance I turned the sword hand about 45 degrees from the way it was meant to be. Since it wouldn´t easily stay in that position with just glue I had to pin it and putty around the gaps in the wrist area. To add to her aggressiveness I also gave her a plastic GW Space Marine knife, so she really looks like she´s out for blood.
Since she´s not the typical angel I didn´t want her to have the typical "porcelain" skin, so I mixed together some RP suntan and a little RP slime and colonial green to get the final skin color. Her eyes are a fluorescent
reddish-purple, but the picture doesn´t show it too well, this also helps convey her aggressive nature. For her hair, I started with a darker brown and then put dunkel brown over that, finishing with a couple of different yellow washes. Finally, to get her away from the typical angel stereotypes, I added a few scars here and there, most notably on her left leg and her right breast.
Her shoulder pad didn´t quite fit the vision I had, so I filled in the celtic-like designs and tried to shape it into one piece with a little putty. I chose the gold for her gauntlets and shoulderpad because even though she´s not a typical angel, she is still an angel. The blades got a dark gray base and then RP silver with some watered down light blue to give them a sort of "heavenly" effect. The furry parts are supposed to be the skin of one of the demons she´s killed. I used the same technique as for normal fur, but greens and blacks instead of browns. For her "toga" I went with a light gray, continuing the non-typical angle theme.
Clarke Payne
Daniel Cook
I started with the skin. I tried using Rob´s method, but I couldn´t get the washes right ( I think I need to make them thinner) so I based in GW Elf Flesh, washed with GW Chestnut Ink and highlighted with Elf Flesh/Skull White. I glazed it all with thinned Flesh Wash. I actually did the eye with the old black line and two white dot method. Her nipples (everyone mentions the nipples so who am I to piss against the wind?) are just washed with the Flesh Wash.
Her armor was done two different ways. The chainmail areas are based in a thinned Liquitex Payne´s Grey (A very dark blue grey like navy blue). I then drybrushed with GW Mithril Silver. The gauntlets are based in GW Chaos Black and then painted GW Boltgun Metal and washed with Black Ink. I based her sword with the black and then painted it chainmail and a drybrush of mithril silver. (I definitely need to work on my armor and swords painting.) The hilt of the sword is based in GW Vermin Brown and coated in GW Shining Gold (I don´t like this gold at all).
The fur is a base of the Payne´s Grey and a drybrush of a GW (light blue) and Skull White. The leather armor(?) is based in Chaos black and then painted RP Royal Blue Silk and GW (light blue). I attempted to blend the blues on the leather armor parts. i was more successful on the inner cape and loincloth.
I am not too happy with the hair and tassle. I can´t really describe how I arrived at the look that I did. It was an experiment that went horribly wrong and ended up like a brown with some thinned RP Lantern Light Yellow as a highlight. Whatever. I do like the tassle holder and the small discs above it. I painted them to look like bone and considering their size i think they came out pretty good.
I also made my first ever attempts at jewels. From my experienc I have learned this. Extender will help the layers go on more smoothly, base in white if you go highlights on the lowest layer and choose something other than a yellow gem for your first try. I will follow all my own advice next time
The base is just a square GW slotta base and some generic railroad flocking.
Overall I am pretty happy with this piece. I am used to painting Reapers which are 30mm instead of this 28mm Chronopia fig. I need to work on cleaner lines. If you look at Rob´s Blade Maiden you´ll see that his piece is very
clean ( no out of place lines, all the blending is finished nicely. Everything looks "real"). I am also jealous of Paolo´s shading on this fig. And Jennifer´s looks fabulous as well. Dominic´s hair is great (so´s the hair on his Blade Maiden). I would like to get better at all these things and it is great to have so many examples for inspiration.
A moment of reflection
When I first thought about taking up the mini-painting hobby in April of this year, I checked the Internet to see what info I could find on it. In my searches I found three sites on the first day that were and still are absolutely essential to me. I found Paul Raukas´ Miniature Gallery, Laszlo Jakusovsky´s Hot Lead and the page you´re looking at now. I emailed all of these men and asked them questions. They all responded with some of the kindest and most helpful advice and encouragement I have ever come across. I knew that if I took up the hobby I would be among good people doing good things. It was a no-brainer (and luckily so was I). I found the Abyst page of ViC and was deeply inspired by Dominic and Dirk and all the others. (I don´t think Laszlo´s was up yet.) I too hoped to be placed on a site with these men and their work.
Daniel Cook
Guido Günther
As I first saw this miniature I thought Yeah, lots of bare flesh, "TATOOS!!!!" Moments later came the disappointing bit: It is out of production and I cannot get it anymore in my area. After weeks of searching a friend of mine, Abdullah Mahmoudi, donatet this miniature to me out of his personal collection so I can take part in VIC #4.
So now the painting:
The painting was straightforward as there are no difficult areas on this miniature. The dark "Middleline" on the Pelt was made in the same way as Dom did the stripes on his miniature. The metallic Parts are simply a plain basecoat, washed with some diluted Ink and highlighted with several layers of lighter tones. The rest of the miniature were simple shades and highlights. The tatoos were a bit more tricky. I prefer to use new brushes for such delicate details because these still got the nice point that used brushes do not longer have (exept they are very expensive and you can afford them). Then I simply used diluted paint, no inks!, to paint the tatoos on. This is because in my opinion you can regulate the "fluidness" fo the paint more easiely as inks are already quite "fluid". Another important thing is to draw the design on a scrap of paper first, because working it out on the actual miniature is a painful experience and can ruin the whole miniature also.
So that it is, a finished VIC #4 entry.
Guido Günther
Dirk Stiller
Well, here it is. My version of the Blade Maiden. I finally managed to finish her 99%. I still plan to apply some blood to the sword and the armour and paint on some more nice tatoos and rework the one on the leg a bit. And finish up the base. But no major changes anymore. Well, I don´t have so much to say about the paint job, like always. The painting itself was much fun. The only little conversion I allowed myself was the severed head in her left hand. Recogniced him. I was searching around in my miniature boxes to find some inocent goblin get a propper severed head when I found this little Asterix miniature manufactured by Hobby Products years ago. I think it has become quite rare now, maybe I shouldn´t have cut it apart at all. But what the heck. It was worth the joke. :o)
Anyway, I pinned the head to the fist with some steele wire and glued it in place with super glue. Then I resculpted a bit of the hair with green stuff. Next I sculpted the spine and some vains coming out of the severed neck. I also resculpted his mouth open with the tongue sticking out. For the spine I first glued some wire into a hole I had drilled into the neck. Then I build up some greenstuff around it and sculpted in the vertebrae and the vains. The I primed the miniature with my usual car primer/airbrush and painted it.
Hope you like my "Oh, my god, you killed Asterix...!" Blade Maiden. :o))))
Dirk Stiller
Ian "Fox" Herrmann
I´m converting her, as well as 6 of her scantily clad friends, to be used as a scout deployment in my Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine army. They are my "Wolf Maidens"
I wanted the leader to be special, and the sword supplied is, in my opinion... anything BUT. It just appeared exceedingly boring as a weapon... so I dug through my bitz, and found the Eldar Harlequin High Avatar. He had a REALLY nifty looking sword, so I cut of his arm at the elbow, and tried to splice his hand onto her arm. This did not work. There were issues of proportion to deal with... But I wanted to keep the basket hilt of the sword with all the little heart shape cut-outs, so I just cut the rest of his arm of down to the wrist, then cut off the mail cuff of her gauntlet that was holding her sword, and attatched her cuff to his hand. This worked to my satisfaction. Then I gave her a Space Marine Bolter.
I painted her with Testors model paints for the most part, using Games workshop Snakebite Leather for the inside of the wolf pelt and the boots.all the bare skin needed SOMETHING, so I decided to give her some tatoos that resembled the ones I´m going to give her father, when I get around to modelling him. His will be blue, hers are black.
Ian "Fox" Herrmann
Brad Morton
Brad Morton
Keith Suderman
She´s a VIC entry, so I should have expected trouble... The pommel of her sword broke off during assembly so I replaced it with green stuff (nice sculpting, eh?). The primer (Krylon white) thinned out like a wash- see the lighter edges in the space below her breast. And her hair chipped twice while scanning her- I guess she was just born to strip...
She´s painted with Citadel paints (with some Apple Barrel and Delta Ceramcoat where I needed more colors). She represents a big change in my techniques; her skin is entirely blended (or layered). I followed Jennifer´s face-painting tutorial (as exactly as I could). It worked out pretty well.
I read somewhere that it´s best to use an odd number of colors (I´m not sure if I should count black, white, silver, flesh, and brown...) and that those colors should be evenly spaced around the color wheel. I also wanted her auburn (Citadel Dark Flesh) hair to contrast with the cloak. So she´s got a red loincloth with a yellow (Bestial Brown) tassle and a (dark) blue cloak- maybe it´s the pelt of some exotic beast...
Keith Suderman
Chern Ann Ng
After painting and presenting the completed figure to the mini-painting list, I was informed almost immediately that red heads have pink nipples. I apologise for the error and promise to devote more time in future to in depth research. If there are any natural blonde, brunette or redhead women in the Birmingham area that are willing to participate in my data collection, please contact me.
The first go at the maiden produced a rather horrendous green/red mix around the straps and loin cloth that reminded me of Christmas. I decided a more appropriate place to draw attention to the figure was the ornate armour on the shoulder and the sword, and redid the straps/cloth in neutral colours while painting the sword and armour blue, and was quite pleased with the overall colour balance.
The snow base is just milliput roughly sculpted into shape, painted with sky blue then very roughly drybrushed with white to intentionally leave small clumps of paint. Not as good as microbead snow, which I can´t get at easily, but it suffices.
Chern Ann Ng
Comments
First version from 24.03.2008. Last Version from 24.03.2008.
