Tag: painting

Miniatures, Workbench

Grimmleigh’s Guide to Painting Ork Skin

Since absolutely no one has asked, I thought it would be fun to put together a quick guide to how I paint ork skin. This is a speed paint method that I have been tinkering with for the better part of 20 years, and allows me to get a squad of orks (or goblins, or green dwarves, or emerald halflings) on the table pretty quickly!

Step One:

Start with a good foundation. Deeznudds here was sprayed with a coat of black primer, then I gave him a zenithal highlight pass with gray paint. Then, he got a downward drybrush of light grey paint. I’m going for high-contrast here, so subtlety is absolutely not a goal.


Step Two:

I blocked in the skin with some Sap Green ink from Daler Rowney, mixed with just a tiny bit of airbrush medium to dilute the pigment just a little. With the pre-shading done in step one, the skin could be considered done at this point and look just fine on the table-top…

Step Three:

…but we’re not Barbarians, are we? At this point, I started picking out the upper left side of the highlights with a little bit of yellow paint (Army Builder Babe Blond to be exact). Any light yellow will do the trick. I took a couple of passes to build up the lighter effect.

Step Four:

Why yellow? Well, Padawan, green is made out of yellow and blue, therefore it really likes being highlighted with yellow, and if you need to shade, blue works a wonder. At this step I have mixed a little Army Painter Arid Earth in with my yellow, and my highlights are getting smaller with each layer. It’s also time to paint that manky damned eye.


Step Five:

This step is completely optional, but I really like the effect. I paint in the highlights on the lips with a lighter skin tone, this adds a cool effect to the face and breaks up the monotony of a purely green face.


Step Six:

This is where I block in final highlights on the lips by adding a little Army Painter Arid Earth to the flesh tones. 



Step Seven:

Deeznuddz is looking pretty fierce, it’s time to line his gums and his manky damned eye with some Flesh Tearers Red Contrast Paint from Citadel.I also painted in his teeth with some Menoth White Highlight from Studio P3.

Step Eight:

The gums get a little highlight action by adding a little Army Builder Arid Earth to the Flesh Tearers Red. Yes, I do try to highlight with the same color, good eye! This is a good place to coat the teeth with some Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint from Citadel.

Step Nine:

At this point, all that’s left is the teeth. Since highlighting with a yellow based paint won’t give me the effect I’m looking for, I’ll be using Menoth White Highlight from Studio P3. Deeznuddz is ready to smash some skulls!

The same technique that was used on this face works perfectly for any green skin, whether it’s arms, torsos, or even squishy little goblins. Have fun!

Now, the colors may seem a bit washed out, but that’s because we’re looking at this guy much bigger than he is in real life. Look at your screen at about what his real world size would be, and you’ll see what I mean!

If you enjoyed this guide, let me know! I’m thinking about starting a series to help people navigate learning to paint miniatures!

Miniatures, Workbench

Nighthaunt Project (part 2)

The second part of the Nighthaunt project is this pair of ponies, which turned out waaaay better than I was hoping for!

I used my airbrush to blend a nice earth tone brown into an eerie green, then pulled out some ethereal highlights with a light blue gray. Then some rust effects for the metal, and I’m calling them good to go!

Next up, I’ll share the leader of this motley group! I have a ton more Nighthaunt I should finish up, they really are a lot of fun!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Valkyrie

I just realized today that I haven’t actually posted pics of most of the Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures that I have painted up, so I’m going to have to make a change to that!

Valkyrie, though, is a newer mini that I finished up this week. The box art shows her in her classic comics version, all Nordic and blonde. Nope. I’m a big fan of Tessa Thompson’s portrayal in the Marvel movies, so I opted for a darker skin tone and black hair.

I kept everything else pretty straightforward from Valkyrie’s classic comic look, with the purples and vibrant blues.

Terrain, Workbench

Scratch-Built Fantasy Village, Part 6

The first building is finally finished, and I could’nt be happier with how it turned out!

After the flock and shrubbery was secure, I added a couple of plastic railroad trees that I was able to twist in extremely twisty ways by soaking them in boiling water.

The rest of the piece was just a matter of concealing joins and gaps with shrubs.

After all of the flock was set, I poured clear resin into the moat for a water effect.

It’s a really fun piece, and will make for a thematic center-point for my games!

Workbench

The Game Changer.

Last week, a purchase I have been wrestling with making arrived on my doorstep. It’s a purchase I have had mixed feelings about for months, but isolation and work stress (I work in the mental health field) from COVID-19 finally won.

I bought an Elegoo Mars resin printer. That model you see up above was my first print, and the reason why I finally gave in. He was, to be frank, too cool not to have in my collection.

I have been conflicted for a long time on this technology. Initial prints that I had seen from extruded printers didn’t really impress me, and resin, until recently, has been really expensive. Now, you can get a good printer with a liter of resin for under $300.

My other big issue has been what I see as a disruption effect on an industry I care a lot about. Good prints made at home could be the death of small game stores, but after all of the printing trials and fine tuning I had to do to get things going, I don’t think we’re there… yet.

There is a lot you have to learn to make resin printing effective, and mistakes can be costly and messy. I messed up the FEP film almost immediately, and my garage was too cold for things to work right. But I am stubborn as hell, so I dove into research mode, and now I’ve been getting amazing prints without fail for a couple of days.

This handsome gent is Gino, and he was one of the awesome models Artisan Guild had available in March. $18 a month, and March had more than half a dozen badass dwarfs, including one mounted on a Griffon. I didn’t really have a choice.

Once I trimmed the supports off, it was time to get Gino primed, and start laying on the paints:

I really had a ton of fun with this model. He’s brawny, puffing on a pipe, and he’s stepping on some poor monster’s head. It wasn’t until I was almost done painting that I realized Gino had knocked a bunch of this dude’s teeth out before chopping off his head. Such a great model, and I think he cost me about .50 cents worth of resin to print out.

The final product is stunning! I’m still working my way through the rest of the offerings for last month, but Gino is ready to kick some ass!

Terrain, Workbench

Scratch-Build Fantasy Village Peoject

We’re self-quarantining through the apocalypse, but I also work in social services. So, I really can’t stay home and completely avoid human contact. So, I’m building a little escape.

My spare time is wide open, so I’ll be building a village to play games in when the End Times are over. And I want to test myself in the process.

I have built a lot of terrain in my life. This time around, I’m going with peeled foam coat as a base, and using hot glue to bind everything. I already love this as an alternative to glue!

I used a pencil to carve in the details, and an emery board to smooth things out. I decided to use wood glue to seal the foam, which I mixed with black paint so I could see if I missed anything.

After getting the test piece done, I decided to paint up the front to see how it looked… and I’m really, really happy!

I airbrushed a light coat of white from an angle, then washed the whole front with a simple glaze made from cheap paint, airbrush thinner, and acrylic floor polish. I went over certain areas with a similar glaze made from green ink to age things up a bit!

Next up I’ll go ahead and finish up the base since the experiment has made me happy!

Workbench

Beastmen for Warcry

Something fantastic happened when I went back into the behavior management field—- I am suddenly in a position to just paint for fun!

When my friend Brody was getting excited about some Beastmen for Warcry, I told him I wanted to paint them. I got to paint some cool minis, and there wasn’t any worry about commission. I was doing this for fun!

The Leader is a lot of fun, it’s just the standard build out of the box.
The Warcry cards have quite a few Ungor options, but the base Beastmen box only has Gors. I kitbashed the spear carrier to match the card, but the unit is a much beefier Gor unit.
Another standard Gor!
The Citadel Contrast line really excell with units like these!
The Warcry cards call for two Ungor options. I took some old plastic bow bits and converted some tougher looking Gor versions.

I just love the facial expressions on these guys. They look like they take things way too seriously, especially for goat dudes. It was also a really great excuse to play with patina and corrosion on the gear!

I’m working on a Nighthaunt Warband for Warcry, too, and I’ll make sure to share the carnage when these two forces face off!

Workbench

The Saga of Why I Hate Blue

About two years ago, my family was in crisis. We owned a restaurant that was doing its very best to sink any possibility of us having even a drop of financial security. So, I dusted off my miniature brushes and started accepting painting commissions again.

Turns out this was a massive mistake. Trying to keep a freelance business organized while your actual livelihood was crashing and burning around you? Not an easy thing to pull off. And I in no way pulled it off.

My friend Jeff hires me to paint a bunch of Pan Oceania minis from Infinity. He payed up front, which is something I try not to accept. Why? Because I might flake out, maybe screw up and not finish the job for a couple of years or something.

Now, it’s not all bad. Jeff actually hired me to work at his awesome game store, and it’s still the most fun I’ve ever had at a job. But I painted a lot of Pan Oceania minis while I was there. Probably more than a hundred. I started having nightmares about the particular blue Jeff liked.

Now it’s nearly two years later, and I finally finished the last of that commission. It’s sad, though, because Jeff is a friend and I should have finished this months ago… and I’m not entirely sure if these are all his figures to begin with!

These might be the last Infinity figs I paint, too. I’m pretty burned out on Infinity. The models are amazing, but I always feel dumb when I play the game. And Corvus Belli made some funding decisions that I’m not a fan of, so back to the stuff that I really enjoy painting!

Then again, they really are sweet looking miniatures! Gah! Indecision is tough!