Spring Cleaning Challenge: Malifaux Neverborn

Assembly was an interesting task to say the least. When all ya’ll out there told me that the Malifaux miniatures were finicky… YOU WERE NOT LYING!

When I started Waldgeist 3, I looked at the assembly instructions and thought I would start with the easiest of the three (the one that had the least amount of pieces to put together!).

Waldgiest 3 went together quite nicely, and honestly, I didn’t get on too well with the glue that I had. I was using The Army Painter glue, but I found that it took ages to dry and strung off everywhere! So if anybody has any glue recommendations – please do let me know! 🙂

By the time I got to Waldgiest 1… I realised how small the plastic pieces really were. And I knew that this was not going to be the only time I had this thought.

I lost several pieces, then found them again, and at one point I shouted at the top of my voice, “Where the f**k did his arm go this time?!”.

Assembly did take me some time, but I anticipate that the more I practice, the easier this is going to get. Halfway through, I did however remember that Justin gave me a trick that when things are too tiny, to utilize some tweezers. So once I remembered that – it was a lot simpler.

I have got tiny hands, so I can imagine how difficult this must be for the likes of a giant like Gerry!

Priming I’d say was the least challenging part for me so far. I got myself some Scale 75 Grey Primer and made sure that held it back far enough to make sure that I wasn’t destroying any detail by putting too much on it. Got it quite even I think, and decided to prime 2/3 of the Waldgiests.

Coming into miniature painting, I wanted to use everything I have learned with Watercolours and add some techniques to a newer blank canvas.

Today instead of Sunday Chilling Board Games, it was time for me to wield the paintbrush and get stuck into one of the Waldgeists.

What I do know from watercolour painting, was that you would always start light colours to avoid ruining your canvas, and gradually add in the darker ones. So, I took Beastly Brown from the Army Painter and mixed it with some Matte White.

Looking at paints can be quite intimidating as there are loads that you can choose from, but as I quite like to mix my colours to achieve a nice gradual effect, I wanted to build up from where I was starting. This gave my mini a nice light brown base, for me to build on.

I eventually started to darken areas adding less and less white to the mix. So areas such as under his legs, through several parts of the branches and areas that protruded needed a lil highlighting.

I noticed the little mushroom bumps on his arm and above his head, so I used a Scale 75 Amethyst Alchemy, which is like an opalescent purple, and added little white dots to make them look toadstool-like! What a surprise… I used lilac somewhere.

I also added this colour to the eyes, along with a Lilac from Citadel Dry around the edge to make them pop a lil.

I did not completely ditch my watercolour ways, and used some of my watercolours as a wash! So I picked one of my deeper browns as a wash to help bring out the detail. Along with a dark green to add just below the eyes and on the feet to make it look mossy.

I also wanted to add a bit of life – as it is a tree – I used some model moss that I bought off of Amazon Prime cut up and stuck it on the branches.

Strangely enough, I still feel like I painted this mini in a watercolour style! The flash on my camera makes his left eye look a little bright, but hopefully, you like what I have done! Looking forward to get stuck into the next of the Waldgiests. 🙂