Odds, Sods n ……Stuffs. A Medley of Mayhem

And It’s done! A long time in the making this diorama was one of those projects that was a real challenge and a great ‘leveling up’  piece and one that I am really really rather proud of now that its all finished. I scratch built as much as possible from materials on hand and/or from my garden. But let’s start at the beginning.

The miniatures in this piece are an older and very OOP vignette from Reaper Miniatures that my client wanted me to both paint and ‘fit’ into a larger diorama setting. This little duo plus a sanding stone was originally released and called ‘The Druid’s Stone’ and was based on a piece of art by the amazing Keith Parkinson. The sculpting was done by Sandra Garrity. So I had a starting point in Keith’s original art piece.

The plinth was made for me by the fantastic Richard Wharton at Oakwood Studios and after a bit of Dremel carving to deepen a stream channel I laid down the rough contours of the land first with sculpture block bark for the rock formations as well as some stones etc from the garden, bit of Milliput to blend things in and then covered and refined it with some modelling compound from #geekgamingscenics . The main standing stone is part of the original white metal vignette from reaper but it seemed a bit lonely on its own so I sculpted a couple of smaller ones in Milliput. Next was a layer of wet ground texture paint from AK into which was pressed some forest scatter from #rivalcrafts while still wet. After painting all this tufts, flowers and flock as per usual.

The trees……….. ohhh the trees………. (cont. in comments) I wanted to use birch trees and the client has a special thing for birch as well but couldn’t find any tutorials for making birch trees online that produced something I was happy with so decided to just try it myself. We have several birch in the garden so gather up birch twigs was no problem. They were then baked in the oven to fully dry them out and kill off any bugs, spores etc The branches are smaller twigs which I cut to size and pinned n glued onto a larger ‘trunk’ twig to make the main tree structure. The we needed some canopy so I drilled holes into the birch branches and inserted sprigs of seafoam for that. After construction was all done, gave them a spritz of sealant aka watered down mod podge, primed them and then painted them as birchy looking as I could. The foliage is from AK Interactive – Autumn birch foliage. Kinda of a loss mat sort of product with lots of autumn birch leaves in it which you tear off into appropriate pieces and work into the sea foam to hold it. All the extra leaves that fall off were saved and then used later on the ground for leaf litter. Once finished the trees were generously spritzed with mod podge solution and then inserted into drilled holes in the diorama and there you have it!!!

Finally finished up Darth Vader and got him off to the client. There was nearly tears sending him off!!

Really was a wonderful project though. Pushing OSL is often a tricky beast as to getting the amount and levels right. Too much it looks garish and cheap, too little, it has little to no impact.

With Darth that was definitely a concern esp with the glow from the lightsaber. Think I got the levels ok though…….. think – Lol

With Darth’s plinth base finished (see below)  twas time to get stuck into Darth himself.

Painting black……….. I generally enjoy painting black.  It does come with some caveats usually though.  Most noteably you need to balance the deeper black spaces and the highlights very carefully otherwise your mini who is supposed to be clad in black looks like he is wearing grey.

Secondly – temperature. Even though black (grey & white as well) is not a colour but a shade, temperature still can and does play apart. With all the heat and warmth coming off the base,  I wanted to ensure that Darth’s blacks would be cold to contrast against the warmth of the base. This meant using blues in the mixes for his garb.

Thirdly – not all materials react and reflect light in the same way. Darth has several different types of materials in his dress – softer leathers of his gloves and boots, the weird ass trousers he wears with their….. quilting, the rogher thicker material of his cloak and finally the super reflective shiny material used for his armour; greaves, helmet and cowl.

All of these differnt materials will react in a differnt way and therefore need to be treated appropriately.  So the highlights  on the cloak will be of a different and less reflective nature to the highlights used on his helmet for example.

I decided to work up all the softer materials first – bringing up the softer midtones and highlights to a certain point.  The cloaks’ highlights stopped shorter than those for his gloves and trousers as they have softer lines and flow to the slightly sharper apices of the weird trousers fabric. I also needed to note and make allowances for where the OSL glow from his lightsaber would later fall on the materials as well.

The cloak in this limited version of Darth Vader is pretty lovely in its flowing and billowing but a bit of a shit to paint!! So with the volumes (usually shown by the contrasts b/t shadows, midtones and highlights) of the cloaks in place I brought the highlights on the righthand side up a little further as they will be lit and tinted by the glare fo the lightsaber.

I did the same for his trousers and gloves but as they are leather which is more reflective usually than the wool (or whatever Vader’s cloak is spun off) of a heavy cloak, I brought some of the apex highlights here up further.

When it came to the armour pieces – I needed to firstly make the highlights and midtones much more compact and secondly to bring them up to almost pure white due to their highly reflective surfaces.

In these workups i was more concerned with getting the correct reflections and highlights in place than with ensuring the black shadows were deep and broad enough to stave off the possibility of everything reading more as grey than black. This problem will be taken on and solved later in the glazing phase.

Here the goal was made sure the armour’s shiny reflective nature was tackled and read as such.

And that is where we are. There is still the question of depth and reducing back the amount of real estate that is grey rather than black to be tackled and that will be addressed and refined once all the highlights are in place.

I left the helmet till last as it has the trickiest of shapes involved – spheres. Spheres are a pain in the arse at times esp when it comes to reflective workups – nmm for example as the reflections act very differently and more complicated than flat edged items.

Once the helmet has been highlighted and of course also in relation to the lightsaber and its glare, then come the glazes.

A quick note on paints. All this was done with 4 paints. VMC black & dark sea blue ( as I said earlier, I wanted to ensure a cooler nature to the blacks used on Darth in contrast to the warmer base) and ScaleColour graphite grey and white. The initial base mix was a mix of black and dark sea blue and then the highlights came from adding increasing amounts of graphite grey and then white into this base mix.

Recently started up 2 new projects. One is my own and the other a commission piece.
First up is from the Nord faction from ParaBellum for their game Conquest-The Last kerfuffle of Kings and he is a brute beast and a red………. well……. a very big fella. Measuring in at about 16cm tall, he is definitely the tallest ‘mini’ I’ve worked on!!

He is part of Para Bellum artisan series and they brought in one of my favourite sculptors, Michael Kontraros to create him. The sculpt is stunning!!  Casting……. well, usually I am a complete whiny bitter little bitch when it comes to resin casts as it is my favourite medium for minis ( cast stuff not 3D printed) and therefore am really critical of bad/sloppy/amateur/lazy casts (yes FW & Raging Heroes, I am thinking of YOU)  The Ice Jotnar’s (should really be Jotun as Jotnar is the plural form but anyways) cast was nearly perfect. There were a few wee bits of cleanup but nothing that took more than a few minutes. Honestly one of the nest casts I’ve had in my hands. There was a few stories flying around that they had gotten a jeweller to do the casting etc etc. Fantastic sculpt & a fantastic cast. I was moist!

I’ve gotten a bit of work done on him now on stream (Saturdays are Jotun Days) and he is coming along. I’m doing his skin portion by portion as trying to paint all the skin at the same time would be a fool’s errand and exhausting. As I dont really keep a paint diary or a recipe list – I took a photo on my phone of the paints I’m using so I can make sure that the skin will be all painted the same, with the same paints and end up homogenous when done. I bring each skin section up to about 80% complete before moving on to the next section. The final 20%,  mostly a few final highlights and tweaks plus some glazes,  will then be done all at the same time to bring it all together and unify all the different areas.

The eyes…….. I hummed and hawed about the eyes for a while and in the end,  on a whim during stream,  I decided that something like that which the white walkers fellas in Game of  ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ Thrones sport would make for a nice strong contrast against the softer more subtle blue tones of the skin. They were intense to paint!!!

On a side note – I have an affiliate code for ParaBellum’s webstore.  If anyone is getting into/expanding their Conquest army, use the code JANUINE at checkout to get 10% off their first purchase.  Money saved is money gained and all that pish 😉

Next up we have a rather special new project.  (Typing htis for the second time as the website just crashed >< )  This is a commission piece for a viewer in the States.  Darth Vader! This is a limited edition alternate sculpt of Darth for Star Wars: Legions that was only released at some con in Chicago in 2019. Its resin rather than their usual plastic (yay) and the cast was near flawless. Literally took me 10 minutes to cleanup. Weirdly enough, considering how much I love Star Wars (Solo was a crackingly fun movie ALRIGHT?!!) this is my first Star Wars mini to paint!!

So, the client wants this mini as a display piece rather than as a game piece which is aces.  I decided to build and paint the base first as the light from it would have an effect on Darth himself. I settled on a lava base scene as am sure Anakin/Darth would love the chance to revisit Mustafar (meeeeemories!)

For the plinth I wanted a very dark wood that would complement the overall scene. I’m not a huge fan of painting the plinths black so if at all possible I will choose a wood whose natural colouring will fit in with what is on top. For this one I decided on a wood that can be a bit tricky to source – African Blackwood. Once turned and polished African Blackwood has a really lovely dark veneer and sheen with a slightly warm feel. Perfecto!
The mini comes with a rocky base topper as it is so it was just to expand on that and bring it out to cover the plinth top.
I used the rock base that came with, some resin rocks from Spellcrow and mordant earth crackle paint from GW to form up the scene. Then it was to the painting.  The base progressed along these lines:

As this piece has a huge amount of black it was going to be important to try and set the different blacks apart as well as have them work together harmoniously – so I decided on a warmer feel to the base with the lava and the rocks there (I added a very soft charcoal feel to the rocks by using some warm beige mixed into the black on the rocks as well as the hot colours of the lava) to contrast against the colder more jet blacks (planning to use blues in the black for Darth) that would be used on Darth Vader.
With the base complete it was time to build Darth and get him primed up for painting. I primed him just in black forgoing my usual lateral second prime with white for picking out detail and sketching a light source as a)  its Darth Vader, he is all black anyways and b) there wasn’t really going to be a main light source from above.

So after a question of how I plan my projects by one of the viewers over on Twitch (short answer – I really dont, a least not formally or on paper) I decided to try something out. A video project diary series detailing and trying to plan a project a bit more formally and organisidly……. (thats a word ok!!!)

Anyways – the first two…… ‘episodes’ are done and up on YouTube already. Have a look and whatnot. I have about 10 episodes planned from Intro to completed project planned…… We’ll see!!!

Finally finished! The longest, biggest and most detailed piece I’ve ever worked on! 15 months from start to finish!

This really was one heck of  journey. I worked on this piece from time to time, never rushing just tickling away at it when time allowed.

I was always going to be a long project but the depth of it was where it really shone for me. I tweaked some older workups i use, Invented some wholly new ones where i felt it needed and experiemented as much as I wanted.  I threw caution in the bin adn just went for it. It wasnt a commission piece but something i wanted to learn as much as possible from working on adn there were/are a whole bunch of ‘firsts’ in there!
It is a narrative piece and there is a story in there but what that story is and whether its the same as the story i saw in the making isnt really important. Whatever story the viewers get from it is the one that matters 🙂

Anyways – enough jibber jabber. Photos!  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did both in the making and the finished piece. If you have any questions at all about it – techniques, details etc etc – please feel free to ask away 🙂

Not exactly an old project per se…….. but a new one from an old work.

So, I have never sculpted before. Greenstuffing and the like on conversions and filling gaps on minis is about as far as I have travelled into the world of sculpting. I did make a tiny hedgehog or two for bases but thats the sum total of my sculpting experience!!

While going through some old sketchbooks and the like I came across a few drawings/doodles I did of faerie-kin some 16 years ago.

So for no real reason whatsoever I decided I wanted to have a bash at sculpting a bust!!
Never sculpted before? No problem!
Not sure where the hell to start? YouTube!!

So after a bit of a fiddle around on YouTube and a few videos watched from folk who know a hell of a lot more about what they are doing than I……… I decided to get stuck in!

First up – make an armature! I had a box of SuperSculpy Firm lying around that I had bought before and as its a medium that does dry out but instead is baked it seemed perfect for me as I was not going to be finishing this project anytime soon!

For bigger and thicker sculpts with SSF,  you need to have a core of tinfoil apparently.

Armature……. Check!!

Next up, I learned from the You of Tubes (actually most of what I learned was from one guy  – a sculptor called The Dark Lord. very rec/mnd) is to create the base form or under form or something like that.

Need to cover the armature with a thinnish covering of the SSF and get the basic form shaped out and then on top of that we’ll sculpt the actual features and so on.

well ok then……

Well that didnt seem tooooooo bad. And comparing it to my original drawing that I was going to try and make a bust of…… I was pretty happy! Shape seemed ok and resesesmbled the drawing well enough…… aces. I also marked in the rough areas for the eyes, nose and mouth.

I was still missing a few things though. The real sculptors had a few tools that I didnt have and looked rather handy. I already had a fair wee selection of tools like clay shapers and various pointy, sticky, pokey tools but a tool called a ‘rake’ or a ‘hoop tool’ looked rather handy as did a ball on stick device thingy…… couldnt find them in my local craft shop soooooooooooo just made them myself with some violin string and a few old dead cut down brushes! Making my own tools now…… I was beaming!
I was also missing eyes. YouTubey people were using glass eyes…. makes sense as the piece needs to be baked and plastic would probably melt in the oven.  To Amazon we go!! ……… yup glass eyes on metal pins…….found them…… I now am in possession of over a 100 bloody glass eyes of various sizes….. I only needed TWO!!!

Next up…… let’s schedule a 12 hour stream on Twitch to get really stuck into this sculpting! So to celebrate one year of Twitch Partnership,  said long stream was scheduled and it went………… rather well!!  I dug out my old Prince August moulds from when I was a kid and we did some metal casting of a goblin catapult first, which went well; didnt burn down the studio or pour molten metal on my person so that was good.

Then was the time to get into the sculpting. A few tasty craft stouts defintely helped! Buuuuuuuuut was really happy with how it started to turn out!

That was about 6 hours or so work I think……..

Overall the bust was really begining to take shape. Primary features were in place and startig to look……… not shit and was still looking at least related to the original drawing!

I had beamed and self congratulated a little too early and quickly though………. I had not yet got to working on the ears………………

‘Ears’….. quite simply put ….. are BASTARDS!!!!

Jesus merciful hour! Bloody ears!!

On a subsequent stream,  I went about sculpting the ears…. wow…… I hate ears!! fiddley, fandingely feckers!!! Finally they started to take shape and once again look…….. well……. not too too shit!!!
And this is where Diabhlai the faerie-kin sculpt is now at!!!

Overall, I am really really happy with how this project has started and is progressing. As I siad I have never sculpted before and it is something I’ve always wanted to try but always just put it off and put it off.  It’s coming along and I think is begining to look pretty fun if not good! But most importantly, I really am having fun with this!! Any questions, please do ask but a bit of a caveat……. I’m NO Sculptor!!!

We all have a ‘few’ of those stalled projects. The ones that were started in best faith and then. well……. got put on teh shelf one day and there they stayed for…… a while!! I have several of such projects and decided it was time to jump back in and bring them to finish. One of said projects is Hamelin, Bard of Twilight from Mindworks/Kimera.

Such a great piece that I decided on a more involved dioramatic base. Base got built and primed and there it all stalled!!

Time to get it off the shelf and on the desk~~ !!

I wasnt too happy with the base colours I had laid down with an airbrush before so decided to paint over the whole thing again. Using a mixture of W&N Galleria tube acryllics and Scale75 artist paints I went for a warm cream buff/beige as the base hue

Then with thinned down browns and greens I added in some staining to the stone to show dirt, algae, lichens, mosses etc. Paying closer attention to the steps that would lead down to and be under the water line, I increased the green staining there, feathering out the strong filters.

For the brickwork, some of which would be under the waterline I started with a dark base and lightened it up to a  pinkish terracotta hue and then added in some yellows to the beige/white stone for an extra layer of staining, age and interest

With the base top now fixed and sealed to the plinth, it was time to start adding in some detailing and elements. I darkened the bricks under the waterline, added in some grass tufts and weeds and then with thinned down wood glue (do NOT use PVA. It is crap and will reactivate when the resin is poured into canal leaving you with a ruined base under the resin water. PVA reactivates and turns back to white.)  added the ‘silt’ for the canal bottom. A further coat of thinned down wood glue was added later on to seal the silt down.

And this is where we are now!!!