Painting Small and Expensive Plastic People

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, is that one of those really old school marines, rather than the modern ones that are inspired by it? Seems to have a slottabase, we'll not see those days again.

[Sigil]

Yeah, the date on the tab for this one is 1990. It's actually the same armor pattern, MK III, as the Iron Warrior with the hazard stripes I did. I'm actually painting him as the first of a squad of old marines for a little diorama:

The one in the top middle there is by far the oldest, 1987. It's a good two years older than I am.

[Sigil]

Finished another lead marine over the weekend, this time a 1987 sculpt turned techmarine with a 1996 backpack from the previous Fabius Bile model.


I took some inspiration for the markings from the 1990 "How to Paint Space Marines" guide, which wanted you to freehand all sorts of things on your tiny men to make them suitable for their roles.

[Sigil]

I'm in the home stretch of making a diorama now:

[Sigil]

I finished a pretty long project I've been working on, the stuff I've been painting for the last moth has been for a diorama, and its (kind of) done! I'll put a couple images here spoilered, but I took a lot of photos of it and have a whole gallery here: https://imgur.com/gallery/cGMKk7P

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Oh god, oh fuck - I kickstarted the Bones 5 set before the pandemic started and my IRL group disintegrated.
Now I just got an email saying I'll be getting a box of 100 minis tomorrow. Fuck.

[Sigil]

Hahaha, well, you're set for a while then. I checked em out and they look like some cool minis.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Did I say 100 minis? I mean 250 of them. I also got the Daimyo, Townsfolk, and Dungeon Dweller sets...

[Foxwarrior]

Good news: because your IRL group disintegrated, you have more time to paint!

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Time to paint... for what?

[Kaelik]

The joy of painting.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I don't have time for that! I have to write RPGs that nobody but my group will play!

[deaddmwalking]

I have Bones 1-5 stuffed in my attic area. I got my Bones 5 on 7/2. I didn't do my Pledge Manager until late in the process so I didn't get all the fin stuff I wanted but that's fine - I'm way behind anyway. I have three young 'uns (14, 10, 6) and I think that the youngest is now old enough so I can get back to work.

[Sigil]

Painted my first Dark Angel to test out some colors and see what I liked, think he turned out pretty well!


The previous owner had filed off the skull (and whatever was originally on the right kneepad), so I had to do a little cleanup and retrofit a plastic skull onto him, I'm surprised it came out as nice as it did.

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, you don't see old marines like that very often. Excepting Belial and Azrael, the only two left for sale from way back when.

[Sigil]

I'm on an oldhammer kick. I've got a complete (though not mint) 2e Dark Angel tactical squad box I want to paint, this box:
.

All the models unpainted as well as the original transfers. I want to do another diorama using some or all of them and this first guy was a fun test to work out colors.

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, one thing, the old Dark Angels Green was much darker than the new official DA colour. If you are doing them legit old fashioned, that might be an issue.

[Sigil]

Nah, I'm not so concerned about that. I spent a good bit of time looking at era appropriate dark angels and decided I wanted to do them somewhat brighter than that, brighter even that the modern official scheme. Going to keep the midtone very dark, but jump up to some pretty bright highlights. Similarly for the eyes instead of sticking with the dull red I'm going with just a sliver of that dark red layered over by a richer red, then pink, then straight white in the extremes and specular highlights. I want them to feel kind of old school while still standing out.

[Sigil]

Well, I haven't painted much since July, but the few things I did paint I'm very happy with.

First I did Elric of Melniboné as a gift for my father, who really likes the Elric saga:


Next I did a chaos renegade of Khorne


And just the other day I finished Mr. Hazard (another 88 renegade, this time as an Iron Warrior)


Overall I was quite happy with all of these, but I feel like Mr. Hazard might be the best thing I've painted so far

[Koumei]

Those hazard stripes are really well done, still has shome shading there so it isn't pure two-tone, lines are basically straight... good stuff. Not shit-talking the rest, but it stands out as something well-done that is harder than it looks (I know from experience putting it on tank dozers).

[Sigil]

Nah you're right, he was harder than the rest, and mostly on account of learning to do the stripes. I had trouble with making some of the metal interesting, and I kind of phoned the gun in tbh (the ad he appeared in says that gun is a bolter btw). He's probably the best executed single figure I've done so far.

[Sigil]

In a rare turn of events, I have managed to paint a mini the next weekend after finishing another one. This one's one of the cheap russian minis I grabbed with some conversions.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

The gradient on that barrel is mighty sexy.

[Sigil]

It's honestly a much more simple effect to achieve than it looks. Base it in steel, paint a little section in brass, then do purple and blue ink over the steel for the other two. Maybe go back over it in a few spots to strengthen the look. It looks great, but it's honestly one of the simplest things to actually paint.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

While it's a simple effect in practice, picking the right colors can be just as important!