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sock's forays into Malifaux.


sockwithaticket

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I have an ever growing Space Marine army that I love, but every now and then I just want to paint something different and recently I decided to take the plunge into Malifaux. I've admired many of the models for a while and purchased a fair few Guild miniatures but have started off with Tuco, one of the Neverborn iirc, because he has a cowboy vibe that I dig as a big Deadwood and Justified fan. For some reason the highlighting on the boots hasn't shown up in the photo even though it's there in real life and the black to grey transition on his top coat isn't quite how I'd like it. Other than that I'm pretty happy with him.

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I've followed him up with a Witchling Stalker because they are fun little models. I bought the Torch and the Blade crew set when it came out and I've been trepidatious about tackling such finely detailed miniatures with painting skills that, while ok, are best suited to painting my marines, but we've all got to start somewhere I decided to tackle a Witchling Stalker first of all; it seemed a little less dainty than the humans and the Purifying Flame model.

Here are the results:
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I must have ended up using half a bottle of vallejo matte medium in my paints for this guy, shaken bottles 'til my arms were sore and brushed on some matte varnish over the robes and still couldn't get rid of some of the gloss finish from the Vallejo Game Colour paints that went into the robes. Contrast that with the Reaper paints I used on the exposed hands and Scale 75 I used for the face mask; I'm going to be replacing some of my paints with ones from those ranges. Other than the slightly glossy finish I'm happy with him. Tried somenot quite layering  and not quite blending on the robes which produced satisfactorily smooth transitions and generally tried to avoid the kind of high contrast edge highlights that my Marines have. I chose the skin to be very pale as not only does it make for a nice contrast but it would make some sense of why the little fellow is so covered up. My Malifaux basing theme is of an underground desert temple/shrine, inspired by the interiors of Imhotep's tomb in the film The Mummy (yes the Brendan Fraser one...). Can't decide if I prefer the grey rim for the base or if I should go back and do it brown like with Tuco.

Thanks for looking, comments appreciated.

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Those are some nice looking models. Nice simple colour schemes with good execution. I actually kind of like the glossyness, even if it doesn't make sense for cloth to reflect light like that.

 

Have you tried any Model colour from Vallejo? They're kind of the the opposite of game colour, more muted colours with little or no shine but hard to get a high contrast when you want it. I think people use a mixture of the two for reflective and non-reflective surfaces.

 

I prefer the brown base-rim over the grey one. Have you tried plain-old black? I was agonising over base-rim colours recently and a friend said just to go straight black. I thought it'd be nice to use a colour that tied in with the scheme, but the black just worked better since it doesn't draw your attention away from the model.

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Thank you very much, I know I'm not the world's best painter but I strive to do what I can as well as I can while gradually improving so 'good execution' is what i like to hear :D. I'm  glad the glossyness doesn't detract too much from what I was trying to achieve.

I do own quite a lot of model colour, in fact that's largely what Tuco's painted with (and I think it's clear he's significantly less glossy than the Witchling, at least to my eyes), but mostly greys, reds, browns and purples, so none of the colours I wanted to use on the Witchling. I'm using VMC French Mirage Blue as the base for Sonia Criid's trousers so we'll see how that goes whenever I manage to finish her up. So, far the basecoat looks pretty matte.

I'll give black a try on the next base, if that doesn't grab me then I think I'll stick with brown.

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  • 2 months later...

Still very much a WIP given that she has no arms but other than her coat everything on the body is done and I'm pretty pleased with how she's shaping up so far:

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That said I can see I probably need to give the creases around her left knee some more attention.

Thanks for looking, hopefully it won't take me another 2 months to finish her!



zfiend - Thanks, very much. I'm glad you like what you see. Naturlastic is definitely what I was trying with Tuco and I'm glad that's how it's come out.
 

 

ArgentBadger -  Cheers, man.

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  • 9 months later...

*Blows dust off thread*

Well would you look at this forgotten corner of the internet. Despite my best intentions life sort of got in the way a bit for most of this year with a change of job (complete with longer hours and commute) being the least of the upheaval. I'm back on my hobby horse now, though and have been cranking out a few models recently. With my brush dexterity somewhat back to normal I thought I'd have a crack at some more of my favourite range (despite how much it intimidates me with it's ridiculously fine detail).

It's not Sonia, but another member of her crew:

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Since doing the first one I've discovered Reaper's Anti-Shine additive which solved the previous issues with a glossy finish. Changed how I did the swords and bandages this time. Happy with the latter, not so sure about the former.

Undecided on what's next, but I aim to get Sonia finished before a full calendar year from my last post passes.


NoHero - Cheers. Noted and agreed, I will do something about that when I get back to her.

zfiend - thanks for the vote of confidence, man.

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  • 1 month later...

I have now finished the 3rd Witchling Stalker:

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There's a couple of things I wish I'd done a bit better, but I was trying to finish it for an online competition whose deadline was midnight yesterday having been laid low by flu for the last several days. I'm pretty satisfied overall.

Here they are all together.

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I didn't realise until taking that photo that I'd done the most recent one so much darker than the one on the left. Clearly they're both very different to my first attempt, hioray for Reaper Anti-Shine Additive.

Vinncent - thank you very much.

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  • 6 months later...

After a long absence I return with a Guild Austringer:

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I tried to go super smooth on him and I think it's worked best on the overcoat. It didn't photograph well, but his shirt is actually a really dark green. Pretty pleased wth the falcon as it's a fiddly thing that perpetually felt it was on the point of snapping off his arm at the slightest application of pressure with my brush (teeny-tiny, flimsy legs as a connection point are not a good idea Wyrd!)  and I've never tried painting a 'real' animal before.

Thoughts appreciated.

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11 hours ago, sockwithaticket said:

super smooth

That was my first thought. :D

I think you could go a lot darker in the shadows. And the face darker in the shadows and more highlights. But I myself wouldn't touch the mini again - anxious to spoil a completed mini.

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On 11 September 2016 at 7:30 AM, Butch said:

That was my first thought. :D

I think you could go a lot darker in the shadows. And the face darker in the shadows and more highlights. But I myself wouldn't touch the mini again - anxious to spoil a completed mini.

Miniature painting thrives on contrasts so this is a good suggestion. It's a different approach to edge highlighting Space Marines, but it works a lot better with Malifaux models.

I would of suggested black for the base rims, but you've settled on brown now which also works.

Tuco (all the way back in your opening post) is neat too, don't seem him painted that often!

 

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  • 1 year later...

*Blows dust off thread*

Been a while huh?

I haven't finished anything in a while and lost my mojo for a bit, but for something totally different to do I decided to make a start on the Purifying Flamer from Torch and the Blade and pick up a model I just liked: the Brutal Effigy whose face I've done.

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On 11/09/2016 at 7:30 AM, Butch said:

That was my first thought. :D

I think you could go a lot darker in the shadows. And the face darker in the shadows and more highlights. But I myself wouldn't touch the mini again - anxious to spoil a completed mini.

On 12/09/2016 at 3:20 PM, Mister Feral said:

Miniature painting thrives on contrasts so this is a good suggestion. It's a different approach to edge highlighting Space Marines, but it works a lot better with Malifaux models.

I would of suggested black for the base rims, but you've settled on brown now which also works.

Tuco (all the way back in your opening post) is neat too, don't seem him painted that often!

 

Cheers guys, I do want smooth transitions, but you're absolutely right that I need more contrast in there too.

I think the Austringer's coat, satchel and falcon are about right; the handler's glove and boots are about 80% there while the jeans, skin and shirt are just barely above basecoat.

You're right, though, Butch, time to draw a line under that one and move on.

Am I striking the right balance with the flames?

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