Clawz

I have finished more! Pandora's finished, though I'm not entirely happy with the outcome of the photos. Feel free to head over to Counting Rivets to see how she's turned out, with the knowledge that more (better) photos will be forthcoming. Meanwhile, back from his adorable looming presence on my painting table, iiiiit's TEDDY! From Pandora Crew His patches were done to look like old blankets, perhaps taken from children... He's also got his gloss black claws, which are likely going to get minimal highlighting to maintain the gloss-coat. I'm likely to have limited, if any bloodiness on the model, because I like that he's not necessarily creepy, unless you pay enough attention to realize he's probably 3m tall, with 30cm claws and a gigantic fanged mouth! I'm still not decided on how to paint the eyes. They're recessed in such a way that I'm half-tempted to leave them dark or deepest black, but they cry to glow some colour: Fiery orange, red, or bright neon green... Thoughts welcome! Soon, I base them. With my Pandora crew, since it's the translucent green version, I'll be doing transparent bases, which will allow me to keep them glowing in the future!

It's time for more painting updates! With the decrease in heat here, I've not only been able to paint again, but my computer hasn't been flatlining every time I attempt to edit and upload images! From Pandora Crew First, Pandora has gotten herself a pair of nice shiny boots! Colour again inspired by my Fiancee's suggestion. Her dress runes are looking more appropriately toned, though the picture didn't turn out so that'll have to wait. I'm thinking the cape layer will be black, with a purple 'inside' to tie to Candy and Teddy. Speaking of the mighty beast: From Pandora Crew Teddy! Isn't he just so cute and loveable? Ivory teeth, gums haven't quite been finished, he has his snazzy green bow to match Candy's, and he's starting to get the patch fabric painted. I've been looking at all kinds of fabric sources, so I can make it some cloth pattern presumably from a kid's blanket or something equally creepy. I'm still not quite certain what I'm going to do to the eyes to make them suitably creepy. Pale blue? Deep pits of darkness? Burning eyes of red hatred? Who knows! Maybe I'll get photoshop to help me determine which will look best.

I must be honest Mako, I first read that as _you_ were wearing the TARDIS dress >.> What'd you decide to go with for the Marshals? More crazy translucent gel like Misaki?

Hah yeah, that doesn't quite fit the theme does it... "Yaay, I get to kill dudes again!"

Okay, brief update time as we in Toronto just earned our first intense hot humid week, rendering painting a lot more difficult. In the mean-time I've set to work converting and prepping other projects. It's hot/humid enough that even my superglue is misbehaving! I am having a difficult time at the moment deciding quite how I want to pose Izamu. I don't like the blade straight out look, and am torn between other options: From In-Progress Leftmost makes a decent amount of sense as an aggressive pose, but means it suffers slightly from the "look at my big shiny blade" syndrome so epidemic in older models. The middle one is the reverse: Commanding his troops with the war fan, blade resting momentarily between slashes. The third is kind of a combination of the two: Signalling orders with the war fan, and issuing a challenge with the blade over his head. I can't decide which to go for, and even have a notion to do the fan up, and his blade resting on his shoulder, but that'd take a lot more conversion than I'd like to do for a mock-up. I'll probably end up looking at the photos back and forth until I get Pandora's crew done, and then try to decide on one. More painting stuff once the heat or humidity lowers enough that it won't interfere with drying times.

Hmm, do I detect a note of purple in said Judge's coat? DGraz: do not despair! Fudging is how you learn all the fun stuff! Bob Ross' "Happy little accidents" absolutely applies here! With the more subtle colours, it's amazing the difference slightly altering the basecoat can make the final look. White especially. Base with a warm brown and you end up with a canvas-white. Base with blue and you get cold bleached white. The next time you are painting something in a typical colour (white, brown, gray... black even) if you infuse an atypical colour you get amazing effects!

More Pics! From Pandora Crew Pandora's had her dress fixed up, but I experienced a weird colour-change paint issue. It was the most bizarre thing I've seen in my nearly two decades of painting. Two dark-ish paints made by the same company turned neon green before my eyes as I painted it on to her. It was like one of those old Hot Wheels cars! I've had to downblend the designs on her dress as a result and am going to keep cleaning them up... From Pandora Crew Teddy also makes his first semi-painted appearance. I'm going for a faded and used look, which should make my eventual liberal use of red bloodiness stand out all the more! From Nomad Colours Last, I've managed to get my Nomad scheme refined to where I am happy with it (as long as I can remember the exact mix that went into the armour plates!) and am happy with it still feeling distinctly Nomad, without being sore-thumb bright red! Time to get a bunch more finished up so I can start playing them in games!

Alas when I started this project (and arguably up to last night) I was new enough to Wyrd and Malifaux that other than emailing the main channel, I had no idea who to talk to. I was hoping the forum thread itself would attract the attention of someone, and I guess in a way it did... Here's hoping the project doesn't get scuttled!

It's not a dip. Annoyingly, it's as though somehow the two pieces meshed unevenly, even though I scraped and cleaned (and tried to ensure a streamlined fit/seal). The lower skirt is up maybe 0.1mm, but it's enough to catch the light and the eye. Close enough isn't good enough!

I tried reaching out to Wyrd by email before and got entirely zero response. The reason I've been nebulous on listing a distinct price (and pretty careful about expunging distinct reference to Wyrd's copyrights) is because I haven't heard back. I am aware, as a creative myself, of copyright law. I know Wyrd is obligated to pursue any perceived infringement of copyright IP or they risk losing future claims to said copyright. That said, there's only so much I can do. I don't have personal emails of anyone in the Wyrd offices, and I even listed Xander by name because his previous work is of a similar intent to mine. If you have a more direct personal line to the people who are responsible for copyright in Wyrd, or see any issues with what I've presented in regards to copyright, feel free to contact me about it, and we can discuss it. I mentioned it above, but in case it needs clarification: Before I even started this project I sought to talk to someone on Wyrd's team through the "contact us" channel, specifically because in one of my early iterations I was hoping to use graphics that are distinctly Wyrd's. Lacking any response from them (not even an automated response message) I designed the parts I hoped to use their graphics for elsewise, and later re-designed the back of the card, which had used the map of Malifaux, because I hadn't received explicit permission.

Quick update; I've spent the most time recently designing my new Fate Deck, but I've also managed to get a bunch of painting done on Pandora. For those of you eager to see what I ended up doing for her, here's a sneak peek: From Pandora Crew I'm still frustrated by that weird line across her skirt. I'll be trying something that'll hopefully fix it for me, but it's a painter's sin, in essence (Greenstuff, now after it's been painted a bunch!) I'm eager to get her finished off, and be able to put them on the table. It's a mean looking crew, stats-wise!

Right. I figure I'll do custom suits, so until that happens, here's a full set of the deck! From Malifaux Deck I am going to do a sketch of the suits soon. Looking at Art Nouveau cards shows a lot of very interesting designs, and while I'm tempted by the JOB Cigarettes style, I may have to do something simpler just to make it fit. Thanks for the offer Bowchickawowers, but if I'm going to do this deck right, I feel it has to be made entirely by me. First it's contemplation time of what I want to design each to look like.

Deck Update Time! The deck is finished, with the big ol' asterisk of "if I notice a mistake I need to change" which means it's time to properly look into getting the cards themselves made. I'm looking at Printer Studio, but am wondering if I can look into anywhere local to Toronto, to reduce shipping costs and the like. The company's great in that if you ask, they'll send out a sample, so they claim. I sought for it last night, and they say it could take a week to arrive. The reason being is while I know I'm not getting plastic cards, they have two stocks, and I want to make sure I'm picking the right one. Once I know the stock, I can also set to work on a card sleeve case. The company offers hard plastic containers (undecorated) for any orders under 100, but for over that amount, to be honest, it'll be cheaper to get them from the company than print, cut, and fold them myself. I'll make the cover, like the deck itself, look appropriately Steampunk Art Nouveau. I'll shortly be doing a poll of how many people 100%-for-certain want a deck (or two) and unless I hear otherwise from Wyrd, I think I'm fine to sell them. In a few days (hopefully even shorter) I'll have a post up with the final look of all the cards, and then as soon as I can take a look at the card stock used by the company and pick that, I'll be able to price things out. Watch this space! *Edit* Something else I forgot to mention: I'm debating back and forth whether or not to tweak the royals. Right now they're free vectors, which of course makes them look identical to a 'normal deck of cards'. Part of me wants to slightly modify them to make them unique, but I can't truly match their suit's faction (since, evil..) and am wondering if it's worth it to just slightly modify them. Thoughts?

I suspect making it bamboo will be the most practical. There's a lot of fine detail on there already, and most of the time the armour would've been lacquered anyway. If you end up doing all the little strands of rope holding it together, plus any symbols, plus wood grain... Not to mention I'd assume they'd assemble it width-wise, so each armour plate wouldn't have a lot of grain rippling on it. (Lengthwise wood is harder to cut!)

Not to ninja in my own pics, but perhaps something like I did with my Archers' helms would work for his helmet, or the armour. There's a full post about it on my blog, but here's a sample pic: ...bah, spoiler tags are not working. I didn't want to throw this in full, so I'll just external link it: Pretend this is a picture!

It's update time! I have been working at getting my Pandora crew finished off, and to that end managed to spray the Teddy today. As always, full writeups and thoughts are on Counting Rivets, but here's the shiny pics! From Pandora Crew First up is Pandora, newly painted with slick red hair. I am impressed by how much the Citadel Bloodletter glaze brings out the red! I'll have to find other applications for it in the near future. From Pandora Crew Next is Kade: It's eerily easy to paint him. Because he's basically just skin and diaper, it seems like I haven't done 'enough', even when smooth-blending his skin takes so long. I may go back and give him weird creepy subtle veins, we'll see. From Pandora Crew And finally finished, it's Candy! The colour scheme is loosely based off a website that shows common Victorian-era colour match-ups, but accentuated to be nice and creepy. The strawberry blonde hair is because I felt her with black hair was a bit too obviously Wednesday Addams style. From Pandora Crew I like the acid green as a spot colour: it makes for a split compliment when her dress, hair, and bow are all taken into consideration. I love the new model, and how perfectly 'adorable innocent girl' it looks, which perfectly fits her rules and fluff. I will of course be leaving her eyes a blank white, just like Kade's (though those are recessed enough to not show his eyes, alas.) Next up it's finishing Pandora, painting the Teddy, and then deciding between Infinity, FoW, or more Malifaux models for my next (non-commissioned) project!

Well, you could do what I do when I'm stuck for colours: Animate him as a figure! We know he's not exactly subtle, so brighter colours in all likelihood. He is vaguely Samurai, so you could look up old schemes and patterns for that (like I did), or who knows, maybe he leans more in Izamu's direction and would have dirty, patchy gear because he cares little about how he looks, finesse-wise, and more on looking/being terrifying!

Quick update before my next big one: I finally remembered to photograph my Nomad test-model. I'm not entirely a fan of the Corregidor red, so I've been sampling a more classic Ghost in the Shell style paintscheme of off-white. From Nomad Colours For the more aggressive units, I'll keep more red elements (and brighter red elements) but certainly on the camo dudes, something more neutral I think is better. I've set him aside for the most part until I get my Malifaux stuff finished up: I have more potential opponents for Malifaux than Infinity atm. but I am hoping his scheme will work well enough for me that when I try it on other models, I still like the look.

How did I miss that pic? I can't find it in (what I assume is Chronicles 11?) I am eager for Kirai's plastic: I want that new Ikiryo, and the new spirits, and I'll have the option to convert the new Kirai (I'm not as much a fan of her pose as compared to the old one.) About this resisting temptation to go nuts: I don't think I even know what that looks like anymore! I have enough models I can currently play games with that most of my stuff now is paint for the fun of it, so I go overboard on detail. (I will let my soon-to-be-uploaded pics of Candy, and my hopefully highly successful paintjob of Infinity Nomads speak to that!)

Oddly enough, the metals are more blended than that; it seems my silver (when pure) is almost a retroreflector. I'll have to blend it down even more, knowing that!

Hah, I saw the fisher-Ototo as well! Plus, having an unending gutter-mind, another few things besides... He's really the only model in that grouping I was iffy on. I don't like how far off his own base he stands, which is why I converted mine to have him more over the base. It also helps for storing and transit! The Ten Thunders are well and truly what made me want to play Malifaux. I could do probably dozens of iterations on the Torakage, Ototo, Misaki and the Oiran. I've already thought it'd be fun, if I somehow got another pair, to do an 'alpha male standing' or more aggressive pose for him. I'm curious to see how you tackle Yamaziko. I had a hard time resisting the urge to go all kinds of crazy on her kimono!

Word to the wise about painting Ototo (Mako's clearly doing it, but I ballsed this up...) Do NOT glue Ototo's arms on before painting. It's a freaking nightmare model to paint afterwards! Mako; it's neat seeing how we each tackled the Torakage: you freehanding depth, I freehanding designs; You may make me need to go back and clean up my painting of the metal though... Perhaps once I finish Pandora... and Viks... and Infinity force... etc. >.<

And more photos! As I begin work on the Pandora crew, I have some pics of what I've managed to get finished: First, it's Pandora's skin, and my first successful attempt at giving someone makeup! From Pandora Crew And next, Candy! Skin and Dress are mostly finished in this shot, save for a few smaller items that need to be cleaned up and touched on: From Pandora Crew More pics, as always, at Counting Rivets.

Bowchickawowers: Art Nouveau was one of those wonderful periods where the "civilized world" latches on to a thing newly discovered, or rediscovered, and just goes whole hog with it. If I remember correctly, this was the discovery of Roman grottoes, with all the funky leaf and fern artwork on walls, and they just fell in love with it. You can find all kinds of things from that era that are utter riots of curls and curves and madness. (Neat geeky sidebar: If you ever hear reference to "Egyptian-style" typefaces, that don't look in any way hieroglyphic... they're slab serif, but when they came into vogue everyone was obsessed with King Tut and Egypt, so they just straight named them that for popularity!) Glad to see someone else recognize the joy of typefaces. I struggled a while picking ones that'd be era-appropriate, before eventually going with one that was more balanced and even. Oddly, I did send them an email at the beginning of this project, asking to borrow/use their faction-specific fancy symbols for the aces, and didn't hear back. I prefer not having to ask permission, though, also because it frees me up to make these on my own without fear of having to pay them anything, or ask for a professional release. I know a bunch of folks who want decks, and being able to just purchase and send them will be much more straightforward. If Wyrd does decide to contact me and make a second fanciful deck, I can consider different things then, since they'd officially be my client! Paradoxstorm: I'm not certain what you mean about video image, but if you mean digital, I understand entirely. I'm probably soon going to print a bunch of these out on a laser printer just to see how they change in printing, and which works best.

to get an in-scale syringe would be tough because it's basically a paper-clip diameter with a hair for the needle itself. That said, why not go for a piece of paperclip, or rolled greenstuff around a single hair? A needle that fine, painted with a layer of silver (not NMM, real silver) would glint just creepily enough to scare, I think. If you make a thin greenstuff sausage around it, you'd also get the pieces for the plunger and finger-grips as well.