Argentbadger's Malifaux Miniatures

[Argentbadger]

Hello everyone. Here’s my first post on the Wyrd forums, and indeed my first post on any forum for a decade or so. My gaming group and I have started to experiment with Malifaux over the last few weeks, though we all have a long war-gaming background. So far, I’ve got to say I am pretty impressed with the game.

All four of us agreed to purchase a starter box to see how Malifaux worked. I somewhat arbitrarily selected Sonnia Criid’s Witch Hunters, though to be honest I could have chosen any one of half a dozen crews and been happy with the miniatures. As none of us know what is good or not, the selections were based on aesthetics rather than in-game effectiveness.

Anyway, here’s my first painted Malifaux miniature, Samael Hopkins.

[Chucklemonkey]

Looks good to me. Did you put that base together or is it an insert? Is nice either way.

My only thought is that the metallic shoulder pads seem a bit bright.

[Argentbadger]

Thanks. In the case of the shoulder pad, I’m going to hide behind the age-old excuse of ‘they look better in real life’. It was a sunny day when I took the pictures, and the shoulder pads are at the perfect angle and shininess to really show up with the sun on them. I guess this would be a reason to do NMM, but I’ve never really felt the inspiration to try and learn how.

The base is one of the Victorian base inserts from Wyrd. I’ve never used base inserts before but (apart from the pain in the neck that was getting him pinned to the base) I’d say that the improvement in looks is probably worth it. The bases are expensive enough that I wouldn’t consider it for a large scale game, but for such a small number of miniatures as are required for Malifaux I am happy with the results.

[Argentbadger]

Witchling Stalkers ahoy! These little dudes were lots of fun to paint.

I stuck with the same brown and cream coloured scheme I used on Samael Hopkins, as it’s easy to apply and looks fairly nice. I tried to suggest the magic nature of their shattered rune blades with a green ink wash, but it hasn’t really come out very well. I think that the green thread on the back of this one is a bit of static grass; it’s not stuck on.

Mainly in the interests of livening up the colour scheme a little I made the neckerchief / face mask red and gave them (slightly) glowing green eyes. I’m fairly happy with how the eyes turned out, though the miniatures are rather downward looking so it’s not all that obvious thanks to their cowls.

Here’s one where the green ink on the shattered rune blade stood out a bit better. It kind of looks mouldy rather than magical, so perhaps it’s for the best that it didn’t come out too strongly. The photo here seems to have suffered particularly badly from the infestation of static grass.

I love these little guys. They look good and they’re great on the table top.

[Oscilioth]

I thin the cream parts look really good and work well with these guys, it's a shame the green didn't show up, although I can see it on the last one and it doesn't look too bad, I like it.

Nice job on Samael too, those eyes are looking good, I can never get mine to come out! Great stuff!

That static grass sticks out like a sore thumb in photographs, I get that with almost every picture I take XD

[NinjaBreadMen]

Nice work! Is the big gal herself going to be in matching colours, or does she get her own scheme to stand out? The Witchlings look really good in their washed-out cloaks, though I agree the swords could maybe use another wash or two of green to get the effect at its best.

Keep it up!

[Argentbadger]

@Oscilliath: Thanks. The eyes are (like everything else I paint) done in the simplest way I can manage. Basically, just paint a horizontal white line in roughly the right place, then a vertical black line through the centre. After that, just touch up above and below, and the job is done. I'd be a lot less irritated with the static grass if I'd actually used it on these miniatures!

@NinjaBreadMen: Thanks. I'm still a little ambivalent about the swords. The ones which most clearly shown the green look a bit mouldy rather than magical to me, so I'm going to leave them a while and see how I feel after a few weeks.

As for Sonnia Criid herself, here she is in all her glory. She was a pleasure to paint. The sculpting and the pose made the miniature a joy to get to work on, and I'm very happy with the results. As ever, there are a few things I can see now that I have the giant magnified picture available, but that's always the case when you're as clumsy at painting as I am. In particular the smudge around the lips (chocolate?) is literally not visible to the naked eye.

I chose to paint the crew in more muted colours after the primary colour-fest of my Ogresses (see my blog for more details, if you're interested).

Here's the crew so far.

I've been impressed enough with Malifaux to order some more miniatures, specifically an Austringer, a Witchling Handler, an Exorcist and a pair of Guild Hounds. As I don't really know what use anything has in game, it's all part of the experiment.

[Argentbadger]

As part of the Malifaux tournament I just played in, I had to make up some markers for one of the strategies, A Line in the Sand. After some consideration, I decided that powder kegs were the most appropriate easiest option, and set about it. These are some of the barrels left from my Ogresses (see my blog if you're interested), with a bit of paper clip sticking out and a little blob of Milliput on the end. Then I painted them quickly. They’re not meant to win prizes (and indeed, they did not), but they’ll do the job and to be honest I just don’t find the scenery building aspect of the hobby very inspiring (which is why I never do any). Anyway, here they are; you can see the hand of my little helper, Argentbadger Junior, in the background.

The red and black basing was just a thought to save me making ten of them – the idea is that the red side can be turned to face whichever player has control. In practice, as everyone at the tournament had them, we just swapped in and out as needed.

[NinjaBreadMen]

I knew I recognised your crew at the Tourney! Just thought it may be a little odd to instantly say "Don't I know these from somewhere"

They looked really good on the table! Really great aesthetic and well matched to each other! Hopefully we can get a game in sometime: I've still never faced a guild crew in all my matches

[Rameses]

I like your work over all but my one comment is related to your Witchling Stalkers. You took the time to high light the lighter brown of the upper "smok" but neglected to highlight the dark brown lower half.

[Argentbadger]

@Ninjabreadmen: Thanks. I too recognised your excellent Gremlins from this site, but saying so always sounds a little too close to 'I totally stalk you on the internet'. I'd be happy to play you sometime as I have never played against Gremlins in the dozen or so games I've had.

@Rameses: Guilty as charged. Lucky for me that it's hard to tell at tabletop distance!

[Vinncent]

Coats and other clothes look great, received a very cool effect.

[Argentbadger]

@ Vinncent: Thanks very much. It's just a few applications of the washes from GW's range (sepia over cream paint in this case). They can make a poor paint job look good enough for table top, which is all I'm really looking for.

Here are a pair of Guild Hounds for my fledgling Malifaux crew. In keeping with the muted colours of the rest of the crew, I went for grey fur and cream body armour. I conciously chose not to add pupils to their eyes as this gives them a slightly more scary look, and also adds a necessary patch of brightness which is otherwise lacking.

[Argentbadger]

This is a Austringer for my Malifaux Guild crew. I used the same colour scheme as for the rest of the crew, with a bright red bandanna just to liven it up a bit. The bird itself has three ‘rows’ of feathers on its wings and painted them in different colours and then used a wash to link them back together. Like the Guild Hounds, I deliberately left the eyes without pupils. Overall, it feel like there’s something missing here, but I can’t really put my finger on it.

Next on the painting table: a Witchling Handler.

[Vinncent]

Oh waw! these dogs looks awesome, i like the selection of colors, it's fantastic for me and make the dogs deamonic shadow effect. Just great :congrats:

[Darklyte]

Nice work over all!!

[Argentbadger]

@Vinncent and Darklyte: Thanks very much. I was a bit worried that the dogs look rather plain with a more naturalistic palette. I'm delighted that you think it gives a nice effect overall.

[WarlockFiretop]

Overall, it feel like there’s something missing here, but I can’t really put my finger on it.

Nice work, I like the cream, and those hounds look fantastic. They are great models and deserve a bright paintjob.

Do you think the 'something missing' is 'highlighting'? Maybe you've done some, and it just doesn't come up in photographs. I know my photos of my own models eliminate all highlights.

[Argentbadger]

@WarlockFiretop: You could well be right. I tend to just use drybrushing for highlighting as I am more of a 'tabletop quality' painter. However, all my miniatures are like that, so I think that there is something different in my failings on the Austringer in particular. The photos certainly haven't done the Raptor any favours, but it's not like I was about to win a painting competition with it anyway. Thanks very much for the compliments, and for couching the critique in such nice terms.

[Darklyte]

I personally like the natural look of color scheme of the hounds. Like I said well done.

Edited August 2, 2012 by Darklyte

[Viruk]

Very nice work. You successfully use washed and fairly simple methods to achieve very nice effects. I like the colors scheme you chose for Austringers. I'll be painting mine soon and might give it a try to as most of my other Guild minis have dark coats.

[Argentbadger]

@Darklyte and Viruk: Thanks! I am not aiming to achieve the fantastic quality of work that some posters here produce, but I am satisfied with the ratio of effort and time to effect.

Here is a painted Witchling Handler. I’ve been struggling to get much value out of the miniature in game terms, apart from pushing Witchling Stalkers around. Still, the miniature is pretty nice and I enjoyed painting it up a lot. Pinning the miniature to the base was a bit of a pain since I rather stupidly put it on a grille, which allowed the minimum possible contact points.

[Ratty]

They were a touch dark so I messed around with the balance..

[Mergoth]

I like your style. It's gritty and suits the Malifaux vibe.

My only criticism is that I would have named this thread "Argentbadgers lonely heart club band". But that's just me.

[Argentbadger]

@ Ratty: Thanks. This really is a 'full service' forum; moderators even fix bad photography!

@Mergoth: If only I'd thought of that when I was naming this thread (or, even better, my blog). Thanks for the kind words too.