Our ISP, VistaPages, completely cratered last night just as I was about to post this. I couldn’t even access their websites, much less QD. Weird. Anyways, here it is again:

I’ve been on a roll with the miniatures lately. I painted for years when I was younger and then stopped for quite a while. My friends Vic and Naji got back into it though, and really stepped up the quality of their work. So, I’ve tried to improve upon my skills. I still have a long ways to go. I found some websites on the topic this week and found some incredibly detailed miniatures. I’m hoping to step up on my next mini, a humaniod tiger-like warrior and try my hand at some of the simpler advanced techniques.

I’ve stepped up now to doing a primer coat in black or white paint (I don’t have actual primer sprays or paints, not sure how big a difference this makes), and I do some drybrushing here and there. The next technique I think I’ll try is a “wash” (I think that’s the right term). You water down a black paint and let it run into the cracks to create shadows. After that is blending, where you attempt to blend several shades of a paint that have been darkened or lightened to create light and shadows. Looks much harder!

So here’s the latest three I’ve finished: a faerie, a female thief, and a sea serpent. I like the faerie’s wings, in the pics you can just make out the gold drybrushing on the “veins” over the silver base. The serpent turned out fantastic. I ended up just drybrushing with a slightly wetter brush a dark green onto the black base. The end effect (I think) is a cool “fade” on the scales from green to black.

Also, I learned from some of these sites some tips on taking the pictures. It’s harder than you’d think. They’re only about 1.5″ inches tall and it’s hard to get it in focus and have the lighting correct. On my digital cam, I go to manual mode and do a low ISO (ISO 50) with a high exposure (Exposure +1) and set the white balance to flourescent light. The pics are on my desk with a white paper background and the desk halogen lighting it up from the side. They turned out fairly well.

Click the thumbnails for larger versions.