Painting camo

We've had a few people asking about the camo paint scheme on Ali's version of Kara - so I've managed to persuade her to do a quick tutorial on how she did it.

She used quite a simple technique, but it produces great results. She paints the pattern, in this case - a base colour and two additional colours over that - then she simply glazes in the shading to give some form and definition. On the original version of Kara she went back in and added some simple highlights to the prominent areas (like the pockets), once the other areas round the camo were finished.

She has very usefully drawn up a quick illustrated version to show this along side the painted miniature. Her are some brief notes to go with the pictures.

The base colour was a mid greeny-grey, the second colour applied was Kommando Khaky with a little bone added. The third colour was a very dark brown - Scorched Brown with a little blue ink added. She kept the dark shapes smaller than the light ones, and always overlapped the edge of a lighter area.

Once the patterns were down in a way that looked right (don't be frightened to go back and adjust the way they work with each other), Ali added the shading. She mixed up quite a dark 'dirty' colour from Graveyard Earth with a little dark blue added - and used this to carefully glaze in the shading. The glazes were built up in gradual stages that are allowed to dry between applications. Obviously - the more applications to an area - the darker the shading comes out. Don't go too deep though, or you will obscure the camo pattern.

When you are applying camo schemes it's good to treat it like any other detail painting - keep the colour a little on the thin side, and don't overload the brush. Use a good brush with a fine point. It's also really useful to work from reference - so you can clearly see things like what patterns are used, and how the colours are distributed.

That's it! It's really best to keep things simple - if you try complex shading you will tend to lessen the effect (and go insane trying to smoothly apply highlights across all those colours...).

Just a quick update on orders for Kara - things are still moving a little slowly I'm afraid, but we are sending out orders as soon as stock arrives, so things are moving. We didn't expect her to be this popular! Thanks for you patience and support - we'll get miniatures out as quickly as we possibly can.

cheers!

mike

Kara concept art

I thought I would share the concept art for Lt. Kara Black with you. It's by Sam Wood, who has been working in the games and miniatures industry for many years. Sam did a lot of the concept work for D&D 3rd Edition and has worked on too many fine gaming products to mention here. We loved the concept he did for Kara - it was one of those pieces that I just couldn't wait to see sculpted.

The original idea for her was that she would be fighting an 'opponent' in a sort of mini diorama - and Sam did that concept for that piece too. For one reason and another we decided to just make her for the time being - but we may well re-visit the subject at a later date and let everyone see what it is she's been battling against!

The reaction to Kara has been extremely positive - beyond our expectations really, so we might be a little slower than normal filling orders for the next few days. Don't worry though, if you've ordered already, we have shipped one batch out this morning and there will be more going out soon. She's a great miniature, and I hope you agree she's worth the wait - thanks for being patient with us!

I have just about finished my painted version (hopefully she'll be done over the weekend), so I'll be showing her here soon after.

cheers!

mike

Lt. Kara Black

I've just added the latest miniature in our Limited Edition resin series to the Studio Store over on the main website! The latest miniature is our first non-fantasy release - we're delighted with how she came out, and it's a subject we certainly plan to explore further in future releases. The concept was by Sam Wood, and Kev White sculpted her in stunning detail.

I particularly like the pose of this piece - depicting her in the midst of a fierce fight with an unknown assailant - the recoil from her gun kicking her backwards. Kara is scarred and bleeding, but undaunted! She comes complete with a scenic base insert showing some great details - like her discarded helmet and a slime covered skull.

I have another painted version on the way - and that will hopefully be shown here in the next few days. Ali and I also plan to collaborate on painting another miniature, which we will show in stage by stage form on the blog. I'll also be showing the original concept here soon.

cheers!

mike

Blog Stars

Just a quick post about some of the blogs I have been reading (well mostly looking at the pictures if I'm honest...). A quick warning before I begin though - if you start looking at these blogs and clicking on the links they contain - you could loose hours of your life...

The first one is Dead Fish Painting - which is Sebastien Picque's work. I absolutely love his painting on the Smog miniatures - which is without doubt my favourite miniatures line at the moment. The creativity of Christophe Madura is just mind blowing, and Sebastien's painting complements it perfectly. Another amazing painter who has done some work on the Smog line is Angel Giraldez who is the staff painter for Corvus Belli - there's a lot of great work on his blog.

The next is Jerome Otremba - Amazing work here... I especially like the larger scale busts he has painted (and in some cases sculpted too).

Another painting and sculpting blog is Darkeden, featuring the work of Remy Tremblay - who produces some of the most frighteningly realistic painting I have ever seen - just look in the SFX section and you'll see what I mean...

This blog is by a painter who work I wasn't familiar with until recently, Guillaume Hemery. I just love the bright intensity of his colours. I like my miniatures to have strong contrasting colours, but he has really taken it to 11... His Bad Moon Orcs are just stunning.

Great use of colour on the work in this blog by Roberto Chaudon - really nice sculpting too.

I'll leave at that for now or I'll get lost in all the links between the different blogs! Plenty to look at though, and I have only shared a few - inspiring stuff.

cheers

mike

A plague on you!

Just finished the Skaven commission I mentioned in the last post - pretty happy with how he came out. I loved the miniature as soon as I saw it - except the banner... To me it totally unbalanced a beautiful sculpt, the figure itself has some of the best animation I've seen on for a long time.

I clipped the banner off the back-plate and built another from brass tube - decorated with elements of the original. I've always liked Japanese style banners for Skaven - and I wanted to give him a banner that looked like it has been around for a while, passed down between warlords - tattered and faded. The cloth is made from lead foil - the sort that you get on old battles of port or sherry. It's really soft and pliable and perfect for banners - I have a small supply that I hoard away for miniatures I really like.

The paint scheme is obviously quite similar to the GW studio version - and that's totally intentional, I really love the way that one's painted, and couldn't see the point of doing him in different colours just to be - well, different... I also think the bright red armour fits well with the slightly Japanese feel.

There's a lot going on with the miniature and banner - strong colours and fine details, so I wanted the base to be quite simple and muted. I didn't want something that fought for your attention with Queek himself. I cut out a small section of tube, lined it with brick patterned plastic card, and built a box round it. It's good to break up the smoothness of the brick pattern by cutting out some of the bricks to make them look like they're loose or broken.

Ali is pretty much done with painting the next Studio McVey release and we should be able to preview it next week - looks good, just talking about names!

cheers

mike

Studio Update

Just a quick post to give an update on what's happening in the studio at the moment - updates have been conspicuous by their absence lately.

We just got the first resin casting in for the latest Studio McVey release - in fact Ali is sitting here painting it as I type. It's a great mini - and another first for Studio McVey, I'll let you guess what that means for yourselves! I had originally intended to have this one out before the end of the month - but I think it might just spill over into early December. We'll most likely preview it on the mailing list first - as we have done for the last couple of releases.

I have been busy with all sorts of things in the last couple of weeks - some of which I hope to talk about here at some point in the next few months, and filling in my 'spare' time with a commission from the new GW Skaven range. I'm really enjoying painting it - it makes a nice change from 40K miniatures, which I seem to have painted a lot of lately (when I say a lot - I mean a lot for me!). I hope to have it finished soon.

I have also been meaning to post a link to the WAMP Little Angels charity painting contest - it's for a great cause - the details can be found here.

More details about the next release soon!

mike

Ali's Vitharr

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - we just seem to have been really busy in the past week.

Here's Ali's version of Vitharr - a very different look and feel to mine, I think you'll agree. I really like the gritty realism on this one - and there's some wonderfully subtle painting.

I have finished a few commission pieces lately - so as soon as I get round to processing the pictures, I'll post them here.

cheers

mike

PS - Dropped off the next Studio McVey sculpt at the production company today. It's actually one half of a pair... More news on the release soon!