A Die Hard liche, some Chaos Sorcerers, an Orc and a gladiator walk into a bar...

Sorry for the awful headline. I did not get around to a lot of painting over the weekend as my brother convinced me to give Elite: Dangerous a few more hours of my life. This game balances utter boredom with the anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen (I did glob a few extra jots of paint on some Lumineth that have been standing around on the desk since forever). Anyway, I'll use this as a chance to show a few models I painted earlier this year but never shared on my blog. Lets start with more Die Hard Miniatures awesomeness: Melcor the Liche. 

I originally painted his eyes red, switching to glowing green was a very good decision. 

This model was part of the order that contained the undead unit I finished earlier this year. He spent a lot of time with a simple gradient of blue airbrushed on. In the end I took pity on him, sat down and painted the rest of him. I used pink as a base for yellow shoulder wrap beneaht his cowl. It turned out so bright (Flashgitz Yellow is a bit on the bright side), I had to tone it down with a thinned mix of Athonian Camoshade and Agrax Earthshade. I painted naother cape green just te break with the blue without getting to distracting.

The top of his staff is so bright, he manages to draw more attention to himself then Nagash and Neferata combined. 

When it came to painting to top of the staff I started wondering how bright you could apply Vallejo Yellow Fluo. I started out with white and kept alternating layers of white with fluo (Slowly decreasing the bit of the orb I painted white). I toned the bottom down with some carefully applied green wash. I think I can safely state that the answer is: quite bright.

My gang of classic Chaos Sorcerers. I always keep my eyes open for chance to add models to this group.

Next up I did some experiments with photographing against a black backdrop instead of the scenes with houses (and misty valley backdrop) I usually use. Photographing against a black background does help draw out the model colors more. I'm considering building a photography box to do this more often. On the other hand, the houses and bushes do make me smile every time I look at my own blog. I'm not quite sure where I stand on that. 

Now that's how we used to see painted models you young'uns. Now get off my lawn before I start about line drawings!

With a bit of Photoshopping I even got the photograph reasonably close to true old school GW style. If that does not feed into your nostalgia, you where not around in the eighties :)

"Look wut I found in these ruins. A walking skellie, hur hur."

Next up I had this plastic Black Orc loafing around the paint station. I've been using it on and off to try airbrushing different green skin tones on. It looked a bit sad in the end and I was a bit tired of painting undead and wizards (and undead wizards) so I painted it up using standard Vallejo Goblin Green for its skin. As a twist I cheekily used white in the green for highlights (I thin I read someone else doing this and wondered if it would work. It all looked okay, but then I remembered some old GW painter saying they always toned orcs skin down using a yellow glaze. I just had to try that too, and it pulled the entire skin together (so to speak). I also tried a different highlighting technique I spotted at this blog. Basically I used little stripes in stead of slightly bolder strokes to get the highlights in. 

"Look wut I found in this black backdrop...", just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Here's the same orc against a black backdrop. He's holding a skeleton because I discovered a weapon had broken off in his left hand and had to replace it in a pinch as I was painting. I still had a bunch of skeletons from the ancient Skeleton Army around, so that was easily fixed. Let's hope Melcor is not too upset about it. 

His eye is set so deep in the mask, I can't get my paint brush near enough to even attempt painting an eye. I'll leave that to better painters then.

Last but not least is this Talisman Gladiator. He's been stripped and repainted so many times over his life it's a wonder the metal is still intact. He's a wonderful personality to paint. I opted for brown leather armor instead of the glittering gold armor he is pictured with in the original Talisman. I think it makes him look better. 

Fly to Hutton Orbital and we'll pay you 500.000 credits they said. It's only a short hop through hyperspace, they said. It's not as if they were lying, its just that they failed to tell me the whole story...and I even accidentally sold my Hutton Mug a little bit later :(

And on that note I have to end this rather short update. I'll try to put the joystick away and grab brushes again. I was tricked into visiting Hutton Orbital. Do not take a mission to Hutton Orbital, Innsmouth is preferable as destinations go....oh dear can I stop with this game, or do I go on until I finally meet one of those Thargoids?