Schnooble's Board Game Painting Projects

[Schnooble]

This will be the beginning of my board game (mostly) miniature paint blog/wip.

Its purpose is to log my painting history and also enhance my current skills with the suggestions (hopefully) of other people reading this blog. I have quite a few mini heavy games coming down the pipe as results of Kickstarter pledges. eg. Arcadia Quest Inferno, Sword & Sorcery, Santorini, Massive Darkness, 7th Continent, Mythic Battlesantheon, and KDM. So lots of mini's to paint in the future. I also want to start getting into building dioramas and start making more impressive bases.

I've been painting off and on for the last few years, but nothing more than base colors, and some highlighting. Roughly a year ago I decided I wanted to step up a few levels with my miniature painting. So with that thought, I started watching the Sorastro painting series and painted up my Imperial Assault models as per his videos. Trying to use what I learned with Imperial Assault, I moved onto Scythe, Mechs vs Minions (50 of out the 100 minions painted ), and Mansions of Madness 2 (a few investigators left).

And with all that preamble out of the way, onto my first model for this blog. The Flesh Golem from the Reaper Bones line. It's a work in progress and I know it's not really a board game mini, but it was one that I wanted to try out as I've never done a muscly mini before. Plus my girlfriend bought it a while back and I figured it would be cool to get it painted up for her.

Here I've base painted and applied a Reikland Flesh Wash to the flesh areas and then applied some highlighting.


View attachment 54654

Watered down the Reikland Fleshshade and applied over the entirety of the skin. I then re-applied a 50/50 mix of Pallid Wcyh Flesh and Lahmian Medium slowly built up the highlights again. Also tried to "gore" up the stitches a bit more. I could apply more highlight to the skin with a brighter shade, but I'm scared that it will be too bright then. I'm already not really happy with how bright he looks.

View attachment 54653

Next post I'll be tightening up some of the details and perhaps see what I can do with the skin.


Edit. Hmm obviously I'm going to have to figure out how to post images properly... The image with the white background is supposed to be the first image.

 

[Schnooble]

Got to spend an hour with the golem tonight, so didn't get too much done. Highlighted the stitches and tried to give the eyes a reddish glow. I also started on the base and did a quick cutting of the foam and primed it. Should have this guy done by the end of the weekend.

View attachment 54673 View attachment 54674

 

[anotherpainter]

Editing pictures on the forum:
After "edit" click on "go Advanced" then you see at the bottum a field to edit the atachments.
Just delete them and reupload with the picture icon.

The figure:
I really like it! The glow looks good.
Only ciritc i can come up with is the highlights on the flesh.
You highlighted a to big area to only use one highlight color. Mostly noticeable on the back of his arms.

 

[supervike]

That looks cool. The eye shine is nicely done.

 

[bgcdazzler]

Welcome, and this looks like a nice and suitably gross base to work from. To push it further, you can start to add other colours to add more interest - purple or blue glazes to the skin in the darker sections, sickly yellow on some places. And browns or blues to the trousers. The aim is not to have a blue bit and a green bit - like he's camouflaged - but to subtly enhance the base colour.

 

[Schnooble]

Another Painter : Thanks! I'll see what I can do to tighten up my highlights. I'll put another one or two more graduations in there.

Supervike : Thank you. I wasn't sure about the eyes, but they look cool in the picture. Strangely they look better in the photo than in real life.

bgcdazzler : The glazes are a good idea. I never thought of that. I'll definitely "gross" him out a bit more.

I'm not sure if I have the time to work on him today, but I should be able to work on him tomorrow. Expect some updates tomorrow night!

Schnoob.

 

[Schnooble]

Flesh Golem resurrected!

Alright, So I tried blending in the highlights a bit better, but made an absolute mess of it. At this point I figured this guy was toast, but figured I'd leave it for the night and come back in the morning with a fresh mind and eyes.

View attachment 54709

Today (the next morning), I decided to give all the skin a wash of watered down Reilkland Flesh to try to tone down the white. It worked not to bad. Most importantly it allowed me to re-highlight the muscles as the version I had previously was pretty much white, which was starting to look awful.

I also added some blue/green washes in certain areas to try to simulate bruises and general decomp. Lastly I speckled some brown/red on him to give him a messier look.

View attachment 54710 View attachment 54711

Looking better I think. Especially after last night. I thought for sure I would have to abandon or restart him. Think I'm getting pretty close to calling this guy done. I might do a bit more highlighting and maybe do something to try to distinguish his clothes from his skin. Also want to add some more subtle brusing as I think my first attempt was a bit to dramatic. Live and learn.

Question: Anyone know a good place to order misc miniature pieces in Canada? eg, Skulls, rats, columns, that sorta thing. Can't find anything of this nature in the hobby store that are close to me.

 

[KruleBear]

Welcome to the forums. I like this mini and you are doing a good job. My frustration with this one was the Bones material. Some of the stitching detail was soft on mine and I had to guess what was what...and i was always finding a new mold line. The pale folor you are using on the skin works well for the mini.

 

[anotherpainter]

... At this point I figured this guy was toast, but figured I'd leave it for the night and come back in the morning with a fresh mind and eyes....

I think everyone was there once ^^


The highlights look way better now! (A higher resolution picture would be nice tho)
What happened with the eye shine? Not that its bad now. He looks more evil with the smaller eyes.
After i read KruleBear comments: nice work with cleaning up. I thought its a very clear cast

 

[Schnooble]

KruleBear : Yeah, I know what you mean about the stitching and mold lines. But then I'm usually always finding mold lines that I missed. And I mean all the time. I think I'm too impatient with that taking care of mold lines at the beginning.

AnotherPainter : I'll post another higher res picture of him. Yeah, his glowing eyes got destroyed in the great purge of Saturday night.

I've updated his highlighting a bit more, but probably not enough to make a visible difference. I'm scared of pushing the white to much again. And honestly I'm having issues with him. He's just so messy. Looks ok when you look at it from a distance, but up close in the camera, it's pretty nasty. I'm going to take a bit of a break on him for a few days.

View attachment 54748

I received Santorini on Thursday, and it had a few minis that I wanted to get painted and done with. Figured I'd spend a few days with them and get them out of the way. Here I've base coated one set. Will be shading and highlighting tomorrow most likely.

View attachment 54749

I other set I painted to look as if they were statues. Might paint in some cracks. Probably will.

View attachment 54750


That's it for tonight.

 

[Schnooble]

Small update tonight. Did some shading/highlighting and pretty much have the Santorini figures finished. Probably just clean them up a bit and then I can play the game.

View attachment 54768

 

[Schnooble]

I think the Flesh Golem is finished. He was a tough one. Just when I think he looks alright, I take a photo and it looks awful. Maybe I'm using too much light or something? Because I swear he looks better without the camera! I tried to add bruising, but I think I just made a mess of it. The yellow just ended up looking green. I kinda just want to buy another one and try again, but honestly I'd rather work on a nicer mini.

This week I will start painting up the miniatures from the Mansions of Madness Expansion starting off with the girl with the really over developed arm. It'll give me another chance to work on muscles and hopefully it works out better than the ol' Flesh Golem here. I'll post a picture of her when I get her base colors done.

View attachment 54895

 

[Schnooble]

Started my next set of mini's. These Thralls are from the Mansions of Madness 2 expansion "Beyond the Threshold". Finished up the base coat tonight.

I really want to make the arms have a wet "sore" look to them. I think I'm going to just shade and highlight them up like any skin tone, but then add a watered down blood wash and finish with a coat of gloss. I want the appearance that it's fresh skin and still not fully set. Perhaps try and see if I can also try some bruising. I tried that with my golem, but I didn't like the results so I'm going to try something different this time. This time around I'll have at least 4 tries to get it right.

View attachment 55085

View attachment 55086

 

[anotherpainter]

Just when I think he looks alright, I take a photo and it looks awful. Because I swear he looks better without the camera!

I know this feeling... nearly every time i take a photo.
If the mini looks good and the photo not, don't try to change the mini, change the photo settings!
Beside that i do like your golem and his base. You got a little carried away with the colors and they don't really look like bruises. But in the end its a golem, its gore/slime/mutation, it fits!


The wet look for the arms:
There are many tutorials and tips about wet look.
Im new to all of that and only tried one but this one worked good for me:
After painting all the red i put a thin layer of "vallejo still water" on it.

I used it for the zombie arm:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/407489?browseid=18737542
ROFL Just now when i look at the picture again, i notice that its not half as wet on the photo as in RL.....

 

[Schnooble]

Yeah, the golem was a learning experience. Just another stepping stone on my road to get better.

Thanks for the suggestion about the Still Water. I actually have that on my shelf! I didn't get a chance to paint last night, but I hope to get to the "thralls" this weekend. I think I will try out a bunch of different methods since I have 4 models and see which one works the best. Should be interesting to see.

Looking forward to painting them and see how the comparison works out.

 

[Foxtail]

Maybe take some inspiration from The Thing

View attachment 55116
Get some dark purples and blacks in for the stretched fresh.

Liking things so far though!

p.s. I apologise unreservedly for using an image from the 2011 Thing rather than the original

 

[Schnooble]

Thanks for the reference image. That's actually a good idea. I'll see if I can incorporate it into my painting. I'm just not very advanced yet and scared that I'll just make a mess like with the golem. I'm going to try to paint today if I get a chance and will post some progress up in the next day or so.

 

[anotherpainter]

Thanks for the reference image. That's actually a good idea. I'll see if I can incorporate it into my painting. I'm just not very advanced yet and scared that I'll just make a mess like with the golem. I'm going to try to paint today if I get a chance and will post some progress up in the next day or so.

first: you are to hard on yourself. He did not turn out exactly as planned but he is in no way a mess.

I have the same feeling. Im afraid to paint something out of my comfort zone. E.g. strong contrast at start to later smooth it in (i feel like my miniature must be watchable at any stage of the process)
But i do think this feeling is wrong. You learn way more on the big mistakes then on the little improvements.

@Foxtail
This is a very good reference image! and only because of that, your grieves misconduct of referring to an soulless Hollywood remake of an great movie is forgiven

 

[Schnooble]

Thanks guys. Yeah, being a bit hard on myself. The Golem isn't to bad... If you look at him from a few feet away. Hah.

So I spent some time with the thralls today. Here's what happened.

I should have taken more in-between photos, with my first attempt on the first Thrall. But here's what I ended up with. I think the bruising is quite a better than my Golem, but the flesh tones still aren't very smooth. I need to work on getting better at the gradual color changes. And I can see now that it's hard to see the bruising in this picture. I REALLY need to work on taking better photos...

View attachment 55180

Ok, here's my 2nd Thrall. I think it's turning out better than my first attempt. Here I've applied the Reikland Flesh wash to give a shade and then highlighted again with Bugman's Glow.

View attachment 55181

More highlighting with a mix of Bugman's and Cadian Fleshtone. Trying to slowly blend to a lighter shade. I think it's turning out better than my previous attempt.


View attachment 55182

And now a mix of "Cadian Fleshtone" and Kislev flesh to further highlight. Also started painting the vessels red, but not to sure If i like that. Might just paint it back to a flesh tone again.

<Well darn, for some reason the last image won't appear here for some reason...>

Tomorrow, I will try to finish off this arm. Need to add some black/purple bruising and then a wet blood look.

@FoxTail. I checked out some more images from "The Thing" and found good reference image. However like my previous image, it won't appear in the message when I try to upload it.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a completed arm tomorrow.

 

[Foxtail]

Looking loads better Schnooble. You're coming on quick!

Glad I could help as well