The Frog King

jamsessionein

New member
So, my girlfriend\'s birthday is rapidly approaching, and I thought it would be a cute gift if I were to give her a painted up miniature diorama of something, as she is admirably tolerant of my wargaming hobbies.

I was scratching my head as to what, exactly, to give her until I found a miniature made by Eureka Miniatures called the \'Frog King\'.

100frg13_colour.jpg


(These are the stock colors, not anything I\'ve painted)

As my girlfriend has an usual love for frogs, I thought it would be cute for her as a gift, so I went ahead and got myself the mini. I won\'t really be converting it, just basing it up and painting it as best I can.

I found the lid to some container in my basement and I decided it would make a pretty reasonable base. My next step was to grab some insulation foam and cut it down to fill the insides and create a slope on which I could pour water effects to create a sort of \'pond\' on one side.

Then I coated the whole thing with bondo to make it harder and prevent primer sprays from eating it alive, followed by a layer of elmers glue and water and some rocks, and another layer of the elmers and water once that had tried to make sure everything held steady. The \'rocks\' are just bits of wood mulch I found in a plant pot around the house.

frog1.jpg


frog2.jpg


frog3.jpg


frog4.jpg


frog5.jpg


In the interest of painting these things properly, I\'m going to have to work on this in a bit of a convoluted method. I\'m going to leave the frogs separate from the base to get at their angles a bit easier, and paint the base separately as well. Once that\'s done, I\'m probably going to glue them down to the base and try concealing the seams between the edge of the frog bases and the display base by putting some extra sand and rocks down there.

This is mostly a painting project for me, really. The models are more than adequate for what I need, and my girlfriend loves frogs - she actually has a couple fire-belly frogs of her own, and I\'m going to be trying to emulate their patterns onto these guys.
 

Manus

New member
ha ha ha - that is so excellent, that\'s one of the funniest minis I\'ve seen - got to love those eyes. If your girlfriend don\'t love it there is some thing wrong.
 

Talion

New member
That\'s a cool mini.

When painting it I would keep it simple like the orginal design. Not masses amount of shading and highlighting. I think if you went down that path it would lose it\'s innocence.

Can\'t wait to see this progressing.
 

jamsessionein

New member
I started painting the throne up a bit and I\'m starting to remember why I don\'t.. really.. paint a lot of the stuff I build. I am so out of practice. :(

The recesses are a bit glossy as I\'ve been using that future wash stuff.

frog6.jpg


frog7.jpg


frog8.jpg
 

Larre

New member
originally posted by Sonnyslayer

quote:
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Originally posted by Larre
those look very small, what scale are they?

// Larre
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28mm

that is quite small :p

// Larre
 

jamsessionein

New member
My image host/the warforge is down till 9 AM because my host is doing some sort of stupid maintenance, so I had to imageshack these. Hopefully they work.

frog9xq8.jpg


frog10cw0.jpg


frog11rd7.jpg


frog12cs3.jpg


Not the best painting I\'ve ever done, and pretty simple, but I think it\'s cute. I wish I could blend and gradient as well as that stock shot I pictured earlier! I doubt it would matter much in this case, though, as I\'m basically just copying a fire-belly toad\'s scheme. Future makes everything so glossy! Though I\'m actually considering hitting the frogs with a gloss varnish after I spray everything down matte so they look wet.
 

Bill

New member
Looks good! The cartoony feel suits the model. He looks like an Oriental Fire-Bellied Toad
firebelliedtoad.JPG

I can see quite a nasty mouldline on the back of his quilty thing though.
 

Manus

New member
looks good so far, a bit highlighting on the green and orange according to Bill pic.
You don\'t look to much uot of practice though.
@Bill: what do you do for a living? ???lol
 

jamsessionein

New member
Originally posted by Bill
Looks good! The cartoony feel suits the model. He looks like an Oriental Fire-Bellied Toad

I can see quite a nasty mouldline on the back of his quilty thing though.

Hah! I wish I\'d seen this picture earlier! All the ones Google Image Search returned were a bit poor, and I couldn\'t tell if the orange underbelly actually ran into the legs or not. I suppose what I have there is fine for now, though.

And yes, I learned about that mold line a bit late. The macro pictures aren\'t exactly helping it, and while I could probably file it off and paint over, I don\'t think I will, as I doubt I\'d be able to repair it properly.
 

jamsessionein

New member
A bit more progress! I\'m not too happy with the way the gold metallics came out, but at this point the frog on the throne\'s completely assembled. There\'s a couple spots I think I need to touch up, and the skin could do with a bit of highlighting, perhaps, but I\'m having difficulty figuring out how to do that - all of the skin is basically smooth surfaces, and when I paint on highlights I get a pretty defined \'seam\' between the darker under color and the color I\'ve just brushed on overtop. I\'m not sure how to get that nice transitioned blending effect I want.

frog13.jpg


frog14.jpg


frog15.jpg


frog16.jpg


frog17.jpg
 

DaN

New member
Altogether now...

Bom, Bom bom - and we all stand together! lol

I like this so far :)
(Also glad I\'m not the only one who never gets anything finished! lol)

Are you going to add anything to the red quilting on the throne? I was thinking maybe a simple yellow line running parallel to the edges, maybe a millimeter or two in.

Hmm... I DID try to do an ASCII diagram, but it went completely different on posting :p I\'m sure you know what I mean though :)
 

Bill

New member
Originally posted by Manus
@Bill: what do you do for a living? ???lol
I don\'t. I\'m 14 years old :moon:

:D

Jamsession: Looks good! I wouldn\'t worry about making the fella entirely anatomically correct, to be honest I don\'t think your wife will be upset by a bit of absent orange underbelly ;) I think you could, as Dan suggested, so a little more to the quilt; and maybe bring the highlights up a little too. Looking forward to another update :beer:
 
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