6MMRPC: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

The 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge started in September. It's been a fun 6 months. Between a blog roll (here), and a facebook group, we small group of challengees kept in fairly regular contact and were able to share stories of success/failure, and words of encouragement.


The challenge (roughly) involved not buying anything for 6 months (baring 2 'jokers' as cheats), and posting weekly updates. It was not unusual for people to drop off the face of the planet from time to time, sometimes resurfacing........life happens, right? It's interesting to read the summaries of the group now, as it was hard to keep track.

My own summary follows *The below was copied directly from Dave Brawley’s great blog “Towerof the Archmage” and my own answers thereafter.*

6MMRPC: Week 26.5 Reaper Bones Grandmother

My weekly submission for the Caffeineforge Miniature Monday (a weekly Bones mini paint up).

This week it was a civilian, which was a fun change. My colourations obviously don't suggest a grandmother, but a younger domestic. The eyes I was quite happy with because eyes are so fantastically difficult.....and they are looking the same way, and the dots are dots. My wife helpfully noted that she has creepy eyes. This, unfortunately, is true. Bah. I'm still happy with the technical results, if not the final result.

Free handing the white trim was fin, although with all the ruffles I don't think it's perfectly accurate. There's also a few smears of overly thick paint, but it came out pretty well.

I'm relatively happy with the colours. I note now that I missed painting the band on the broom head, and her blonde hair doesn't pop quite enough (probably need to end with a tiny highlight of white). The ground was painted grey to suggest a slate or tile floor that would make sense to sweep.

A fun little mini here that was an easy project to paint.

6MMRPC Week 26: Bones Stone Golem

Final Week of the 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge! I'm sure I'll get up a post later in the week on that. I was, unfortunately but perhaps in common with large segments of the population, laid low by sickness this week. In a late week rally I managed to get 2 figures done. This guy, and my submission for Caffeineforge's Miniature Monday which I'll post Wednesday (don't want to pre-empt the reveal on Mondays).

This guy is another one of the Bones miniatures which I have recently (much delayed) started on. They are sorta fun in a way as I have but a week to do them, and I try some new (to me) painting techniques on them. I also didn't really 'choose' them, so there are lots of figs I probably wouldn't have bought on my own. Fun stuff.

I was hoping to make a jade type colouring scheme. One recipe I found on the interwebz suggests highlighting in green on the lower ridges (sorta an inverted highlight), which suggests light transmission. I tried this....and probably should have done more gradation. I didn't have time or the commitment. I think I'd need to experiment with blending which I haven't been brave enough to face.

I tried to free hand an eye of osiris on the belt buckle, but it's pretty much too small to see in real life, never mind this picture. 

My wife was lukewarm on the effect, and I'm a bit uncertain as to my results this week as well. Comments welcome!

Postscript: I tracked down the Caffeineforge results from the same mini here. I must say it's quite interesting to see how many people chose to do a similar green scheme. One of the most interesting parts of the weekly submission is seeing what others have chosen to do.

6MMRPC: Week 25.5 Large Earth Elemental Reaper Bones

Another posting over to Caffeine Forge. As mentioned in my last post, I was a bit disappointed with how my painting turned out this week. I found it a bit challenging to avoid painting this guy a single colour, yet find enough 'realistic' colour tones to use. I tried to bring some bright colours down with inking and then couldn't be bothered to highlight so many different seams and colours.




I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a deadline for this, or I'd be inclined to let this one sit until I could figure out how to 'fix' him. You know, indefinitely. I'm sure lots of us do this from time to time. Anyway, definitely ends up on the 'whatever, fine enough' pile. But completed nonetheless!






The mini itself is well sculpted with lots of character to be taken advantage of. My favorite part is the fossil embedded in the upper right hand shoulder. I didn't get a great pic of it, but you can get the idea.

6MMRPC: Week 25 Stony Head Terrain (Dream Pod 9 Heavy Gear)

A bit of a disappointing week painting wise. I managed to finish my fig for the caffeineforge weekly posting (which I'll reveal Wednesday), but I wasn't super happy with it's appearance. Similarly, these figs were pretty easy to paint up, but I'm just not too jazzed about them. I think part of the challenge is I want them system, size, and location agnostic...which prevents me from doing too many details. I don't want vegetation b/c they may show up in a dessert or badland. Similarly, bird droppings may tighten up the size or terrain biome they would be in. Bah.

6MMRPC: Week 24.5 Battle Golem Bones

The second week of my participation in the Caffeineforge roundup. This week the fig was the Battle Golem. I decided I wanted this guy to look very distressed. He very much appears to be a made of metal, so metallics would obviously feature prominently. I started with a mix of bronze and what would be iron. The sword (after soliciting opinions in the house) was a bright blue/white. I had hoped for more pop/shiny/gloss on the sword (meant to be totally un-distressed)....but close enough.

I toned the bronze down with some vallejo smoke, which has a nice effect to darken and grubby things up. After that I highlighted back up with the bronze (quite noticeable on the shoulder), and honed steel on the iron areas.

Then I got to work. I tried to do a verdigris effect, which I thought turned out fairly well. It's a bit harrowing at time how BLUE everything is getting. After hitting it with some smoke again, it calmed down.....perhaps too much.

The rust is a fantastic rust effect paint I have and love to use....simply paint and go. I think it's alcohol based, as it dries quickly and rustifies as it dries.

I'm very pleased with this 'old warrior'.

6MMRPC: Week 24 GZG Space Contractors

These guys have been on the side of my paint table for the last 2 weeks. I find a lot of my figs I progress on in fits and starts as I agonize about colour choices. Historicals being a key exception because, hey, there are definite colors that should be used.







This crew of space laborers (from GZG) received high visibility suits, and I had been reading 'Outland' (the movie starring Sean Connery) early in the year and the workers were color coded to different jobs. I thought it a cool idea.

I got held up for a while hoping to figure out how to make some super cool gold like visor reflective effects.....but eventually just wanted to finish them off.