Unfinished business!

Horticulus Slimux – Part 6

I suspect that every miniature painter has a few unfinished projects that sit neglected on their desk or in a cabinet. It’s a frustrating situation but one that’s all too easy to fall into. One such project for me was Horticulus Slimux and I was shocked to realise that I last worked on him in March 2018! I can’t even remember exactly why I put the project on hold, though I suspect that I was chasing deadlines on other projects. I’d painted Horticulus Slimux to a standard I was very happy with but the project stalled with his giant snail, Mulch. Other projects took precedence and after finishing my Daemon Tank I was suffering from an overdose of Nurgle themed painting. So Horticulus remained forgotten at the back of my miniatures cabinet.

Forgotten by me that is until a couple of weeks ago when he came up in conversation at the Hammerhead painting competition. The upshot of this was that Horticulus was taken out of the cabinet and re-considered. I think he’s too good a piece to remain neglected and unfinished but the snail is a problem. Considering my current commitments and the potential time it would take me to paint Mulch, I decided to let go of that idea and come up with something else that would finish the project to my satisfaction. I could see two options. First I could find a new, smaller and quicker to paint mount for Horticulus. Second I could base him up as a single miniature. 

 

 

I quickly decided on the second option but that’s not without it’s challenges. He is, of course, designed to fit onto Mulch and sculpted in a sitting pose, so I would have to find a way of accommodating this pose on the new base. Horticulus was still going to have to be sat on something, but what? My first thought was to sit him on a severed head. I’ve no idea where this idea came from but it didn’t seem an appropriate setting for Nurgle’s gardener. So what about having him sat on a rock, taking a rest, in the garden surrounded by a profusion of plant life?

With this idea as a starting point, I began to think about the specifics. The timescale was a major factor to consider. I wanted this to be a relatively quick project so I set myself two rules. I would finish the model in time to take it to Salute this year and I would only use materials and parts I already had. This gave me six weeks to work on finishing Horticulus which felt like a good amount of time to get the job done without rushing things. Next up was a thorough rummage through my modeling supplies and bits boxes. This provided both parts and inspiration. 

I had quite a few mushrooms of various sizes left over from old projects and these were perfect for my purposes. In addition a couple of tentacles and some skulls (of course!) would help to populate the terrain. The best find was the head of a fallen statue from the Dominion of Sigmar:Timeworn Ruins terrain. I quickly discovered that Horticulus Slimux could sit on this with very little work to make him fit perfectly! This meant he would be sitting on both a rock and a severed head combining my ideas into one.

 

 

Luckily I had one plinth of the correct size left after I’d use all my others for the Corsairs. The stone head required a little modification before being fixed to the plinth. Then I used a combination of cork, plaster fragments and Stirland Battlemire to build up the terrain around it.

To keep a cohesive feeling, I used the same pallet of colors to paint the base as I’d used on Horticulus Slimux. Thankfully I’d made a note of these colors on an earlier blog post and so was able to fish them out. Once again I’d be using Black Leather from Scale Colour as a universal shadow color. This has a warm pinkish hue that contrasts with the greens and harmonises with the reds. Indeed with the base painted the finished composition has an overall subtle red/green colour contrast. The dominant red area is on the mushrooms but there is also quite a lot of it worked into Horticulus Slimux’s skin tones. This is especially true of the shadows which are very warm with the highlights being cooler in contrast. I used a similar warm/cool contrast on the stone head but with desaturated/grayer hues.

Horticulus Slimux is quite fantastical enough on his own so I decided against taking a highly fantastical approach to the plants. Mushrooms, plants that grow on decay, seem especially appropriate and work well with the Nurgle theme. These would be supplemented with an assortment of grasses, moss, mould and lichen. I used a narrow range of green hues to keep a coherent feeling while relying on texture contrasts to add visual interest. The three large red caped mushrooms are resin and from Blacksmith miniatures. Their large size brings a small touch of the fantastical to the basing. All the other mushrooms were sculpted by myself out of green stuff.

Fixing Horticulus onto the base was very straightforward. He fitted into place well and balanced perfectly, so I was able to attach him directly with epoxy glue - and no need for pinning. However there were a few small gaps underneath him as his backside did not conform exactly to the contours of the statue. I filled in this space with a ‘cushion’ of moss and mould. Like many other Nurgle miniatures, Horticulus has an open belly with his guts hanging out. There was a gap between the guts and the statue that, although not catastrophic, bothered me. Instead of filling this gap with more moss I decided to extend the guts with green stuff. This filled the gap in an appropriately gruesome manner.

 

 

The final touch was to make a label for the plinth. Partly to finish off the composition but also to hide a blemish on the front of the plinth. Putting Horticulus Slimus’s name on the label felt a bit obvious so I opted for his job title ‘The Grand Cultivator’ instead. After resurrecting my long neglected graphic design skills to style the typography, I experimented with different colours. I then used the method described HERE to make the label.

 

 

It’s a shame that I didn’t get to finish Horticulus mounted on Mulch as originally intended. However, I now have a completed model that I’m very happy with and that’s miles better than having him unfinished in the back of the cabinet! And of course, I still have Mulch who could easily become the focus of a future project.

Finishing Horticulus Slimux was an enjoyable process with a satisfying result and six weeks turned out to be more than enough time. So the only thing remaining is to take him to the Salute Painting Competition. This will be my first Salute since 2019 and I’m experiencing an interesting mix of anticipation and nerves so fingers crossed for a good outcome!

 

 

Hobby Update ... What Sproket did next.

Not so very long ago I’d resigned myself to a quiet low-key sort of year for my hobby. I’d had to cancel a couple of workshops while my partner Mark was recovering from his illness and it didn’t look very likely that I would be making it to any painting competitions either. I was OK with this; after all you need to get your priorities in order. The unanticipated benefit was that I became totally free to paint for the love of painting again and, as I gradually get back up to speed, I’m finding that extremely rewarding.

But now I suddenly find myself with lots to talk about because over the last few weeks the pace of life has really picked up! I’m planning to revisit some of these topics in more detail in subsequent posts. But for the time being this is a round up of sorts, to get this blog up-to-date, before things move on any further.

Artis Opus Series D

I’ve been associated with Artis Opus for about a year now as one of their ‘signature’ artists. This means that I’m among a group of well-known painters who have been using their brushes and have agreed to lend their names and reputation to promoting them. I do that because I really do use Artis Opus brushes and I think they are excellent.

A few weeks ago Byron from Artis Opus contacted me with a very interesting proposition. He’s been working on a new range of brushes (series D) designed specifically for dry brushing. Byron wondered if I’d be willing to try the brushes out ‘on camera’ as part of the promotion for the new kickstarter campaign. Now I’ve always been a ‘fan’ of dry brushing and feel it’s much maligned in some circles. So I agreed to go up to Stockport for a day of filming.

I had a bit of an ulterior motive, as this would give Mark and myself the opportunity to have a little break. Since Mark left hospital we’ve been restricted in how far we could travel or how long we could stay out. But we felt the time was now right to be a bit more adventurous. If you can really call Stockport adventurous!

The weekend was a great success on all accounts! Mark coped well with the travel and unaccustomed activity and I had a great time painting and filming. Not least because I was filming alongside Bohun an artist I’ve long admired. I’d anticipated a day of dry brushing but what I actually got was the chance to see Bohun’s individual take on the technique and have my mind opened to it’s potential which goes well beyond my own rather pedestrian notions!

I will definitely be posting more about dry brushing and series D in the near future.

You can find the kickstarter here.

Salute 2019

As the trip to Stockport went well we decided we could venture out again and the most obvious thing was a trip to Salute 2019. Unfortunately when the day came I had a bit of a cold and really wasn’t operating at 100% but we’ve done Salute enough times now that it has the ease of familiarity. We both found the day extremely tiring but were glad we went. It was so good to see old friends and acquaintances and in many ways the day felt like a return to ‘business as usual’ after a long interruption.

Of course one of the main reasons for going to Salute was the painting comp. My choice of entries was limited to two. My Isharan Tidecaster and my Sloppity Bilepiper. I was well aware that this might be my only painting comp this year so my choice was an important one. I’m very pleased with both minis but unfortunately they were eligible for the same category so I had to choose.

In the end that was fairly simple as I think the Slopity Bilepiper is the stronger of the two. It’s the model I painted to get back into my hobby and I lavished a lot of time and attention on it. As a result I’d been able to finesse the details to a high standard and it was the mini I was most confident about. This isn’t to say I’m not pleased with the Tidecaster but I think she will benefit from a few tweaks. But that’s for another day and, maybe, another painting comp.

As I said I wasn’t quite feeling 100% and I managed to miss the start of the awards ceremony for the comp. That definitely wasn’t very cool because my Sloppity Bilepiper won Gold in Fantasy Single Figure and I missed the announcement! In spite of that I’m very happy with the result and glad I chose the right mini on the day!

Sproket does Troggoths.

Now it’s time to look ahead and to something I’m eagerly anticipating! On Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd June I will be returning to Element Games to run a painting workshop. I had several ideas for a subject model but the new Rockgut Trogoths from Games workshop are ideal. There will, of course, be the chance to explore the painting of textures and ‘lifelike’ flesh tones but these models also offer the chance to get to grips with painting volumes and forms in a way that many smaller minis don’t. I’ve been busily preparing for the workshop and my own take on a Rockgut Trogoth is coming along rather nicely.

Booking details will be available from Element Games very soon and I’ll publish them as soon as they are confirmed.

Salute 2018

It’s been a long busy Easter, but it’s also been a very good one! The two week break started on Easter weekend with my partner Mark breaking up from school (he’s a teacher) and our friend Terry arriving to spend a long weekend. Then, on the Thursday, Mark, myself and our friends Sue and David flew off to Athens for a five day break where, by a quirk of contrasting religious calendars, we had Easter weekend all over again! Athens is a city I’ve long wanted to visit and it didn’t disappoint. We hit the ground running hiking up various rocky outcrops and roaming the streets to visit the monuments. Then on the final weekend of the Easter break there was Salute 2018!

I was already a little weary going into the day and this year Salute seemed bigger, noisier and hotter than ever! But I had a great time and really enjoyed the opportunity to meet up with my fellow painters and hobbyists. Of course from my perspective the main event was the painting competition.

In my last post I wrote about how I revisited my Abyssal Warlord to improve the details on his cloak fixings. I did this specifically because I wanted to enter him in the painting comp at Salute. One of my major personal painting goals since returning to the hobby has been to expand my range to include larger scale models. It’s been quite a learning curve!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I’m very pleased with the paint jobs I’ve produced. But this has been a journey to an aspect of the hobby where I had no prior experience and it’s taken me out of my comfort zone. So much the better for my development and growth but it’s had its frustrations!

I’ve had to swallow my pride and learn from my mistakes. I quickly realized that I couldn’t simply apply what I’d do on a 35mm mini to a bust. Over the last four years I’ve tried to introduce a touch of realism into my painting of larger scale models. It’s a subtle shift but I’ve found it can make a huge difference! It’s an approach that’s spilled out into all of my painting and I think the result can be seen in my painting of the Death Guard and Horticulous Slimux.

I was surprised at just how nervous I felt the morning before Salute this year. I’ve had some competition success over the last few years with my larger scale projects winning a couple of bronzes and a silver. Gold, however, has eluded me and Gold is the standard I want to achieve! I had hopes that I might pull it off with the Warlord but the standard was high and there was some stiff competition in the cabinet. So I braced myself for a disappointment.

I finally did it and the Abyssal Warlord won me a Gold in the Large Scale category! I have a huge feeling of achievement and pride to have finally achieved my ambition.

There is, of course, so much more to learn and I’ve still got a long way to go on this particular painting journey. But I feel I’ve reached a significant landmark from which I can continue to develop. I need to step up my game and level up on the neglected, but not forgotten, Akito bust!

Salute 2016

Last weekend saw my fourth trip up to London for Salute and to be honest it rather crept up on me! The main focus of my efforts for the last year and a half has been ‘Project Nurgle’ for the Golden Demons. I was a bit caught out by the announcement that the Golden Demons would fall in May this year. I had anticipated that the Demons would be held in the Autumn and had to adjust my plans.

I’d intended to paint a fantasy character miniature for Salute but doing that would have put a lot of pressure on the, now shorter, ‘Project Nurgle’ time scale. So I shifted all my attention to getting ready for the ‘Demons’.

I decided some time ago that I would hold Gutrot Spume back for a ‘grand debut’, alongside the Plaguebearers, at the Demons. That left me with a choice between Commodore Borgossa and Abalam for Salute.

There was much dithering on my part as only one entry is allowed per category but, with a little help from my painting friends, I decided it had to be Borgossa.

I entered Borgossa into the largescale category, which includes busts, and then spent the rest of the day browsing the stands and chatting. The chance to meet up with other painters is always one of the chief highlights of these events. As is usual for Salute the day went astonishingly quickly and, before I’d had time to get around all the stands, the competition results were announced!

Borgossa took the second place in his category! That rewarded my efforts over the last year to gain experience of painting larger scale minis and busts.

One of the judges was Peter Bell and he was kind enough to give me some useful feedback on Borgossa, which I hope I can incorporate into subsequent projects. In short, the overall paintjob on Borgossa was let down by the maroon jacket which didn’t match up to the texture work on the other areas.

It’s a bit of a relief that it was the jacket. I felt that there was something lacking but I’d not been able to pin down what the problem was!

Hindsight is all well and good but I need to sharpen my instincts, and hopefully, I will do so as I gain more experience painting larger scale pieces.

Looking back... and forward.

About his time last year I’d reconciled myself to a less productive 2015, at least in terms of the number of minis I’d get finished. I decided to concentrate on quality and enjoy myself obsessing over Gutrot Spume. Gutrot was painted with an eye to entering the Golden Demon competition, whenever that happened; and I’d resolved to quite literally push the boat out for him.

As it turned out 2015 was a far more productive year than I had predicted! After a slow start, Gutrot came together and was finally finished in September. I’d already taken time out to paint Mole, but once Gutrot was done, I switched up in scale to paint Commodore Borgossa, and most recently Abalam Prince of Hell. I also started painting a unit of Plague bearers as part of the preparations for my Weekend Workshop in Cardiff.

And now we finally have a date for the next Warhammer Fest and the 2016 Golden Demons! Sunday, May 15, at the Rico Arena in Coventry. It’s been a long wait!

With Abalam finished, all bar his plinth, I am turning my attention to the next project. I was going to paint another mini for Salute (April 16) and then return to the unit of Plague bearers, but the Golden Demon announcement has changed everything. The Plague bearers have jumped right back up to the top of my painting priorities. Remembering 2014’s last minute Haemonculus, I want to try and complete them without putting too much pressure on myself.

Project Nurgle is all GO….again.

From Zero to Hero - revisiting Squarg for Salute 2015

When Squarg came away from Euro Millitaire without even a ‘commended’ to his name I was deeply disappointed. To be honest, I felt that that was in no way a fair assessment of the mini but, as I said at the time, ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles’ and the best thing to do was move on and get painting. 

I’m normally extremely reluctant to go back and make changes to a ‘finished’ mini. That’s not to say that I consider my work to be perfect! But I think it’s far more positive and productive to take the lessons learned and apply them to future projects. However, I decided that Squarg was a special case. 

 Although I didn’t seek any feedback I heard from several friends that there had been some comments about Squarg from the judges at Euro. Feedback is only ever going to be of use if you take it with an open mind and I was in no fit state at the time. 

The first thing that reached my ears from several sources was that the frog should have looked wet. The second was that Squarg’s back feet were not properly fixed to the base.

With the passing of time I was able to get Squarg out of the cabinet and reconsider him objectively. I still felt that Squarg was one of my best pieces and he deserved a fair crack of the whip. But only a fool refuses to consider feedback. 

The issue of how wet the frog should look was something I’d given a lot of thought to when I first painted him. I made tests with different finishes in an effort to achieve a suitably moist appearance but I decided to leave well alone. Shiny finishes looked tacky and unrealistic while satin finishes were not noticeably different from the natural sheen of the paint that I’d used, a mix of Vallejo & GW. The decision I made was right. I’m still perfectly happy with it and I stand by it. 

The back feet were a different matter. I knew that Squarg’s feet had been properly fitted to the base. I’d gone to great pains gently heating them so that they could be reshaped to fit the contours of the base. But what I’d missed was that they hadn’t stayed that way for very long! In particular there was a noticeable gap between Squarg’s back left foot and the base! 

I think the most likely explanation is that the original (very flat) shape of Squarg’s feet reasserted itself when I used a hairdryer to speed up the drying of some washes I’d applied to the base. And while in hindsight the gap looks obvious, I had totally missed it at the time. 

All well and good but what should I do about it? There was no way I would be attempting to reheat and bend the foot again, so I decided to fill the gap with something. After consideration that ‘something’ was more grass and moss. 

I had the Friday before Salute free to work on Squarg’s base and it was an extremely nervous day! I proceeded slowly by very carefully testing out several options before I had my solution. The use of a soft material meant that I could safely work it deep into the gap and then tease it back out for a natural effect. In the end I was very pleased with the result. The gap was no longer apparent and the new grass and moss looked like it had always been there. 

The extra grass and moss didn’t just fill up the gap in my opinion the base looked better with them. This led me to consider the overall appearance of the base and so I decided to increase the amount of green on the base. 

I did this in several ways:

1.
I added a few more strands of tall grass at the back of the base. On reflection the old grass formed two distinct clumps – one in each back corner and I wanted to soften these out

2.
I tinted the leaves on the tall grass at the back with a warmer shade of green that toned in with the frog’s flesh colour. I think that before the leaves were too pale and cool in tone

3.
I went back over much of the ground surface with glazes of green ink

4.
I added a mix of green ink, paint, PVA glue and baking soda to specific areas of the ground. This created areas of a fine, slightly soft, grainy texture that really helped to give the ground a damp marshy look. 

The actual change to the appearance of the base is subtle but it has a dramatic effect. With the overall increase of green the individual plant elements are slightly less distinct and now work better together as a whole. The base also now has a damper look to it more appropriate as the environment for a frog. 

I was far less nervous at Salute this year than is usual for me. That’s due to the event being more familiar rather than any growth in confidence. In the case of Squarg, I very much wanted him to do well but I really had nothing to lose as he couldn’t do any worse than he had done at Euro. 

Winning both First Place in his category and Best in Show is marvellous and I’m very proud of the achievement. 

I’ve experienced both the extreme highs and lows of competitive painting with this one mini and it’s a slightly odd experience with each tempering the other. 

In the end, I think the lesson Squarg has taught me is try not to be too overwhelmed by either success or failures because positive things can be found in both if you look for them.

Salute 2015

With Mole done and dusted I had a little time to consider some other entries for Salute. So I was busy all day Friday making some adjustments to Squarg's base - that was very nervous work, but it was well worth the effort. I’ll post in more detail about Squarg’s base, the changes I made to it and why I made those changes, in the near future.

When the big day arrived it found me in a calmer frame of mind than in previous years. It might just be possible that I’m finally getting used to entering painting competitions and I have my nerves under better control!

Salute seemed to be bigger and busier than ever but the venue had much more space this year and that made for a more enjoyable overall experience. As usual the day seemed to go very quickly with the painting comp, stands, games and socializing (always the best thing about these events) making for a busy time. Before I’d managed to get round and see everything it was time for the painting competition results.

Uncle John made it through to the finals. Mole got First Place in Science Fiction Single Figure and, to my utter delight, Squarg got First Place in Fantasy Creature or Vehicle. But that's not the best of it because Squarg also won Best in Show! Needless to say I'm a very happy bunny.

Infamy's Mole - Part 6

Here he is - and I finished him in time for Salute.

I made all my usual mistakes when I was building the base for Mole. The first thing I tried out involved ruined walls. However, after several days of playing around with different compositions, I realised that this was simply the wrong thing for me to be doing with Mole. For my taste, Mole looks much better on a simpler base with no backdrop.

With that decision made I set about constructing the base onto a plinth. I’d decided on a brick paved ground surface with layers of earth beneath. I would also incorporate a pit of some sort to tie in with the idea of Mole’s role as an excavator. 

The ground was built up with and carved away from cork. The brick paving was made with a set of tiny plaster bricks purchased from the Wamp Store. I decided to lay the bricks in a herring-bone pattern for visual interest. The bricks were set onto a layer of PVA wood glue and nudged into position with a sculpting tool. When the glue had set I brushed a little dried garden soil into the gaps between bricks. This was then carefully painted with dilute PVA which soaked into the soil and held it all together. It was a bit of a fiddly process but worth the effort, I think. 

The surface texture of the earth was achieved by painting the cork with dilute PVA and sprinkling it with more dried garden soil. The addition of a few old watch parts (also purchased from the Wamp Store) added some steampunk detail. 

My first version of this base had the earth breaking free from the edges of the cube in a muffin top effect. I really didn’t like it! It still felt too big and clumsy for Mole so I took a risk and cut it free from the cube. I then carved and filed the sides down flat. I’m much happier with this more austere composition. A test fitting of Mole confirmed my feelings. To give height to the composition, I added a lamp post to the base. 

Painting the base was fairly straightforward. I used the same palette of colours that I’d worked with on Mole to tie the Mini and base together. I paid special attention to the colour of the earth. A solid brown mud colour would not have looked very realistic or interesting. I graduated the earth from a drier gritty looking grey at the top down through dusty browns to a darker earth colour at the bottom. I also made use of the matt/gloss properties of my paints to reinforce the feeling that the earth was dry at the top and damp deeper down. 

Infamy's Mole - Part 5

Mole is finished but I'm going to keep him under wraps until Salute at the weekend! That's partly because I'm a big tease and partly to give myself some breathing room to see if I want to make any tweaks and adjustments before the reveal.

In the meantime here are a few teaser pics of Mole's base.

Infamy's Mole - Part 3

I may revisit Mole’s troublesome trousers to push the contrast a little further but, for the time being, they are finished enough to allow me to move on to other areas. My first priority is the face. Like many other painters, I like to get the face sorted as soon as I can because it sets character of the mini. Equally it really doesn’t matter how well the rest of the mini is painted if you can’t get the face right! 

My first pass at Mole’s face was OK as a start, but the contrast was too strong and it lacked overall subtlety. So I went back and glazed over the face with colours in the mid-tone range. For the first time ever, I consciously tried out the principle of using yellow tones in the top of the face, reds in the middle and blues in the lower section. I was a bit sceptical but swiftly changed my mind on the subject. Even though I was using very subtle glazes the face really started to come alive and the flesh tones were greatly improved. I’ll put that down as a lesson learned! 

With the basic flesh tones sorted I set about refining the detail. Mole has a very distinctive face with heavy lips and fleshy jowls and it was all too easy to paint him in an overly cartoony stile. It took me a lot of going back and forth but I finally reached a result that I was happy with. I’m really struck by just how much the face on the sculpt matches the concept art. 

Mole’s Goggles are a key element of his face and require due attention. To my surprise I painted the lenses very quickly. The rest of the job was going to take more care and attention as I’d decided to use true metallics (TMM) on this mini. I’m woefully out of practice with TMM on account of my on-going love affair with non-metallic metals (NMM). Scalecolour have come to my rescue once again with their metallic paints. The word on these has been very good and they seem to live up to their reputation for ease of use and a great metallic finish. 

Once the face was done I could move on and paint the shirt. I’d decided on a simple white shirt but wanted it to look very dirty. Mole’s excavations would definitely leave a literal mark on his clothing. A combination of Petroleum Grey, Rakarth Flesh and Ivory gave me a pleasingly dirty grey/white but the colour was a bit flat and uninteresting on it’s own. Some subtle touches with GW washes livened up the colour just enough and some less subtle Gryphone Sepia in the armpits added appropriately unpleasant sweat stains! 

With the shirt now ‘weathered’ It seemed like a good time to begin adding dirt to Mole’s trousers. I mixed brown pigment powders into a stiff paste with Valleyo matt varnish. This mix was carefully dabbed onto his shoes and the bottom of his trouser legs. I find it best to build up effects like this a little at a time. You can always add more, if you need to, but add too much and you’re in trouble! I’m very pleased with how the dirt effect has turned out and I may add a little more dirt to mole’s clothing later on. But first I’ll paint the drill so that I can balance out the dirt effects over the entire mini. 

The shoulder brace & gauntlet for mole’s drill were the first significant areas of metallic I had to tackle. It probably makes things a little easier that I want a dirty and greasy look to all of the metallic areas on Mole. That said I had to proceed with caution as I was on a fairly steep learning curve. 

I picked Peridot Alchemy from scalecolour as a base colour and worked over this with a series of glazes to shade and dirty it down. I quickly realised that a mix of dilute paints and washes was more effective than washes alone. Washes made the shadows very matt which looked bad against the metallic. It also failed to look suitably greasy. This was particularly important to me as the business end of the drill will be dirtied down with pigments to give a dustier/earthier look. 

I’ve avoided inks for years. Back in the mid eighties some of my minis were displayed in a shop window. After just three days all of the ink (Windsor & Newton) had been bleached away. I lost all the shading from the best part of my entire collection! I’ve finally swallowed my fears and ordered a set of inks. This will give me more options with the level of gloss available in my glazes and I’m really looking forward to experimenting with them!

Infamy's Mole - Part 2

Real life has its way of sticking a spanner into the works of even the best-laid plans and so it has proved with my painting schedule! My parents are moving home! This is fantastic news but after having lived all their lives in the same village and almost 50 years in the same house it’s a very big deal for them! All those weekends I thought I had free for ‘project Mole’ are suddenly looking very full with project ‘moving Mum & Dad’. 

I’ll carry on as best I can with Mole but the Salute deadline has to come second in my list of priorities. There are some ‘interesting times’ ahead for the Soper clan.

Trouser Troubles!

What could be simpler than painting a pair of brown trousers? Well apparently just about anything as I’ve really struggled to achieve a satisfying result on the offending garment! 

On reflection a combination of factors have contributed to my trouser troubles. I started the week in a very low mood and that rarely makes for a good painting experience. Also, I feel that my initial colour choices were not successful and, although they seemed right at the onset, they really didn’t work well in combination. After a couple of evenings, struggling to no good effect, it was time to reconsider my approach. 

My choice of a highlight colour seemed to be the chief culprit. Once on the mini it had a warm yellow/gold tone, but that didn’t work with the (comparatively) cooler base and shade colours. A brief trial with Vallejo ivory quickly yielded a more pleasing result. Feeling confident about my basic palette helped matters, but I decided that still more was needed because, when all is said and done, a pair of plain brown trousers lacks a certain something in terms of visual interest on a mini. Even worse, I’d decided to dirty Mole up with a lot of mud and dirt from his excavations and brown mud on those brown trousers gave me another reason to rethink my approach! 

I was ignoring the obvious! Mole has stripes sculpted onto his trousers and all I had to do to inject some interest was paint them as stripes. With that decision made I took the plunge and went for a red stripe (Scalecolour Red Leather) on the now light brown/cream trousers. That’s a lot more dramatic than I’d initially intended for this mini. However, the desaturated palette helps avoid too much colour contrast and somehow the whole thing looks a bit more steam punk to me with stripes. 

I’ve still got quite a struggle on my hands with this mini. This must be the most desaturated colour palette I’ve ever tried to work with, and it really goes against all my instincts. That said I’m feeling happier with the results I’m getting now, so I just need to have the courage of my convictions and see where they take me!