My Little Vampires -- Been a while.

[Tawg]

I'm starting this as my Plog, I'mma post maybe two more times before I edit things;

I like to make organized threads with a post about direction and stuff like that, all the frills (It comes from being part of other such community based forums).

I'mma start a collection of things I find helpful, or like to read/watch

~ Helpful Tutorials ~
Note: Not claiming these tutorials as mine, simply ones I appreciate.

Color Guides

Helpful Guide for Hard to Use Colors

Non-Metalic Metals

Tutorial Guide for a Empire Greatswordsmen​

A slightly different take on NMM​

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Current project(s):
______________________________​

Goritsi Starter Box
6x Skirmishers
2x Alpha
12x War Dancers
2x Dance Masters
1x Scourge Hound
1x Shieldbreaker

Starts here;

Currently .5 Days progress put in over 1 Days.

Current Status: On Shieldbreaker, Primed, Starting Paint.

______________________________

Finished Projects:

______________________________

Molly the Master Necromancer​

Starts here;​

Ends here;
Completed over 8 Days progress put in over 380 Days.

______________________________

Bella, Hunger Sated​

Starts and ends here;​

Completed over 5-8 Hours progress put in over 2 Days.​

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Another Open post for editing; and that should be good I think

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

I'll spruce things up later, but at any rate for the first entry on my illustrious Plog, I have some work I just put in on this month's competition. I bought the 'Molly Squidpiddgy' from Wyrd Mini's (Malifaux) just a few days ago, she's got a cute morbid sense to her.

Anyhow, she is also fairly plain, being in a straight down dress, most of her excitement'll have to come from the actual paint job (Gods hope I don't fail). However, since I usually just think about cool things, and nearly never put them into practice, I decided to do a little jazzing up for her base, just something simple.

That middle picture is kinda poor; At any rate, if you can't put the scene together, she'll be standing on the back of that skeleton, as he is bending to her will to rise. Nothing terribly complicated.

Used the 'Fresh Meat' arm from the ghouls for the body, and just added on normal skeleton arms to make him fit better.

I had tried to pin her on there, but that mostly is failure; The drill bit I borrowed from a friend is a bit jank, and doesn't dig into the metal well, plus it's a bit wobbly and after making two poor holes in the back of the skeleton I decided to just scrap that idea and hope for the best =/ I'd like for her to be pinned though, since she's only connected at her two, very tiny, feet.. but I'll need to find a better tool to do it.

 

[Dark Rose]

RE: My Little Vampires

Actually... I have Molly too, only she's looking like a shoo in to join my Zombie girls in my Mordheim band instead of going vampire...

If the pinning is a problem, you could just slice off her feet even with the bottom of her dress and mount her that way. The slight drop in height will make her look more like a young girl, and the missing feet will be completely unnoticeable.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

That might be a good idea, I'll have to see, if or when I get a better pinning.. drill.. thingy.

I'm doing her up for the Vampire challenge this month but, and don't tell anyone, I'd probably play her as a Master of the Dead Necro (She's cradling a skull for heavens sake!).

Also, way better news, my friend just happened to have some embossed styrene laying around that is a bit better than the stuff I got originally for making my zombie units bases! I'm pretty stoked about that, so I'll have to lay out the bases soon and begin dolling them up


I am just a little sad that, I feel the majority of my models are going to end up being characters, only because I will most likely not ever be able to use them all at once :ghost: Although there have been some random models I thought about putting into just.. zombie units as fillers or just to spice them up a bit.

Also after playing with my friends Mantic zombies, I am far more impressed with them than I thought I was, and I kinda want/prefer them over normal zombies :zombie: I just hate the bases they come on being completely square (Just.. stupid OCD), but I feel like I could cut the circle off and glue them on normal bases as well as typical zombies, right? I might end up painting my current zombies and selling them off or some such (If people were to want to buy someone I painted lol).

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Not terribly much progress today, put the skeleton on the base and washed up Molly before I prime them, maybe tomorrow morning if I'm quick about it.

Also, got my mini's from Studio McVey (Link), pretty damn sexy. I've actually never had anything made in any resin yet, so that was interesting, cleaned up their mold lines and flash, and washed them off as well. There are a few very small defects I might have to use green-stuff to fix however fairly high quality, very nice models. I got the Ar-Fienel second casting and the Azumi; Don't particularly have any brilliant plans to convert them or anything, just thought they were extraordinary sculpts (Those paint jobs aren't hard on the eyes either, Yeeeesh). I might just base the Azumi on 20mm and call her a 'Counts as' Vampire when I feel like it, although I don't have a oriental themed VC army... yet. Ar-Fienel on the other hand is most likely just getting painted for the fun of it, although I was messing with the idea of making the log she's on detatchable so I could change it between the resin display base and a 20mm gaming base and maybe use her in a Wood Elves army.. not that I would ever get one anytime soon :ghost:

At any rate, pretty slow for a day, still haven't seen the avengers AAANNND I have to work for the next three days straight after getting such beautiful models :zombie:

Oh, and I am fairly sure I found a mini to work for the Naughty list, should be here by next week.

Also, Lilly you are to blame for me listening to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu now, way to go, jerk.

 

[Daoshi]

RE: My Little Vampires

Also, Lilly you are to blame for me listening to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu now, way to go, jerk.

Bahahahah :rofl2:

Oh well, here is something that should cheer you up:

The greatest collection of adorable and stunning Japanese girls in lingerie singing the cutest pop song ever

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkHlnWFnA0c&list=AL94UKMTqg-9CrZ-P_rw1paPmSQwmrVBv0&index=1&feature=plcp[/video]

Hooray for your Plog !!!!

 

[robtion]

RE: My Little Vampires

Really looking forward to seeing how Molly turns out as it's a great looking miniature. I like the base ideas too, you have my vote so far.

Avengers is really good (if you enjoyed Iron Man, Thor, Capt. America). Some great effect, action, and lots of funny one liners (Joss Whedon directed and wrote it). The Hulk is surprisingly well done and likeable too.

 

[Santawraith]

RE: My Little Vampires

Looking forward too seeing her done and in the contest. great start of a plog btw

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Well I started painting the base; The skeleton on the base is from the Ghoul's sprue, and it has a might bit of 'Decaying' flesh left on it, which is only unfortunate in that it's the side facing forward. I thought I wanted more skeleton showing? Although it might be cool, her standing on what appears to be mostly a man, then turning it and every other direction he's clearly dead and gone :skull:

The other thought that occurred to me after I put it together, that I wish I had thought of before is that, with her cradling the skull, it may have been a cool 'Scene'/'look' to cut the head off the skeleton rising up, and if it wasn't too hard to put the scene together (As in, didn't confuse the on-looker), then it'd look like she was cradling the skull of the skeleton she was raising, in some morbid loving fashion! Ah well, perhaps another time.

Anyways the base is mostly base coated, so I'll probably be able to finish it by tomorrow with some work put in, and have a few pictures up.

But to start Molly I may need to pick up some more colours, since I mostly have neutral tones and not very many colour options for her dress/frills. Any input on a good colour choice we'd like to see? I'm right around dark blue maybe, or perhaps a more pastel/girly colour? Not sure.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Also, Lilly you are to blame for me listening to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu now, way to go, jerk.

Bahahahah :rofl2:

Oh well, here is something that should cheer you up:

The greatest collection of adorable and stunning Japanese girls in lingerie singing the cutest pop song ever

[Boners]

Hooray for your Plog !!!!

.. Now if you'll excuse me.. I need to change my pants

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Well, today was a bit more useful towards painting Molly up; I continued to paint up the base, and did a bit of base coats on Molly herself. I'm still trying to determine the exact colours I'm going for, I need to make sure I don't strike an off kilter palette of fail. Except that I probably already have gotten to that point :konrad: At any rate, the base itself is almost done being painted, so I'll post up some pictures tomorrow, I should be able to finish it by then, maybe..

I didn't get much painting done on the other two late-work days, but I did receive a handful of new models, which I cleaned the flash off and gave a quick bath so they should be ready to prime (After assembly of course). I was surprised to find out that one of the models I got was a female, I couldn't tell from the picture, but she definitely has some bewbz (Bonus!), although the model goes together a bit poorly. She'll make a cool fighty-Vamp. The other one is a chick with a fairly 'Chaos-y' looking staff (A little tentacled monster thing with one eye in the center of it?), but I am fairly happy with both those models (They were like 8$ together, yes please). As well I got my wicked awesome Vamp for the Christmas in July :Vampire1: I'll have a few assembled pictures up after I get the trio all assembled.

I feel like I could really use investing in a nice pin-drill-thingy. Does anyone have any suggestions? I only really know about the one from GW, I guess I could go find anything else, but knowing the Gage (The size of the hole, that's what it's called right?) and exactly what I need to buy might be beyond me. My friend also has the GW one, and it is a little broken; However I can't tell if the quality was poor, or my friend abused it, so yeah..

Anyways time to pass out now, I'll try to get some pictures up of the base (Finished) tomorrow, maybe even if I don't finish, I just want to show the final product since it's so close :zombie:

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Well, I got up early today, around 1 or 2 PM and then I managed to.. waste the better part of the day in bed, probably till a good 7 or 8; Not actually sure how I did that, but at any rate, after eating dinner, I found my lack of motivation washed away by the heroics of John McClain, so I finally set about taking up the brush around.. midnight.

I still need to work on it, but here is what I have been working on for the past few days:











So, I think I might hate Photobucket! If anyone has suggestions of what they use, please, I'm all ears. Also I used thumbnailed links to try and not flood the page with images, but if people would prefer I can drop the linked image and just use the full size ones (I wasn't sure if it was too large also, so maybe?).

But logistics of posting pictures aside, that's the base for my vampire/necro Molly! The skeleton is mostly done, I need to paint up his left eye a blank white (The fleshy one) and finish making his right eye Glow blue. So far I only have the paint inside the socket but, should it extend a bit outside the socket? I'm thinking it needs to, or I have a feeling it won't show too well. Also the sword is an attrocious failure of NMM. Or at least me painting greys on the sword. I need to go read a few tutorials again and.. try to fix it, or start over or something. The ribbon on the Hilt of the sword doesn't have a colour quite yet, since I'm not set on a colour for Molly's dress, so I wanna make sure I am not making too much random colour on the finished piece. The Tomb-stone is suppose to look like the letters on it are a-glow (Hopefully) and if I can manage, I'll be putting some glow-effect on the back of the model facing the tomb-stone. I don't know if it really looks that great at the moment though. I feel like there should be more.. light blue 'Basking' the stone between the letters, but I haven't done anything yet because I don't have the right light-to-mid colour blue (Mostly have dark blues). But yea..

Also, here is Molly; Nothing much done, I prefer grey-stoney looking skin I guess. Or at least I stay away from any real-fleshy tones. Maybe I should re-consider, but I'll have to think about it. Also her skull in her arms will have (Again hopefully) glowing eye sockets. So not much to that at the moment.

And yea, that's pretty much where I'm at right now, tomorrow is a short day, so maybe after work I'll put a bit more concerted effort into her.

 

[Brahm Tazoul]

RE: My Little Vampires

What's wrong with Photobucket? Perhaps I'm just tired & didn't follow what the issue was...

gravestone & deddude look great btw!

Brahm

 

[robtion]

RE: My Little Vampires

Yes! Photobucket is a pain :swear:

The base is looking very nice. I also prefer greys, blues, and whites for skin tone on vamps. :Vampire1: Look forward to seeing Molly when a bit further along.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

What's wrong with Photobucket? Perhaps I'm just tired & didn't follow what the issue was...

gravestone & deddude look great btw!

Brahm

It runs a slow interface that doesn't respond on my computer all the time, and it just lags up =/ It's just nasty, not clean and nice.

That reminds me, looking at this again; That dead guy has hair I need to paint doesn't he?

 

[Brahm Tazoul]

RE: My Little Vampires

Yup, although you do have some brown there; a white or off-white drybrush should do you well.....

And as for photobucket; yeah, its slow, but so is youtube (I assume we're talking about upload-speeds). If there's something better, I'm always game to try it; I'm just happy PB works!

Brahm

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

And as for photobucket; yeah, its slow, but so is youtube (I assume we're talking about upload-speeds). If there's something better, I'm always game to try it; I'm just happy PB works!

Brahm

Nah, uploads are quick, it's trying to get the links and everything with the site, the flash interface doesn't always load up when I hover over a picture, and it literally slows things down. It could just be that I have an out-dated computer or Firefox or what ever, but it is still pretty stupid. Basically they just have too many bells and whistles I wish they'd drop for more functionality.

 

[Santawraith]

RE: My Little Vampires

I have the same trouble Tawg with photobucket I use photobucket and or wordpress for my photo's as I have a daily blog on painting.

As for the little lady she is looking good.

But her base wow, I really need to practice nmm some more I loving the way the base is acting like a diorama Do more I want to see more more more more.

I am sorry it is like a craving to see what comes next. I will go bite someone now.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

So instead of working hard and making progress on anything.. I did NOTHING for the past two days! Hoo-rah!

Nah, actually I did spend quite a bit of time looking for/at tutorials for various techniques, NMM especially, though also one or two about OSL.

It's rather a depressing thing though, that most of the tutorials seem to give me about as much information as walking in: Metal is shiny, it reflects stuff, sky and ground/horizon lines, the various bits that go into the logistics of it.. it all rather seems elementary. Or at least not horribly counter intuitive. It's all a really.. touchy-feely sort of business, just getting a feel for, and understanding, experiencing if you will, the sense/look of metals. Certainly they sometimes point out more specific things like their specific choice of colours, or more in depth colour theory things that people might know less about (Saturation of colour, AKA hues, brightness, mixing colours you may not have thought of or such), but they primarily leave me feeling like I'm more or less stupid for not being able to apply these simply concepts more readily. Obviously practice is a must, but let's just skip that part (I'm joking), it just pains me to be going through things and feeling so haphazard.

Keeping a/some metal object(s) around while painting seems like a good idea, for quick reference of lighting and shine, and observing what you can in the world around you is always a good idea; I watch very closely the metalic symbols of cars and bumpers, while driving around daily to try and grasp better the different curvatures and reflections. I do feel however that they don't quite give me the sense of what a sword, or more flat object presents, I should put forth effort to observe knives or such more often.

I did find today however a video tutorial posted on CMON that I found extremely helpful. This man goes by ObsidianPainting (Link is to his YouTube) and I watched nearly half an hour of his video on how he painted NMM on his Sanguinor's winged jetpack. Part 1 (9-10 minutes) and Part 2 (18-19 minutes) for your convenience. Pretty damned useful, especially since he SHOWS his technique and painting so well... It's just a refreshing exercise to watch someone to paint, a large portion of the process to get a feel for how it happens and everything. Plus he seems like a pretty awesome guy.

Ironically I did not find the tutorials I was looking for, which was painting Ivory/Cream coloured robes (Or dress), which I think is how I'll be doing Molly, although possibly not since I've heard it's pretty hard, and honestly, I do not paint. (I have maybe 25 models under my belt, with about 20 of them being from well over 5 years ago? and Horrid I might add) I'll see if I can find the WD I have that talks about that colouring on a Dark Angels bike, I think a friend has it.

Anyways, no real progress, but I wouldn't say no effort. I can't say I've really learned anything until I end up applying it for real, but hopefully I'll end up doing something nice and not have wasted this time.

:ghost:

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

So, I got my hands on the WD that talks about Creme/Ivory coloured robes/cloth, and I am missing one colour before I am able to jump right into painting Molly's dress (The Snakebite Leather, or what ever it is now, red-ish brown) so I guess it won't be until tomorrow that I really start to make progress on that; I'm kinda excited though, hopefully she turns out nice. I like the idea of her dress being that Ivory colour, very similar to bone, along with the fact that she's standing on the skeleton, it will be a very strong colour on the model. I need to pick a very complimentary (Or contrasting?) colour to fill in her frilly parts of her dress, and possibly her long elegant gloves she's wearing. There will also be the slight blue-splash from the OSL of the tombstone and Skeleton/Skull's eyes cast on her, so I would do well to remember that in this endeavor as well.

HOWEVER, despite my overall lack of progress on her, I did just doll up the bases on my 3 Crypt Horrors:

The tombstone set I purchased is certainly coming in handy. I especially like that it goes well with his action-y run pose, looking like he's stepping over the broken tombstone. Added sand as well, with a few larger rocks so the off center Horrors wouldn't look too plain. I am weary of over-cluttering things though; I like the variation and excitement of nice bases, but I also rather enjoy simplicity and would not like to see things get too out of hand, especially when things appear cluttered or poorly composed. I actually took quite some time deciding whether to put the tombstone the way I ended up, or more across the front, to help keep the balance of symmetry not so asymmetrical. But I liked it better when he was stepping over the still standing part of the stone, and I think that it is not going to unbalance things visually too much. This stone will however just be a normal non-glowing stone :ghost:

Anyways, I'm pretty much just waiting for them to dry a little bit before I possibly add another layer of glue to help seal the sand down, and maybe add a little bit more in places, I think maybe some on the surface of the stone that is fallen.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

I've got good news and bad news aplenty!

I started painting Molly's dress, not much done though since the night I started I quickly abandoned my resolve because MISQUITOES WERE TRYING TO DRIVE ME INSANE!!!

*Ahem*, I have unfortunately not had time/took time to continue since, due to my fear of their interferance, though I may end up going to my FLGS to try and get some work done there..

But the good news! The good news is my computer exploded! Waaait, no no, that was bad news, or good Arrggee! Well, I have no computer to distract me now, (My mother's laptop for posting right now, not a fan of lap-tops) so I have more time to paint! But it's terrible to have a broken computer, and literally the day after I gave in a bought Diablo 3.. :Vampire1: Pretty trash, although I am not obsessed with D3 so I am making well and fine without it.. but my friends are going to be so over it by the time I actually jump in, lol it's going to be terri-bad (Or I'll just be horribly behind and remedial).

Wait, if that's good news, what is the bad news? Well I guess that was bad, but other bad news, I worked a 9PM to 6AM shift tonight, baking bread all night to supply a horrendous sale of subs for 1$ today (We're expected to sell over 1440.. nearly more than one and a half thousand, subs today, thank god I got out of that!) However it ended up actually being quite a bit of work, and while I brought molly up to the store in hopes to paint in down time while bread was baking, turns out I had none, ah well, tomorrow.. tomorrow..

Also my Crypt Horrors are indefinately on hold until I force myself to buy Liquid Green Stuff to fill the extremely minor, but all the still noticable cracks/lines between where the pieces fit together. I want so badly to prime them and get on that, but I know I'll kill myself if such an obvious error is pressent. I also haven't started working on my zombies base/diorama type thing yet, and I should really put some work in on that..

But I have the day off, since I worked all night, so round about 3 or 4 PM when I wake up, I'll set about getting on those things.. head up to FLGS, hopefully get green stuff and apply it, and get molly's dress done (Btw, she is looking great, thanks for asking).. I'm really hopping to make her a 'Wow' stand-out job, even with my lack of practice or over all skill.. I just talk such big talk with my friend (I always tell him he should push to do better, to strive for better effects and not think other painters do things he just can't) so if this ends up lack luster I will really be hurting, mostly in my pride :ghost:

At anyrate, justa little update, with my exploded computer, lack of making time, and no progress.. Hopefully I can finish Molly in the next two days though, since I should have them off from work, and FLGS will be open most of the time I'm awake

Night :grave: (Lol, I like how I sleep durring the day, so gothic Vampire of me)

 

[Santawraith]

RE: My Little Vampires

Love the crypt horror's is the middle one having extra spiny bit's?

hehe glad to see I am not the only one who takes things to work, sorry to hear about the explosion. But there is some good things in the end so it seems keep that chin up.

 

[Tawg]

RE: My Little Vampires

Thread-o-mancy Powers activate!

Except it's my thread, and I am actually adding to it after a terribly long hiatus. I won't lie it's been a while, my computer broke, and for a while I didn't have one available for quite some time there. In addition, it was the middle of summer back when I dropped the plog, and I had given up painting due to lack of dedicated space (I was doing it on my mothers desk), the heat killing me and worst of all.. Mosquitoes. I find it impossible to focus with their buzzing anywhere near me, and when you're the only one awake at 12-4 AM in a house, sweating in the heat.. they all find you. So that happened, and I waned in interest for the hot season, and then fall came, and winter, and my WHFB days saw a previously unknown back shelf as both cold derailed my interest as well as my painting table being in the corner, terribly mistreated, inaccessible and used as a general "Junk pile" table. But as winter started to yield to the warm comfortable 40°F weather of spring, I somehow got it in my mind that I rather much wanted my painting table back! So I made my move, cleaning up my awfully dusty room (I swear it collects dust three times faster than anyone else's room :zombie: ), and finding places to put all the junk that had piled up on my trusty table. Then I had to flip my current set up for my computer desk basically 180°, such to free my paint table from being an inaccessible spacer between the wall and desk, and rather a table in the center of my room.

But before I could manage to turn the whole thing, I had to clear off my pile of change from nearly the whole year.. and since I had called a friend over to help me move the desk, I decided that it was a good idea to just get rid of it for the sake of simplicity. In doing so, I ended up cashing in nearly 200$ worth of change, and being that I was in the hobby mood and just found a veritable wealth hidden under my nose, me and my friend decided it would be best to do what? Buy an entire new army with the change money. So to the hobby shop we went and got together the epic 160$ army box for Empire (With Franz & The new chariot model, and a bit of core/heroes); It was some sorta limited edition army box, threw in an Army book and a Wizard kit, and BAM! New Empire army.

Excellent plan that was, right-o. They are going fairly well actually, still in the process of constructing them, thinking about trying to magnetize the "Gunner/xBow" men's arms such that I can WYSiWYG them either way. The knights are together, and the wizards as well as the Rocket Volley gun (Which I picked purely on the premise that even I, as a terrible player, could tell was much less powerful). Hardly anything is started painting, but I am sure once I have a bit up and running I'll put it in this here Plog. I've pretty much resigned myself to using Metallic paints on them (Since Empire do so love metal on everything), so that army will probably be finished first just because I'm not being retarded trying to NMM the whole thing.

And that's about where I stand! I started Magnetizing my TG, as per wonderful Rob's guide here, on his blog. Still a bit to go on that, and I need to sketch up a bit of a more detailed plan for the base work, but there will be a 20mm base indent carved into it with an Empire casualty modeled as a death of the TG, but also allowing me to more easily represent a SGK riding it without having to have a dedicated model (Becuase honestly that would be a little silly IMO).

Oh, and of course, I've actually finished a piece for once! I'll tell you all about her in the next post, but I feel this is a long enough blurb about my situation that I'd rather not hide the model at the end