Exalted: Chejop Kejak Day One

Or as I like to call him Porkchop Kojak. Back in 04 I painted him and about 20 other Exalted minis for demo games at Gen Con....in a period of three months. That's pretty rapid fire for me to say the least. And while I did get paid for this large commission, I just never really liked the way the paintjobs turned out. I wasn't being overly perfectionist about it...I didn't get to lavish each model with the love and attention I usually give all my works. No real shading or blending...almost cartoony and cell-shaded when I think about it.

See for yourself, he's the one on the left. Just shitty, shitty, shitty. And after about 7 years of use and abuse around the office, I figured he and his companions were due for a face lift....or a complete strip down to the metal and start all over again.
Behold, the improved Chejop. He's maybe about 20 % done, but he is already head and shoulders above the old one. For starters, I removed his molded on base. Nothing wrong with the old one...it just sucked for gaming...didn't really keep the mini upright. So he'll be getting a nice 30mm lipped base with gravel and flock. Yeah...sort of going with the "popular" base, but honestly they look cool and give a ton of support.
You'll also notice, I based white...for the first time in at least 10 years. Still adding some "fake" shadow in in some areas with diluted black, but still...it's over white this time. I also stuck with a blue-gray to white color scheme. Still haven't decided yet if I am doing the NMM thing with him yet...probably not as I have used the color I use for steel on part of his tunic.

I'm hoping to be 50% along on the next photo.

One down...four to go....

Added the flock to his base and painted all the details this afternoon. Pretty happy with this guy. I don't think he'd rate me over a 7 on CMoN....but still I think he turned out pretty good.

I'm gonna do up a fancier photoshoot for him and his buddies once I finish the entire commission....never set up for just 1....although I did make an exception for Zombie Hitler....

little by little

Been caught up in workingon freelance and yard work over the last few weeks and had no time to paint. I did manage to get a little time today and so I present photos!

First up is the Adeptus Arbit which I've been working on for what seems like forever....and I still have 4 more to go. Today I made time to paint on the metallics. Boltgun Metal base coat with a Dark Burnt Umber wash to shade. I then built back up the basecoat on the raised areas and then highlighted with Chainmail. I added another highlight by mixing some Pearl White into the Chainmail....but only on the very tops of the metal surface. I also painted the bolter shells gold which I intend to highlight with a small amount of chainmail and sort of go for a brass appearance.

All that is left to do now is to go back in and clean up some of the areas where I wasn't to careful with the metallics, add some flock, and seal. Still he has taken a long time.

Next up is "Brains" from Impact's Elfball line. He's a little further along now as I painted the metal areas on his shoulder and elbow pad. All that is left to finish him up is to finish his feet and maybe add some weathering and damage to his shoulder pad...and maybe some dirt and blood around the bottoms of his trousers.

And lastly is the Scion of Illian for Warzone. Why am I painting this guy... he is more or less something I picked up out of my Warzone stuff on a day when I wanted to paint, but didn't feel like painting anything I had on the table. I do that sometimes....

But he is the second miniature in my "Update Warzone color schemes and paintjobs so they don't look so 90's" project. Gone are the days of the bright oranges and reds my friend....and welcome to my desaturated semi military color palette. My hope is that all the "good guy" models will look more serious and brooding...and the "bad guy" models will look sinister and foreboding.

Just a lazy dog dangling Sunday evening....

Some more work on the Arbite....namely finishing up the reds and shanding his right arm and left leg.

Oh, and a little preview of something that I'm painting up for my wife....a Blood Angel Assault Sgt.

More Adeptus Arbite progress....

Here are some more in progress shots...although getting pretty close to the end. I won't be doing any sort of rust or weathering effects.... this is a commission piece and the "commissioner" prefers the old school Mike McVey/Tim Prow GW style from the 90s...a style I love quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love to do the realistic styled rust and decay on my models, but after a while it gets old and everyone and their mom is doing it now.

Again, the base color for the yellow areas was made by mixing some Mecharius Orange with Iyanden Darksun. From there I added small amounts of Iyanden Darksun and Bleached Bone. The highlight is pure Bleached Bone but very thinned down. The Heavy Bolter was basecoated with pure Mechanicus Red and was then built up with Blood Red. During the layering of the Red I glazed it with Dark Burnt Umber from Liquitex (it's loaded with pigment and you can thin it way down without seeing pigment grains). I finally edged the Storm Bolter with Apple Barrel Red...and I added a tiny bit of Gehenna Orange from the Warzone paint lines (not from any set in particular...this was when they just had the two giant sets of paint). The pants were basecoated with Adeptus Battlegrey mixed with Chaos Black. I then did a heavy wash of Chaos Black in the recesses of the pants...I was going for a "washed out" black for the cloth rather than full on black. Why? With all that black armor, it just needed something to make it stand out as cloth rather than Ceramite.

My only real "professional" mini painting gigs....

These are some of the ones I was commissioned by the manufacturer to paint up. I think I did these back in 2000 for Holistic Design's Noble Armada space miniature game. Fun job that allowed me to paint little non humanoid things for once.

Progress Report

Okay...if that first blast of profanity didn't chase you off then I invite you to check out some in progress shots of my two main projects at the moment.

This handsome bastard to the left here is the Arbite I've been working on for the last couple of days (technically, about two weeks but since I have only a couple hours a night to paint...it's only been a few days). I've been going in and lining out the highlights on the black plates and I'll begin shading the cloth portions of his uniform shortly.

I also went back in and did a light glaze of Saffron Sunset to tone back the edges of pure Bleached Bone. I am not a fan of really jarring highlights or "extreme highlighting". I try to go for a warm glow type look to objects rather than the HERE IS MY HIGHLIGHT DAMMIT. One of the reasons I like Steve Dean's work so much.

The next guy up is Brains from Impact Miniatures...see keeping to my resolutions. I went with my classic zombie approach....Reaper's Undead Flesh Triad along with a strong Red somewhere on the model. Probably my love of the Vampire Counts creeping out there, but Red looks so good next to the Undead Flesh Triad. The eyes are Necrotite Green mixed with a little white to shade them up to glowing bright green. I then glazed the areas around the eyes with Necrotite Green to get the glow effect. His pants are Adeptus Battle Grey which I haven't even begun to shade yet...but hopefully I'll do that today.

And yes, he is on a teeny little base.

I'm probably going to add him to my Undead Team Roster as just a plain zombie...I really don't feel like trying to come up with a homebrew rule about undead halflings...or undead treemen. Just going the simple proxy route. But with these guys, my pool of undead players just hit about 40ish...and only one painted and one halfway painted....long way to go.

And in other news:
Tim defeated the Snowpocalypse with a box of Irish Whiskey.