Inquisitorial Henchman (conversion)

It has been a bit quiet here lately and I'm the one to blame for that. You see I took up mountain biking (again) after a break that lasted for, well, some years. Instead of spending my time trying to perfect my blends and highlights I was busy trying to avoid branches, rocks and other assorted forest features that tend to jump on you out of nowhere. Obviously I'll get back to painting minis when the novelty of biking has worn off and I'll make sure to divide my time between my hobbies.

In the meantime I thought I should show you a mini I painted some time ago. I'm quite fond of this mini as it's one of those simple conversions that less-than-adept converters like me enjoy. The idea was to take the WFB priest and convert it to a 40k inquisitorial henchman carying his master's weapon. Conversion work was kept to a minimum thanks to FW brass etch inquisitorial symbols. This mini has a lot of metal surfaces which are always a joy to paint (if you haven't figured it out yet I love painting mettalics). I tried a variety of glazes to represent wear, dirt and corrossion. I guess that's al for now. I hope you enjoy it. I'd like to hear your comments.

Here's the CoolMiniOrNot link in case you want to vote it.

Dwarf Slayer - Finished

This mini is officially finished now! I decided not to do any blood effects as I tested them on a goblin mini and found them overpowering. I'll just leave this mini as it is and move on to other projects. I took some final photos of the mini which you can see here.

Cool Mini Or Not link

Dwarf Slayer - metalics recipe

I was asked on the Avatars of War forum to write a recipe for the metalics on my Dwarf Slayer so I thought I should also post it here.

It may look complicated but actually it's quite simple. I just use the whole line of GW's metallics, starting with the darkest and moving to the brightest, with some washes and glazes thrown in for good measure.

Before I move on to the tutorial itself, I'll post again some pics of the finished mini so you can have an idea of how the end result looks like:

For "silvery" metallics the recipe is:
- Boltgun Metal (basecoat)
- Chainmail (highlight)
- Wash with a 3:3:1 mix of Devlan Mud : Babad Black : Leviathan Purple
- Chainmail (highlight)
- Mithril Silver (highlight)

Golden metallics are a bit more complicated:
- Tin Bitz : Dwarf Bronze 1:1 (basecoat which acts as first shading layer)
- Dwarf Bronze (basecoat - leaving the previous colour in the recesses)
- Shining Gold (highlight)
- Wash with a 1:1 mix of Devlan Mud : Ogryn Flesh
- Shining Gold (highlight)
- Burnished Gold (highlight)
- Final highlight with a 1:1 mix of Burnished Gold : Mithril Silver

Something important to keep in mind when highlighting metallics is how thin your paint is. For edge highlighting I thin metallics as I would thin "normal" colours. For larger or curved surfaces like axe hilts or the flat part of the blade I use heavily diluted colour with a consistency between that of the colour I use in highlighting and that of a glaze. You could also combine the two methods. One example could be painting a harsh highlight on an axe hilt and then going over it with the same highlight colour but more diluted in order to better blend the highlight.

After the metallics are painted using these recipes I apply a series of glazes. I'm not very specific about it so what I do is I have in front of me a wet palette with heavily thinned Sepia, Blue, Purple, Green, Flesh and Brown washes. I apply these glazes randomly, in an attempt to break up the "flatness" of the metallics. Some glazes are brushed on flat surfaces, others are used in recesses as very diluted washes and some are even applied as minute drops (keep in mind that this should be attempted only with very diluted glazes).

It's good to have a general idea of what glazes are suitable for each metalic colour.
- Golden metallics often have a greenish hue, especially in recesses so one can use green glazes very effectively. Purple, brown and reddish glazes (like Ogyn Flesh) can be used more sparingly.
- Silvery metallics and especially polished steel can benefit from blue and purple glazes. Sepia, brown and green glazes can be used to portray weathered and slightly corroded metal.

I hope you'll find this tutorial helpfull. Don't be afraid to try it out. It's actually simpler than it sounds and as long as you keep your glazes thin it's relatively "disaster-proof".

Dwarf Slayer - varnished!

Finaly this mini is essentially finished. I'm quite pleased with the overal result and I guess at this point I can call it a day and move on to another project. I may add some snow on the base and I'll also add some blood effects using this technique from the B&C Librarium.

Dwarf Slayer - almost finished

Finaly this project is nearing completion. Actually the mini is now finished except for varnishing, flock and some blood that will be added after varnishing. On top of that, I managed to enter it on an online painting competition at my local gaming store's forum mere hours before the deadline. I guess I have every reason to be a happy painter now! Hope you enjoy the pics.

Dwarf slayer - yet another update

Seems I'm on a painting spree lately. I'm very happy about that since I usually paint at the pace of a turtle... Anyway I managed to finish the severed orc head today. With only the gems, a pouch and the base remaining I can almost see the light at the end of this project!

Dwarf Slayer - update

I managed to do some more work on the dwarf. Now the metalics are mostly finished except from maybe some last minute glazes or some definition of highlights and shadows. Painting the metalics was prety straightforward using washes and layers plus a lot of glazes to break up the uniformity of the colours.

Avatars of War Dwarf Slayer

This mini has quite some history. It was started some months ago when I was studying in the UK. It was an attempt at painting hair and skin to a good level, something I had never done before. It was enjoyable but very demanding at the same time as I tried to paint it to the best of my ability. Therefore I had to set it asside for a long time since my studies were taking up too much time and energy. One week ago I placed it back on my paint station hoping that seing it sitting there all alone I'll fell sorry about it and give it some attention. Indeed today I couldn't stand seing it sitting there and staring at me so I did some work, finishing his boots and the loincloth. Ahhh, I feel so much better now.  : )

I hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll try to pick up the pace and hopefully you'll have an update soon. One last thing I should mention is that for this paintjob I've been inspired by this very comprehensive tutorial by Mousekiller. It's a great read if you plan on painting this mini or in fact any dwarf slayer mini.