Reaper Miniatures: Winter painting contest 2006

[morsla]

I finally managed it! After a few final placings, and one first-place in the Summer event, I won the Best On Show prize for the winter contest.

I put in two entries this round. The "Eldritch Demon" was a Cthulhu-without-the-trademark model, and won Best Large Figure. It's a big green beastie with lots of tentacles, and leathery wings... fun to paint, as I shaded the green with brown, purple, red, blue and fleshy pink to add some depth to an otherwise monochromatic figure.

I also entered my first diorama in a painting contest, using two figures that I won in the Summer event. This won the diorama category, and the best overall prize :) It's based on an MDF coaster from Lincraft, with a piece of foam carved into the shape of a hill. The tree's one of Woodland Scenics' wire armatures, with a bunch of seed fragments from a silver birch tree used as leaves...

I tried something a little different to normal, and painted virtually everything in tertiary colours. Most of the colours were mixed up from several others (the hunchback's skin, blue-grey shirt), while others have some unusual shades mixed in (blue with the undertaker's skin, red with the green on his jacket). I was planning to paint in the glow from his lantern, but decided against it at the last moment - I wasn't sure how I'd place shadows in the grass. It's also the first time I've painted woodgrain - on the shovel handle, and on the coffin. Detail on the coffin was added as an optical illusion to disguise some horrible casting lines that I couldn't file off - the mould must have shifted, slightly displacing the front and back of the models.

Comments

ooooooh

[drwally.livejournal.com]

Nice piece! Congrats on the win.

Re: ooooooh

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

Are you still playing your Eldar? I keep hearing good things about the new codex, so I'm likely to dust mine off come November...

Re: ooooooh

[drwally.livejournal.com]

Yes I am, now and again, but the codex is definitely showing its age. Looks like a significant financial outlay when the release happens, as I definitely want to replace my war walkers with the new ones. They look awesome.

A guy I ran into mentioned seeing new Harlequin models too. OOOOH

[lycaonia.livejournal.com]

You are my idol!

Damn that is good. I wanna paint like that someday.

Course I need to get rid of the evil evil citadel brushes and get nice ones that are actually thin when they say they are first, then practise and practise and practise etc.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Yep, more practice is always good. I realised the other day that I've been painting for longer than just about anything I've "studied" in my life - any of the uni majors, any martial art... actually, it's almost the same time I spent at high school and primary combined :)

With the brushes, don't forget that the tip is much more important than the width of the brush. If the paint's slightly thinned and the point is sharp, you could paint miniatures reasonably well with a #12 brush...

[kitling.livejournal.com]

I'm not supposed to call a grave scene lovely I'm sure.

But that is lovely.

Your work continues to astound me.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Well, I resisted the urge to add a pair of hands clawing their way out of the ground :) Without the grave robbers, it's a nice tranquil scene...

[fasangel.livejournal.com]

That's amazing! Congratulations.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Thankyou :)

[designadrug.livejournal.com]

The painting and diorama layout are fantastic.

Plus the photography is brilliant.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) Not my photos, unfortunately - Tom Wallace took them when he was judging the event.

I'll bring the entries home in a couple of weeks, and then I'll get some pictures of the other entry. When this course is finished, I should really look into making a website portfolio.

[designadrug.livejournal.com]

Good idea.

[kashiichan.livejournal.com]

The painting is fantastic. I can't paint miniatures (or anything else, really) well at all.