In love with Melissa - Final pictures

Hey hey!

What a great feeling to have finished a project within 2 months! For me that's a new record, serious!

Let me proudly introduce you Melissa and her immortal Schnauzers by Dark Sword Miniatures:

It's the 5th anniversary miniature of their line. You can find some more information (and awesome pics of the green) right here.

Melissa was a special project for me. Started as a demonstration piece on the Hamburg Tactica to explain different techniques to interested visitors she turned out to be a new love for me. Really! Mostly every brushstroke was made with joy and happiness in her.

This project is an exchange miniature for Nathelis. I guess he'll be happy as he loves Dark Sword Miniatures!

Any c&c is highly appreciated. I'd be thankful for a vote too:

Putty&Paint
CMON

Announcement: Brushbrothers Online-Contest

It's exactly one year ago, that me and two painting friends founded a new forum for the painting scene - Brushbrothers!

http://www.brushbrothers.de

Today we're proud to announce an online-contest to celebrate our first anniversary.

Unlike usually, we decided to give just one guideline for every participant, so everyone is free in mind to use the full force of his creativity.

The theme for this contest will be "fairy tales".

You are not restricted to any scale or number of miniatures! You just have to create a scene around a real fairy tale. Please attach a link to your chosen fairy tail if you enter a project.

Rules
To take part on this online-contest you have to be a registered member of Brushbrothers.

You're allowed to show pictures of your work in progress, but you're not allowed to show your finished work before you've entered it and got a confirmation mail.

The contest starts right now an ends on 31st August '13.

Please send your entry to

contest@brushbrothers.de

You are allowed to use a max amount of 5 pictures with a total seize of no more then 4MB. To verify that you've painted your entry for this contest we please you to attach the following banner with your name on it.

Judging
Here's another special thing about this contest. There's no real jury to judge all entries and choose winners. Instead there will be a gallery, allowing every registered user of the forum to vote his favorite 3 projects. Of course, project with higher number of votes wins ;)

Prices
Top 3 projects will be awarded with a special medal made for this contest.

Here's a WIP-shot of the current status:

Special Thanks to Dark Spawn, who is sculpting this for us!

We hope that you're interested on this special contest. Take part, be creative and win one of this limited medals!

Feel free to copy and share this announcement so everyone know about it and we get a wide range of entries.

Your
brushbrothers & -sisters Team

Alice - a fallout scene

Hi folks,

this miniature is an exchange gift for a friend. He likes the post-apo setting so I said: "yea let's give it a try"

I wasn't very satisfied with the miniature, but managed to pull through all those fail casted parts. Anyways, while there were hard times while painting there were also fun times, like creating the fallout atmosphere and playing with rust and pigments. Another lesson learned :)

CMON

keep on painting happy little trees folks,

Nathelis

How to paint lichens on trees / rocks

Hey ho, it`s time for my first video-tutorial.

In this short video I'll show you how to easily create lichens on wooden surfaces like tree-bark, any wooden panels (like on a bridge) or even rocks. Small details like this will move you a step further for a more realistic base.

But before I am going to show you how to do this we need some pictures for reference:

...followed by 2 painted bases with lichens on them:

It's rather easy to paint those. Here's a short instruction, followed by a video to get a better feeling for that.

Step 1: painting the surface (rocks, trees, wooden surface)

Step 2: Mix paint with a lot(!) of water. Dilute the paint more then the mixtures you're using for creating a smooth blending. Add a blob of this mixture to the surface.

Step 3: Immidiately afterwards use a dry brush and soak up the blob. What remains is our result.

Happy testing!
Arne

Building a tree base

Hi folks,

this time I tried out a tutorial from this blog: http://fantastische-welten.blogspot.de/p/sbs-base-mit-baum.html

Trull builts fantastic realistic landscapes, if you don't know his site, check it out!

started with simple rocks and some white pumice from vallejo

next step was the hardest, sculpting the roots of the tree (I used 1/3 fimo and 2/3 milliput).

after adding some additional flower soil to the ground, 2K priming with airbrush was done

this was the first sketch with airbrush and a size comparison for 28mm truescale minis.

The green foliage I used on the tree is Naturex from Polak Models. Its better suited for 28mm minis than stuff like from MiniNatur. Flowers and moss on the base was from both manufacturers.


Here are some additional images:

keep on always happy basebuilding,

Nathelis

Catelyn Stark - Base almost finished

Hi folks,

this time i´m back with an update for the base of my Catelyn Stark from Darksword.

I received a huge package from Polak Models with incredible detailed miniature grass and foliage. So I had to try them out on the base.

Next step will be to paint the miniature, but soo many projects are waiting here, can't say which I´m going to finish first.

keep on always paintin,

Nathelis

Scale75 - Dark Elf

Heya!

Finally finished and in time for the contest. ;) 

Vote on Putty & Paint

Vote on CMoN

Hope you like him.

p1per

Fallout scene 1.wip

Hi folks,

this time i´m painting a little fallout diorama for a friend, it is rusty, its toxic and it should represent the harsh conditions in a wasteland.

Still a lot of wip, the sculpt isn't too great and I have to cover up a lot of badly cast areas too. Progress is slow but it's getting in the right direction: onward!

stay tuned for a rust tutorial on this base! rust is done with REAL rust...not paint.

keep on happy paintin'

Nathelis

Welcome on board, Markus

Hi,

some of you may know me from diverse forums or my blog DarkSpawn's Corner.
Sleipnir and Nathelis asked me if I would like to be a part of this blog, so I'm very happy and proud to say: yes and here I am.

For all of you who don't know me, here are some facts:
My name is Markus, I'm born in 1981 and I live near Koblenz. I'm a sculptor and painter, more or less. I'm in the hobby since 2011, before that I built military model kits and so on. I've got the idea of sculpting because one of my favorite busts was everywhere out of stock. So I tried some sculpting clays like Fimo Air, Milliput etc. and sculpted my first bust. From this day on I couldn't stop and sculpting is now a great passion for me. Sometimes I switch back to my brushes and try to paint a bit.

Here are two pics of my projects I got finished in the last time, not much but I'm working on more. ;-)

The crusader bust in the middle was my first sculpt and the first mini I got painted.

So far
Markus

Painting a freehand: Laurel wreath

Yesterday I've found some time to continue with details on Melissa (and her immortal Schnauzers). Just a few hours left till completion. Finally...

I have the strong feeling to start something else BUT I have to resist to ever finish her. In the past it was always the same: Starting a project full of motivation. Then, there was a strange feeling to start something else to not get bored or to realize an idea that popped in my mind. But I've promised myself to stop working on different projects at once. And it works! (So far).

Back to Melissa.

To fill the space on her cape I decided to add another simple freehand as an additional nice detail and for practice. There were just two basic freehands that I've painted before. So here's my 3rd one.

Step 1: searching for a draft (use google i.g.)

Step 2: painting a rough sketch.

I've started with a circle to get the correct shape and used a simple trick to not paint it over and over again. I' ve just used a wet brush and draw lines until satisfaction. If its like I like it I've grabbed the other brush with paint on it and simply followed the watered line.

Step 3: Working out details
For this I've used the color recipe Nathelis has shown a while ago over at the brushbrothers forum, just with some tweaks. I'm sure he'll share it on this blog too.

Step 4: Cleaning work and final lights

Sorry, pictures are not the best. Just be patient and wait for final pictures of this project to get a better view.

If you've missed previous WIP's of Melissa feel free to check them here, here and here.

Have a nice weekend!
Arne