Contest Entries: Crew

Well, the Wyrd contest winners are now revealed, and alas I was not included. That said, it was fun to try to paint a bunch of stuff in one month, just to push myself. I don't know if I will push thus again, but still...

That said, to start off with, my Viktorias Crew!

One image, as posted, and I'll go through them in detail below:

The Viks themselves, as before, are meant to look relatively utilitarian. They're well-off mercenaries sure, but they're not exactly rolling in it. As a result, their armour isn't entirely clean and polished, the clothing is relatively drab in colour (except Vik of Blood's red pants and black leather jacket), and the swords have a nice nod back to my first iteration of purple. I am still a little frustrated that the woman with arms in opposite directions has a level-chest, and the one with arms mostly leaving at the same level seems to have an anti-gravity boob, but that's something to discuss with the sculptor, and not really an issue in painting.

I love the new Taelor: I'll do a direct comparison soon, but man, more awesome pose, more practical clothing, a relic hammer that looks bizarrely old, the new clockwork arm is fantastic... My only issue was the ponytail going over her head. There is no way her pose makes her hair do that, so I put it in the more logical location of flowing down.

I gave Taelor and the Student of Conflict almost an identical paintscheme. I liked the idea of the Student latching on to this powerful potent figure, and that while Taelor may be all kinds of condescending to the various mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells in Malifaux, this child with a brave heart would speak to her. The garb for the Student is very utilitarian, and so I matched that paint-wise with a rough-and-ready wool fabric, boring scabbard, etc.

Also, hard to see in the pic is Taelor's boots are visibly steel-toed. There's a few scuff-marks where the metal shows through. I don't especially like the boot design for her or Vik Ashes; there's a weird run of fabric and belt buckles that sent me back to the illustrations just to find out what was going on.

Finally the Ronin. I figured rather than in any way attempting to make them look subdued, I'd do quite the opposite and make them stand waay out. I remember a fluff-tale for the Viks involving them eschewing armour for speed, and I figure they've passed this on to their disciples. I also wanted to theme each of them with tertiaries, since in the crew they kind of are. Viks are the primaries, Taelor's the secondary, and then there's the Ronin.

I ended up making the Cyan ronin almost look like Wendy (the mascot) and she is paler than I usually do skin, with vibrant teal/cyan clothes. the back-armour has the kanji for "ronin" on it (I hope), and bright red hair, which I'll probably do a tutorial at some point for.

Purple was made with a mind to using colours I rarely do: gray, and muted purple. I know it doesn't look as muted in the photograph, but it is. In keeping with the tertiary concept, it's a blue-purple colour.

Finally comes my Latina Ronin (I know, anachronistic or what?) I intentionally shaded her skin darker, and attempted to imitate a bright, strong, Spanish-style colour mix. The colour fade on the sleeves and stockings match, but I kept it simpler for the kimono and sash, to help them stand out more. At first I was tempted to go complimentary as a detail colour, but realized I should just go black. The yellow-orange and orange-red was so strong that to just go with the opposing colour would have looked off.

I kept the bases mundane, with cobblestones and water effects, figuring this is a crew that does not spend its time in the finer areas of Malifaux.

And now, with this wall of text for all, I shall see you next time! I may edit and upload singles-pics to intersperse in this post, after I've uploaded all three entries. Then, another post about Infinity stuff! I am now counting off days until we get to enjoy the Icestorm starter set!

Viktorias Crew 1.0

It is time for more photos! I have now managed to upload the rest of the photos for the first Viktorias crew. I am not entirely happy with some of them, but I've worked them enough I don't think I can improve without a full scrap and redo.

First the ronin: I had to convert her hat to the one that comes in the accessory blister. The dinky little cowboy hat that she has is not a period piece, it's made I think exclusively recently. The rest, to fit her cowgal motif was border town, mud floor, and plain coloured clothing. I have done some fancying up of her swords, but I wanted to make her look relatively down on her luck. As with the Ten Thunders, I decided to have a single colour used on all models in the force, and in this case it's the bright purple of her sheaths. The blue ribbon makes an appearance in one or two other places, but that purple was the one I primarily wanted everyone to have.

Ronin 2 was also painted fairly plainly. I did a few embroidered roses on her coat (perhaps one for each of her kills to date) and limited the brighter elements to a shirt and of course, her swords. Her gloves and pants match, and her duster is basically just a browner variant of the same colour because again, I wanted them to seem rough and ready women, mostly wearing practical gear but with a splash of unique garb somewhere.

Note also the dock and pool of water she's standing on!

The final Ronin has the same sword painting style as the Viks themselves, and her clothes are equally mundane. Plain sturdy jacket, plain rugged pants, and with a light, possibly silken shirt. All three are mostly makeup-less as well, since one does not do fanciful makeup just to run out and smudge it in battle!

By the time I was working on metal-Taelor, plastic-Taelor was already revealed, and I knew she would be the one I'd use. I don't dislike the metal one, it just doesn't seem to fit her style quite as much. She's meant to be a crass, strong, dominant woman who's good in a fight. I can't imagine any such woman wearing a shirt like this unless that's all she had left/clean. What then to do with this model? Hmm, a figure that has had to sell the shirt off her back, but still cares about the weapons that are the tools of her trade? Sounds like a desperate mercenary candidate to me!

Durable denim jeans, covered with some kind of waterproofing chaps for mucking around a sewer, heavy durable boots, armour only on the side she doesn't have to aim with, and a detailed, if sturdy pepperbox pistol make the model. I used the hand from a discontinued Fantasy pikemen set, green-stuffed it to fit as a dueller's glove or a single nice thing she owns (also conveniently the purple thing for this model) and then tried to paint her skin and hair with a darker tone.

I do this on purpose to make this crew as varied as possible. The three metal ronin are fairly clearly one 'white', one 'black', one south-east Asian, so with this model I have a good variety of races represented. I also like the idea of the Viks being a pair that collect to themselves the mercenaries that would otherwise not get good paying jobs (if there's still issues with income equality today, imagine then!).

Speaking of, here's the ladies themselves. I've done the careful sword highlights, and otherwise the colour scheme is identical to the avatars. I love the poses of this pair, nicely mirroring one another like they were meant to be back-to-back.

Masamune's sheath is relatively plainly painted than I was tempted to do, but with its bling in intervals down the blade, trying to do any true detail would have been frustrating.

And finally, along with the Viks comes their sister, Vanessa! I know the box art has her dark-haired, but no way was I doing a black-haired sibling to two blondes! Other than that change, she too is 'rough and rugged' in painting, other than her bright glowing staff. If Wyrd keeps on the transparent model vein, I'd love to see her done with the staff at least done in clear plastic!

This Isn't Even My Final Form!!!

Finally photographed, continuing from the last post, here's my finished version of Viktorias, Avatars of Slaughter!

Their faces are manic, which I attempted to accentuate as much as possible, and their skin has been made red-tinged. Otherwise the clothing colours were entirely picked to be identical with their non-avatar forms, which I painted alongside.

You can also see the final touches on the lantern: Cracked glass and a few shards on the ground itself.

The barrel, after all its washes and drybrushes ended up looking wonderfully weathered, and once the stones had a final black-line wash in the gaps, they felt right as well. You can see the blade is also done with a more red-gold than I would typically use, simulating the sword's desire to suck up blood. Otherwise, the models have little to no blood displayed, which I'm debating whether or not to change. On the one hand, adding it to the ground makes sense, because slaughter. On the other, I kind of like the way it looks right now and don't want to mess with it!

From the other side; the Viktorias blades have been painted using a NMM-style, but with metallic paints, which I prefer because you still get the light-glint, and have enforced the classy NMM look. I may yet have to touch up a few things, I suspect, as is always the case when someone starts looking at photographs of their models.

You can see the one thing I had to convert for these models; Viktoria of Blood's arms did not have the armour that her non-epic version has! It's so clear these models were made to imitate the former, and the detail level on the forearms is thin enough I suspect it was supposed to be there, and was just forgotten. I can't imagine she takes the time to remove armour while going all Avatar...

And for those who are curious, here's a focused shot on the giant sword. You can see how the light picks up the shine, and the gold's ruddier look. To get that, I first paint the gold parts silver, then wash over it with my gold paint thickly. Next it's a wash of red (currently I'm using GW's red wash) and then Agrax Earthshade (dark sepia brown, also GW) before re-touching with gold and silver to bring out the highlights again. For consistency, all the gold on these two was done that way.

And that's the Avatar! Soon I shall have the rest of the crew up as well, and comparison shots of avatar/non-avatar Viktorias. Enjoy!

Hired Swords Bases

As I work at finishing up the painting for my old-version Viktoria crew, I figured I'd show some progress I've been up to in regards to the new "Hired Swords" box. So far I've been assembling, basing, and debating converting.

I don't think I'll end up using the new crew as a Viktoria crew specifically, unless I need to travel with my force, because I don't especially like the new pair as Viktorias. They're not twin enough!

 In the meantime, here's the rest. Taelor is on a fairly standard paving stone looking base, but with a couple nice pavement cracks right where her hammer has come down. I like the look of the new Taelor much better. The pose is interesting, and the hairpiece as far as I am concerned needs to be inverted, but otherwise, her outfit makes more sense, the hammer looks more archaic rune-axe, and the mechanical arm looks more mechanical, and less like she just forgot to put on the rest of a suit of mail.

The Student of Conflict is incredibly similar to the previous version. I've modeled her on standard paving stones; I figure the Viktoria crew is mostly fighting around and in the cities and alleyways, and have tried to reflect this on their bases. I know some folks were having problem with the ponytails breaking, and I likewise had an issue, but nowhere near like the issue I had with Vik of Blood's arms...

The three Ronin likewise reflect the road-feel of the crew: One straddling a gutter of some kind, the other two on relatively standard stone bases. I know some folks have had issues with the look of the new ones, but I have a theory to explain it I'll go into when I get them all painted up.  The centre Ronin's base was the most complex of these to do. After putting down the putty flat, I used a length of plastic cylinder to press into the center, giving both the ditch, and a surrounding bump that helped define it. After that it was a simple matter of using a tool to etch lines, and I've just done basic stippling on the bottom. When they're painted I'll add some self-leveling gloss gel to make it look like a puddle.

Finally the Viktorias themselves. Viktoria of Ashes will have a lamp stand, and I will be hopefully doing a source-light paint scheme for her, and probably for Viktoria of Blood as well. Since I already have a playable pair of Viktorias, I'll go to town making these two look all diorama-cool. With that in mind I made the paving stones line up properly, and that's fairly close to final arrangement, again if I do a full diorama setup.

Viktoria of Ashes is even standing beside the curb with a drain! The light post has since been detailed more and actually looks like a Victorian style (Viktorian?) lamp post. It should be fun to paint them, but they're benched behind a few other things, so it'll take me a bit to get them done.