Ten Thunders Yamaziko

At long last, we had a nice enough day I could fotograph the last few Ten Thunders models I have! (I'll do a full crew post when I can again get a nice day for fotos.)

To start things off, let's get a good dramatic pic of Yamaziko:

Yes, the colours have been enhanced in this one, but it allows me to make her look appropriately dramatic with her lantern lighting her from behind.

Here she is in proper light. I decided, in contrast to Misaki, to keep her robes relatively plain. They are still fancy with a decoration of flowers, but is nowhere near the level of detail I put into the young leader. I figure this ties the feel of the models together more: Yamaziko reserved, Misaki wild and flamboyant.

Her face's paint is actually the second attempt. The first time I did my standard flesh tone, wash, with a highlight, but it made her skin seem too 'young'. I went back over it again with a pale flesh colour, intentionally mixed with a small amount of grey and highlighted with pale sand to simulate more an older person's skin. I also intetionally made the strokes all lines, and without much smoothing, to get across a wrinkled feel.

Believe it or not, this is my first attempt at source lighting painting. I've not often been a fan of it, mostly because a lot of folks go way overboard, making the model just look like they've been hit by an airbrush from a few angles with whichever colour of light. Here though, with such a distinct and significant element on her, I had to go a bit fancier.

Here's her side-shots. The bit of hair that is loose from her bun on the left side is a bit odd, and may yet see some updates. The left shows off the flowers on her kimono, while the right displays the effects I attempted on source-lighting the bricks.

Next time (and far sooner than I typically post) I will have an update of Misaki and her friend Shang.

Malifaux Thunder

I have become enraptured by the idea of Malifaux. The world is fascinating, and then when I saw The Thunder faction, I was absolutely sold. The models are beautifully sculpted, and fascinating.

The bases are all slottabases, but the models don't have slots. This makes it basically necessary to do fanciness, and so of course I wanted to do them up properly.

The more 'refined' a model, the more refined the base. The Desperate Mercenary (sadly out of focus) is on a mix of rough stone and old planking. The first of the Oiran is delicately stepping off a wooden level on to a piece of stone in the midst of either random dirt, small stones, or an ungroomed zen garden.

The other two Oiran, essentially Geisha, are on a set of Tatami mats (right) and the other central on a thin wooden bridge (as a kind of: "to pass, you must defeat me" notion)

The three Torakage (peasant-looking ninja) are on, respectively, stonework with Japanese kanji inscribed, and two others on a typical road or sewer style base. There's a distinct line of thin sidewalk, and some 'road'.

Finally, the two characters from the starter box. First is Ototo, a big Oni-like character. I disliked how far off the base he sits, so I I modified the plough shape, pushed his mace off the base a bit, and added some tiles pushed up and out by the force. Misaki herself is on a base that's distinctly a zen garden, made from my thumbprint. To help with the whorl caps, I put small pieces of gravel as stones, and the single foot touching the ground rests upon one of these, as though she too is delicately attempting to avoid touching 'base ground'.

I'm now researching colours and proper patterns, so I can paint them up as beautifully as I can. I intend to use proper colour patterns, and markings. I am frustrated in this search by so much misinformation about ninja, and such insane detail and variety in Kimono pattern. I'm going to make Yamaziko and Misaki Orange (royal colours in Japan), the Torakage faded blues and greys (typical peasant garb), and something for the Oiran that looks appropriately Geisha. Ototo himself... I'm not certain. Yellow for divine? Red for blood and aggression? I'll figure it out perhaps when I see the rest.