Monday 2 January 2012

Long before Space Marines ... there were Pirates

Before I started painting Game Workshop's Citadel miniatures, Japanese anime 'miniatures' were my passion. At first, I just collected fully-completed miniature figures from the various anime shows that I love. Eventually, I got interested in assembling and painting them, leading me to Luffy, of One Piece fame, and his motley crew of pirates and the ships they sailed in. 

Luffy (right), seen here with two ship models from the anime One Piece

Having gone through the arduous process of basecoating my Khorne Berzerkers this couple of weeks, I decided to revisit my anime 'miniatures' and see how I could apply some of the tools and techniques I had learnt while painting Citadel miniatures on Luffy's famous straw hat.

Pre-Citadel washes and paints

Early attempt at creating shadows

Prior to my experience with Citadel Washes, I had tried using a Gundam real touch marker to ink the shadowy recesses of Luffy's straw hat. Needless to say, it was a disaster and the end-result looked very artificial. Hence, I washed the gundam ink away with nail polish and tried again ... W40K style.

Post-Citadel washes and paints

Luffy's straw hat, painted using GW products

Well, the new approach was successful ... in parts. The red band around Luffy's straw hat turned out kinda ok. It was basecoated with Mechrite Red, layered with Red Gore and highlighted with Blood Red. But the interplay between light and dark in the straw hat's weaving didn't turn out too well. My mistake was to apply the Devlan Mud wash onto the hat without basecoating it first. This caused the ink to stick onto the plastic hat in an inconsistent manner. Something to look out for in the future.  


Compass to the world of Warhammer 40K

Other than a desire to learn more about W40K lore, anime models also played an important part in piquing my interest in miniature painting techniques. Models in my One Piece collection range from being very much larger than Citadel miniatures ...

Attack of the Giant Pirate from Mars?

... to being slightly smaller.
Itsy bitsy models

It was the latter that forced me to look for painting techniques for small-scale models, which in turn led me to Games Workshop's webpost on miniature painting.


Anime I love

One Piece, Bleach, Naruto Shippuden, Soul Eater, Fairy Tail, Initial D etc count among the many anime that I love. But there are three that have managed to really pull at my heart-strings (I am an old softie after all). My wife also loves the first two. They are:

1. My Neighbour Totoro

2. K-On!
3. Welcome to the NHK

5 comments:

  1. Hmmmmmm...

    You are a NHK fans too eh =___,= I kinda like this anime though most of the character is kinda twisted (well, my cuppa tea), normally I'm not into anything with MOE element in it, but this is one of the exception (along with Eva, what can better than mentally ill kids piloting giant mecha?). I like Jojo bizzare advanture too, but the anime sucks, big time, comic is wayyyy better than this. If you are into japanese comic, this is a must-read.

    One Piece, I collect it since 1997 when first episode of comic came out, though now I mainly brought it just out of habit (80++ books, madness), still like the story, but truth be told it started to become abit long and tedious...

    Hunter x Hunter is kinda nice too, provided the artist don't go all "nope, no new release on next week, week after that, week after after that because I'm tied up with video game" and put it on a hiatus again (one can hope, right?)

    ps: Happy 2012!

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  2. Anime?..only dabbled into it a bit e.g: Gundam series, Fullmetal Alchemist, Macross..not much..

    but it's something else altogether when you speak of Manga, hehehe :p

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  3. @limp ... Happy 2012 to you too! =) One Piece manga looks really cool but I am already breaking the bank as it is trying to fuel my son's love for Naruto and Bleach mangas.

    @vuel ... Fullmetal Alchemist kinda creeps me out for some reason. What type of manga do you read? I am currently reading Yotsuba&!

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  4. I'll read any Manga that entertains me..some notable are Dragonball, Shura No Mon, Death Note, Get Backers, Kindaichi, Detective Conan etc etc..

    although, have not been reading them at all since I started working..

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  5. After GW washes you're gonna wanna try oil paints hehe.

    To each his own i say :)

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