Super Dungeon Explore Fig.5: Hexcast Sorceress

Adding warmer colours to the Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress's original cooler colour scheme was a bit of a gamble on my part albeit one in which success was alluded to by my trusty old colour wheel. Initially, it seemed counter intuitive (to me at least) that adding such warm colours to a predominant mix of cool colours would turn out well. But then again, this is something I have experienced before, for example the much used (and loved) orange-blue combo which can be seen on a couple of my miniature painting projects like the Giant Hunter, Victorian Darling and Merida.

Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress [Completed]

Adding warm colours to the mix thankfully didn't backfire; in fact I quite like the results

Cool colours of the minaiture comprised her violet hair, turquoise hair beads and purple dress 

No object source lighting (OSL) effects were painted on the Hexcast Sorceress as the magic orb held within the talons of her 'chicken feet' staff was not glowing. I made this creative decision because painting OSL effects on the sorceress would have made her colours looked 'washed out' seeing that the glow emanating from a turquoise globe would have cast a whitish light over the entire miniature. 

Subtle highlights and shadows enabled the shoulder blades to be visible despite a fair skin tone

Back view of the Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress

Volume on violet hair was hinted at with fine feathery strokes of shadows and highlights

Having previously completed the Royal Paladin, Ember Mage, Riftling Mage and Deeproot Druid, the number of Super Dungeon Explore hero characters I have painted now stands at five.  That means I have four more hero characters to work on including an alternate form of the Deeproot Druid. Who's up next will depend largely on what colour scheme I'm in the mood to paint.

Side view (right) of the Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress

Her 'chicken leg' staff holds a turquoise globe which isn't glowing hence no OSL effects

So far I'm keeping pace with my new hobby schedule that requires me to paint and draw consistently. With free time fairly limited, this means less time with the idiot box. But that's ok as I'm having fun drawing again in addition to my usual miniature painting projects. If all goes well, I should be able to finish my portrait drawing of Leia Organa soon as well as get some basic figure drawing practice in. Over the coming days, I will also have to prep a few new miniatures to ensure that my painting project pipeline doesn't dry up. It's certainly shaping up to be a busy period hobby wise. Good times!

SDE Hexcast Sorceress [WIP - Skin Tone and Dress]

With my desire to draw temporarily sated, I turned my attention back to the Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress board game piece which until now only had her hair completed. During this latest stage of the sorceress's paint work, progress was made on her skin tone and dress.

Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorcress, work-in-progress on her skin tone and dress

Her skin tone achieved using a mixture of Reaper Master Series Golden Skin and the various rosy skin tones from the same paint range i.e. Rosy Shadow, Rosy Skin and Rosy Highlight. In addition, Bright Skin Highlight was applied on the brightest points of her skin such as the nose and shoulder blades. My choice of colours was purely an experimental one as I wanted to see how the skin would turn out using combinations of the said paints. I had in mind an oriental-celtic hybrid skin tone.  

Gold trims on the Hexcast Sorceress's dress helps make the purple 'pop'

Care was taken to highlight her shoulder blades on her back

Dark purple-orange/yellow-peachy pink colour combo on her dress somewhat complements her violet hair

Unsatisfied with the dress's original colour scheme, I decided to liven things up a bit by adding some warm colours to the mix. Two main changes I made were to add some orange/yellow to what I presume are the dress's embroidery bits and a peachy pink hue to the loincloth. I felt that both made the dress look more appealing (or less dull if your cup is half empty) to the discerning eye. 

You can (almost) never fail with a purple-gold combo for clothing

In keeping with the anime chibi look, contrasts in colour on the Hexcast Sorceress have been intentionally kept understated. I maintained just enough contrast to hint at hair volume, clothing folds and certain anatomical key-points such as shoulder blades and nose. In my opinion, overdoing the contrast in colours would have spoiled the anime chibi look of this miniature. She isn't far from finished now, with her eyes, mouth, staff and base left to paint. At this point in time, I am just trying to get into a consistent 'hobby groove' of paint, draw, paint, draw, paint ... well, you get the idea.      

SDE Hexcast Sorceress [WIP - Hair] & Seeking inspiration for a new blog name and banner

Following the rather dark and gloomy miniature piece I completed in my last post, I felt an urge to paint a 'brighter and happier' subject matter. So on cue to satisfy my wish is a Super Dungeon Explore heroine board game piece, my fifth in this anime chibi figure series i.e. the Hexcast Sorceress.    

Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress, work-in-progress on her hair

Light violet hair contrasts with orange pony holder and turquoise hair beads

Fine strokes with the brush to give her hair some volume

Hexcast Sorceress have a slightly different colour scheme than the original

This time around, I plan to slightly alter the character's original colour scheme (shown below). What I hope to do is add some peachy pink as well as yellowish orange hues to the predominantly purple, violet, turquoise and gold mix. Although the orange pony holder currently looks too warm and a tad out of place in the Hexcast Sorceress's violet hair accessorized with turquoise beads, I expect it to blend into the overall colour scheme when the golds and light peachy pink colours come into play.  

Hexcast Sorceress, colour scheme as per game cart art

Super Dungeon Explore Hexcast Sorceress, work-in-progress (hair, top view)

Seeking inspiration for a new blog name and banner ...
Back in 2011, I started this blog to document my journey into the world of miniatures, especially those from the Warhammer 40,000 universe with an eye towards tabletop-gaming with my painted pieces. But since then, I have become fascinated solely by the art aspect of this hobby and had started painting miniatures from a wider variety of sources. Also, my renewed fascination with art in general as evidenced by my early attempts at portrait drawing means that my current blog name and banner graphic is no longer representative of what my posts are about. So it's back to the drawing board, awaiting inspiration for a new blog name and banner. Until then, have yourself a great weekend! 

Last Night on Earth - Star Trek Theme at Halfway Point

Any miniature painting project of mine that reaches the mid-point stage always gets its own group shot. These set of Starfleet Survivors and Zombies painted using pieces from the Last Night on Earth board game are no different. So without further ado, below are photos of the class of 1966 to '69. 

Last Night on Earth survivors as Star Trek characters Chekov, Uhura, Christine and Sulu (from left to right)

In this series of photos, I tried to compose a visual story of the foursome's first encounter with fellow crew members of the USS Enterprise who had been turned into zombies. Hope you like them. 

It was a dark and stormy night ...

Now that I have had some time apart from these finished pieces, they do look like they need more contrast, especially the zombies' clothing. Things weren't helped by the fact that I had to position the lights closer to this set of miniatures when the shots were taken, likely leading to overexposure. Regardless, I'm working hard to improve contrasts when painting light colours and I'm starting to (finally) have some success in this problematic area. Hopefully the next few work-in-progress miniatures I have on display will see some minor improvement in terms of contrast on clothing. 

Look out behind you!

Oops! Too late, the zombies are upon them ...

... and things look grim for the crew of the USS Enterprise

It's poignant that this post coincides with the recent passing of Mr. Leonard Nimoy, an actor who I have come to closely associate with the Star Trek franchise. This popular sci-fi universe is one of the few (if not only) TV/Movie series that chose to depict a positive view of humanity in the future. In reality, we are sadly too busy being offended by perceived insults and ever ready to hate things which we are ignorant of, don't understand or don't agree with. Whatever happened to live and let live?

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Pavel Chekov

Fourth in my Star Trek-themed survivors from the Last Night on Earth board game is Pavel Cheko, a young ensign aboard the USS Enterprise who also sometimes on duty at the science officer's station on the bridge. To represent Chekov I used Jake Cartwright the drifter, a board game piece that had on attire akin to Russian winter clothes. Alhough Walter Koenig the actor who plays Chekov had always denied the character's 'Russian origin', I felt his accent was a dead giveaway as to Chekov's roots. 

Starfleet survivor and ensign of the starship USS Enterprise, Pavel Chekov

Chekov was painted with a pale skin tone

For the clothes worn by Chekov, I used a colour scheme based on military attire worn by Russian soldiers in the 18th century. Due to the 'boring' nature of Chekov's clothes, I decided to concentrate more on the face and eyes as that was the most interesting part of the miniature/board game piece. As such, in terms of paint-hours, the most time was spent on the face and eyes, especially the eyes.  

Side views of the Last Night on Earth board game piece painted as Chekov, the Starfleet Survivor

Skin tone was kept pale as befitting the subject matter - a spacefaring ensign of supposedly Russian descent. Meanwhile, constant practice has allowed me to get better results when painting eyes on 28-mm to 32-mm scale miniatures. That and the use of a 6/0 Raphael Kolinsky Sable brush.

Some rust was added to the cleaver on his left hand

Back view of Pavel Chekov, Starfleet survivor

Axe on the right hand was painted in similar colours to the one carried by Uhura

Work on Chekov's weapons were fairly straight forward: The axe on his right hand was painted in a similar colour scheme to the axe wielded by Uhura (one would assume they both got the axes from the same source/location) while the cleaver on his left hand had some rust painted on to give it a little bit of character. The alternative - a shiny new metallic cleaver - seemed out of place somehow.

Walter Koenig, shown here playing Chekov in Star Trek: The Original Series

Painted figure next to a 31-mm paperclip and a five sen coin for scale comparison

At last count, I have finished painting seven zombies and four survivors. Going forward from this half-way point, I am unsure if I want to continue the Star Trek Original Series theme for the rest of the board game pieces or paint something entirely different e.g. Walking Dead. I guess that's a good reason as any to take a temporary step back from my Last Night on Earth project, muse on potential themes and await new inspiration. It also gives me an excuse to start new projects. I love this hobby!

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Nyota Uhura

Third in my Star Trek-themed survivors from the Last Night on Earth board game is Nyota Uhura, the Communications Officer aboard the starship USS Enterprise. To represent Uhura I used Sally the High School Sweetheart, the board game piece which I felt had a similar hairstyle to the one worn by Nichelle Nichols who played the said character in Star Trek: The Original Series. 

Starfleet survivor and Communications Officer of the USS Enterprise, Nyota Uhura

Uhura naturally had a darker skin tone

Clothes colour scheme was an interplay between purple, green and yellowish brown

Painting Uhura allowed me to practice blending and layering a dark skin tone. Based on the photo reference I used (see below), her skin approximated a light chocolate hue. In the end, I was pretty happy with how close I came to accurately replicating Uhura's skin tone. Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints were used to paint the skin while Reaper Master Series (RMS) paints were used for the clothes (jacket, blouse and skirt) except for the boots which were painted using Citadel paints.   

Nichelle Nichols portrayed the character of Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series

Side views of Nyota Uhura, the Starfleet survivor

Colour scheme for Uhura's clothes were predominantly purple (jacket), green (skirt) and ochre (boots) with neutral off-white on her blouse and jacket buttons. At times, I still struggle with chalkiness issues when using lighter hues from the RMS acrylic paint line. In this case, more work is needed on my painting technique because I had previously eliminated hard water as a possible cause. Well, sort of anyway as I had tried using distilled water to reduce chalkiness without much success.  

Bright red on the axe was actually painted in the shade of Uhura's original uniform

Back view of Starfleet survivor, Nyota Uhura

To complement her dark skin tone, I used a purple-green-ochre color scheme

Meanwhile, the weapons - specifically the axe - allowed me to add a bright colour into the mix. Red kinda works well with the rest of the colors and is definitely preferable to plain metallic grey.

Shots taken by a DSLR with macro lens can be misleading hence a scale comparison above

Next up for the Starfleet Survivors is a Star Trek character that always speaks in an accent. Actually, there are two - one Scottish and the other Russian - so it will either be Scotty or Chekov as the fourth survivor. Imagining these board game pieces as Star Trek characters is making painting them so much fun. And that's why we are in the hobby after all - to have fun. Otherwise, what's the point?