Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker [Completed]

After nearly two years since I first started painting miniatures, I finally plucked up enough courage to finish painting the Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker miniature which also doubles up as a proxy for a Horus Heresy Word Bearers character called Cyrene Valantion. This miniature marks my second attempt at painting a female figure and its a small step towards emulating a painter whose work I really like: Jen Haley. I am still a long way off from such standards but I am determined to get there.

Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker aka Cyrene Valantion

Didn't really get the belly dancer getup near her loin cloth but oh well

Does her attire qualify as a +5 armour?

Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker (side view, right)

View of the Pinup White Speaker minus her fur cloak

If you could kindly take your eyes off her rear assets, you will notice that grass is dying along her wake

The devil wears Prada ... would you just look at those high heels!

Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker (side view, left)

Bad undercoat means this model wasn't all she could be
This miniature didn't really get off to the best of starts because my lack of experience in using the Citadel Skull White spray resulted in the initial undercoat being powdery and chalky. Sadly enough, the same occurred for the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour model that I am painting for my diorama. Since then, I have gotten some info on how best to use the Skull White spray so hopefully future minis won't get off to an inauspicious start. An alternative would be to use the Tamiya primer but the only Tamiya shop in the country didn't have any in stock which sucked.

Pinup White Speaker with her fur cloak
The Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker actually had a fur cloak which attached to her back. But as I am still undecided as to whether to glue it on, I put some blue tack on the collar, stuck it on the miniature and took some pictures to show how she looks with the cloak on her back.

Applied some wet blending techniques on the inside of the cloak

Did some dry brushing on the outside of her cloak, a painting technique which for some reason I almost never use

Getting inspiration to paint her red hair
Now, natural red hair isn't a shocking Blood Red colour, rather it's more of a ginger hue. I checked out some famous Hollywood actresses sporting red hair (whether natural or not) in order to get some inspiration for painting a more natural looking red hair.

Clockwise from the upper left hand corner - Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Christina Hendricks and Emma Stone

Close-up of the Pinup White Speaker's hair

Burning black smoke
Meanwhile for the burning black smoke on the miniature's left hand, I used this beautiful photograph (see below) taken by a photographer and posted on this site. While I may have overdone the burning part when I should be emphasising the black smoke, I decided to leave it be for now.

Black smoke resulting from burning tyres

Close-up of the burning black smoke on the Pinup White Speaker's hand

Thanks for checking out my finished Kingdom Death mini. Please feel free to comment if you think there are parts of the mini that need improving. Any advice for this noob painter is most welcome.

Seeking inspiration from Hollywood and Mother Nature's palette

After spending months working my Black Legion / Word Bearers army (with not much progress to boot), I am literally running on empty and have been left hankering for more variety in my miniature painting projects. Having always fancied a go at painting fantasy-based miniatures, I decided the time was right for me to start painting my diorama involving the Lord of the Rings Dragon and the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour miniatures - that has a working title of "A Marilyn Monroe Moment".

Marilyn in the iconic white dress from the film 'Seven Year Itch', 1955

An iconic Hollywood image - re-envisioned in a fantasy setting

Work on the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour is still in the very early stages and all I have done is to begin work on the skin tone. Painting on the miniature has gotten off to a rough start because priming it with Skull White spray caused a powdery (as opposed to a smooth) layer to adhere to the mini. I will need to shop for a Tamiya Gray Primer as it should be better for minis with more flesh showing.

Very early stages on the skin tone

Work on the Dragon is even further back in the progress timeline with its basecoat yet to be finished. While it might seem silly to seek a different challenge in my projects and still paint red - more so when I have just finished painting some Word Bearers - the reds for the dragon will eventually be much brighter and warmer than the dull-red of Lorgar's warriors.   

Work on the dragon's basecoat is ongoing

While trying to find the best possible colour scheme for the red dragon, I decided to see what Mother Nature had to offer. In particular, two animals caught my eye namely the Scleropages legendrei (red arowana fish) and the naja pallida (red spitting cobra). Both their red scales looked very beautiful and will be the inspirational foundation from which to paint the dragon.

Scleropages legendrei

Naja pallida

Meanwhile, I decided to also continue working on the Word Bearers without neglecting the creative diversity that I sought. That meant resuming work on Cyrene Valantion which is actually a Kingdom Death White Speaker Pinup miniature. One of the reasons I stopped was because I unhappy with way the mini was turning out. But I decided to suck it up and proceeded to repaint the skin and fix my earlier mistakes. While it still needs more shadows and highlights, the skin tone is now looking much better than my earlier attempt. Other parts of this mini is still at the basecoat stage.

WIP - Kingdom Death White Speaker Pinup, my proxy for Cyrene

My approach to both the Pinup Saviour and Dragon will be to start with the mid-tones first and then work towards shadows and highlights from there. It is a bit different than the usual base-to-midtones-then-to-highlights approach that is usually recommended by Games Workshop for beginners. Starting with the mid-tone actually lets me have more control over the application of shadows and highlights. Thanks for checking out my progress on the diorama and I hope to post more updates soon, especially pictures of a completed Cyrene Valantion.

Building a Word Bearers Anointed Terminator Squad

After nearly two months of inactivity, getting back on the proverbial hobby horse was a challenge but a welcome one. Taking a break from the hobby kinda recharged me and I was psyched up to resume work on my Word Bearers army. So much so that I finished assembling a whole terminator squad in just half-a-day which is a record for me. So now, despite the Skyrim arrow still being firmly lodged in my knee, I am now at least back to hobbying again.

Why did the Anointed cross the road? To wipe the smirk off a warrior of Guilliman. What up!

Word Bearers Anointed - ready for paint work to start

A more detailed look at the Anointed

Termie (right) has a mutated arm cause I haven't figured what weapon to choose ... so it's a proxy for something or other

Other Word Bearers stuff
Other Word Bearers army related work that I manage to work on was to paint on the Scab Red basecoat for parts of the cultists. I tried to vary the placing of the red colour scheme so as to not overwhelm the minis with too much red as well as to imbue them with some variety.

Word Bearers Cultists with autoguns

Meanwhile, work on Cyrene Valantion has stalled a bit as I am a bit scared to embark on the next stage of the painting i.e. the mid-tones. Thus far, Cyrene has only been basecoated and given a wash. Still working up the courage to attempt the mid-tones for fear of messing up.

Work in progress for the Blessed Lady

Hopefully I will have more progress pictures in the coming weeks. Thanks for reading!

First Word Bearer Chaos Cultist ... and a lady in waiting

Well, I am off the starting blocks. Just recently finished my first Word Bearer chaos cultist. Previously I would have been really proud of my achievement. But after seeing the Iron Painters finish 30 over models each over a 24-hour period during MaGaCon 2012, I am setting the bar higher i.e. I hope to finish between 5 to 9 cultists over this week. It will my little mini-Iron Painter. ^^

My ongoing experiment with painting flesh tones

Papa Nurgle seems to have taken a liking to this guy's back

This time round I completely changed the way I take pictures of my miniatures. I mounted a DSLR on a tripod; used only lighting from lamps i.e. no flashes; and set the shutter speed to a slow 1/60 which meant I couldn't hold the camera while taking it without getting blurry pics hence the tripod.

Lady in waiting ... Cyrene Valantion (Work-In-Progress)
I also managed to get some work done on the Kingdom Death model that I am using to represent the reincarnation of Cyrene Valantion of the Word Bearers. Nothing too fancy as I just managed to finish the basecoats. Next will be the washes followed by the midtones and then the highlights.

Front View - Reincarnation of Cyrene Valantion WIP (aka Kisya of Kingdom Death)

Back View - Reincarnation of Cyrene Valantion WIP (aka Kisya of Kingdom Death)

Word Bearer Inspired Books
Obviously Cyrene was inspired by Aaron Dembski-Bowden's The First Heretic. Meanwhile, I just finished reading Dark Apostle and have started on Dark Disciple by Anthony Reynolds. The former book gives some insight into Chaos Cultists while the series as a whole will make good background reading and inspiration before I attempt work on the Dark Apostle miniature.

Ahhh ... religious fanatics ... you can't help but love 'em. Heh heh.  

Sect of the Blessed Lady ... and Ork Lootas progress

Cyrene Valantion ... Confessor of the Word ... also known as 'The Blessed Lady'. There were no candidates in Game Workshop's vast array of miniatures that were worthy of this Horus Heresy First Heretic character so I had to turn to a Kingdom Death model i.e. White Speaker Kisya. So Kisya will now be a proxy for the reincarnation of Cyrene Valantion. As she plays no part in the gaming universe that is W40K, Cyrene will be just fluff for display with my Word Bearer army.

Front view of assembled White Speaker

Back view of assembled White Speaker

Reincarnation of Cyrene Valantion via a Kingdom Death vessel aka Kisya, pictured above with a white undercoat

So far I have only given her a white undercoat followed by a wash of Ogryn Flesh

Based on my previous experience with Lelith, I decided to give Cyrene a wash of Ogryn Flesh before proceeding to paint the basecoats. In addition to covering up potential white spots from showing up in later painting, the wash actually gives me a better view of where the shadows should be.

Cyrene with my Chaos Cultists ... all undercoated with Chaos Black

Ork Lootas
In between preparing my Chaos army for painting, I managed to finish the first squad of Ork Lootas led by a Rokkit Mek. I plan to add another five Lootas to this squad, maybe with a Mek that has a big shoota. But before I do that, I will most likely paint up five Ork Burnaz for variety.

Below is a more detailed look at the three new additions to my Ork Lootas Squad.

Well that's it for this week. Most likely I won't get much done next week as I will be helping Alvin out at MaGaCon 2012. Should be a fun experience.