Super Dungeon Explore Fig.1: Deeproot Druid

Slightly more than two-and-a-half years after I first started painting miniatures, I have finally completed an anime character; the very type of figure/model that started me on this journey in the first place. So in a sense I have come full circle and it feels good. Painting bright colours is so much fun and just puts me in a happy place. Life is at its best when you appreciate the small things! 

Up close and personal, the Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid

Shinryaku! Ika Musume - Reference used for painting the druid's eyes

Fellow blogger Zab of Almost Perfetc had given me a very good starting reference for anime eyes but I unfortunately couldn't use it to convey the type of expression I wanted the druid to have. Luckily for me I found a near-perfect example to base my painted anime eyes on, in the form of the protagonist in Shinryaku! Ika Musume which literally translates to Invade! Squid Girl. Despite not having watched a complete episode of this anime television series, I have always liked how the main character is illustrated both in terms of her many expressions as well as her simple yet effective colour scheme. 

Super Dungeon Explore - Deeproot Druid [Completed]

Meanwhile, seeing that I had already blundered in painting a textured white fur, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. So that meant I could not paint the druid's armour using metallic paint which would have been out of place with the flat colours of a chibi-stlye illustration. Instead, I tried painting non-metallic metal (NMM) again, in what is only my second attempt at this tough technique (with the first attempt being Marvel's Iron Man). Still very unhappy with my NMM work though.

The druid's golden armour was my second attempt at painting non-metallic metal

Green gems on the armour turned out better than the actual armour itself

While the textured white fur wasn't a complete and utter disaster, it does feel slightly out-of-sync with the rest of the druid's colour scheme. So lesson learnt and textures are out for the next chibi mini.

Look closely at the band-aid to see some texture work

Textured white fur, a case of being too clever for my own good

White highlights and cool light grey shadows on the fur were increased

I can't help but wear this silly grin on my face just thinking of the many bright colours I will need to use in order to bring the rest of Super Dungeon Explore's chibi-style minaiture heroes to life. Thanks for taking the time to check out the druid, the first of many pieces from this beautiful board game.      

SDE Deeproot Druid [WIP - Skin and hair]

Although I'm still at the early stages of my anime chibi-style painting project with the Super Dungeon Explore board game pieces, I can already tell I am going to have so much fun. Painting these chibi minis is going to allow me to go crazy with bright colours. For an anime fan like myself, that is like mana from the heavens. Also I get to emulate Hayao Miyazaki's use of colours. Sweet!

Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid [Work-in-Progress - skin and hair]

To paint the druid's skin, I had to imagine a sun-kissed wood elf with a fascination for green hair-dye products. Since I had never met such an elf before (let alone any elf), I instead envisioned a beach going tourist who was a little too enthusiastic during Paddy's Day celebrations. It was that or think of George Hamilton with green hair. For the uninitiated, he was a Hollywood actor with a serious tan.

Skin tone was a tad orangey ala George Hamilton's tan

I loved how well the green complemented the orangey skin tones. For that, I have to take my hat off to the Super Dungeon Explore concept artists for getting the colour schemes down pat. Recreating the colour schemes on the board game pieces makes me feel like a kindergarten kid with paint colours. And that is a good thing because we all can get a tad too serious about the hobby for our own good. 

Being a wood elf, the Deeproot Druid's hair is naturally green

Well that's it for this super quick update on the Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid. The textured white fur isn't looking all that bad now with the skin and hair painted in but I will have to finish all the other parts before I can be completely sure, so I will reserve final judgement until then. So next up will be some non-metallic metal (NMM) work on his armour, an attempt at painting anime eyes and everything else. Many thanks for following my progress on these cute miniatures so far!

Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid [WIP - Fur coat] and How to Paint Textured White Fur

My adventure with Super Dungeon Explore's board game miniatures begins with the Deeproot Druid. I choose the druid because it gave me the opportunity to try and paint a textured white fur like that of a polar bear. Now, colour schemes for chibi-style anime characters are usually rather flat with some contrast coming from colour combinations. Sometimes, slight differences in hue, saturation or tonal values in colours are applied thus serving to add more depth to the character. Adding texture is a big gamble on my part as it could (or already has) fail spectacularly and result in an awful looking mini.

Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid - Work-in-Progress on polar bear fur coat

Super Dungeon Explore Deeproot Druid - Side views of polar bear fur coat

So far, self doubt has already arisen as to whether I made the correct choice in attempting to paint a textured white fur coat for a chibi-styled miniature. But being a stubborn old git, I am determined to see it through and hopefully it may still come together nicely. Although the druid's fur coat still looks a bit rough in places, I left further refinements for later because I want to first see how the textured white fur looks on the druid after his skin, beard and clothes have been fully painted.

Colour scheme reference used for Deeproot Druid

Choosing colours for the Deeproot Druid was easy as I wanted to paint the druid in the colour scheme shown in his Super Dungeon Explore board game playing card (see above). As I understand it, the fur coat that the druid is wearing belongs to a bear and the only white bear I know of is the polar bear.

How to Paint Textured White Fur (Quick and easy version)

It seems counter intuitive to prime the miniature black (Step 1) when you want to paint white fur. But I used a black primer in order to get an opaque dark brown basecoat layer above it (Step 2). Having some of the dark brown showing through at the final stage helps to give the white fur added depth. Following that, sequential steps are taken to paint random hair/fur-like strokes in increasingly lighter values from beige-like colours to light grey to white (Steps 3 to 6). These steps (see below) offer a quick way to get textured white fur but it's obviously not suitable if you plan to paint a competition piece. For that, more careful consideration is needed for the placement of individual paint strokes.

Step 1 - Prime with black

Step 2 - Basecoat with dark brown (Citadel Scorched Brown)

Step 3 - Paint strokes of a 50:50 mix of Citadel Khemri Brown and Dheneb Stone

Step 4 - Paint strokes of pure Citadel Dheneb Stone

Step 5 - Paint strokes of cool light grey (Citadel Astronomican Grey)

Step 6 - Highlight with pure white

So my journey into anime chibi-style miniatures is off to a rocky start. I have my fingers crossed it will all still turn out fine when the rest of the druid is painted up. At the very least, I will have an idea if painted textures and chibi-style miniatures are compatible. In fact, there are already a few ideas running through my head on how to make the white fur more chibi-like, for example ramping up the white highlights and touching up with more cool light grey colours. Next up is work on the druid's skin and hair, which will give me an inkling as to whether textured white fur is going to work.

Super Dungeon Explore - Assembling the Heroes

Having been constantly at work on real-to-scale and anatomically correct miniatures over these past months, I found myself badly needing a dose of the opposite extreme. So rummaging through my impossibly long to-do hobby list, I got reacquainted with a board game miniatures project I had been meaning to work on. That the miniatures were chibi style anime characters - which contain smaller bodies with over-sized heads and over-the-top cuteness - meant they fit my criteria of anti-realistic miniatures perfectly. It's ironic that I first started out in this hobby to learn how to paint some anime models, a project I ultimately never started on as I got sidetracked by Games Workshop miniatures. 

Front cover of the humongous Super Dungeon Explore manual

Back cover of the Super Dungeon Explore manual showcasing three heroes

Straight out of the box I instantly fell in love with Super Dungeon Explore's humongous manual. In this day and age where manuals are increasingly smaller with fonts so tiny that it's undetectable by electron microscope (ok so I am exaggerating a wee bit), having a game manual whose size (10 inches by 10 inches, or 25.4 cm by 25.4 cm) is nearly equal to the board game packaging itself is a sight for a sight for sore eyes, especially for old and tired ones like mine. Much kudos to Soda Pop Miniatures for bucking the trend and giving us a good-old-fashioned, big and colourful manual.   

Simple instructions for assembling the Super Dungeon Explore heroes

Assembling the heroes was very straightforward with easy enough to follow instructions, which were needed because the pieces were all mixed-up together. One thing I noticed about these chibi style board game pieces was their details were not as clearly defined as what I have come to expect from dedicated miniatures. But I guess that is to be expected because the primary function of these plastic figures are as board game pieces to be moved around and not miniatures to be painted.    

Super Dungeon Explore heroes, assembled and ready for priming

In addition to the manual which contained many colourful references to the plastic figures, there was also a set of nine very beautiful playing cards that offer a glimpse as to the colour scheme that belongs to each individual hero character in the Super Dungeon Explore board game. I will most likely stay true to the individual character's colour scheme as I feel they have been well conceived.

Playing cards for heroes in the Super Dungeon Explore board game

I am pretty excited to be painting the Super Dungeon Explore heroes. Other than being an interesting diversion from the same old same old, this projects finally allows me to paint anime characters ... something that got me started on my journey as a miniature painter. Seems like fun days ahead! 

Kingdom Death White Speaker [sans cloak and spear]

One of the reasons why Kingdom Death easily makes it to my Top 5 favourite miniature range is because their figures allow me to do a lot of something I have come to love in this hobby ... painting skin tones. Personally for me, a miniature truly comes alive only when skin tones form a large percentage of the surface area ... caveat being they are painted well, a skillset that I am always striving to improve each time I tackle a project. This then serves as the perfect introduction to my latest work on a Kingdom Death miniature i.e. the White Speaker without her cloak and spear. 

Kingdom Death White Speaker, sans cloak and spear

Although I am fully aware I have a long way to go before I can achieve my two main aims when painting skin tones of female figurines - porcelain-like smoothness and realistic looking skin - this highly detailed 35-mm scale Kingdom Death miniature represents my best effort to date on skin. That's hardly saying much when my baseline effort is so low but I'm happy with any progress I make.

Lovely sky blue to complement the White Speaker's blond hair

After some thought, I felt it best to go with blond hair coupled with white/grey/sky blue clothing. It's a colour scheme which soothes me, and likely the White Speaker's enemies too before she sticks that dagger deep into their gut. But at least they will all die with a relaxed smile on their face. 

The White Speaker [sic] Wears Prada

I was also pleased with how her toes and high heels turned out. I managed to clearly define separate toes on her feet, paint the nails of individual toes and paint a little blue dot into the high heels thus adding depth to her shoes. Some of this came about due to a better understanding of how important it is to paint some lining in between two not-so-contrasting colours. I am still susceptible to lapses in which I forget to paint the lining (e.g. parts of the strap in her clothing) but I am getting better at it. As minor as this may seem, it can be the difference between 'meh' and 'not too bad'.   

Base was kept simple with some sand, stones and grass

Slightly more work was done on the White Speaker's skin but not too much as my original skin tone mix had gone dry despite being in a wet palette. I concentrated mainly on her chest area to improve contrast as well as repositioning her navel lower towards the crotch area. Some minor work was done to bring out her collar bone by adding darker shadows and brighter highlights.

White Speaker's cloak had to go as it would have covered up her beautifully sculpted back

Two things about the miniature that I did not like was her spear and cloak. The former because it seemed out of place. After all, why carry a spear if you already have a dagger in hand. Stylistic I must admit but it looked off-putting to me. Meanwhile, the Kingdom Death White Speaker's cloak was not as well sculpted as her back so I left the former out so as not to block the latter.

Two of her fingers had snapped off turning it into a victory sign gesture

Now if you ask me to choose between resin and plastic miniatures, I would pick resin anyday. The details that a resin miniature can provide a painter cannot, in my honest opinion, be as well replicated in a plastic miniature. Unfortunately, one main drawback of resin is the brittleness of some parts which can result it being snapped in two if not prepped with care and gentleness. Having prepped the White Speaker during my early days in this hobby - when I approached prep work without care and with an impatience bordering on devil may care heavy-handed brush strokes when cleaning the minaitures - there were consequences. This White Speaker had two fingers broken off  so now it's because she was careless during a battle and got them cut off. I am sticking with that story.    

Kingdom Death White Speaker (side view from right)

In line with my Achilles Heel with bases, I didn't put much work on the White Speaker's base other than to glue some sand on it, drybrush the sand with brown/yellow hues, add stones and grasses, and finally drybrush the stone block upon which her right leg rests. All very unexciting stuff. One day I hope to create the very dioramas which made me go 'ooohhhhh' and 'ahhhhh' as a very young kid in a Tamiya model shop (I couldn't afford this hobby till I was well into my late 30's so I am painting with a zealot like single-mindedness to make up for lost time) but for now simple bases will have to do.

I just love this dynamic pose struck by the White Speaker

 

360 view of Kingdom Death's White Speaker
For a 360 degree view of the Kingdfom Death White Speaker 35-mm scale miniature, please check out the YouTube video below. For other videos, please visit my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures. Also be sure to choose the high definition (HD) option when viewing the videos.

Finishing the Kingdom Death White Speaker has wet my appetite for yet more skin tone experimentations. With that in mind, I am sorely tempted to get some of Kingdom Death's new hard plastic miniatures to practice on while I keep the few resin miniatures that I have left for future days when my skills have gone up a notch. For now, I feel like I am in 2nd gear and halfway up the RPMs while driving a five gear manual transmission car. Just hope I don't blow up my transmission while moving up the gears. Achh! Why am I talking about cars? Must be the constant bombardment by sexist magazines that equate scantily clad models with cars. Power of the media indeed!