Farewell 2012, Welcome 2013!

   

Back to Work

Well it looks like it's that time again. The last few days I've spent setting up a temporary work station while the crew comes to clean up the mess from the tree accident. It has unfortunately set me far behind on my deadlines, but has also been a nice break for a few days of painting.

Unfortunately every vacation must come to an end, and it's time to get back to work.
Although that being said, I am also limited by what projects I have access to at the moment.
So tonight I painted a piece for a local player named Jakob. His main army is Chaos and I volunteered to paint something for it for him, but he insisted this is what he wanted, so he is receiving this Deathwing Sergeant.

And to work on a contest piece for my escalation army, I began painting my Dark Apostle of Nurgle.

Tomorrow will see the finished base of the Terminator, more work on the Dark Apostle, and some bases for a Grey Knight project for the local store. 

Goodnight all,

William T.

Under Construction

Well another set back at Exiled Miniatures.

I returned home from my retail job today to find the neighbors tree in the studio.

Apparently they decided to cut it down without any help and instead dropped it into the office. 

As far as I can tell, no damage has been done to any miniature or clients orders. Luckily the table that was crushed is easily replaceable and most the paint pots on it scattered throughout the room and debris.

Unfortunately this is a set back in work as I have to wait until the debris is cleared and I can get to everything in the room.

The upside to all of this is that we can have a new roommate and my office will move very far away from any trees! So for the next couple of days, I am going to be under construction. 

No orders will ship, no painting will be done. I may get some minor assembly work finished but nothing large.

For readers who have orders placed, I apologize and will keep you informed on your order status.

We'll return soon though! And with a new look, not only on the blog, but the office, Facebook, and website!

William T.

Holiday charity projects

Good evening everyone!

In my 15 years of the hobby, I can't even begin to explain how great the community has been to me.
It's because of the community I have come as far as I have and will soon be able to do what I love for a career. Unfortunately not everyone is as lucky as I am.

One of our newest commission pieces is an army to raffle at the local Games Workshops event in a month.
This job has me thinking about what I can do as a painter to help give back.

So over the next two months, I will be doing several miniatures to be given to the kids at the local store who aren't as lucky, running auctions for charities with the proceeds going to charity, and paint classes and tutorials to help improve the community, locally and online.

I'm looking for recommendations of what charities to get involved with. I've been referred to this one.
I like the concept behind it, being a gamer myself, I know that if I were to be hospitalized I would want to be able to either paint or play video games.

Tomorrow starts the road to completing the Grey Knight army. I will begin painting the inside of the Razorback.
I haven't 100% settled on the consistency of the army yet, but roughly it will be:

Castellan Crowe
15 Power Armoured Grey Knights
5 Paladins
1 Razorback

Have a goodnight guys!
William T.

Don't Mix Just Paint! Painting Faces with the Andrea system.

Good early morning everybody!
I was recently asked about how to paint flesh and thought it'd be an excellent time to show off the Andrea Flesh Kit.

Tonight we will be painting the face of Wolf the Barbarian from Hasslefree.

So we begin with a nice tidy work space and everything we need within reach. For this tutorial I used:
-Andrea Don't Mix Just Paint Flesh Set
-Games Workshop Violet Shade
-Reaper Master Series Flow Improver
-Windsor & Newton Miniature Series Size 2
-Windsor & Newton Miniature Series Size 000
-Games Workshop Basecoat Brush
-Soda Bottle Caps

I begin by priming the miniature white. This was done using Citadel Skull White Primer from Games Workshop. Now this guy had been previously primed and was awaiting stripping when chosen for this tutorial, so because of this the final product is not as smooth as it could be. 

On my palette I lay out my colours. and number them from 1 to 6, leaving empty wells to mix paint in.

Yes I realize I said this is a Don't Mix, Just Paint set but without mixing we won't have smooth blends.

We add Flow Improver to each paint and mix it together until it has the consistency of melted butter.

Then I cover it with a bottle cap.

This prevents the paint from drying out under the lamps while we paint. Credit for this idea goes to Bogusz Stupnicki. (CMoN: Bohun)

Our basecoat will be 3 parts Andrea Colour 1 and 2 parts Colour 2.

I use several thin layers to apply the paint until I get a nice even coverage. 

Once I have an even coat of paint, I apply the first highlight consisting of pure Colour #2.

Using a mix of Colour #2 and Colour #3 I continue to highlight the face. Picking out the prominent features like the nose, forehead, and eyebrows.

I continue to work around my wheel of colours, adding more highlights using 50/50 mixes. 

The highlights will look a little rough at these stages, but we'll smooth them out later.

The photo above is a highlight of pure Colour #3.

Continuing with the pattern, we highlight with 50/50 of Colour #3 and #4.

Finally we reach pure colour #4. This should be used in the most prominent places. Top of the head, tip of the nose, eyebrows and ear tips. 

Now we blend our highlights in by going in the opposite way on the wheel. I work backwards from Colour #4 back to our basecoat. This stage is done with thin glazes. Ratio roughly 1:4 Paint to Flow Improver.

I can now begin my shadows. I use a mix of the basecoat with Colour #5 on the wheel. To give depth the the face I apply a thin glaze over the eye brows and around the temples, as well as the underside of the cheeks and eye sockets.

I continue to add more of Colour #5 to my mixture and apply it deeper into the recess of the face. 

Finally I add in Colour #6 for the final shadows. This is applied to the bridge of the nose, a fine line above the eyebrows, sides of the temples, eye sockets, and under the lip and cheek bones. 

All that remains is to pick out some details and paint the eyes. For my Barbarian I chose green.

Here is the finished product. I added some stubble to his head and chin.

I will work on getting a translation list to convert the colours to GW and other Ranges! 

Please share your own in the comments! 

Tonight I also applied some paint to the Warboss whose base I showed earlier in the week.

Good night/morning everyone!

William

Bloody Halloween

I almost forgot to share this! Finished on All Hallows Eve!

A better photo will come when the model for it is finished as well!

Long night in the Studio

I feel like my title is a bit misleading.
Tonight was indeed a long night in the studio. Unfortunately, it was not a night of painting!

I felt the need to rearrange some stuff as I make my case to not give up my studio space to another person for a bedroom.

I suppose that makes me spoiled doesn't it? I have my own bedroom and an office in a 3 bedroom house and I refuse to share it with a third roommate.
Maybe I'm just skeptical because every other person who's lived here can't pay bills. Hm...
Despite the fact that I am well versed in the eviction process (I worked for a real estate company for a year handling eviction from low income house and vehicle repossession), I don't care to go through that to chase off another bad roommate.

Here I go rambling again...
Most the work tonight just involved cleaning up some of the projects around the desks and organizing them to make better use of my space.

I also added a shelving unit to get projects off the desk and get me another overhead light source.



On the business side of life here at Exiled Miniatures, the casting went out to several artist for concept work to develop our miniature line. While a lot of this remains top secret, I'll tell you they will be 54mm collectible pieces. If your interested in applying, email us at ExiledMiniatures@gmail.com please include samples of your work. You will receive details and be requested to do a quick concept piece for us in lines of what we have in mind.

As far as painting goes, I'm working steadily on the Deathwing Company project for a client. We also just received an invitation to take part in a Games Workshop birthday celebration and asked if we could do an army for a raffle prize.
It looks like the lucky winner will be receiving 10 Grey Knights, 5 Grey Knight Terminators, a Razorback, and a Grey Knight Captain!!!!
Talk about a great prize!!

More details coming soon!!!

Have a good night everyone!

William