Weekly Waffle #322
24th February 2024
For this week’s weekly waffle, I have decided to switch away from the purely fun stuff and try something a little bit different for me. I’m badging this as part of my learning experience for this year where I am going to try and push myself out of my comfort zone and try some new techniques. Nothing drastic and I’m going to do this gradually so that I don’t taint my mojo for simply enjoying painting. What I really want to do is to start to develop techniques to go into the toolbox that I can then call upon as when they are needed. So, this week what I’m going to try and work on is having a single direction for the light hitting the model. At the moment I just tend to assume that the light is hitting the model from above but in an all round even sort of way. It works for the tabletop but isn’t very realistic. So, what would a mini look like if the light were coming from one direction. Having said that I’m not imaging a total dark space with one spotlight on it. There will be some light bouncing around, so the back of model wont simply be black. It will just be darker.
I have switched away from the gothic steam punk feel of Wild West Exodus and gone more modern warfare. This is a 1/35 scale miniature from the Nuts Planet, Tiger Line, series which makes it a little large for a gaming mini. Whilst it is larger than normal, I think that anything I learn from this will translate to 28mm or 32mm figures. I originally picked this up along with a few other in the line with the idea of using them in a post apocalypse style diorama that never came to fruition. So, the models have been sitting on a shelf waiting for me to do something with them. I’ve picked this one first because I have previously painted the 75mm version of him back in 2020 and thought it would be good to see what I could do with the smaller version.
You can see more Nuts Planet miniatures at my gallery here.
He’s called ‘Silencer Bane’ which I am guessing is more about him silencing his enemies with the BFG attached to his exoskeleton as opposed to the silenced rifle in his hands. Although the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that there is no silencer, and his rifle is very short. That is because the plastic is very brittle and the end of the barrel, along with the silencer snapped off. I could have tried to fix it, but this is more about a paint exercise than anything else, so I’ve left it how it is. The plan was to go with a similar colour scheme and base so that I could get some pictures of the two models’ side by side at the end of the project. It also meant I didn’t have to spend a lot of time trying to work out what sort of colour scheme would be best for him. Although I soon realised, I didn’t know where the original mini actually was so the side-by-side pictures won’t be possible, at least not at the moment.
The base was really straight forward with some crack paint to give the dried earth effect and then a couple of clumps of grass tufts. On a side note, I’m running out of tufts, so I’ll need to start looking around for some more. I can’t remember where I got these ones from, but I like them because they come in different shapes which looks a little bit more natural than the simple round ones.
The model itself comes in a nice little box with the mini, consisting of nine pieces in a zip lock bag. The quality is really good but with the plastic being firm, which gives good detail, it is prone to braking if you are not carful. And I wasn’t carful enough. Once it had been cleaned up and assembled, I primed it with a Vallejo black surface primer. Then to help we work out where the shadows and highlights should go, I used a dark brown for an all over zenith highlight followed by a lighter brown to highlight where the light would strike the figure from. For me this just really helps me focus on where the light and shade should be.
I’ve used thin coats of paint over the base colour to get the base colours down for each area and I’ve left it that in terms of the shading. Then I’ve mixed in a lighter colour that base colour to build up the highlights. For the most part I’m happy with how this approach has turned out although there are some things, I would do a differently going forward. Getting the right consistency for the paint as I’m layering up to the highlights is something that worked well in some area but not in others. I don’t really know what I did wrong and think it’s just going to be one of those trial-and-error type things to work out how to get it right. I don’t think any of it has been a disaster, just that it could be better. Which at the end of the day was the whole point of painting up this miniature. To learn something new.
The other thing that has been a challenge with this mini is getting my head around the fact I want it look different depending on which angle you a looking at it from. I’m so used to painting a model and then turning it around to get the highlights and shading the same the whole way round. So, it doesn’t matter which way you look at it, it will have the same appearance. With this I was deliberately wanting it to look different as you turn it round. But it some how feels wrong. Until you remind yourself that you are tyring to mimic how it would look with light coming form a single direction. Then it starts to make sense.
Overall, I’m glad I painted this guy and it’s given me a lot to think about. I will be coming back to this technique over the next few weeks to try to build on it. It’s a good way of getting paint on the minis I had for the diorama. But what do you think, am I on the right track?
That wraps up February on the hobby front. I have to say that I’m really happy with how it’s gone from a hobby point of view. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve painted and I’m beginning to feel like my painting is improving. Nothing major but I’m on the road to get back to where I was a few years ago. I also have some plans to learn some new skills this year but I’m going to save an update on that front until I get back from Adepticon just in case id decide to change them. But there is nothing major in there. Just a couple of skills that I want to focus on and hopefully become proficient with.
With that I’m going to bring this weekly waffle to a close. I have content planned to take things up to Adepticon and at the moment the mojo is there and I’m enjoying my hobby Time. I hope you all have a good week whatever you are up to and that all your hobby projects go to plan. Until next time keep safe and I hope to catch you all again next week.
And to keep you entertained until next time why don’t you have a look at so other content I’m enjoying at the moment:
