kithcrafts

[kithcrafts]

This week I used a misprint given to me by a friend for some experimentation with textures! Conclusions:

Tiny hatch marks look best with many translucent layers

I love the way the tail came out

I'm not angry about the wood of the bow either

The hoodie looks better in person

I'm gonna need some new brushes if I want to make a habit of this

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"Good Morning lovely people, all my neighbors and my Friends! Thank you all so much for joining me today! I've been thinking on the problem that we've gathered here to mend, and I'm thinking we can make it go away. I've been worrying at this one for at least a couple weeks and I have come to the conclusion that it's bad. Because you see that kids these days they simply do not have the lovely kind of carefree happy childhood we had!"

"Alright, but you promised us free sandwiches!"

I really enjoyed painting the sparkly coat on this fast-talking green fellow! To me he's giving roll into town and promise to solve all your problems (for a very small fee) vibes.

Finding good references to make the dwarf's beard feel more believable was a challenge! I wanted him to look a bit older and had quite a time looking for the graying pattern that I wanted for our ginger friend. In the end, I was pleased with the result.

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CROSS STITCH PATTERN - Windows 95 Glitch by ArtByRomShop

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Still hashing out some of the details, there, but is sure seems promising!

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Today was a good painting day!

[kithcrafts]

Did a little experiment today.

On the left, nails painted from my stash of nail enamels. Black base coat, then some glitter that looks more saturated and purple in person.

On the right, black base coat like the other, but the color is about three coats of Laserface by Turbo Dork. I've never put model acrylics over nail enamels before, and I like the result pretty well. To protect the acrylics, I tried a standard clear nail polish, but the acrylic reacted badly.

It's hard to photograph because of the metallics, but the paint tore and shrunk along the brush strokes.

I don't hate the effect here - it gave a fun texture, but it might be better to use a polyurethane varnish in the future.

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I haven't painted in this style in a good long time. I'm happy with how this little guy came out!

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The wizard never quite got the tanning oil stains out of her desk after Kaiyr'ynne broke in to her office.

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OK, here are all the shelves in the order I think I painted them in.

Took a little break this week to paint some furniture.

Which book would you choose to read?

This is the last bookshelf in a set I bought back in '22 when I was just learning to paint. Spreading out the work on these has helped me to see the progress I've made over the years!

[kithcrafts]

Took a little break this week to paint some furniture.

Which book would you choose to read?

This is the last bookshelf in a set I bought back in '22 when I was just learning to paint. Spreading out the work on these has helped me to see the progress I've made over the years!

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Kaiyr'ynne lounges at the pool, enjoying her newfound wealth. I picked up this rude little goblin at a local game shop. A quick search finds the model is "Hila" from Twin Goddess Miniatures, which I link here because she was SUCH a delight to paint; it's clear some love went into this sculpt!

Just for fun, here she is being rude and sassy:

The wizard will NOT be pleased about this. But she Will point out the (tanning) oil stain on her desk with a certain fondness for decades to come!

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This is legitimately terrifying! Well done!

Check this goose chimera mini I painted. I got it from Free RPG Day. I decided to paint it with each head being a different bird species.

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I got some paint pens to see if they could do minis. The answer, it turns out, is a qualified yes. They went down easily on an unprimed (!) cultist I had lying around in a townspeople pack I bought specifically for the chance to paint the wheelchair wizard. I was able to block in the basetones and even add some detail on the larger surfaces! These markers have a brush tip, so they were able to get into some of the smaller details, they dried quickly and layered easily - overall a perfectly reasonable experience. I'll probably use them for base coats in the future!

On the downside, it's difficult to keep clean color borders like I can with a brush. This could be a skill issue. The paint is very thin leaving the tip, which makes it a bit difficult to control. I wasn't able to accomplish any blending, and I'm concerned about contamination if I wasn't very careful about the order of operations.

All that said, here's the cultist after about 10 minutes of work with the markers.

I wanted to get a sense of whether the paint was consistent across the kit, so I painted a Pride Cultist. Those photos represent one coat and some minor touch ups, all with paint markers, with (I will repeat) about 10 minutes work. If I needed to do a few minis for a game that was about to start, this would be the way!

Later on, I spent an hour with conventional paint and finished the project.

I tidied up the skirt and did some proper blended layering on the jacket, rendered the belt and retouched the sigil on their back.

Then my group started enthusiastically generating lore! 🫀

I'm really pleased with the process here: block in color with markers, finish with brush. It gives me a stronger vision of the finished piece much earlier on. I could have easily spent several hours getting it to this level of completion, but it took less than 90 minutes including setup and cleanup! I think I'll still prime black for most things because that's more forgiving in the deep recesses where the markers basically can't reach, but it's nice to have the option of skipping that step if the whether isn't cooperating or I just Want To Paint Now.

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But did you notice it changes colors as the comic progresses?

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With special effects, btw!

FROG WIZARD!!!

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FROG WIZARD!!!

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That orange is a good addition -- echoes the stripes on the eyestalks nicely. Puts me in mind of beaver teeth, so maybe that would be a good color reference. They tend to get darker, almost red, where they're thicker and have a natural highlight to a much brighter yellow in the thinner and more worn places.

Red Beholder Update

Previously

Hmmm. Comparing the 2 pictures I'm torn as to which looks better. Maybe some whitish highlights will be the answer.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.