Quick update... Shadowrun Mage Heroclix Repaint

I worked on the second half of the heroclix figure that I used for my Troll character figure.  She started as a Red She-Hulk figure (hence the skin color) that I repainted and added magic effects via 3d printing in clear resin.  Yes, I've accomplished what cheap prepainted miniatures did in 2006!  Hey, it's still a first for me.

I'm happy with the detail and color of the clear resin (that I colored bluish via a wash to less than stellar results).  Somehow the figure didn't seem too dark in tone despite having jet black hair and clothing but now seems like it after I repainted her in dark grey clothes.  I keep debating whether I should strip the paint off completely as it shouldn't damage the resin itself as people have been using acetone to clean resin post printing in the post-Covid rubbing alcohol shortage.  For now, I'll leave her alone but I may revisit this figure at a later date.

Still alive.. and making RPG character models!

It's been a few weeks of silence so I figured it was about time to show signs of (hobby) life here on the blog for the world to see!  While I haven't been a busy bee like Ashley over at the Paint it Pink blog (link), I've done a small bit during the past month.

I finally got around to some easy painting with a redo of some heroclix figs I picked up a while back for RPG characters.  One was initially for the Starfinder campaign that I'm in but I decided to go with my Krogan character instead of this Suli-jann Solarian.  The original fig is the Caiera clix model from the Planet Hulk series that I rebased and repainted relatively quickly.  I'm not entirely happy with the results though (too much wash in the armpit for example) but I've already overcoated the models and don't want to strip them completely to redo it.  The second one was a troll personal assistant character (think half bodyguard/half butler!) for use in Shadowrun.  That one came from a Hulk clix double model that I converted with a troll-like horn and a more appropriately sized 3d printed pistol.  He actually came based alongside a Red She-Hulk model that I can also convert into a Shadowrun character model as well so you may see that sometime on the blog as well.  Hopefully I've improved my eye technique since my Lt. Googely Eyes Hussar model; I really did have to make the eyes tiny in ever shrinking steps despite my gut instinct to get the result above instead of what happened before.  This is just average work and not even my best by far but it's basically a single weekend's worth of effort from start to finish (including drying time!) and more importantly completed work unlike my ever growing 3d printed pile of unpainted shame.  :)

Additionally, I printed out both of the 40k Lieutenants previewed in my last post but the Space Wolf was marred by multiple misprints.  I was testing out a new slicing program that apparently requires more manual supporting of models than I initially expected based on youtube reviews.  The Blood Angel did turn out well but I plan on redoing his loincloth icon as it wasn't extruded enough in the print unfortunately to be much of a visible detail after priming/painting.  I printed him out at a smaller traditional marine scale (32mm) so I may still assemble him and leave the revised version for a possible later full scale 40mm primaris fig.

State of the Blog Address (2019 in Review)

I have to say that this year passed by quickly!  It's basically a blog tradition that I go over what I did and didn't accomplish over the past 12 months and this year is yet again a bit of a mixed bag.  I'm the traditional hobby front, 2019 wasn't unfortunately much different than the prior year.  I managed to finish what I thought would be my final Winged Hussar (link here) as well as four figs for basically the same rpg character idea.  Why so many?  Well, the character changed as well as my ideas of how to portray him.   The first fig (link here) was printed on shapeways for a previous defunct campaign attempt whereas the others were done at home on my only big hobby project purchase, the Elegoo Mars 3d printer.

I had previously thought I was done with my hussar project but the upcoming release of Master Lazarus for 40k as well as a free 3d model from Artel W might convince me to dip my toes back into that pool later this year.  In the meantime, I've taken a stab at samurai inspired space marines instead with some success (link here) that I have yet to paint as well as a Space Wolf that at least I finished (link here).

Too big...too small...just right!

On the Star Trek front, I made a few entries to my SHIELD UP! house rules section.  While I didn't end up revising my Fasa STSTCS ship manual, I revised the existing D-15 FASA ship (link here) as well as added the Atlas dreadnought to my STA house rules (link here).  I also decided to test out a theory regarding whether you could noticeably improve prepainted heroclix minis with a quick wash and/or drybrush (link here).    Finally, I  came up with some more nuanced rules for playing STA in the Enterprise/NX era of trek (link here).  In that same update, I previewed a 3d version of my old NXL ship design which later got a test print or two (link here) but I never did more with them.  It's not alot but I suppose an optimistic way to look at it would be that I put out at least quarterly trek updates if averaged out for the year.  I don't have any ambitious plans for the trek side of the hobby but I do hope to revisit printing my NXL design now that I'm more experienced with supporting prints as well as coming out with a short Klingon D-7 update for FASA.  I generally need a direct motivation for my hobby work and the lack of any real chance of playing anything trek related locally unfortunately hampers that.

 Cactus Trek!

Ending the recap on a positive note, I was finally able to find a relatively stable rpg group this past year.  While I'm not enamored particularly with the ruleset (review link), it works for me as a player and we've been managing a monthly game since the summer.  It's because of that campaign that I've been focused more on my Krogan miniatures than the others.  I'd love it if we were playing longer than the 3-4 hours per session we average as well as playing every two weeks as originally planned instead of monthly but it's a good group of easy going players and I'm glad to have them.  With that, my yearly TL;DR hobby therapy session post is over and I wish everyone a happy 2020!

 

Another upcoming Krogan RPG character mini!

Star Trek Heroclix... worth a quick touchup?

Recently I gave another player the advice that a quick wash/shade of the Star Trek heroclix figs improves their look and the level of visible detail and I realized that I had never actually done so with my own Trek clix figs that I picked up last year.  While I had done the same thing with some other clix figs like AVP and Marvel/DC ones, those examples were a few years ago and I figured I should update the blog with an example of the quick and dirty technique on the newer Star Trek figs.   My goal was to show what can be done quickly, easily, and relatively inexpensively by a player without any real experience with painting miniatures.  

I tried to choose a half dozen figs showcasing a variety of factions and colors.  The original prepainted figs are duplicates of the same sculpt/paint job as I didn't think of taking the before pics of the exact same figs; any minor deviations on the base paint scheme (like roving eyebrows on the red shirt!) are just paint errors from the clix factory.  And, yes, the red shirt that I touched up is indeed missing a hand as he came like that from the ebay auction.  I had a second one of the fig so figured it wasn't worth raising a stink with the seller with one defective fig out of 20+ in the lot.  Besides, it's a bit appropriate given he's a red shirt and nurse Chapel is nearby anyways to treat his wound.  :)   Here is the starting "before" pic:

The first step that I did was a quick wash of the main uniform color.  I used a dark flesh wash on the Klingon/Romulan and a light wash on the Andorian.  The Federation figs instead got (from L to R) a red wash, soft flesh, and blue wash on the uniforms.  Skin and hands then got the approrpriate wash as well (blue for the Andorian, soft flesh for the rest).  I didn't wait for the first wash to dry before applying the second as I was purposely trying to show what a quick, relatively no fuss novice technique could do.  About the only care that I took was to avoid excessive pooling in areas like eye sockets and splotches on big flat areas.   No fig got more than 30 seconds each in total of actual painting time/attention with both washes combined.

While I was happy with the added detail in folds of the uniforms as well as on the faces, the above obviously isn't a home run either.  Despite my (admittedly minor) efforts to prevent excessive pooling, there are still areas where the wash dried a bit too prominently for my tastes so I figured I'd try and see what adding a second quick dry brush step could do for the figs.  For this next pic, I basically just dry brushed whatever the closest color I had to the base color (red for red, light blue for blue, brass for brass/copper, etc)  even if it wasn't the exact same tone to pick out the raised areas a bit more.  I wasn't careful regarding how I applied this paint so areas like the starfleet delta uniform details are somewhat obliterated.  If you want to keep those details, I'd say use a traditional careful technique in that one same area instead of drybrushing.

For darker colored figs like the klingons, I don't think the technique has much utility as the only place that I see a difference on him is on the grey uniform top (similarly the helmet/face on the romulan).  I do think though that it does improve the lighter colored figures in the line for minimal effort.  It's obviously *NOT* the same thing as repainting them with care and detail nor is it perfect as some things are lost (uniform badges and the whites of the eyes) but overall I think it is a moderate improvement for minimal effort.  Including the washes drying, the set of figs above was completely done in about an hour (most of that time taken up with waiting for the washes to dry!) with no individual figure taking more than 2-3 minutes total for both steps combined in actual painting effort.

Here is an animated comparison of the three steps in succession on the two figs that I think it had the greatest impact on.  As always, feel free to let me know what you think and whether or not the quick wash and/or dry brush is worth the effort (or if it is even an improvement in the first place!).