Back with with a plan, and some super dungeon explore!

Just to warn those that check this blog things will be a-changin' in the coming weeks, Probably starting with the layout and finding a more streamlined design, if you have one that you recommend please don't hesitate to tell me. 

Further changes with be more frequent updates, most likely written on sunday evening with the purpose of updates being wed, fri, sun. One will be Wargaming related, one will be random (board game mini or otherwise), and the last blog will be talking about games, movies, or something I did or enjoyed that week, usually as a wrap up. 

But enough about that. Lets get to the Super dungeon explore models I've been working at. 

As you may recall I worked on a Candy&Cola figure months ago:

After looking at her enough times and hearing what a good time some people at my Local game store were having with it I decided to pick up the full game including the expansions Caverns of Roxor and Von Drakk manor, I have fallen in love not only with the miniatures but the game itself, and I have yet to have played a bad game. 

Anyway I painted some other heros, not all of them but the others only have a little bit to go before they get their time in the sun. 

I like 'em all but lets start off with the one which started as the most boring and became one of my favorite paint jobs, The Ember Mage.

Ember Mage

When I started with this model She was plain and boring to look at, I had only done purple trim on the robes because I didn't want to go with gold or some metallic, and the main color of her robes started as that bluish black color you see there, without the flames easily the most over-looked, bland model in the back. but after I saw a warjack painted with some hot-rod flames while looking over /tg/ I knew what I wanted to do. the hot colors went well with the light green hair I gave her, overall I think she came out well. 

Sister of Light

Now I really wish the sister of light didn't have her mouth open on the model, it makes it really difficult not to make look strange while painting, and even harder to not make it so when taking a photo....oh well. I really didn't want to do her hair blond so I opted for brown, and reversed the clothing colors from her artwork but I feel she still captures the old spirit of the cleric. (Most players avoid choosing her though probably because they don't want to be dubbed party healer. Which is why I have a model later to replace her.)

Celestial Herald

I really enjoyed painting this model, It was cute, kinda easy and the couple of mistakes I made on her were quickly fixed. She's also really good on the tabletop, makes me really wonder why no one has picked her as a character yet.

Royal Paladin

Seeing as I don't paint knights (well good ones anyway) often I actually thought about how I wanted to paint this guy for a while before I actually started, eventually going with a cream/bone colored armor and my green inked "Irish" cloths for him over of the steel with blue, and blond hair/blue eyes combo which has been done to death. If I ever get another though, he's going to be a painted up as "Bear" to complement the next character on our roster.

Claw-Tribe Barbarian (Black rose)

What can I say, I love Dot.Hack//Sign and Black rose is pretty iconic, I just wish she had a sword, and I had a little more space to work with to do her "Tattoos"  not much else to say really. 

Deeproot Scout (Link)

Link he come to town! It's hard not to paint this model up as link, I only wish I had greenstuffed the bird part from the minish cap onto this model. Which might happen if I buy another caverns of roxor, that one gets a bird, and if I like it this one will get a "Shadow link" a la Water Temple color scheme.

Princess ruby (Princess peach)

It almost boggles my mind how it's difficult to paint this model something other than pink. It seems even Sodapop miniatures couldn't get over that and instead of giving her a red dress, as ruby might imply. They gave her a pink one and made her look like a princess peach clone. So fuck it, Peach clone it is. If I get another I might do daisy, or maybe a black or blue costume.

Star Guild Sapper (Luigi Mario)

This was another model I really enjoyed painting because of the space I had to work with and all the little details I could add. The POW! block being my favorite part of this miniature, I did notice that after I painted him a whole bunch of Luigi's started to crop up in place of mario, so I'm kinda glad I'm not alone in preferring Luigi over Mario. 

Plague doctor (sister of light replacement) 

Though not from SDE this plague doctor is from the Warheads series, and is a close enough match to their proportions I am considering buying more to use as bad guys down the road. Will be painted soon, just wanted to show him off and give him a plug.

Woo! well that's all for today we'll return to SDE next week with some monsters and maybe a couple more heros.

And we're back.

Sorry about no posts over the past couple of weeks folks, stuff has been crazy around here and I haven't gotten much done. But I have been painting this week so lets dive right into it.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been seeing several people asking how I get my whites so smooth, which I consider really simple but I understand how people might not come to the same idea, so I decided to do a tutorial on my Feora, protector of the flame.

As always I base in white, but instead of inking or going straight to the base colors I went over the white base with a badab black wash (now nulh oil shade from GW), You'll note there is a redeemer in the first couple of photos I hope to be showing him off later this week.

Now obviously you want to leave any areas you plan on inking something else white, so control your brushstrokes, which really is the trick to painting white, Control.

Now this greyish black base color is excellent to work up from because the cracks have been dealt with but it's still bright enough to get en effectively colorful pallet out of.My next step with Feora though was the white parts of armor,  the I did two coats of Marrow white from the P3 line. Watering down the mix very little ( I would guess 1 part water to 6 parts paint).

You'll also note I already added the basecoat of the cloth to her at this point.I was simply trying to get the bases set up so the rest would be done quickly. as you can see on the redeemer I was already setting up the gems on his chassis, better to get something done in one fell swoop than have to go back and do the same step later.

(I apologize ahead of time for the shadows on these next few photos. I was testing the camera from a new position and didn't catch them until after the model was done.)

the next step was to start with the detailing on Feora, Gold suits well with this sort of look and feel, so that is what I decided for the trim as well as the vent sections of her armor and the busted jack beneath her feet, but it's gold would look different by the end of this venture.

 Silvers were the next step before inks and washes to completing Feora, covering her halberd head and staff in it as well as touching up the chainmail cloak on the underside of the cloth. The final step was to add P3's green wash to her cloak (like I showed back in the goblin walk-through before we gave it another coat on the face.) give the vents on the back a wash of sepia, and the rest of the metal a wash of badab black with a 10/0 hair brush so as not to mess up the white that was put down.   The busted jack beneath her got a wash of Sepia on the back, and a light brown wash on the rest of it , before adding orange to pieces of it to give the appearance of rust.

Finally the basing, All I added was some static grass, and some homemade bunches of flowers (which I also plan on showing a small tutorial on in the future) and a small brass piece of ivy to give the jack a rustic overgrown look.

 I have more menoth stuff that will be showing up in the coming weeks, in preparation for COASTAL ASSAULT.  (I'm also kinda sick of looking at yellow every time I sit down to paint, need a break from it)

Speaking of which....

So I got a box of super dungeon explore models (Caverns of Roxor), and after learning their plans to put out a Castlevanina like expansion. decided to get the main game when possible. However I found a Candy & Cola miniature for the game, the model looks good so I did my best to recreate it according to the art work it came with, of course taking a few artistic licenses.  I think it turned out rather well.

Well that is all for now, check back later this week and I should have more updates.

As always Comments, suggestions, ideas, and emails are welcome, If you liked any of this stuff and think your friends might by all means share it and spread it around.

~SWL