Back Again and Building Steam

Again the heady responsibilities of studenthood keep me from my Blogging obligations. That and not having anything worthwhile to show you. Anyway, I have been working on some cool steampunk miniatures in preparation to play the new skirmish game Malifaux. I love historicals, but sometimes one needs to work on something a little whimsical. I really feel that deep down, fantasy steampunk is my favorite genre to paint and play(cyberpunk be a very close second).

I included some pictures of the unpainted conversions. You may recognize the Captain Alister Cain conversion I did a while ago. It now has a coat of Paint and is ready to shoot down neverborn and witches of all stripes. I haven't bought the book, but I think that I will be using these as Guild gunfighters. The figures from Wyrd are very nice, but I wanted something a bit different. The other miniatures are the Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team. I really like these figures, they are finely sculpted and are not too busy with details, something that modern miniatures are prone to be. Also in the picture are the steam spiders that I constructed out of beads from our local bead shop(which is called Libeado, clever). I like the Wyrd Brass Arachnid, but I am poor student so I had to improvise. I did buy one Bras Arachnid to get the stat card. I think that these would also be very useful for role-playing. I am particularly proud of the the small centre spider. The legs are made from suspension struts from an Airfix kit that I had been converting into a grav tank.

I sculpted all the bases out of greenstuff over standard lipped bases, which was not as hard as I though it would be. I carved a manhole cover for the top had wearing character's base. I'm rather pleased with the result. Although I wish I had my Dremel here so I could mill more circular pieces of styrene.

I had a lot of fun painting these. Took my time and really tried some new techniques in painting these. It felt like I spent just as much time trying to get the bases to look right as I did painting the models! There was plenty of reference material to go around. Durham is full of cobbled streets which I could observe and really get a feel for. The advantage of living here instead of just visiting is that I can see cobbles(and other surfaces) in various conditions, which is real help when painting. How do cobbles look when they are under a street light? All I have to do is look at them when I go into town next.

I tried to do a bit of source lighting on the magic user. This technique is really a holy grail of fantasy painting for me. It gives a sort of mysticism that really suits certain universes. Malifaux is one of those dark settings where the bleakness is punctuated with glowing magical effects that really stand out. I'm not entirely convinced that I succeeded with the overall effect. The more I look at it, the more I think its off somehow. I would appreciate if any of the expert painters on the intertoobz could shed some light on the subject.


Thats all for now. Stay tuned for more photos and ramblings.