Kick-off 2015 with Kromaster

Hello friends!!

So to ring in 2015, the Painting Sage and I decided to bust out my Kromaster Arena board game that I picked up at PAX Australia.

This is a cool little fantasy fighting boardgame where you use the characters spells and abilities to chase down and attack your opponent.

Now, to be absolutely honest, the primary reason I got this game was because it looked BLOODY cute. Like, this is adorable. But, another reason I was drawn towards this, is that I am really not one for lengthy super involved rules.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a game with depth, but if I need to spend an hour on YouTube to work out how to set up the map then Ellie’s out. You can find me over at the other table playing Munchkin.

This game has a big rule book, with mini-maps that act as a step by step tutorial! We figured we’d take advantage of the nice weather outside (once a year where I live, seriously) and have a game outside in the shade.

There is dialogue facing the other player and an in depth explanation of the rule you’re learning to the left. This was the tutorial for basic movement, terrain interaction and attack.

As things became more complex, the map got a little bigger and the characters started multiplying to work together. In the above photo I was playing “Sheep guy” and the “Hooded con man”.

You can also buy “booster” boxes with additional characters. Even though we didn’t play with these guys today, I had purchased these when I picked up the board game itself.

I love that the boosters come with their own token set. You beauty! I hate nothing more than adding things to a game where you have to “pretend this token is this”.

I don’t want to really give this a x/10 at the moment, as we only went so far as the tutorials to start – but so far this is shaping up to be HEAPS of fun. Can’t wait for a couple more rounds of this – and to try out the expansion! (Yes, I’m that person that purchases the cool looking expansion before they even know if they like the base game *ehem*).

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The Random Life of Make-up and Miniatures

Well, I have no had a lot of time to paint, update or anything else for that matter.
Makes me sad.

Tears have been shed.

Well, on with the show!

So I finally have my “failed Rotten Harvest: Trick or Treat” entry mostly completed. There’s some basing detail still to finish, but here she is!!

Er, El….I know you put a lot of time into this and all but doesn’t this look kind of…broken?

Now I ended up with an unintended side effect of, as all of the elements were created and painted SEPERATELTY, I ended up with this odd miss-matched looking base and mini.
Aaah well, I guess you live and you learn yea?

Now, I still have some grass tufts to add to the base and some more shading to do but for the moment – she’s put to the side because I’m afraid if I keep working on her I’m going to try to choke her in her sleep *ehem*.

Grass tufts soon to appear here and here.

Oh and finally! I know it doesn’t really make sense as they’re different tones and all but – her colour scheme was supposed to look like Candy Corns!!
I made her some small ones out of Sculpey III (which were baked) and glued to the base.

If I try anything like this again, they’re going to have to be way smaller.

Well, other than her I have also been working on my Argus for my Circle group in Warmachine.

Can you ask the other head to close his mouth? I can smell his breath way over here.

I was debating on the colour for the “fur” of the Argus but I think it ended up being Grey as after he was primed in a grey colour, it actually appeared to match the armour colour scheme I had chosen so decided to go with that.

In addition to these, I have been spending a little time learning about Makeup.
I have never been someone to wear makeup really (I am pertinently rolling about in Black Eyeliner from the supermarket but that is literally ALL).

I’m finding this interesting as the shading with blush and bronzer etc etc all appear to match the same rules as I use when painting a face on a miniature. I’m definitely going to see if I can pull off ‘eye glowing’ or ‘zombie tone’ effect or something on my skin.

Yup, those would be the smallest damned lipsticks in the WORLD. I put a 5c piece next to them for good measure.

While on a recent trip to Melbourne, I also managed to pick up a few goodies!

That would be an expansion for Puppet Wars, Some miscellaneous Reaper Bones minis, Reaper metal Jackalopes to act as Malifaux Proxies if needed, some paints and a copy of WoW – as believe it or not, is a game I only recently started playing and I don’t have a “paid for account” as of yet.

Well, I might leave it there for today!! Don’t want to use up all my photos all at once hahaha.

~ Sincerely,
Ellie

Boardgames and Baseing

Hello friends!!!

Ok, I have a lot of pictures today, so bare with me.

My progress on putting together the base etc for my Halloween girl got slighting put on hold due to a miss-hap with some matte varnish. Now, I was very unhappy with the colours coming through on her umbrella and fan so Painting Sage suggested we seal her off before I continue to work away.

I have to say, I LOVED the sprays effect on my minis colours!! She actually looked better blended and even a little brighter maybe? Either way, she has these big crevasses in her hair (as mentioned before when I was talking about painting said hair) which undoubtedly trapped some of the spray.

This is something I have most definitely dealt with before with my own ‘paint on’ matte varnish and so I got to glossing her to pull it back.

She has now lost the effect of ‘grey’ that you see above, I just don’t have a snap of it yet!! But she has recovered well, and is sitting in the ICU waiting for completion!

Moving onto her base!

So, my plan was to have her standing at her “front door” waiting for ‘Trick or Treaters” to give them candy.

My biggest problem with this door, is that is has a far more…um…clean and simple paint job compared to her, so they might end up clashing when it’s all put together….we shall see.

For her and her door, Painting Sage had this awesome base he had made in a box and goes ‘Is this maybe what you were thinking??’. EEEEeeee, Perfect!!

So I got to priming and painting it up!

The stones have been drybrushed to give effect. I point that out, because this is one technique I don’t ever seem to understand. So this time, I had Sage show me step by step how it’s done.
I can’t believe……this entire time…..I’ve been trying to do it COMPLETELY WRONG. Ahhh well. Hahaha.

The rest of her base is slowly coming together, in the form of SCULPEY!

Oh how I love Sculpey III. You brilliant little bake putty you.
More photos soon when it’s assembled!

In other news, Sage and I had a bit of a boardgame run through after some touching up of minis was completed and we did a test run of a game he had been given as a gift/favor.

It was actually pretty fun! Albeit, I don’t think I fully understand some of the rules.

These little guys look like they are a calling out for amaaaazing paint jobs, yes yes?

So I played the green team.

Sage part way through goes ‘Oh hey, why did you choose those guys?’ and I was caught a little off guard.
When I thought about it, I realised I tend to do that, without thinking, in a lot of ‘first time play’ or ‘starter set choosing’. If I see either “beasts” or “green” as part of one of the factions or options – I will always choose those.
So at the end of the day, I chose green because of the colour, not because of what those characters could do, nor the characters themselves. Hahaha.

As you can see, it’s bascially a map of ‘Thieves roam the city breaking into chests and stabbing each other’. You have these big ‘Story’ cards that you use to adjust the objectives of different games (i.e. Obtain a scroll and keys to break into the treasury).

The other thing we did was a small came of X-Wing!

I was super hesitant about this game, a game comprised of totally ‘vehicle’ type characters didn’t really appeal to me. And just space battles? Yea whatever.

I actually quite liked it!! Although, my X-Wing ship had the turning circle of my Toyota Camry and ended up spending half it’s time trying to even keep someone in RANGE of it’s phasers let alone be on the offensive.

Well, that is all for today happy people! We shall see each other again soon.

~ El.

Holding Miniatures up to a Torchlight

Alright, so when approaching this miniature I assumed a few things.
1. The skirt would be the hardest to paint/shade etc.
2. The fan and umbrella would be fairly simple.

So, even though it would appear I was correct on point 1, I was GROSSLY underestimating that whole umbrella/fan deal. I have literally spent my last 3 painting sessions with Painting Sage, just on these two items.

He seems to think it’s because now I’m stressing about them and over thinking the whole thing that caused this but still. They have turned out, pretty sub-par.

I’m not even sure this is a fan I’m holding anymore, El. What on earth is this colour scheme??

I think I’m going to step away, and leave them both and work on the bows/details before I come back to them. They’re honestly doing my head in!!

This is a little bit of a back track, but here is a nice shot Painting Sage took of my mini for me!! As promised.

Paint me like one of your french girls.

Onto slightly different news, so if anyone remembers a very generous lovely friend of mine gave me his collection of Warhammer 40K miniatures to paint?

After all of my chattering on about minis, and paints, and games and awesomeness – he sends me this photo with the captions of “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO”

Hello little Dragon. Very pleased to meet you!
*Disclaimer note: Not painted by me.

Yaaaay! More friends to talk miniatures to, and paint with! Yayayayay.

Now, the title of my blog was because between painting, work, life etc I have also been busy playing Torchlight II.
I got this in the recent steam sale for about $6 and have to admit – WELL WORTH THAT MONEY.

What’choo doin just floating mid air grinning at me, ey?

I would almost describe this game as Diabloesque. But it’s quite a bit faster paced in regards to Action/Quests and levels.

Dun dun DUUUUUUN.

I would honestly recommend this game to anyone that enjoyed either D2 or D3, or Path of Exile. All great games in my opinion.

Check out my SAHWEET face gear and pet spider. Because I’m a baller.

Well lovies! Talk again soon! Hopefully I will have some Halloween themed basing to you show you next time!

Sincerely, El

A colour scheme from hell…

As promised! A new mini!

Now, please keep in mind that this miniature is:
1. Only half done
and
2. Was intended to be ‘themed’ for Wyrd’s Halloween painting contest Rotten Harvest.

The colour scheme currently looks a bit tragic, but I’m really hoping that with her equally themed BASE attached, it will all make sense in the end.

The beginning…

She was originally primed (air gun sprayed) with an all dark yellow and then a light yellow to have a go at the whole pre-shading concept. So far I’m liking how this works.

The glowing eyes were step by step explained to me by beloved Painting Sage. I think I might con him into doing a tutorial. Not only for my future reference, but a few people have asked me how it was done, and I’d like to be able to link to the source of the wisdom.

From there, she progressed to getting her colours in. Can anyone guess what I’m trying to accomplish with those horrid colours? hahaha.
Well, even if not, all will be revealed eventually!

Highlighting the orange actually blew my mind, because it started as red, and from there ALL I could see was red – I was convinced it was not looking like orange. Painting Sage had to tell me it was time to put the brush down before I had an aneurysm.

Last session I worked on her, she got her hair. This is the first time I’ve attempted a proper ‘brunette’, and her hair has a lot of ‘layers’ making it easier to highlight than most so I’m really hoping it comes out in the photos.

Painting Sage was actually out snapping some nice shots of his own miniatures and took her with him to get me a good photo – and I forgot to upload it to be available while blogging away at work – so I shall add that in the next post!!

Hahaha, I’m hoping she’s going to look a bit more…um…acceptable when she’s shown with her full fancy themed base. That or she’s forever going to be staring at me with her creeper eyes from the back of my shame shelf.

Talk soon!
~ The Ellinator.

Finally an update!

Uuugh, sorry for the delayed replies, comments and posts folks. Life has kind of exploded with family, school and work and I haven’t had a chance to do much of anything!

Hello everyone. This is me in Pokemon land – just casually posing for my trainer license like a pro model.

1 thing I have been filling in my short breaks between commitments is the new Pokemon X game! I have bought and played through every Pokemon game since my original obsession with Blue way back when – and I must say, I’m between feelings on the new one.

If you don’t follow the games as I do, you may not know this already, but this is the game Nintendo announced was their start to changing the experience of the Pokemon gaming franchise. It has a big story, cut scenes, 3D animation and all that jazz (in addition to a bunch of additional internet connectivity and bonuses related).

So, here are some snaps I took of my screen while playing:

For starters, this game is a lot more customisable in regards to what you look like. So I took the general route of making my character “somewhat” like myself.
This is the wholly arrogant and obnoxious fist pump my character does when beating a trainer for plot required purposes.

I honestly don’t know if the change view makes exploring dungeons better or worse to be honest.

At least it’s pretty, I suppose?

As tradition dictates, I chose the fire starter. Now this is the second stage evolution (Braixen).

This thing actually pulls a ‘branch’ out of it’s tail and uses it like a wand. I actually hate it.

The main evil ‘TEAM’ in this game is a group named ‘Flare’. Now, don’t get me wrong, Team s always have a tendency to look rather comical.
These guys are absolutely no exception in that regard.

One of the things I do very much enjoy about this game is the customisation through hair cuts and various accessories.
For once I have a character I’m playing in Pokemon that I identify with.

At least it’s not the mushroom headed girl from Black, anyways.

And finally, another feature they have added is on occasion you encounter a sign with a camera on it. This summons a photographer to take a commemorative ‘snap shot’ of you on your adventures.
The DS responds in your hands the same way a camera would (ie. tilting the device, tilts the camera angle).

—

Other than Pokemon, all the painting I have been doing has been for my Rotten Harvest entry for the Wyrd painting competition and due to rules I can’t post anything about it. 😦

The only other thing I have managed to find the time to do, is to keep up with the ‘Paint-along’ thread for free handing. As of week 3 highlighting has been completed:

I found the highlighting on this really tricky, as there was no obvious ‘light source’ for where I had done the highlighting on the coat initially!
I ended up doing a few shades of the gold/yellow colour to highlight – but it appears only one shows in this photo.

I shall have to get a better picture when I do the next round of touch ups!!

Well, Love you all!!
Sincerely,
Ellie.

Slow to Update, Slow to Paint

So haven’t made an update for a little while because life has been waaaaay too hectic!
As a result of the above, I have also made very little progress doing much of anything else.

But! My Rotten Harvest competition entry is coming along. Just hope I have it finished in time! I wish I could take photos of it to post up and ask for advice and help, but unfortunately one of the rules is that it cannot have been published/shown off anywhere *sigh*.

I have however been keeping up to date with Mako’s ‘free-hand-along’ thread on the Wyrd forums. So far, not good.
My outlining skills are BOLLOCKS. Just seriously all types of fail was going on here.

What have you painted on the back of me? Yellow splodge I think!

And then in week 2 we filled the outline in.

Oooooh, it’s meant to be a bird. Who’da thunk it?

The filled in version looks a little better, but I’m struggling to keep it non-chalky and defined.
I also noticed that the wings are horribly uneven. And now that I’ve seen it – I can’t un-see it 😦
And I was a little careless where I put her and have ended up with a few sizable chips out of her paint. At least they’re areas I probably should re-do anyways!

Tried to get a nice photo of all of my little Infinity guys – but alas, as the Painting Sage has warned me before “Direct sunlight is not your friend”. It’s very true.

Well, I might leave it there for the moment. Going to start painting up one of my Malifaux Gunsmiths – but it will probably be slow going while I get my Rotten Harvest done!!

Love you all,
Sincerely El.

Interviewing and Alephs!

Ok, let’s start with the Internet.

Gaming-guy.com ever so flatteringly asked if I was willing to do an interview for his page about my miniature painting!! Eeee!
The conversation may have deviated at time from gaming topics to cheeseburger dreams, but I felt thoroughly spoiled that anyone liked my little corner of the internet enough to post about it!

So head on over if you’d like to read the interview – but be warned – there is an ever large picture of my ugly mug smiling at you with caffeine obsessed eyes. Hehe.

So finished up my last Asura for my Aleph Infinity guys!

I’m going back through all 6 of them to give them touch-ups, fix highlighting etc at the moment, but otherwise – they’re now all done!!

This girl need some more dimension to her hair, and another pass of white on her back inner thigh but otherwise – finished!!

Painting Sage thinks he might have some cool bases to go on these guys so hoping to paint those up as well. My only trepidation is that these guys are very fragile so I’m SURE I’m going to break someone getting them off their current base. Wish me luck!!

Sincerely,
Ellie

To Infinity and Beyond!

Sooooo…I couldn’t come up with a better title. That’s all I’ve got.

After some more painting sessions with le Painting Sage , I have nearly finished my Infinity Aleph crew!
My plan is that when I have all 6 of them done, to go back through them one by one and do a line of final touch ups – as I’ve noticed through posting photos there are some glaring errors that need correcting.

What’s that? SORRY CAN YOU SPEAK UP? Wait! Let me cup my ear to hear you.

Why she’s holding her head like that constantly baffles me. I look at her arm and think, ‘are you struggling to hear?’ ‘are you itching something?’ ‘DO YOU EVEN HAVE EARS!?’.

I also just realised how bad the above picture is. Better one coming soon…..

I stuffed up the white ‘shading’ technique that Painting Sage was showing me – you can see a better rendition of it on his own work, and ended up having to try to hide it by re-painting a lot her white. *siiiiiiiiiiigh*

We also had a ‘test run’ game. This was less of a game than it was more ‘scenarios’ of ‘Ok, so if he was here, and I was here – I could shoot this weapon and roll 3 dice to try to roll below 14’ etc etc. So far I quite like how this game plays.
It seems….closer to the feel of what a real fight might play like than say, Warmachine. But in that being said – I don’t really understand how to play either of them to be making any judgments hahaha.

My little bat-bots ready for their fight.

Painting Sage has added some other items to his print and play Infinity terrain. It looked so cool with the little figures on it! Kind of made my imagination go into over-drive imagining large mechanical foot steps shaking the surrounding shipping containers as my bots slowly moved towards the enemy.

Other than Infinity, as you know I have been painting up Madelyn from Warmachine. I have been picking her up and doing little bits here and there to touch her up.
I wasn’t happy with how the paint ‘water stained’ under her bum, so I tried to blend it back a bit to hide it and re-highlighted the grey. Now it looks very 2 dimensional – ugh, more stuff to fix.

Sorry for the bad photo quality, I’m half asleep – it’s 1am – and I spent all of no time trying to focus/light this picture.

In addition to touch ups, I thought ‘Hey, I see people paint eyes on this mini all the time cause they’re pretty easy to access, why not give it a try?’

Worst. Idea. Ever.
Never painting eyes again. I ended up painting back over the pupils and left them white, but even then she looks….creepy.

Good night everyone!

Sincerely, El.

WARNING: This post may contain miniatures and food.

It’s been a few days since my last post – and finally work has slowed down enough for me to do some stealthy typing.

So, now that I have 5/6 Infinity miniatures relatively finished:

I went ahead and got started on the final 6th!! Yipee!

Hello everyone. It’s good to meet you. Despite what you may have heard – I’m not actually naked. I’m wearing a Lycra white body suit.

She is proving a tad more….er…troublesome than the others purely because part way through painting her, I suddenly realised she had a piece of flash stuck to the bridge of her nose. Had to try to get it off without:
1. Giving her a complete nasoectomy
2. Completely destroying the surrounding paint

I’ve actually been finding the Infinity miniatures extremely challenging. Partly because of their size, partly because of their details, and partly because of their colour schemes. Faaar too stressful for my overly anxious, shakes like a guinea-pig in a thunder storm self.

While not working on my Infinity guys, I’ve been trying to speed paint up Madelyn Corbeau for a ‘learn to free hand’ thread happening over on the Wyrd forums in a few days.

So I have her at this point (a lot of touch ups and fixing needed!) and my plan is to do the Cygnar swan on the back of her coat.

But I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, as I’m not too fond of just dumping a big area of gold on her, but I also have no idea how to NMM – like at all. So, we shall see I suppose!!

My only other news, is my father did a family dinner the other night of home-made pizza making and movies.

It’s ok to be jealous of my amazing pizza.

Sincerely,
Ellison