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Hi, this is heartserenade and welcome to my painting blog. If you’ve been active on Dakka you guys might’ve seen this photo:





It got me 3rd place on the Infinity painting challenge. I do agree with the criticisms that I might’ve made the base too busy and why the use of that old model (in truth, I didn’t have any infinity models back then and I borrowed that from a friend. He only had the Nomads starter set). I’m still grateful that I got something out of CB for my winnings, and that started my Haqqislam/Qapu Khalki force. Almost a year after everything is still WIP but I’m catching up now to finishing them all.

I want my force to look very mercenary—I was thinking that they’re mostly ex-soldiers of Bourak who just want to earn money on the side with their skills while being free of government interference. I plan on including non-Haqqislam models on my force (like a Yu Jing Engineer and Hacker, and I already have a Naga) to show that they are indeed mercenary-esque, taking in anyone despite nationality, religion or creed as long as they want freedom from authority. This will also explain why aside from models from the same unit, there are no unifying colors in the whole force except for the base and accents of red.

Kinda a Firefly rip-off, really. If there are suitable models in the future, I might even convert them into Firefly characters (and if my greenstuff skills will allow).

Sorry for the photos. I’m a sucky photographer and I rely on my professional photographer friends to take photos of my work. When they’re completely out of the WIP zone I’ll ask their help (read: bribe) and take better quality photos.







The Naga (counts as Tuareg in my games, since I love the rules for the Tuareg but hate the model), the Al Hawwa and the OOP Odalisque are pretty much done except for the base. The Fiday and the Ghulams still need some highlighting here and there, and I’ve only basecoated and inked the guns.

Here are some photos of the WIP Jannisary (yes, those are 40k bits) and other Odalisques. I take at least 2 hours painting each face since I make mistakes a lot. I’m planning on painting Cheongsam or kimono patterns on the Odalisques, just to show that they also have also worked in Yu Jing and/or they’re from Yu Jing.





That's it for now. Hope you follow this blog and tune in for the next update!

Lovely to see more of your work! Keep it up!

Thanks! Hopefully I update this more regularly than the previous blog.

Update:

Since I'm making Cheongsam-wearing Odalisques, I've had a bit of fun with the Chinese theme and added... Chun Li the Odalisque.



She's still a WIP. I am planning on adding freehand patterns of small gold flowers/Chun Li's signature costume line patterns on the dress's tail and breast area, and paint the forearms and gun. God, I hate painting guns. I always leave them for last since I hate highlighting them.

Meanwhile on my Jannisary, I took everyone's advice into consideration on the Infinity forums and made this:




Does that look better? Now he has three blades!!!!!11one My plan is paint the blades as scabbards. Might file them off a bit to dull the points.

They're knives in 40k, and they look like swords in Infinity. You can really see the difference in scale.

Anyway, see you until the next update, and keep looking!

Chun Li the Odalisque - excellent idea and progress is delivering great promise. Nice and colourful too.

 heartserenade wrote:
Update:

Since I'm making Cheongsam-wearing Odalisques, I've had a bit of fun with the Chinese theme and added... Chun Li the Odalisque.



She's still a WIP. I am planning on adding freehand patterns of small gold flowers/Chun Li's signature costume line patterns on the dress's tail and breast area, and paint the forearms and gun. God, I hate painting guns. I always leave them for last since I hate highlighting them.

Meanwhile on my Jannisary, I took everyone's advice into consideration on the Infinity forums and made this:




Does that look better? Now he has three blades!!!!!11one My plan is paint the blades as scabbards. Might file them off a bit to dull the points.

They're knives in 40k, and they look like swords in Infinity. You can really see the difference in scale.

Anyway, see you until the next update, and keep looking!

Love the Chun-Li look! It fits the model perfectly! (also a big big fan of your Knights of Antioch- one of the coolest original chapter schemes I've seen, especially using the half-n-half color scheme)

Question- in your first post, guy at the bottom, where is that sword from? Looks like a buster-blade on that Infinity model.

Subscribed! Your paint-fu is excellent!

-Remi

Thanks for the compliments!

The knife/sword is from the Landspeeder Storm box. I have never got around finishing painting my LSS and I might not be able to, since they got a bit nerfed in 6th ed.

LOL... yikes. Sorry to hear about the LSS sucking donkey balls in the newest edition. Can always use it for bits/conversion/scenery. I think I'd be going a bit overboard buying a kit just for the blade... might have to try and source it on the internets.

Anywho, very nice work all around and looking forward to more of your Infinity... damn game just keeps calling and calling... that, or more Knights. Always good to see more Knights.

-Remi

Okay guys and girls, I need feedback:



Oh god it looks worse upclose. Do you guys think the pattern work? What do you think of it? Should I redo it or just clean it up? If I keep it, what other designs would I add on her clothes?

I also remade the Odalisque with ponytail's hair. Here goes:



As always, comments and constructive criticisms welcome!

Looks awesome to me. What does it look like "actual size"? (Too lazy to shrink the images myself )

Also - it feels oriental to me - surely there are plenty of similar feeling designs all over the place to choose from for others?

It looks so-so in real life, at least for me. And i'm a perfectionist so so-so is not going to cut it. My gut tells me I need to redo it.

Do take not that the pattern is less than 1/4 of an inch, so don't judge meee.

Update:

For those who liked the patterns... TOO LATE. I painted over it lol.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of being a professional artist is having artist friends who can critique your work honestly. Here's a conversation I had with a friend:



To be fair I myself am not 100% satisfied with the pattern so far, so most like I would really do it over without a second opinion. This is why it takes me a million years to finish an army: I want my work to be the best I can do at that very moment. That pattern is not my best right now, and I can do better. Therefore, pattern-chan has to go.

So now the repainted dress looks like this:




Still needs blending but that's the main pattern, basically. Now to choose other simple but elegant-looking patterns for other parts of the dress.

Stay tuned!

Love the new pattern.

I still think I preferred the old pattern - but it will be interesting to see where you take the new one - and it's your mini, and I'm no professional artist I've always regretted not going with my gut in the past, even if it means more work, so in my experience, the decision to do it over will probably work out to be the correct one.

Update:

I... I'm not sure if I've overdone it. I've been staring at my work for too long and I need to step back, take a break and look at it again after some time.

A 1 peso to scale because my friend can't believe I paint that small.




I've been looking at kimono patterns for the past two days, too. I feel like i'm more of a fashion designer now than painter.

For comparison, these are some of the pegs I'm looking at:


http://www.flickr.co...own/1391602451/
http://www.flickr.co...own/1396572305/
http://www.zazzle.co...996874841201862

Update:

Tidbit--I hate doing guns. It's usually the last thing I paint: all the highlighting in small, boring areas just bugs me off. So i'm planning on finishing most of the models, leave the guns before it kills my brain, then after all my models are finished just do it in one go.

Painting is slow due to other work. But at least i have finished most of the Boarding Shotgun kimono Odalisque. To honor how hard it is for me to paint that damn dress, she'll be the first to have a name. From now on, she'll be called Isaki.



Note: photos are a bit more saturated compared to real life. I think I might've cranked the saturation bar a little while editing it. Oops. Aside from saturation, it's mostly near the actual colors.

Here's also some things I'm working on: the would-be Prisoner 9 and a random objective marker.




On the gaming side of things, I reread Tarik Mansuri's stats and I WANT HIM IN MY ARMY. He would be Captain Haqqislam. My problem is that I don't like the model that much. Any suggestions on proxies? I'm planning on adding a Captain America shield (only, y'know, Haqqislam BECAUSE HE'S CAPTAIN HAQQISLAM) so preferably a figure that can incorporate that.

I'm also gonna add a unit-by-unit list at the bottom of my posts so that I can track for myself what still needs to be doing.



Stay tuned up to the next update! Ciao!

Love the kimono-pattern you made on the newest Odalisque- definitely my choice compared to the previous version you made.

More, please!

-Remi

Update:

Doing the red-haired SMG odalisque now.



I want it to be more Chinese Cheongsam now than Japanese kimono. I'm still stumped on the details I want on the outside of her skirt, but I'm pretty sure they're gonna be mostly black on red.

I also couldn't help myself and refined the other Odalisques faces and hair. Still not done (mostly i need to smooth transitions out) but getting there.



And I got bored painting Odalisques so I started with the Janissary. The idea is to make him look like an ex-Janissary who is now serving as a privateer. His name is Crossbones:



I decided against the red chest. It'll be black and will have crossed bones (or a rib cage painted on it). His look is mostly inspired by 40k's Legion of the Damned.

Stay tuned!

At last an update! Two more Odalisques to go!

Fantastic work

Lovely killy girls!

Nice to see an update - and you don't disappoint! You've won me over on doing it over

Great freehand. Totally subbed!

Beautiful work. Amazing freehand work. Please continue to inspire me.

Absolutely stunning work, your free-hand is exceptional! Amazing to see such detail lavished on a single miniature.

Looking forward to more!

 Arakasi wrote:
Nice to see an update - and you don't disappoint! You've won me over on doing it over

This conversation pretty much sparked doing over the second Odalisque (the red one):



I have a theory my real Chinese friends hate my miniature fake Chinese models and they want me to suffer while painting. I didn't redo the phoenix/rooster bird, though. Added gradients on the inside part of the skirt and redid the clouds, then added some semblance of a dragon's long body at the bottom of the skirt. It's harder to do freehand in this body because of the angle of the skirt, so I might make it less detailed (or at least just use more patterns, less representational objects) on the next one.

Interesting note: I was looking for dragon patterns on kimonos on Google, so I searched for "kimono dragon". This is what Google gave me:



THANKS A LOT, GOOGLE. THANK YOU FOR NOTHING.

On the side, I've been doing one of the Damsels of Darkmyre models for the company itself (and she might serve as a civilian supermodel and/or my alternate Cordelia). Still a WIP (and pardon my poor camera skills) but here's a preview. Granted it's no Angel Giraldez but I'll get there someday.... Someday...

Back! There's a Dakka painting challenge yet again and of course I'm joining! I wish I can win this one: it'll certainly help me start a new army (I'm thinking JSA and painting them as Shinsengumi, or ALEPH but I'm still waiting for the rumored Post Human sectorial). Problem is there are lots of talented painters out there and it's gonna be a tough fight!

Still, third time's the charm. Might get lucky for the third time.

​Once the competition is done I will (hopefully!) post WiP photos.

Civilian supermodel is finished. I'll change her base into somethingmore appropriate for Infinity in the future but for now she's stuck with that for promotion purposes. Now we have a civilian for certain scenarios!






Hopefully in the future my stuff will have better photos. Obviously I didn't take those photos: my lovely friend Jin Joson took them.

Anyway, I'll be a bit busy with the Dakka Painting Challenge diorama, but I'll still find the time to post some photos of my two remaining Odalisques. Stay tuned!