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Thank you gobert and CB!

Have only got two more minis finished since last time.
Took a small break, as I was once more working with the car to get it running again for the summer.
Transmission broke down last autumn, so had to get that fixed. Jacking that thing back in the car is always fun.

Anyway, the bug bit again and here's the result:

The classic Amiri from the Pathfinder Kingmaker adventure / video game.


Decided to follow the concept art color scheme with a few small changes.
Kept on practicing the NMM on her sword and axe. Turned out quite alright, but still ways to go before the secrets are revealed to me.
Also I noticed that I had lost the spear "quiver" thingy that belongs to her back. Or maybe she has used them already.


Then there's this "pinup paladin" from RNE Studios. This was one of the minis I ordered from Etsy like a year ago.


Fun model to paint. Decided to go with regular metallics and a lot of washes on this one.
Using contrast paints to help with the gold trims seemed to work quite well! Yellow contrast on top of metallic base coat.

The backside is where the... "pinupness" comes into play.
Painting white cloth is actually really fun when using a bluish base coat and building the layers with dry brushing white and whiter tones.


I'm finally painting the scythe lady from Galaad Miniatures that some of you were eager to see... a year ago.
Here's a quick WIP:


See you next time!

I really like what you've done with the two finished ladies! Nice smooth skin, as it should be, and I love that fiery red hair. Likewise, I think the NMM effect is convincing, at least on the sword. Scythe lady seems to be coming along nicely!

Very nice NMM work and all three figures are wonderfully done. Always a pleasure looking in, regardless of interval!

Awesome stuff. They all look lovely, but the paladin's face is really worth noting. Excellent expression, and the hair is perfect.

Thanks guys! Glad you enjoyed the latest work.

youwashock wrote:Awesome stuff. They all look lovely, but the paladin's face is really worth noting. Excellent expression, and the hair is perfect.

Thank you very much! To be honest, the sculpt does most of the work for the expression. But for once, I think the face succeeded quite well.



Scythe Lady from Galaad Miniatures done!



I could not decide the color scheme at first, so I posted an unpainted picture to our Discord and asked our gaming group to give me a scheme.
One of my friends replied with "black, purple and green", so I went with that.

Also decided to keep on practicing the NMM on the scythe.
A really fun model to paint!

A small "action shot" with some undead in the background.



Next up... I'm not sure.
I have a few projects lined up, but I'll see where my brush guides me next.

Thanks for looking!

Black purple and green worked great!

Really liking that paint scheme.

Oh, but that is a pretty thing. Wonderful finish on the blade, and the splash of vivid green from the hair works very well.

Scythe lady looks great

3 gorgeous ladies Ezki! The yellow contrast on silver looks to have worked well on the second lady. The nmm on the firsts sword was really nice too.

More wonderful work Ezki.

Cheers,

CB

Thank you very much guys, appreciate the comments!
I think the "Reaper" is one my favorites so far, especially when it comes to single miniatures.


I started painting a printed "Plant Beholder" model from Galaad Miniatures a while back, but I put it aside for a while.
Another, more interesting model started calling my name. One, that had been far too long in waiting.

When "Midget Gems" sent me a message to join the 100th Unofficial Dakka Painting Contest, I immediately started thinking about a fitting model for it.
However, I could not come up with anything on the spot.
While my painting station kept gathering dust, I was busy with all the regular Finnish summer holiday activities, like hard labor at the summer cottage, eating sausages (burnt on the outside, cold on the inside of course) in the rain and sitting in a hot sauna when it's 25+ celsius (77 Fahrenheit) outside.

Weeks passed by and I was getting ready to throw in the towel.

Then it hit me.
There was a model, that I have wanted to paint for a really long time: Canoness Veridyan. I even bought it a couple of years ago, but for some reason I did not get around painting it.
For one, I chose this model for the 100th contest because it is based on my favorite 40k artwork of all time by John Blanche:


I had only a few days before the contest would be over. It was time to brew a cup of strong coffee and get to work.
Managed to make quite good progress, regardless of snapping her left leg while priming for instance.

In the end, I had to leave a few details in a half finished state and the base is a temporary "ten minute" base with a piece of bark painted grey.
You can quite easily see the gaps between the material and the ground detail of the model. I will definitely fix that, but for the sake of the competition, I decided to call it "done" for now.

And here she is:


I am actually very happy with it, even though there's a few things I want to work on.
In addition to the base, I'd like to do one more layer of brighter highlights on the gold pieces and work on the sword just a little bit.

Painting NMM is something I've been wanting to practice for so long, but I've always been somewhat "afraid" of it.
Usually when I'm trying to practice new techniques, all I achieve is frustration and decide to keep up with the familiar stuff.
I'm usually very impatient with new techniques, especially if I don't grasp them immediately. Sometimes to the point of not wanting to paint anymore and taking a long break.

Maybe it's the countless tutorials, some weird peace of mind or the inspiring work that you all put out, but over the course of the last few models I have actually started to enjoy the learning process. On this model, I actually looked forward to the golden armor and even wanted to save it for last.

Painting that sword took me a good three to four hours in one sitting, when someone who is experienced in NMM could likely do it a lot quicker.
The time nor the result however is not the point here. The point is, that maybe I have finally overcome the fear of trying and failing.
Maybe, just maybe I have finally developed some sort of patience after 20 or so years in the hobby.

I wish I could tell you what it was that changed my mind. I'd like to know too.
Trust the process?


On a related note:

The Canoness was actually my first painted 40k model this year. Weird!
Well, now I have finally taken the first step towards a collection Badass Bolter Nuns.
Something I've been hoping to do since fifth edition.

But before we get to that, there are a few more projects lined up.
See you soon!

She turned out really well, Ezki. Glad you took the plunge! I think this is one of the best results on her face that I have seen, too.

Very faithful! Well done.

Cracking work on the crazy nun! Such an iconic mini, and you’ve done a great job with her. Well done for braving a new technique too.

Beautiful sister, well done!!

Great treatment of the Canoness. Looking forward to seeing the nuns!

The Canoness turned out truly fantastic!
Haven't been here in a while so have to say the other ladies look awesome too. Love the work on the armor, and the lady with the scythe is awesome.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked the Canoness!
And I'm happy that the NMM worked out well enough.

****
Long post ahead:
I apologize that some of the pictures are poor and taken from bad angles, as they were taken for Instagram stories.
I was busy building, so I did not have the time to take proper pictures yet.


I actually made the new base for the Canoness and defined some of the details a bit more.
I will take better pictures with a proper background when I have the time, but here's a teaser:



As for why I have not had the time for pictures:

I'm going to take part in the painting contest in a Finnish Role Playing Convention called the "Ropecon".
There are multiple categories ranging from single mini to a whole diorama. I also took part last year with some of my older minis, might even have mentioned that.

This time however, I decided to build something specifically for the convention in mind.
The theme for the whole con this year is "The Past and the Future".

At first I thought about taking just the Canoness and maybe something else, but when I was taking a stroll with our dog, I got an idea:
I wanted to build a diorama of a museum featuring some of my very first miniatures!

As my first minis are all Lord of the Rings minis, they would represent the "past", while the museum would be a bit futuristic representing "the Future".
The theme in mind, it would contain a few recently painted cyberpunk miniatures, showing the progress of my painting career over the years.
And to be honest, I thing the first miniatures really deserve a place in a display piece instead of being stored in a plastic container somewhere deep in my cabinet.

I wish I would have gotten the idea sooner, as I had only a couple of weeks to find proper miniatures and build the thing.
It's not done yet as I still have around 30 hours before the deadline, but it seems that I might pull it off!

Anyway, here's the first sketch:

The bolts represent miniatures.


I knew I wanted a marble floor, a "diorama area" and a few details on the walls.
In addition to the LoTR miniatures, I wanted to civilians to represent the museum patrons.

Here are some of the miniatures I want to show.
The Minas Tirith bowman is my very first (or among the first three) miniatures I ever painted in 2002-2003.
Merry is from the "Mines of Moria" box set that I painted in ~2006.



The work began by searching proper miniatures. It turns out, that finding civilian miniatures is a lot harder than finding minis for wargames.
After hours of searching, I found a few STL files that my friend kindly printed for me:

The miniatures are from "Titan Forge Minis". The sets contained multiple heads, torsos and legs, from which one can build different variations.
The one taking a selfie was my absolute favorite and was actually the reason why I bought the package!


I have not finished all the minis yet, but here's a couple that I managed to get done already:






As I was starting to build the actual diorama, I wanted to begin from the "diorama" part.
After pondering it for a while, I managed to find my old unpainted Mines of Moria terrain pieces.
At that point, I knew I had to build a small "Balin's Tomb" kind of thing. Something I really wanted to do when I was a kid, but never had the materials nor the tools.

Some sketching.


The first iteration.


The true fans immediately see, that the positioning of the tomb and the well is not right at all.
But I had take into account the shape of this display piece and I wanted it to look like a museum diorama, where they might just put the elements where they would fit.

I rewatched the Moria fight scene a few times to get at least few details right, so I wanted to build the doors close to how they were in the movie.
Not perfect, but there are similar elements.


I build a small display stand for the Minas Tirith Bowman from balsa wood and a plastic "plaque" from plasticard.



As for the marble floor, I used the "baby wipe trick" I learnt from various Youtube tutorials.
Initially I wanted to go with black marble, but as my first attempts did not go as planned, I made a few white sheets as well.

I cut a bunch of tiles from 0.75mm thick plasticard and primed them as a one sheet.
The black marble pieces were primed with white and light greys, the white marble was primed black.
They were then covered with torn and spread baby wipes and using an airbrush, I painted various tones (greys and whites for the white marble, blacks and dark teals for the black).


Here's a few iterations.
The pattern will be broken of course when the tiles are removed from the sheet and glued to the floor.



Unfortunately I don't have much pictures from building the walls, but here is the situation I'm currently at:


The walls and the floor are done from black foam core (the one that has a bit of plastic in the mix).
The door on the left side is done from plasticard. Everything is painted using an airbrush so far.


I'll try to get it done before the deadline and most likely I won't have time to write more WIP posts before it's done.
So I will hopefully post proper pictures from the diorama and the Canoness after the convention.

I'm not looking to win the painting contest with this, but it's something that I really wanted to build.
Also publicly showing the very first miniatures and how I have imporved over the years might motivate other hobbyists. At least I hope so

Thanks for looking!

Edit: made the pictures a bit larger.

Pretty darn impressive. Great concept. I love Selfie the Elfie.

I like everything about this project- what a terrific way to mark a career point!

And I had never heard of the 'baby wipe' method of creating a marble tile look, that's a wonderful technique.

Always a pleasure to see what new and amazing thing has emerged- rock on!

Interesting concept for a diorama (diorama-ception?). Also, I agree the skin on that elf looks great!

youwashock wrote:Pretty darn impressive. Great concept. I love Selfie the Elfie.

Thanks youwashock! "Selfie the Elfie" is now the official name for her.

Meer_Cat wrote:I like everything about this project- what a terrific way to mark a career point!

And I had never heard of the 'baby wipe' method of creating a marble tile look, that's a wonderful technique.

Always a pleasure to see what new and amazing thing has emerged- rock on!

Thank for the kind words Meer_Cat! The baby wipe method was something I accidentally encountered on Instagram and it stuck on my mind.
When starting this diorama, I remembered the trick and wanted to try it out.

Boringstuff wrote:Interesting concept for a diorama (diorama-ception?). Also, I agree the skin on that elf looks great!

Thank you Boringstuff! Diorama-ception indeed!


Keeping this one short, as the Role Playing Convention is still on.
Aaand as I was really busy building, I forgot to take pictures from every step.

And again, I apologize that many of the pictures are taken vertically.


I had to add some more modelling paste and ground texture to hide the door seams.



While that was drying, I painted the last of the miniatures.





After that, there's a bit of a "blank" stage, as I glued the walls and the large floor piece together.
Took me a while, as I had to be very careful not to mess up the airbrushed walls.
After that, it was time to start gluing the floor tiles.


I had a bit of a crisis with the tiles, as time was running short and it started looking horrible to my eye at first.
The pattern was too large when I broke it down etc. I almost decided to change the design to a wooden floor last minute, but I had run out of balsa wood.

Decided to suck it up and "trust the process".

Turned out okay in the end. Still not like I imagined it, but quite cool and unique.


Glued my very first mini to the "Plinth". I still cannot center a text (which was done with a marker).


Then I added the miniatures from the Mines of Moria box set. Did not have every member of the Fellowship painted.



Aaand at 6.30AM the diorama was complete!
The whole thing was glued to a piece of insulation foam and I attached the plaque I ordered some time ago to the front.
You might notice that I was a bit tired, as the whole thing is not even in the center of the picture.


And there it is, on time in the Diorama competition!



This was a very simplified and quick description, so if you have any questions, ask away!
The con is still running, so I will post more detailed pictures some time after that!

Oh and I forgot to mention in my last post, that none other than Roman Lappat himself is the quest of honor here! More on that later.
Thanks for looking!

My gosh I like that! The depth gives it a sense of being in a large building, the doorway at the left also. The tile floor came out wonderfully well. Excellent job all around and good luck in the competition!

Very nice composition!

Wow! That is an incredible piece. What a tribute to your own past and an homage to the future. Inspiring.
Seriously, that is ing cool as

That's some truly impressive work. I almost can't believe you did it under such time constraints.

Excellent work, Ezki!

WOW awesome diorama, I did not expect this to come together so quickly and so well. Smart concept and great execution

Thank you very much everyone!

Meer_Cat wrote:My gosh I like that! The depth gives it a sense of being in a large building, the doorway at the left also. The tile floor came out wonderfully well. Excellent job all around and good luck in the competition!

Thank you Meer_cat! I'm glad it looks like a larger building. I admit that the two walls look a bit empty and I would have wanted to add a detail or two, but the time run out.

DJJazzyJeff wrote:Wow! That is an incredible piece. What a tribute to your own past and an homage to the future. Inspiring.
Seriously, that is ing cool as

I'm happy that this is inspiring, as that was the main goal! Thank you!

JoshInJapan wrote:That's some truly impressive work. I almost can't believe you did it under such time constraints.

Thanks JoshInJapan! I'm as astonished as you that I managed to get it done so quickly, even though I spent every minute of the last few days before the competition building it.

Even though making it was fun, I decided not to try anything like this with such a short time frame in the future.
Sleeping only ~5 hours a night for a few days in a row, drinking a lot of coffee and eating junk food took it's toll. Not that young anymore haha.
However, I can already see myself in the same situation come next year.


Before we get back to the diorama, a short summary of the weekend:


So, the Role Playing Convention "Ropecon 2023" is over, and what a fun experience it was once again!
This year there were much more miniature painting related program than last year.
In addition to the painting competition, there were a few workshops and like I mentioned earlier, Roman Lappat was the quest of honor in the convention!

It was an absolute pleasure to see some of his work live, like the "Escher Diorama".
He organized a few presentations, where he talked about atmospheric painting, his painting philosophy and so on.
On the last day, I was able to attend to his workshop, where he taught reading and mixing colors and adding atmosphere. It was truly an eye opening experience.

We were instructed to bring only the Primary colors, black and white. Using those, we mixed various different tones, like the color wheel, our own skin tone etc.


In the later part of the workshop, we were instructed to color a picture of a wolf in different colored environments using only tones mixed from said primary colors.


Even I, who barely know any color theory, managed to do quite well. He truly is a great teacher.

In addition, I took part in a NMM workshop by Erkka "Raddicraft".
Here's the Stormcast we started painting in the workshop. I'm eager to put the new techniques to a test.



Regarding the painting contest:

This year the quality of the entries was through the roof! There were over 50% more entries than last year across the different categories (little over 200).
I took part in four: Miniature group (the Rangers), single mini (Canoness), Large Mini (The Iron Krieg Walker) and Diorama.

The top three of each entry can be seen in the "Cold Tones Society" web page in here.

To my absolute surprise, I managed to snatch the 1st price of the Diorama category, plus the "Best themed work" category!
(That's a Finnish smile).


I really really did not see that coming.
Before I get too emotional, I would like to show the pictures of it I took today.

Larger pic can be seen in the gallery.






"Balin's Tomb".




Gimli with his broken axe.





In addition to these, I played around with the camera and took a few "artistic shots".




"These boots are made for walking..."


Going for a cig break.


Heated argument about the historical facts of the display.


Selfie the Elfie updating her social media. Just like youwashock named her.



And before calling it quits for the night, a few words.

It has been almost exactly twenty years since I painted my very first miniature, the Minas Tirith soldier standing on the plinth.
And what a journey it has been. There have been ups and downs, happiness and frustration.
I have lost and regained my hobby motivation more times than I can count. Sometimes I have taken breaks that have lasted even for a few years.
Regardless, this hobby has helped me through some very hard times. It has taught me a lot and I have met great people because of it, both in person and in the internet.

In addition to celebrating the things above, I created this piece to inspire others, especially the beginners.
I'm not a pro painter by any means, but the improvement is still undeniable.
The 13-year old kid playing with the "Mines of Moria" miniatures on the living room floor would have never imagined to be able to build something like this, ever.

No matter where you are in your hobby journey, you should celebrate and enjoy each step you take.
Do not compare your work to others, compare only to your previous self. I have said that to myself so many times, but I'm finally starting to understand it.
Do not hide your mistakes. Learn from them and enjoy the process.

Last but not least, I sincerely want to thank every single one of you.
I am truly thankful to the community, in DakkaDakka and in the hobby in general, for all the support, feedback and inspiration it has offered me over the years.
If I am able to offer even a tiny bit of that inspiration back, it truly makes me happy.

Thank you. Keep being awesome.