More 6mm painting.

A selection of Microworld Games undead!
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Some hot pink Microworld Games ogres!
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And Microworld Games owl bears. These are interesting because I did a dry wash, which I don't usually do on 6mm minis.
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And some Iron Wind Metal spaceships!
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Great spaceships. And I really like the undead.

Quote from: K Peterson;959088Great spaceships. And I really like the undead.

The funny thing is the undead and spaceships were easiest to paint. I am considering using black turn with a little bit of snow mixed in to base the starships... Thoughts on that?

Are you going for a starfield pattern on the base? If so, that approach would be interesting to see. Only other approach I'm familiar with is taking a small, stiff-bristled brush, add a little white paint, and then flick the specks of white paint on by rubbing a finger across the bristles. But I haven't tried it, and it would probably be safer to do before mini and base were assembled.

Are those Litko bases on the spaceships? I've ordered from them before, and they've got great options for customization. A few years back, I was painting up some 15mm characters for Traveller, and purchased a bunch of custom magnetized bases.

Quote from: K Peterson;959130Are you going for a starfield pattern on the base? If so, that approach would be interesting to see. Only other approach I'm familiar with is taking a small, stiff-bristled brush, add a little white paint, and then flick the specks of white paint on by rubbing a finger across the bristles. But I haven't tried it, and it would probably be safer to do before mini and base were assembled.

I wanted something with texture, to cover up the green stuff used to reinforce the nail (see below). So, I was just thinking about the black turf with a little bit of "snow" mixed in to be "textured space".

For airbrushing space pictures, we used toothbrushes. Put the toothbrush in the paint and run your thumb down the bristles.

Quote from: K Peterson;959130Are those Litko bases on the spaceships? I've ordered from them before, and they've got great options for customization. A few years back, I was painting up some 15mm characters for Traveller, and purchased a bunch of custom magnetized bases.

Yup. I got 6mm flight bases from Litko. And then I round out the bottom of the hole with an Xacto knife. I use the gel slow superglue to set the nail, and fill in the top of the hole with green stuff. Maybe next time I'll prep the bases earlier, so I can clean/sand the base so the top is nice and smooth. (The roughness isn't quite so jarring in person.)

I have a light box coming in tomorrow, but here are two sets of minis I finished tonight.

These are smaller (and cheaper) Iron Wind Metal mecha minis. I didn't want to pay $5-10 per mini when I don't like the sculpts, but these smaller ones look nice and are a lot cheaper.
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And these are Hobgoblins from Microworld Games.
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More from today. Tomorrow, I'll do some light tent pictures.

Some Microworld Games gnolls--I tried to bring out their hyena background.
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Microworld Games dwarves--I really, really like how these came out.
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And some bats. The idea to use fishing line (I picked 1mm) came from the helpful folks at Litko, where I get my acrylic bases.
They suggested drilling a small hole in the base--I didn't have the right size drill bit, so I embedded the line in Green Stuff.
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Here are pictures from the light tent.

Microworld Games
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Iron Wind Metals
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Onslaught Minis
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Perfect Six
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PFC CinC
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Jewelry bats and toy dinosaurs.
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From top to bottom: science-fiction RPG party, fantasy RPG party, and sci-fi party's mecha.
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I tried something suggestion on G+ this weekend and did repaints and/or dry brushed after the ink wash. The ink wash darkens the 6mm minis too much, but the repaint/dry brush brings the color back out.

Microworld Orcs
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Microworld Goblins
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Microworld Undead
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Quote from: Tod13;961093I tried something suggestion on G+ this weekend and did repaints and/or dry brushed after the ink wash. The ink wash darkens the 6mm minis too much, but the repaint/dry brush brings the color back out.

That's the approach that I use. Apply another base coat after the ink wash, avoiding any recessed areas, to 'brighten' the mini. Saw it on a 'Warhammer TV' YouTube video.

Quote from: K Peterson;961100That's the approach that I use. Apply another base coat after the ink wash, avoiding any recessed areas, to 'brighten' the mini. Saw it on a 'Warhammer TV' YouTube video.

From my readings, I've found two other approaches.

First, some washes or inks work better for 6mm. Basically, the surface tension has to be less than a typical ink. The Vallejo Color Washes are supposed to be better, so I'm getting those to try. (Even if they don't work, it'll be nice to have more color choices.) The Vellejo Inks are different--supposedly they will also work and mix together well, but you have to thin them more with water.

Second, another suggestion is after doing the primer/base coat paint the figure in a really light version of whatever single color you want it to be. Then apply the wash (that comes out too dark) and detail as needed. The lighter paint shows through better and you don't have to do details twice--although highlights on the single color surface will still have to be redone (as on the goblin's yellow robes above). This might work well for animal minis which can be dry brushed easily.

New 6mm paints. Onslaught and Microworld Games. I also tried a new setting on the camera for pictures. This is using Vallejo color wash, which is a bit lighter than the Reaper inks.

Microworld Wild Elves
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Microworld Vikings
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Microworld Valkyries
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Onslaught Okami drones and operators
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Onslaught Okami Mecha
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I did more reading and figured that maybe increasing the F-stop would help. This increases the depth of field (the range that is "in focus") and helps the camera focus on the 6mm minis. This also requires a bipod, as the shutter is open longer. I tested with a couple sets of minis without the light tent.

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I think I got the picture thing fixed. Some 6mm "red lizards"--I decided to feature these in the sci-fi RPG I'm running. The lizards with the mounts are from Microworld. The lizards with sci-fi guns are from CinC PFC. 6mm paints from Perfect 6 (barriers) and Ground Zero Games (skimmers) and Onslaught (motorcycles). GZG pictures with camera set on f/5.6 ev-2 and taken on 2 second timer with a mini tripod. I like how these come out. (P6 picture done with my brother's camera, but I could not reproduce a decent shot.) It seems like an f-stop around 5 works pretty well.

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