Shirley's Mini-Paint Log

Hello everyone -

My name is literally Shirley, and Infinity is my first tabletop game of any kind. I've never touched miniatures in my life other than my brief brush with MageKnight when I was still young enough to have a large McD's fries for lunch - I really loved that little Steam Golem mini I had back then, God knows where it is now.

Anyway.

Thanks to the help of the good @barakiel , I decided to play Varuna a while ago, and so bought the starter set, two Icestorm halves, quite a lot of hobby supplies, watched about 50 youtube videos in 2 days, and started building/ painting.

Here are my attempts at making Minis that are not terrifying. Unless mentioned otherwise, the bases were sculpted with Milliput, and the moss created by a mix of water, PVA glue, and fine-turf burnt-grass flocking. The look of the bases was inspired by Secret Weapon Flagstone, 25mm - full disclosure.

As to why the minis look like they're more suited for desert landscapes - given that Varuna mostly operates in aquatic terrain, it is fair to assume that there's a fair amount of sand on the planet itself. Depending on how you look at it sand can also be an ocean, so there.

Mini No. 1: Al Fasid



This Al-Fasid is the first miniature I've ever assembled/ painted in my life. Granted, he's not a Varuna unit, but he was physically the largest unit in the Red Veil box I got, and logic stated that bigger = easier to paint for a first timer, so I went and did it. I eventually cleaned him up and now he looks like this:


Not too much of a difference other than me tidying up some messy sections and adding more moss. He originally looked like this:



So I guess that's a bit of an improvement.

---

Mini No. 2: ORC Feuerbach

Mr. Orc here is my first actual Varuna mini. His pose meant that he wasn't too difficult to do, and I took the lessons learnt from the Al Fasid and applied them here. Other than the colours on his base being too muted, I think he turned out OK.



I always try to bring out that bit of blue in the tiles, only to forget that Agrax Earthshade drowns everything in mud. I call this ORC Mudfish, due to his right pauldron suggesting that he had taken to rolling in the mud. It was the result of a Seraphim Sepia accident.



The backpack on him drove me nuts - I tried to clean it up but it seems to get worse each time. I eventually let it be.



Mini No. 3: Kamau Sniper

Honestly, I'm not very fond of the Kamau Sniper. I like big robots and things like that, so to me the Kamau Sniper was really... tiny. Being so small, she was also difficult to paint, and eventually my tiredness got the better of me - I accidentally ruined a perfectly fine paintjob on her backpack, and was forced to point-strip it with an Isopropyl Q-tip, and then redo it from primer up. I think I got really tired after that and just varnished her after cleanup. Thankfully the varnish balanced her colours a bit - I think I improved a little on the base colours on this particular piece.


I should really clean up the base...


The section on her backpack is easily noticable. I should also clean up that knee joint... at some point.

I do love the mix of Cavalry brown and Khaki on the pouch/leather stuff, though.

That's all I have for now! I still have to clean off and disassemble the disastrous paint jobs that came with my Beyond Icestorm set...

 

Thanks, I am going to mark the arcs with a thin marker at some point - have to actually get around to printing a template so i can do it accurately. Not sure what you mean by source - I simply looked at a bunch of youtube videos on painting tips and the like, as well as some on sculpting bases with milliput and kneadatite.

 

And here he is, Le Pointe himself.

I'm pretty sure he's french at this point, or at least speaks french.

Whatever the case, here is a picture of him before his previous paint job was removed. The paint was slathered on so thick some detail was not visible, and damage was done to his foot by careless nipper usage.



So since that's unacceptable and I didn't like his sword... I went to work, as seen in this thread.

In any case, here is Le Pointe, having transferred into my Varuna forces after retiring from his sword singing, Pontiff-guarding post.

Mini No. 4:



I really like moss and lichens, so I am glad the moss on his base looks pretty similar to the real thing.

Much pointing.



Moss!



My first attempt at moss was actually really bad. The recipe's more stable now, so that's good.



Le Pointe wondering when the snow will melt and stop being a nuisance.



I feel sorry for my painting handle sometimes.



Objective in the distance.

That's it for now, going to varnish him after giving the mini a day for everything to set - magnets, moss, washes and all.

Next up: That diseased blue Kamau HMG next to him. God... that terrible blue.

 

I made a full record (well, almost full) of the entire ordeal here.

DAT BLUE THO

Also, thanks @Golem2God

Trying to get better with each one I do.

 

B-but it really is...

Okay, I'll put the mini on something else next time. The painting handle is just secure - I've already had Le Pointe fly off and his finger detach once... dont want that to happen again. Maybe a metallic surface next time, so the magnets do their work.

 

As luck would have it I nearly skidded down a hill today... Hate sudden snowfall. It was really bad for two days too.

 

It's been a while, but I've still been making things. Tried my hand at some tokens recently - converted from the cardboard ones we get in boxes like Icestorm, Red Veil, etc.



I happened to have a few of those sheets from buying halves back when I started, so I thought I'd do something with 'em. Free and good, hefty beads also means that you can chuck them at people you like... or don't like.

Tokens aside, remember Le Pointe and his finger? Well, Beyond Icestorm comes with 3 models, and since I've acquired a jeweler's saw as of late, I thought it was high time to repurpose the Bolts Medic. It came with its fair share of problems like the other two models - terrible paint, primer which was somehow stronger than acetone and resistant to brass bristles (why? how?), missing parts that I can't be arsed to find, etc, etc.

Ever since I got my saw from Knew Concepts, I've realized that there was a great solution to terrible models - you can lop their heads off!

And so that's exactly what I did.

Descriptions of the process are in the imgur as usual, and will be updated as I continue working on her in the next few days. As I've started collecting IA lately, I thought to turn her into a Zhanshi Yisheng - I have a thing against helmeted face-heads, so having this spare one lying around was nice.

I mean, come on. It's either a helmet, a visor, or a head with a face. What is it with helm-face-heads? Off with their heads!

Once the milliput dries, work can continue.



PS: For those who are curious, I have also lopped Patsy Garnett's head off.



Replacing it is a spare head from the Jeanne blister - a lot less work than this one, but I tend to like my projects needlessly complicated and lengthy... probably also why I get badly done minis just to unscrew them. Patsy's next after this one... and the Aquila Guard's arm socket, too.

Many minis, one small saw.

Update:



Assembled! Head must sadly be painted separately...

 

Hi G2G. As stated in the image descriptions on my imgur post, it is a spare head from a Kingdom Death Pinpup Preacher. The Preacher wears glasses, so the set comes with a "with glasses" and "no glasses" option. This is the no glasses head.

Update: Bolts trolled me again with their strange hair-braids. Had to do some modifications with milliput to ensure that one of her braids didn't just terminate in the middle of nowhere - not easy to do with the mini already assembled.



Had to do some surgery for the socket as well, so she points the medi-gun in the right place...

 

Hi S9! I never really left, just rolled off a hill somewhere. And now I've rolled back!

Also, mini is cleaned up and ready to go. Never underestimate the ethical impacts of bad trades, and just how far up the wall badly assembled models will drive an otherwise average human being.



Cleaned up pretty well.



It'll soon be time for some scrofulous brown. I swear I'll soon need an english degree to spell that right every single time.

 

If I even remember it exists, S9. I am likely to forget after typing this out.

On another note, my cute zhanshi daughter is finally done! Technically she's a Zhanshi Yisheng but I love her enough to give her a separate classification now.

Those interested in the process can see the entire thing here.

And now for some pictures. Thankfully the fencing outside features a metal screw of some kind, which is, as luck would have it, magnetic. All I had to do was prop her over the screw and rotate her for easy photos! Much better than fiddling around with it indoors.

Mini No. 6: Neoterran Bolts Medic > Salvage > Zhanshi Yisheng Conversion



I will admit that I probably got the flesh tone ratio wrong. She kinda looks like Annette from Tonari-no-Annette-san (it's NSFW if you want to google it), but it's basically a little too orange. 30/70 Bugman's/Kislev, or 25/75 should fix it in the future.



I love that emerald colour (Model Colour 70838 Emerald). I bought it on a whim when a local hobby store was moving and had a sale. It's great!



I feel like I tried a lot of new things with this mini, especially since it was only the 6th one I've done in my life. A conversion, painting a face, trying edge highlighting, mixing washes and trying for gradients...



The bubbles in the primer are really regrettable. They were not there at the start, so I'm not sure what they could be. Either insufficient attention from me or primer drying weird. Will have to remedy next time.



I tried for a gradient with the shadows in her hair and I think the results look ok.



Milliput joint is not very good! Milliput has to be set before assembly next time.



Bang. Much better than what she was before, eh? I'm never engaging in bad trades again.



And that's it! Her hairband is reminiscent of cat ears, isn't it?

Obtained Cat Ear Medic 1 ea.

---

I also realized after typing this up that I forgot Mini no. 5.


Mini No. 5: Kamau HMG (Beyond Icestorm), salvage and repaint



I don't have much to say for him - I forgot to document most of the process, but those interested in some photos of the mini can find what I saved here.

Thanks for viewing!