Cultural Learnings of Painting for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Nomads

Thank you, thank you, and thank you :) If you want to catch a sneak peak of my next project, search for "burlesford" on the OPathome painting challenge page ;)

Had a long phone call with a friend last night, and how better to help my concentration powers than to give my hands something to do in the meantime? Like, for example, finish a Tsyklon? :D



This makes 3 S4 drones, which is everything I'll ever need (I think?).
Putting the three next to each other however shows how much my airbrushing technique evolved over the last year. The Lunokhod on the right is almost a year old and feels not nearly as well contrasted as the Salyut, which is from March, and that one in return isn't as clean and crisp as the Tsyklon, which I airbrushed two weeks ago. What do you think? Which one do you like best?

 

And here goes the second to last Nomad miniature on my painting pile, and with it my last Bakunin model:



I don't know why, but at some point I knew I wanted to make Bran a ring-tailed lemur. I guess my thinking went along the lines of "if he's already a monkey, why not make him look like an actual monkey?" Not sure if I actually pulled it off or if his face looks more like a skull. In any case, he's done, and I'm happy with him.

I have to say, I REALLY love this sculpt. One of the most fun, dynamic ones of the whole range imo. I didn't stick completely to the color scheme of my other Zeroes, switching the dark green and blue for brown and beige – those would have been too many colors, distracting even more from the already desaturated face.

Now to the very last Nomad on my pile – although he's technically not even a Nomad. But I want him for Corregidor. You know who. He's gonna get finished next Monday, so stay tuned. There'll also be a big group shot of course :)

 

95/95

Will post the group pic tomorrow.

 

Alright.

Let's go back to one year ago one more time, shall we?

This is what my entire Nomad project looked like back then:



To go full self-referential, let me quote myself from that post:

Well, I almost bit off more than I could chew. In the end, I didn't paint all this. The Taskmasters I sold. Just as Gogo Marlene and a few Tunguska units. But then again, I also bought a bunch of other stuff in the meantime that isn't on that picture. So in the end, this is what the whole completed project looks like now:



If you want the one to one nostalgia shot as well, open the spoiler.

Spoiler: Then and now

With this, I will close this thread for now. Next week I think I should be able to show the first results of my new project. And in due time, I'm sure I will come back here to add a thing or two.

But 95 minis should keep me going for a while. Thanks for coming along on the ride, all the friendly advice and feedback and, of course, your attention ;)

 

Hey guys, I'm back for more Nomads! For those who missed it: I've been painting construction workers in the meantime.

Thanks to all of you!

It's all subtle manipulation :P

Hope you both found my Demolition Crew as exciting as you hoped it would be ;)

At one point there will for sure be a Szalamander coming. I just don't know when yet. Probably at the latest before they (presumably) turn him into plastic for Code One. The Iguana I don't know. I neither find the profile very useful nor the model that exciting.

Well, here is at least one:

Spektr Multi Sniper Rifle


Now that I'm done with my NCA and I'm still waiting to unpack my Crimson Stone Bundle, I decided to finish a few last Nomad conversions lying around. The first was this Icestorm Spektr which for a long time I didn't know what to do with. I had never liked his original open pose, and he had given both his arms to my Morlock, so he ended up in my bitz box for over a year.

But then two things came together: I finally decided to sell my N2 Spektr Sniper because those old sculpts are just too finicky, and I had a cool weapons arm over from my Druze conversions.
That's when I decided to turn him into my sniper Spektr. I elongated the barrel of the Druze's combi rifle and bent the left arm of the Sun analyst HVT I still had as a spare so it could hold the weapon.

In the end, I'm very happy with the conversion and had a lot of fun going back to my Tunguska color scheme once again.

I also have one more of these conversions before Crimson Stone will drop coming up soon :)

 

Ah, and in case anyone's interested, here's a (useful?) comparison shot between my first Spektr painted one year ago and my new version:

 

Thanks! Is it visible though? I honestly have a hard time seeing any improvements myself – and no, that's not fishing for compliments. I feel like I still don't manage to get my edge highlights much crisper or my gradients much smoother than before. Any tips there? Maybe I just lack the patience? Or a finer brush?