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Santiago Ortega

The first Ortega that I finished is this tough looking hombre.  Santiago is the Ortega clan beefcake.

The paint job came out fine, better than the Death Marshals, but not as well as either the Judge or Lady Justice.  The figure is quite cool looking but a bit fiddly to paint for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is one that is common with the majority of Wyrd miniatures that I have come across so far: its multi-part.

Multi-part miniatures can often avoid that somewhat flat, two dimensional look by adding an arm or gun or wing or whatever on an axis that the casting process does not allow.  Despite this, I generally prefer my human sized figures to be single piece as it makes them more durable and it makes painting easier.  Trying to paint Santiagos face behind his big ol’ right arm was a hassle, and it shows in the painting quality.

Santiagos duster came out better than those of the Death Marshals a few weeks ago.

Fiddly reason two is also a feature of the Wyrd style.  The figures are moderately heavily detailed (which is nice) but the detail itself while crisp, is very fine.  When painted well they look fantastic, but I find that miniatures with heavily cut detail suit my painting style (and my patience levels) better.

But I should stop moaning.  Santiago looks like a pretty cool alt-cowboy type and the paint job came out pretty solid anyway.

Lastly, here is a picture of Santiago with part of my next terrain sub-project.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 2 Comments »

Lady Justice

Lady Justice is in charge of the Death Marshal elements of the Guild in Malifaux.  She is a blind, Buffy the Vampire Slayer type cowgirl who, judging by that massive hairdo, moonlights as an eighties rock star…

I bought my Death Marshals box before I had any interest in playing Malifaux.  I bought it because of the cowboy aesthetic that the other figures in the box have.  The Lady Justice figure was not originally a draw for me.

The sculpting is very nice technically but the subject matter and design initially left me cold.  In particular the massive amount of hair on the figure, which spreads left and right to span the length of her sword gives the figure a lozenge shaped silhouette, which doesnt really appeal.  From behind the miniature looks a little like Cousin Itt.

Click for image credit.

Lady Justices voluminous barnet also obscures her scabbard, the strap suspending her scabbard, bits of her fingers and elements of her pistols and holsters in a confusing way.  And I dont just mean confusing to paint (which it was).  I mean confusing in the sense that depending on how the figure is painted and the colours used it can be very hard to see whats going on.

This view is pretty much all that I ever see when I play games with Lady J.

And yet, despite my apathy towards the figure initially,  as I painted Lady J it all started to make sense.  To start with I had difficulty imagining what colours to use as I wanted to make sure that the elements somewhat lost in the hair would be visible and identifiable.  I also wanted the figures palette to tie in with the other figures in the crew but without making the figure too gaudy.

But, as I decided to embrace the (as I see it) eighties rock vibe I found the figure easier to work on.  As I painted my original attitude turned around 180 degrees.  I went for the vaguely Dick Turpin, somewhat Adam Ant and definitely Meat-Loaf-one-minute-into-the-video-shown-below look shown and ended up quite happy with it.

By the time that I finished painting the figure I was really quite pleased with both how it turned out and with the design of the figure overall.  I dont remember my opinion of any miniature altering so drastically during painting before now, but in this case it did.  And it all turned out pretty well I think.

Here is a group shot of my first completed Malifaux faction, the Lady Justice crew.

Lady Justice Crew

Incidentally, the three gravestones were prepped for use in the game when the Death Marshals “bury” opponents in those magic coffins that they lug around.  I dont know if they will be of any use when playing, but they were fun to make anyway.

Comments and criticisms all gratefully received.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 5 Comments »

My third Death Marshal.

I had a big painting slump last year and it impacted on my painting standard quite badly.  Although I am again starting to remember some of the things that were second nature last year, I seem to have forgotten some others.

This is visible in by comparing the coat on this figure and that of Judge.

I painted the Marshals before I painted the Judge and my treatment of the large smooth areas on their coats differed quite a bit.  I suppose it shows progress at least: the slow process of relearning what I have unlearned seems to be progressing.

The odd spirit flames in the coffin came out at an acceptable level, but after my more successful treatment of Judge Fire recently I had hoped for a better result.

Another issue with this area of the figure is that I was reluctant to try object source lighting techniques when painting it: I am afraid that the apprentice period required to get the technique to a decent level will result in significantly poorer miniatures in the interim.  Well executed OSL may have helped the painting on this figure, but I wasnt prepared to risk it this time.

The final figure from my first Malifaux crew is up tomorrow.  Its the Master of the group, Lady Justice in all her eighties rock glory.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 2 Comments »

My second Death Marshal.

These guys are quasi-undead, corrupted by the power that they wield.  I went with a blueish skin tone (like I might use for a ghoul, vampire or zombie) to emphasise that these guys are not truly human.

This figure is supplied with his hat unattached.  I stupidly glued it on before painting the figure, which made the face very hard to paint.  Not that it really matters that much, as the figures face will never really be seen.  I wont make that error with future cowboy hat attachment though.

The Marshal figures were the main reason that bought the Lady Justice starter set.  At the time I had no definite intention of playing Malifaux, but the Death Marshals looked like just the thing for my post-apocalyptic, Cursed Earth cowboy terrain and figures.  The poses are fun too, dynamic and comic book-y.

Another Lady Justice figure goes up tomorrow.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 6 Comments »

Death Marshals are Malifaux law enforcers that have particular issues with the undead and practicers of necromancy.  In order to deal with this threat they have learned enough about the dark arts to become capable of banishing zombies and the like.

This knowledge in turn has warped them into ghoulish characters themselves.  The most worrying evidence of these quasi-dead cowboys altered mental state is that they deem it practical to carry a coffin on or about their person at all times.

“Impractical!” you cry.  “Absurd!” you scream. “Why do they do that?” you utter.  “Meh, whatever.  Its kinda funny.” I mumble.

My Death Marshal paint jobs turned out ok, but not as nice as I would have liked.  Problems included:

Browns: as my miniatures tastes tend to be of the science fiction variety I have rarely painted that much brown over the years.  Brown isnt a sci-fi uniform colour as far as I am concerned, so I have tended not to paint that many things in brown tones.  These guys are covered in browns so getting the right highlight mixes and the like took a bit more trial and error than I would like.  This in turn impacted on my patience and the corresponding paint job quality.  Its alright, but could be better.

Coffin-dodging: I rushed through painting the coffins, and it shows.

Clumsiness: these are heavily detailed, fragile, skinny, multipart miniatures.  I didnt manage to break any of the smaller parts off the figure while painting, but they did make painting the various areas awkward.  The guy above was more of a pain in the ass to paint than one might expect.

Some more Guild figures go up over the next three days.  In the meantime I encourage you to comment or criticise please.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 8 Comments »

Judge

The very first Malifaux figure that I am posting up is this guy, Judge.

Judge is a member of the Guild, who are the less than benevolent authoritarian figures in the setting.  He hangs around with Lady Justice and the Death Marshals, who all specialise in taking out Resurrectionists (essentially Necromancers).

As far as I am aware Judge has suffered some severe damage to the lower portion of his face, which is why he wears that bandana… I think.  It doesnt matter anyway as it looks pretty cool I reckon.

Judges Long Arm blade has a pistol built into the hilt, which in game terms allows him to do all sorts of Matrix-y combination gunfire and dismemberment moves in game.

Check out the pistol hilt.

Another figure from the Lady Justice box set goes up tomorrow.

Comments and criticisms on this guy are very welcome 🙂

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | Leave a comment »