what's the deal with all those miniatures

miniatures! i love em. i paint em and put them on shelves and sometimes make em kiss. yeah baby, minis are awesome. this page will be a cool place for me to put pics of my minis and perhaps updates on how projects are going, depending on how lazy i am in updating this. anyway, here's what i just wrapped up -

i have been very sick of painting warhammer as of late, and i was very inspired by some indie miniature sculptors i've found online! and so last winter i spent wayyyyyy too much money on random minis and just have started painting em again! i was particularly in love with the hafud model from mammoth miniatures - a cool head on legs - and it gave me the inspiration to do a kind of hieronymous bosch influenced piece. at the same time, i was very inspired by a lunardo miniature i saw at the hothead show in nyc, and so i was excited to play with a jewelry box as a way to contain the mini!

so, i painted an old jewelry box black and sculpted a hill thingy out of cork and milliput. the vision was to cut out some aluminum to act as a banner on the left side that would read "hafud had a dream" and to paint a dream scene. i have never painted a backdrop before, so this was new to me.

he was really ugly at first! and yet we persevered. my banner idea... sorta?? worked? on the front it looked okay, but i quickly learned painting letters is harrrrrrrddd and at this point i was kinda sick of the piece lol, so i just did this impromptu thing on the front. instead of the interior banner, i also cut up a floss thingy and tried to make an arcane symbol instead - just a little emblem. it would have been really cool to do some stuff with an airbrush to make some glowy effects, but alas, i am a brush only andy for now...

and here is the finished piece! i'm really happy with how it turned out and i think it is my favorite thing i've painted to date - it's a step towards the uncanny and i want to lean more into that in the future. i really like that it's a little self contained world, and i want to experiment with other cool... receptacles? to build dioramas in in the future. my plan moving forward is to paint some hellpocalypse guys for fun, and to practice painting metallics/grundier looking things with texture paints.

for the longest time, ever since i started painting minis during covid (out in my parent's deck, in thick illinois summer heat, listening to my college ex scream at me over the phone... man... those were the days...) i have wanted to paint a diorama! but the prospect was always daunting - i have never sculpted, but am so inspired by some of the amazing diorama work i've seen online.

before i moved, i was working on an orc wartrike mini, but lost half of the kit while moving! and so later in the year, i decided you know what? those minis would be cool to re use - i could break up the bike i painted and use the orcs, which were done, and make a cool 'last stand' kinda scene. so that was the idea!

i started with a gaming base and laid out some cork to build up a 'red rocks' type of exterior. i love painting cork bark ala rocks, but wanted something vibrant, and i was inspired thinking back to my red rocks climbing trip with brandon and kyle, seen below:

i don't have pics of the cork on hand, but i ended up sculpting over the whole thing with milliput to create a sand dune type beat thing while placing a bunch of the corck bark rocks onto the edge to create this cool look:

then i put the guys on, poured on some baking soda for a sand texture, primed the rest by hand, and got to work on the basecoats!

and with a bunch of paint and a bit of time, here is the final piece:

i'm pretty psyched on the final piece! i think in hindsight, i should have sketched the scene first to determine placement of elements prior, i kinda did this one willy nilly, but it was fun. i would also use some texture powder for a 'blast radius' type effect around the bit of the motorcycle, and perhaps spread some motor bits here and there to help sell that, or add a dead space marine or two. but i'm excited to do some more non-warhammer projects once i get my new paint station set up!