Damian Helthorne: Reaper Miniature painted

I’m in the process of painting those West Wind Nazi Zombies I mentioned in an earlier post and I find it’s easier to paint a big unit (in this case 20 strong) if I have some other miniatures to work on as a change of pace.  This lets me take a break from the big unit without stopping painting completely which can result in a much longer break than I planned for.

So as a little treat to myself for getting all the basecoats and 1^st washes done on the Zombies I decided to paint one of the Reaper miniatures I’ve had for quite a long time. 

This miniature is an exceptional sculpt by Tre Manor.  It has a very expressive face, loads of layers of different armour and clothing and so much character he was a joy to paint.  He is however a big fella so I based him on a 40mm lipped base instead of the usual 30mm ones I use.

As you can see from the photos he has a slightly surprised look, this is intentional as I want him to form part of a diorama being confronted by a dragon.  His whole pose just looks to me like he’s spreading his arms wide with a ‘why me’ look.  If I don’t find the right dragon I might just wash his eye sockets again to close the eyes up a little.

Original Non Metallic Metal painting by Francesco Granacci

For the first time I tried out a technique called NMM (Non Metallic Metals).  If you look at the sword blade, studded armour and chainmail you might notice that they don’t have the glittery look metallic paints give but are shaded with a series of greys that blend into each other.  Its time consuming compared to drybrushing Boltgun Metal over black but looks much better in my opinion.  Besides, all the great paintings I’ve seen by artists weren’t painted with glitter paint (see left!)

I also tried out using a transfer instead of free handing the shield design.  That was a mistake born of cowardice.  I was a bit worried about ruining the miniature by botching the free hand so went with the transfer (a Space Marine one I had lying around) but it doesn’t really work and brings down what has turned into a really nice paint job.  I’ll be removing it and painting a free hand design soon.