Blog Alraune's Blog of Figuring Stuff Out

Sometimes life comes at you fast. The last post I made in this thread was just days before all my aspirations for the year became completely upended, and it's only within the past couple of months or so that I'm finding myself emerging from the fog, once again looking forward to life beyond surviving to the next "checkpoint" of it, and, most importantly, motivated to paint some lizardmen.

First I'd like to share the completed Kroxigor trio!! I've gotten my own little lightbox now-- a real one and not a box of k-cup pods with waxpaper windows and a desk lamp-- and I think it has a bit better lighting for miniatures because of its smaller size, than my LGS's big lightbox they use to photograph comics and boxed figures for eBay and whatnot, so I think these pictures turned out swell. Almost as good as the Kroxis themselves. In order of completion:

Kroxigor #1



Kroxigor #2


Kroxigor #3

Juicy close-up

 

Ran out of images for the last post, so here's some group shots of the Kroxigors:

 

Next up: Got some proper, nice photos of my Skink Priest... Chief.... Whatever he is! I love this little dude.

 

I also finally completed that Sunblood kitbash I shared all the way back in August of last year... just a couple months shy of a full year, huh? Just in time for him to get left out of the new book. He can just be an Oldblood or something now, I guess. The Skink Chief was a test run of the "albino" color scheme I wanted to use for this guy, and my main regret (besides the primer being kinda fuzzy in some places and messing up the texture) is that I didn't incorporate more ways to integrate the purple and turqoise. He's got a little bit on his bracelet though!

The day I finished him, I was also finally given what was originally intended to be my grand prize for winning last year's painting contest (that is, aside from the satisfaction that my mini raised the most money for suicide prevention, anyway) They are fantastic so far, they came in handy for detailing the eye (even though it's very small and hard to see in person ) and the bracelet. I'm looking foward to getting to use these in the future for even more little eye-dots and edge highlights!

 

So now we're caught up to Today. I wanted my next project to be a pack of Raptadon Hunters, but my husband was laid off from his job of three years, and even though he's still getting paid through the summer and we're not in panic mode yet (he's got an interview tomorrow, knock on wood), it's just not a responsible purchase to make right now So instead I finally cracked open my Starblood Stalkers and started painting the Chameleon! At Christmastime I bought the Warcry box for the friend who owns most of these lizardmen, so we've got a tall pile of chameleons to paint anyway, so now I'm testing out a paint scheme for them.



This is my photo reference:


I want the chameleons to stand out from the saurus and skinks, and our LGS's annual suicide prevention charity TTRPG challenge t-shirt one year was bright orange, so in my heart it's like, this secret third color aside from purple and turqoise. So the plan is for the chameleons to be mostly orange, with these bright turquoise markings. I plan on making his little poison frog purple with turqoise spots, too.

 

I'm glad things have settled enough for you to get back to painting. These are all really good and I look forward to seeing more. I've got my fingers crossed that your husband nails his interview

 

Glad you can continue to paint!

I really like your work, the saurus look great and I appreciate the realistic color scheme you are accomplishing for your chameleon!

 

That is awesome work!

 

Thank you all so much for the warm tidings and kind words! It always makes me glad to pop back in and see whate everyone else has been up to, too.
And I have good news! That is... my friends are too good to me (sob)

"You didn't have to do that!" I said, to which he replied "They'll be going in our army anyway!" Since we just have the one unit of them for now, they'll be Chargers. I've got big plans for these, and I'm so, so excited to get to paint them sooner than I thought!

I also finished the chameleon! There was a spot on the base that I thought looked a bit like a puddle could go there, so I tried a little water effect there like I had with the carnosaur. It's itty bitty, but I think it adds a little something.


I wish I could've gotten the orange as in-your-face almost-neon brightness as the photo, but I'm not sure how I would've gone about it with the selection of colors we have at hand at the LGS. Maybe with many more layers of paint? But I eventually want to do all the chameleons like this so I have to make a few sacrifices. I tried a few little speckles of red as well, but they didn't really look like anything so I just covered em up. I also went easy on the foliage because I wasn't sure how my usual basing treatment would play with the plants built into the miniature. I'm still pretty pleased with the blend from green to orange, and how bright blue I was able to get the top of his head. I didn't think Baharroth Blue would be bright enough, so I used a few layers of Nihilakh Oxide, the brightest blue on hand, applied in eensy-teensy bits at a time so it wouldn't do the wash thing it normally does and settle into crevices.