COMFORT ZONE BUSTED

In this month’s Community Corner, we thought we would try and step away from wargaming figures for just a moment and spoke to Patrick, who got into painting miniatures when he was bought Tainted Grail (a board game that comes with some detailed models) and was challenged to paint them all before playing.

After learning the basics, Patrick admits to a fair share of painting of board game miniatures, but now has started the process of printing his own minis with a 3D printer, allowing him to experiment across a number of differing miniatures and genres.

“I chose this bust because I wanted to see what I could create without the boundaries of existing art for the mini. Also, I wanted to tackle a lot of new things for me: this was the first mini that was larger than 28mm, and I wanted to try airbrushing (which I mainly did for priming and zenithal highlight) and I wanted to attempt a non-metallic-metal for the first time.

“For this bust I used a black primer with white zenithal highlight. For this i used Airbrush Primer by Mig. For the rest I used Vallejo colours for almost everything – I only stepped away from this for the darkest skin tone when I used Bugmans Glow by Citadel. Layering colours was my main approach to this and – with enough time – all blends became smooth enough that there was no need for me to wet blend anything. Also, I didn’t want to use any washes as I was concerned that it might create unrealistic shadows in some spots.

When asked for advice for wargamers and miniatures painters, Patrick said “I would really recommend that, once in a while, everyone who likes the painting process, should take a mini that isn’t just a part of your next army, or set side for the next project you might tackle, but is instead one that you can try out things you never did before – maybe things that you might be too scared to try on your big project because you might ‘destroy’ it (though you can always strip paint from minis and start over again). I know that feeling of ‘keeping in the comfort zone’ to not risk progress. But just try it.”