Hawker Hobbies

  After the last paint job with the three Alice prints, i wasn't quite happy with how the Chibi version turned out. I wanted it to look more anime/cartoonish. I asked my daughter "baby g" (who is big into art and anime) if there was a term i should look for. She immediately said "Cel Shading". And sure enough - it's a whole thing about how to paint in an anime style. When applied to miniatures, it gives your 3d object a 2d effect. It's exactly what i was looking for, and i think it fits this model perfectly.

  As i was thinking about my next batch of miniatures, i decided it would be fun to paint a couple different Alice in Wonderland variations. I found several fun models and ultimately decided on three. I might come back and do some more in the future. Chibi Alice First up is "Chibi" Alice. Chibi refers to the exaggerated style with big heads and giant eyes (kind of like a bobble head). This particular sculpt is from Tanya Wiesner. You can find it here . For this, i decided to go for a simple, cartoon style paint job with bold, solid colors. Oh that poor teddy bear. I was trying to go for a "white rabbit" look, but it just looks like a half-painted mess. I should have just gone with a nice brown. Next time... Bad Bad Alice in Wonderland Next there is this very dynamically posed "bad bad" alice. It's from Heroes Infinite . She's a little pretty and a little crazy. I was very much looking forward to trying the stipes on the leggings and

I spent a  lot  of time on these miniatures. Remember when i said i needed to take better photos? Well, i decided to grab my wife for this one, and she did  not  disappoint. Thanks Luann! I picked up one of the loot studios sci-fi bundles because i really loved the look of this miniature. It's titled "Elisabeth Wattson". It's from the Loot Studios Sep 2023 "Thundercoil Cities" bundle. Background - why do this mini, and why do all three? When i first saw this miniature i was very excited. I was in the middle of some other steampunk minis and thought this would be a great addition. However, when i printed up the 32mm version, the face was "melted". So i tried again, and it didn't work either (i can't remember what went wrong on the 2nd print). So i tried a third time. And yes ... it also had a print failure, and some of the details were muddy. I think it's less about my printer/settings, and more about the miniature. I've not had issu

 This is from a set of miniatures i purchased a few months ago (maybe close to a year now?!) that contains all the heroes (plus Dungeon Master) from the 1980's Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. This is Hank.  I did this one in an afternoon, in between letting the paint dry on the other miniatures i'm working on. None of the mini's in this set have much detail. But hey - they're based on an old kids cartoon that didn't really have much detail either. I do wish the face was a little more "young" looking. This sculpt makes him look like a rugged brute instead of a 17 year old teenager. https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-heroes-of-the-realm-set-1-203990

 Last month i was watching a painting video on YouTube which was showcasing some new brand of paint (more on that in another post). But what caught my eye were the miniatures he was using. He mentioned the name and i went searching. Twin Goddess Miniatures . They're quite well done and a slight departure from my normal, so i picked up two of them to paint. I really need to figure out how to take better photos. These look much better in person. I'll work on that. Holiday Goblin Pinup Hey, it's Christmas time so i figured i'd pick a cute goblin elf. I tried some pen lines with really fine micron pens for shading the presents. Oh, and don't think it's too risque. This was the most dressed option they had. The others ranged from a little bow tied around her to nothing on at all other than a Santa hat :) Mushroom Goblin Another fun one. A happy little goblin druid with some mushroom minions toting her musket around. There was a weirdness with this sculpt in that the

Where to begin?  To go all the way to the beginning would require going back to the late 1990's when i first began to paint miniatures. But that's a lot of time to cover, so let me summarize. I'm married, have a young child, and am working at the beginning of my career. Not a lot of free time. One of my old high school friends gets into painting miniatures. I think it looks fun, so i pick up a few supplies and try my hand at it. Here's the first mini that i painted (well, among the first. It's the oldest one i could find. It was gathering dust in an old storage container in the garage). Pretty terrible, right? Well, i thought it was amazing what you could do with just a few strokes of the brush. So i kept at it.  Unfortunately, due to trying to build my career, raising a family, etc, i didn't get much time to paint. So about once every 2-3 months i'd pick up the brush. Sometimes 6-9 months or even a year would go by without any painting. As you can imagine,