Malifaux - Guild (UPDATE: Watcher)

[Malebolgia]

Me and two mates are playing Malifaux for some months now and we're really having fun. As in, it's my favorite game. Love the rules, the style, setting and gameplay. Warmachine was my #1 game for about 10 years, but Malifaux has become my current favorite.
We're still discovering a lot about the game (one of the coolest periods in playing a game ) and we try out lots of stuff. Since we're playing quite often we decided to start a Shifting Loyalties campaign and it's a blast. Nice addition to the game and it offers for new ways of approaching the game. And since we started to play the campaign, I thought it was about time to paint some stuff!
I own a lot of Malifaux and most of it was bought at the time the stuff initially was released. So yes, some models have been collecting dust in my cupboard for almost 10 years . It's always nice to get some paint on such miniatures!

My starting list for Shifting Loyalties was:

Guild
Leader: The Judge
Lone Marshall
Death Marshall
Austringer
Witchling Stalker

Getting down to painting, I started with the Judge and Death Marshall. I managed to paint these in one evening...and the Austringer during the next evening! Damn, these models can be done fast. Now with the big dusters it went superfast. I'm happy with how they look, but I need a new pot of matt varnish. This one doesn't give a flat matt effect anymore. Drats!

The Judge


Death Marshall


Guild Austringer


Next up will be a Hunter (bought him at the start of the second week of the campaign) or the Witchling Stalker...

[Major_Gilbear]

They look fantastic! Really liking the green dusters too, very original. 

[Gibby]

LOVE the Death Marshall in particular, though they are all brilliant!

[obsidian3d]

Wow those are top notch paint jobs! Very striking work on those green coats.

[Burnin Coal]

  Wow ! Excellent brushwork   

[Malebolgia]

We're in week two of the Shifting Loyalties campaign now, so time to add more models and paint some more. I added Ryle and a Hunter to my arsenal, so I wanted to paint some constructs. I started with the Hunter and then quickly did the Guardian too. Years back I always disliked the Guild constructs. Too wacky and quirky. And when I bought them (for cheap!) a month ago on Cool Mini or Not I still wasn't a fan. But during painting I started to like them...more and more...and now I love them! The quirkiness is why I like them so much and they are perfect Steampunk constructs.
The Hunter went so fast and I had so much fun painting the metallics, I wanted to do another construct (although he's not even in the arsenal for the campaign...). And I'm very glad I didn't go for NMM for my Malifaux, painting these in true metallics is a blast. I painted all the furnacy things blue, as if they're powered by Soulstones.

Hunter


Guardian

[Major_Gilbear]

I think these look great - really nice metals!

[Steam Flunky]

Lovely painting, especially that copper/brass look!!

[Malebolgia]

And finally another update! This time it's my one and only plastic Malifaux model: Ryle. And for this model I decided to use an interesting color: Citadel Bronzed Flesh. Yes, the good ol' Bronzed Flesh. I started the hobby back in '94 and Bronzed Flesh was among the first five paints I bought.
Why? Because Mike McVey told us so!
Yes, back in the day the White Dwarf and all hobby magazines told to paint your skin tones with Bronzed Flesh, wash them with Flesh Wash and highlight them with Elf Flesh. And no matter how hard I tried, I NEVER EVER got the result from the images. Not even close. And then I'm not talking about quality, but about colour hues (no way I was thinking I could top McVey ). The result was always a orangy flesh tone which was kind of odd. And it turned out I wasn't the only one. In the late nineties and early zeroes there were a lot of people fed up with Bronzed Flesh and new players were always told not to buy Bronzed Flesh! And so people switched (mainly to Vallejo Model Color in these times). And Bronzed Flesh slowly disappeared into nothingness...
Then cue the French painters. Yes, the maestros which massively changed painting: color use, NMM, emotion in painting...it was huge back then. And they used Bronzed Flesh. Yes, these guys took Bronzed Flesh and painted skin tones in the greatest lush colors which baffled me.
I remembered reading lots of tutorials and one of them by Cyril Abati is still online: http://neomodel.free.fr/tuto/tuto-visage-sm.html

So when I started painting Ryle, I was pondering skin tones. I first went for a sickly purplish tone to simulate the artwork. But when searching through my paints I found an old (but good!) pot of Bronzed Flesh. BAM, I was hit by nostalgia and years of hobby time flashed through my head. And YES, I then wanted to use it. I wanted to do Bronzed Flesh the way these French guys used them.
And hot damn, that was fun! I used Bronzed Flesh, Vallejo Model Color Cavalry Brown (which was used on other parts and on the previous models too) and Foundry Flesh Tone 5C. I'm happy with the results and I will surely use Bronzed Flesh again someday! Thank you Mike McVey for getting us Bronzed Flesh. I will cherish it forever.   

[Major_Gilbear]

Again, very nice work there!

Not sure I'm still quite convinced by Bronzed Flesh for painting actual flesh, but your efforts are certainly very polished. 

[von Lucky]

Hah - so true. Nice work on him though.

[Malebolgia]

Cheers guys

Another update! A Watcher...with a small conversion. I chopped off the upper part of its legs and pinned the rest to the model. The result looks a lot like a perched bird, a lot cooler than the old weird Scooby Doo pose IMO (here's the original pose: http://images.frpgames.org/products/product_73246.jpg). I glued it down to a resin base and painting went like a breeze (I love constructs...)

[Hobby Services]

I'm curious, are you avoiding the plastic sculpts (outside of Ryle) deliberately?  I played mostly in the first edition metal days and haven't seen many of the new plastics, the game died locally when 2nd came out.  Are they any good?  I've seen some mixed reviews of the plastics, and some grumbling about scale issues on some models.

[Major_Gilbear]

I've seen some mixed reviews of the plastics, and some grumbling about scale issues on some models.

I hope Malebolgia doesn't mind me jumping into his thread to answer you!

In general, they are very nice but very delicate.

The earliest plastic sets were a very mixed bag (I really hated the Lazarus mech - linky), some had scale issues (of those the main one that remains is the giant Marshall in the Lady Justice box - the other sets(s) got re-made), and a few had parts all over the sprue with options that were not detailed in the instructions (and were thus a nightmare to figure out).

Despite my initial reservations, Wyrd have hugely improved their efforts, and their models are now much more consistent and interesting. I still have two fairly important criticisms; a lot of models are in too many *tiiiiny* pieces, and the faces are too small to have any character. The faces is the bit that upsets me the most, as a lot of the models are pretty doll-like and lacking in expression, and thus end up looking a bit generic / uncanny valley.

Scale-wise to other models, they can be tricky. They are fairly tall -about 32mm typically- but very slender, with a deliberately "elongated limbs" look. They are therefore difficult to match up with naturally-proportioned 28mm models and also with heroic-scaled 28mm models. Since Wyrd also changed their art style for the new edition, the new plastics don't always suit the older metals range either (although some models are simply direct copies in plastic of their old metal counterparts - just smaller and more delicate).

I've got a lot of the metal figures, and even though I do now have some plastic crews as well (three in fact), I have restricted myself to only getting those plastic models for existing crews that are not going to look too strange next to the metals. I also shopped around and got some suitable metal proxies from other companies that would "bridge the gap" in appearance between them so that crews with mixed plastic/metal models would look a bit more unified.

Hope that helps!

[Hobby Services]

Despite my initial reservations, Wyrd have hugely improved their efforts, and their models are now much more consistent and interesting. I still have two fairly important criticisms; a lot of models are in too many *tiiiiny* pieces, and the faces are too small to have any character. The faces is the bit that upsets me the most, as a lot of the models are pretty doll-like and lacking in expression, and thus end up looking a bit generic / uncanny valley.

Only done a few of the plastics myself at this point but I did notice the tiny, eerie face thing myself.  I wonder how much of the problem is a direct result of the masters being produced via 3D drafting techniques instead of traditional hand sculpting?

Glad to hear their plastics have improved, though.  Thanks for the input.