GumbaFish's RPG log (update 7/19/2020 they have a troll!)

[GumbaFish]

After years of having partially painted armies I realized that I just spend too much time painting single miniatures. Inspired by people like James Wappel and Marco Frisoni, who turn out some amazing work in short timeframes, I decided to adopt a mindset of painting faster and getting more finished miniatures. My aim is to spend 2 or less hours on miniatures unless it is something special I want to spend time on. As part of this journey I will also be experimenting with new techniques, mediums, and styles to see what I can do to achieve pretty nice results in shot time periods.

This log will be mostly fantasy miniatures for D&D since I thought that would give me a lot of chances to try different schemes and techniques and I can paint a bunch of cool miniatures I enjoy instead of grinding out things for an army. Comments, critiques, advice, and questions are all welcome.

Without further rambling here is a group of goblins and an orc.
Painting time per miniature: ~1:15
New techniques tried: Oil paints
Reflecting on the process: I think I spent a little longer then I needed to on these guys because I was trying to make them look like a rag tag bunch. I probably used too many colors and this definitely slowed me down. I experimented with oil paints for some of the highlights and shadows and while I have a lot to learn they did offer some nice and quick blends to bring up the contrast. I think this was most effective on the reds.









And a shot from the workbench of things in the pipeline

[OSHIROmodels]

Lovely work 

[epmoretto]

Those are some pretty smooth blends for speed painted minis! Having never used oil paints, I am curious as to how to begin experimenting with them. Any tips?

Kind Regards,
Rico

[GumbaFish]

Those are some pretty smooth blends for speed painted minis! Having never used oil paints, I am curious as to how to begin experimenting with them. Any tips?

Kind Regards,
Rico

Thanks! I'll be honest these were my first try with them so I don't know if I have a lot of wisdom to share just yet. I have used various enamel products for weathering a lot so I kind of treated them like that a little bit. Basically, I laid down base colors with acrylics and then used the oils to help create some highlights and shadows, primarily on the clothing for these guys. I got a 24 tube set from Dick Blick for ~$30 so I have plenty of colors and thinned them to about the same consistency as regular paints I use on miniatures. I basically placed the color where I wanted it and used a second clean dry brush to feather them out. Sometimes you need to let them sit a bit before blending but I don't have enough experience yet to give suggestions there. James Wappel is an excellent miniature painter and has a bunch of information about working with oils () and he also posts a lot of streams where you can watch him paint in real time. For the moment watching him is where I am getting most of my ideas from regarding oils so I'd definitely suggest checking out his videos. I'll keep trying to post about my experience and what I learn and hopefully can share some things I've learned along the way once I get a few more minis done using them.

[GumbaFish]

I finished up a few Reaper wraith miniatures and a generic evil sorcerer that is an old GW mini I have had around for ages and painted several times prior. I figured it fit in well and would allow me to save a little time by repeating the purple scheme from the wraith onto another model.

Painting time per miniature: ~1:30
Techniques tried: Airbrushing inks, oil paints
Reflecting on the process: I've used inks a little bit before but only white ink to establish zenithal highlights after priming. I did the same process of adding white highlights but then hit the model with a colored ink to take advantage and it produced some great results. I did notice that different inks have different opacity and the blue was much more heavily pigmented and easier to work with. It took a little playing around but I enjoyed the experience and these were great test subjects since they were basically just robes and metallics. I was a little more comfortable with the oil paints this time but I was also aided by the fact that I established more contrast in my basecoat. I also tried a different way of painting dirt and stone and enjoyed the results even if they then get covered up with a lot of grass etc... All in all I am enjoying embracing a more organic painting process and the oils are helping to encourage that.







Oh I also finally varnished some random scatter terrain. No idea how long I took on these pieces but not long since it was a lot of drybrushing and quick and drity things. I noticed I forgot to paint the rope but I'm calling them good enough for now.

[GumbaFish]

Its been a little while since an update but I've finished another miniature! I am not entirely sure how long I spent on this guy because I painted it off and on over a few weeks and probably took a little more time than usual because I've wanted to paint a stone troll since the mid 90's. This mini really had a similar vibe to the 90's GW stone trolls so it was great fun to finally paint one. There are a few areas that could be better but I'm happy enough to move on for now.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Beautiful brushwork!

[Elbows]

Great work on the troll.  I use the same mini for my dungeon crawl and it's superb.

[FreakyFenton]

Beautiful brushwork!

+1