So I continue to be needlessly intimiatated by the tedious detail required for the feathers on my gryffin model. So two weeks ago I just sat down and did the outline for all of the remaining feathers on one wing. I didn’t like it at the time, but now after coming back to it, I feel a lot better about how it looks. So at some point I’m sure I will convince myself to do the other wing…
So I have been doing a lot of work on the warhammer gryffin. Besides the modeling work to put it together, and turn Karl Franz into a high elf with a high elf spear, and Will shaving off the “karl Franz” from the breast plate piece I wanted to use, there was some actual painting.
First thing I did was spray paint it black. I prefer black. Dunno why. White spray paint and I don’t really get along. Then I painted the top of the wings the foundation blue, and the bottom of the wings foundation light gray. (Yeah, I could look up their actual names, but blech.)
And then the blue got a blue wash, and the gray got a black wash. Crazy innovative rite?
Then I put white on the underside of the wings, leaving the dark recesses, but my white and I have never really gotten along (it’s something about that color, I swear) so a lot of places ended up grayer than I wanted. It was horrible and tedious. (The picture below only the chest has the white done, the wings are still only gray with a black wash.)
Then I used pictures of red-tailed hawks as inspiration, and painted on scorched brown (I use that brown a lot, so I remember it’s name!) patterns to the underside of the wings. Also stupid tedious.
But then! After I had painted on the brown, I didn’t like the look of the white, since it was so uneven and streaky looking, so I threw another black wash over the underside of the winds. For a bit I panicked, thinking I had ruined everything, but I went back and outlined the feathers in white, and started making white detail pulled from the outside of the feather toward the inside in uneven strokes, and it’s actually starting to look really good. Just more tedium. So below you can see the brown patterning, and on the right wing (your left) the first five primaries have the new white detail.
Tami is a new character that is actually my 5th Edition character, taken from one of my stories. She is the fighter class. She uses a bow and two daggers that are sheathed in the small of her back. This mini doesn’t really have the daggers, but it does at least have one blade, and it’s in the correct position, so it works for me.
The color of the fabric is actually a mix of hawk turquoise and the different shades of green. I wanted a green-teal color and I think it really came out great. Man did I get lucky with those eyes.
So by the name of my site, you might be able to tell that I like gryffins. Today at the store Blake gave me the new Warhammer: Karl Franz on Deathclaw. I don’t play Warhammer, I just paint the miniatures I like (you’ll see a lot of my high elves in later posts) so I wasn’t really keeping up with the new models coming out. This one was a complete surprise as a belated birthday present. As of now I’ve just cut it out and pieced it together with painter’s tape. It is quite the impressive figure. I’m going to have to do some modding to it to make the rider a high elf (since that’s my favorite army) and make the gryffin’s armour look a little more high elfy.
I’m planning on the body being painted like a black leopard, with blue overtones. Not sure on what bird I’ll model the head and wings, or I might just wing it. Haha. Get it?
So I play D&D at a local game store called Fun n Games. There is fun there, and also games. We use miniatures since the introduction of the D&D mini line, which is around when I became aware of the fact that there were other miniature games out in the world.
So I picked out a mini from the reaper catalog, and did my best painting it. At the time I was super happy with how it turned out.
The above mini was actually used for a character in the Tower Campaign, I was currently playing in. A level 3 Warden in 4th Edition named Tela. I had trouble with her shield arm falling off multiple times despite being pinned (my first attempt, suggested by the owner of the store who is quite the modeler and painter). I ended up keeping it on with a glob of green stuff that was never painted after the fact. It’s pretty messy looking in general, but is still proudly my first ever mini.
And this mini opened up my chronic desire to be artistic on top of other people’s work. I have done it in the past by coloring in photoshop, pictures that were drawn by other people. So the natural progression, of course, is to paint figures modeled by other people.
The second miniature I got was for one of my story characters. She is a weaponmaster and…well I just kinda liked the mini.
And you might go…wtp? That mini actually looks like…good compared to the first one. Well in between the first and the second miniature, I purchased the book: How to Paint Citadel Miniatures. It has a lot of good tutorials for beginning painters and I super enjoyed it. And I’ve always been rather artistic in general, so as soon as I got a little technique I was able to improve quite hard.
So as my husband pointed out, this is actually my 11th year of going to Otakon. That makes me feel so old! But I still remember Otakon of 2000 when my friend Anne decided with some of her other friends maybe two days before the con, that we were going, and getting up at 4am to drive up there on the Friday of the con, and having a hotel outside the city, and not being able to find parking, and walking a mile in a downpour. It’s a wonder I ever went back.
So if you want to see all the pictures, I had Picasa make one of those instant web pages here.
As for my swag pictures:
So in the back are Hope and Lightning figures. My favorite characters from FFXIII. I also wanted to get an Ashe, who I felt was the only really worthwhile character from FFXII (except Balthier, though I didn’t really like him) but alas, I didn’t see her. In the middle is my Otakon badge. The rest of the stuff was actually from our day at the Towson Mall the day after the con. A Pride and Prejudice comic (yeah it’s weird, plus I’m so used to seeing the characters from the A&E series that I can’t remember who is who.) the latest Mercades Lackey book in paperback, a fancy covered notebook, and yummy treats from Harry and Davids.
A print from Otakon’s Artist Alley of all the Eevee evolutions. It’s just so darn cute.
I’m a fan of Flaffy, and since we had a free print to pick out (Buy two, get one free and James got the other one.) I picked this one for fun.
Stuffed animals galore. In the back, the blue, pink, and green things are from Shugo Chara! One of my most favoritest series. Then Lugia, who I did not see a plush of the entire weekend until our last trip through the dealer’s room when we technically weren’t supposed to spend any more money. The green thing is Ai-kun from Macross Frontier. One of my other favoritest series. Then of course growlithe and lapras.
Lots and lots of manga. No need to list out all the series as you can read them if you really want to know.
And if you’re interested in seeing my room immediately post Otakon: Clicky. The ‘ghosting’ and any crookedness you see is from my using the panorama option on my camera. It automatically takes three pictures and puts them together. Doesn’t work as great on things this close, but it served my purpose.
It was that time of year once again, when Otakon came around. We left on Thursday, got our badges early, (as Otakon has been allowing for a few years now) and then went home to chill. (We being me, Matthew, and friend Matt from Tech.)
Friday we headed in, got the hotel room early, and puttered around the con. By that night we were joined by Chris (from Tech), Shawn (Chris’ friend), Brian (Matthew’s coworker), Brian’s sister (never did get her name), and Kelsey (Matthew’s sister). Nothing much of note in the AMVs unfortunately sans the Otakon legal department pulling some videos that were anime set to American movie trailer audio for obvious legal reasons.
I was very happy with my purchases this year, which I will now show off:
First picture! Stuff from Artist Alley. These are all prints of art done by fans. Aeris continues to be one of my favorite characters, along with Saber from Fate/Stay Night. Then one mustn’t forget Sora and Riku from Kingdom Hearts, and Hitsugaya from Bleach. I got two of him, a nice looking bust picture, as well as a beautifully rendered piece of him Bankai mode. Also there are fun little bitty prints of Saber, Near from Death Note, Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho, and Gaara from Naruto.
Next are the figures that I seem to be getting more and more interested in. I spent the entirely of the weekend looking for Saber figures, and these are the two I ended up coming home with. The larger one cost me quite a bit, the smaller not so much. I’m also one for keeping things as near mint as possible, as such everything is staying in the boxes. (This also makes dusting much easier.)
Next picture, more figures. Vincent and Aeris from FFVII. These figures are from an entire set. The company also put out Kingdom Hearts figures (all of which I passed over, mostly cause I didn’t find Riku.) but these two are the ones I got.
And this year I was able to find two nice wallscrolls. Code Geass (for which I need to find and download the second season) and Tsubasa. We put these wallscrolls in the back window as we were driving home and the plastic at the top and bottom warped into not straight patterns. I’m unhappy about that, and plan to sometime try and warp them back (don’t even know if it’d be possible) but until then, yay wallscrolls.
Two “official” posters. One of my new favorite game of all time: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. It’s actually a picture of some figures that were put out. I tried looking for the Lenneth one, but surprise surprise, after two years it seems to be quite rare. (I found 3/5 on ebay.) The Inuyasha pic, even though I don’t watch the show / follow it in any way anymore, had all of the main characters in a nice poster and so I decided to grab it for old time’s sake.
And last picture is two pencil boards I found that I really liked. (I’m not usually much of a pencil board fan.) The soundtrack for Macross Frontier which I am currently watching, and a “How to draw” book. As usual, any time I am exposed to large amounts of fabulous artwork, I have that urge to draw yet again. Also, we had Arby’s for lunch.
I also got Ann’s birthday present, but I won’t spoil what it is. She’ll get it in due time.
I got everything from the con that I wanted except a Kowaru (from Evangelion) figure that I saw at the first place we went to in the dealer’s room. I told myself I would look for it cheaper elsewhere, and then totally forgot about it. And now I can’t find it on ebay or anywhere else. Ahh well, life happens.
All in all I had a fabulous Otakon, and we’ll see whether I get an update out tonight, or if you have to wait until Thursday.
