2015 Year in Review!

The Brush Wizard's 2015 Year in Review!

For starters, I wrote up a to-do list of projects that have been floating around my head. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I felt like I had some Project ADD going on and need to sort it all out. That being said, I was able to knock out 5 of the projects. Most of them didn't get past the idea stage and a few of them are more than likely going to be permanently canceled. It was nice to have a list of ideas to go off of, but it also felt constraining.

This year also saw the return of the WIP posts. Since I've been working on a lot of display pieces, with a lot of details and time between beginning and end it seemed like a good idea. Plus it lets me show the process off a bit. With the reintroduction of WIP posts, I've ended up posting more than I've ever done before (over 80 posts this year, that's double last year's total). That makes 2015 a great year for painting and projects!

In October I finally bit the bullet and submitted some of my work to Reaper Miniatures to see if I could get in to their freelance pool of painters. But as of yet, I haven't heard anything from them. Though I think because I use a mix of paints, rather than their paint line exclusively, that might have hurt my chances. They say you can re-submit ever 3 months or so, so I'll work on upping my skill level more and send them another email later on in 2016.

Either way, 2015 was an excellent year for The Brush Wizard. Without further ado here's a run down of everything that happened in 2015!

Pinned Down, Taking Fire! - Complete!

Pinned Down, Taking Fire! is now done! I had a lot of fun with this one. I got to shoot it with a bb gun, I learned how to paint camouflage and best of all I finally got to paint up some Hasslefree Miniatures figures! The whole process has been a blast to work on and I really got a lot of energy from folks complementing the project while it was in the WIP stages.

WIP: Pinned Down, Taking Fire! - Painting Urban Camouflauge

With the base painted and done (for the time being), it was time to get Woody and Badger painted! As I mentioned in the previous post I struggled with the camouflage pattern and coloring. Finally after a bunch of great suggestions from the folks on Twitter I decided on grey Urban camo.

Painting camouflage boggled my mind though. I've never attempted camo before, because I was always worried that it'd come out looking like I had just slapped random splotches of color all over it. But thanks to the internets and especially Kujo Painting's Painting Camo video, I felt confident enough to get started on Woody and Badger.

I knew I didn't want to mix paint. With the heat over the last few days it would dry out too quick. Plus if I had to stop, I didn't want to worry about mixing paint and color matching later. So I went with a palette of Vallejo's grey Model Color paints. These and their layers are:

• Base Coat: Neutral Grey
• Layer 1: White
• Layer 2: Grey Green
• Layer 3: German Grey

While Urban camo has black in it, I decided to go with German Grey instead. This was because I am using Black for the other pieces of clothing and didn't want the camo pattern to blend into it.

I followed the steps in Kujo's video, but with some minor changes. My process was like this:

Base Coat: Neutral Grey
Wash #1: Wash crevasses with thinned Gray Green
Layer #1: Paint random splotches of White on all Neutral Grey surfaces
Layer #2: Paint random splotches of Grey Green, slighly overlapping and connecting between white splotches.
Layer #3: Paint random splotches of German Grey on top of white and grey splotches, trying to go along the edge of the grey splotches and keeping lines thinner than the others.
Wash #2: Wash all areas with thinned GW Nuln Oil.

 

The camo turned out great! I surprised myself with it and have gotten a ton of compliments from everyone

that sees it. Not bad for my first ever attempt at it. But I do think I'll follow up with another wash of Nuln Oil in the creases, just to help give the fabric a bit more dimension.
 
Next up are the black sections of clothing. I'll need to simulate leather on the gloves and boots, while the straps, masks and other bits need to look like fabric. Also, the guns need to look like painted metal, which means edge highlighting. Other than that, it's details, details, details.

I should have it finished up soon. But, as always, you can watch it progress in a more up-to-date fashion via Twitter. Hopefully it will be done this week, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be.

WIP: Pinned Down, Taking Fire! - Painting the Wall

The wall is built and exploded, the minis are assembled and ready for battle. It's time for paint y'all!

I came to an impasse for most of the day after the wall was assembled. I needed to decide on the ground, wall and camo colors. I spent a lot of time looking at camo patterns, trying to decide on what to go with. I made it especially difficult on myself, because I originally planned on a red brick wall.

This left me with a limited number of camo choices and it was brought to my attention that Urban Camo against red bricks might look off. So, after a bit of debating I finally decided on grey bricks for the wall and a blacktop ground with the soldiers clad in grey urban camo.

Project Announcement: Pinned Down, Taking Fire! - Building the Wall, and then Exploding it.

It's time to start a new project and that project is something I've been looking forward to for a while now. This new project is titled "Pinned Down, Taking Fire!" and it's a departure from my usual fantasy based pieces, instead being modern military.