A Slight Detour – Painting Minis

Painting Minis, also to be referred to as “Wadya mean the world isn’t flat?!”

I blame my husband. Well, I blame him and our friends Cathy and Jim Wappel. And by blame I mean thanks for the mental shake-up. Painting the minis has been an enjoyable way to refill my creative well.

It all started with a game that we now have in which there are some amazing detailed Cthulhu themed resin miniatures. They’re all the boring grey resin color so I, being the artist in the family, was tasked with painting them. I thought it would be fun. What the heck, why not.

Then I went into “serious” mode.

I researched paints, picked Jim’s brain (go check his blog, he’s an amazing artist) and my local resource (Source Comics and Games).

I picked up a few Reaper Bones series miniatures on which to practice. Here’s one of them.

reaper mini silverhorn unicorn bones painted by christine mitzuk
The Silverhorn Unicorn from the Dark Heaven Bones series of minis by Reaper. I decided to paint it as a creature of fire. Approximately 2.25″x2.75″.

Painting something someone else sculpted has been kind of relaxing. The gesture and “bones” of the composition are figured out. I just need to figure out how I want to enhance it with value and color. There’s also no environment to figure out, but I think part of the trick is going to be to hint at there being an environment acting on the figure.

Anyway, if I waited till they were perfect, no one would see them so here’s what I have so far. I’ve been painting them when I feel like it in the evenings. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the creatures, the ones below (Hastur and Yog-Sothoth) are mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Hastur Mini painted by Christine Mitzuk
He’s only maybe 2.5″ tall. Hastur. Just don’t say his name out loud.
Yog-Sothoth Mini1 painted by Christine Mitzuk
Yog-Sothoth, also about 2.5″ tall. Let’s call this its front.
Yog-Sothoth Mini2 painted by christine mitzuk
Yog-Sothoth, also about 2.5″ tall. Let’s call this its back.

If you’re curious, I’ve been using mainly Reaper Mini paint, except for Yellow Ochre from Vallejo. For the palette I went with a warm and cool of yellow, red, and blue, plus a few colors I can’t mix (Magenta, Turquoise, Black, White, Yellow Ochre, and “Redstone Highlight” a kind of dull Venetian Red). To paint I’ve been using mainly a #4 bristle filbert, a #8 synthetic round that no longer comes to a point, a #4 and #3/0 synthetic round.

I think I’m going to have to go back and buy a few intense greens. I do have a Cthulhu to paint after all.