NCMSS Presentation and Ramos WIP

I gave my presentation at the National Capital Model Soldier Society (NCMSS) club meeting this past Wednesday night.  The presentation was on the The Fantasy Palette, an examination of the evolution of rich, kaleidoscopic colors used in fantasy illustration and how we see it applied to miniature figures.

 

You can view all of the slides here. 

The presentation was well received.  I was able to stir some dialogue along during the presentation, which is what I was hoping for.  One guy slept, which had me concerned, until I noticed him still sleeping when the lights were on, and we had moved on to other events and agenda items.  He even slept while people were standing up and milling around, looking at miniatures!

I plan to show a follow-on series of presentations, which will cover art principles, in general.  My goal is dual-purpose -- I plan to use the same presentations for training judges for the NOVA Open painting competitions.


On Saturday, NCMSS held its monthly painting meetup, where we get together and actually paint.  I fit in only 2 or 3 hours, but it went a long way towards getting me back on track to knock out my Ramos faction for the WAMP Ladder competition. 

I'm tired of experimenting with the cobblestone bases, so I glued my remaining Steampunk Arachnids to their bases.  Now I'll have enough Arachnids to use in the game, if I want to summon them. 

Right now, their paint job looks very dull.  Compare the front ones that I worked on yesterday with the two finished ones in the back.  I figure the desaturated tones are good way to form additional contrast for the non-metallic metal (NMM) effect.  From here, I'll bring out both more value and more saturation. 

Over the course of the week, I poked around with pigments, as shown on the junk bases.  I'll use these bases as Scrap Counters in the game.  They're a nice safe way to learn how pigments work (or not!).  Any unintentional effect can still work on these bases.  There's still more work to be done on these, but I like how they're turning out.  I don't like how the pigments came out on the grill on the right, so I'll wash that one again.  But I like the effect on the bent metal sheet. and the hubcap on the left and the gear second-from-right.

Also over the course of the week, I put together these Hordes miniatures, which will serve perfectly to use as "Jin posts" for our Alkemy games.  Next I need to prime them.