Afterlife Null-Zone #1 - trooper thumbnails

I'm learning digital sculpting, and my pals at Anvil Industry are kindly hosting me at the studio in London for some training this week.

Here are some ideas I'm taking along. This was a free for all idea session, I could have done another 4 pages like this (I may still yet). I'll talk through the ideas with Anvil's creative director and hopefully take some elements from these to the next stage of design.

More on this project soon. Exciting times.

Afterlife by Anvil Industry - Ephraim Bolivar "the Mechanic"

This guy has a real comic book manga feel to him, the muscles immediately reminded me of Colossus from the X-Men.

He's described as a weapons developer, obviously a little mad who likes to test out his creations in the field. With that in mind I went for a simple metallic colour scheme. The white casing on the leg power assist rig is brand new - no damage to the paintwork, yet.

Anvil have already stated their intent to expand the Crane Corporation line next year, I hope we see some one off mechanical abominations to take to the field with this guy.

Pick him up here - http://anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Unity-Council/Ephraim-Bolivar

Here's the next Afterlife unit I'll be painting up soon... (started ages ago).

Painting tutorial: Afterlife C-48 Warden Autonomous Mech

Here I'll go through the steps I take to achieve these rough and quick paint jobs!


1. Undercoat

I used Uniform Grey spray from the Army Painter

2. Colour Blocking

In this order based on layers and physical depths (to minimise mistakes):

• Skavenblight Dinge for rings and washers.
• Leadbelcher for metal areas, including features on the base
• Ceramite White for the armour plating
• Mechrite Red for the eye lenses

3. Wash

Nuln Oil over everything, even the base!

4. Highlight (the make it pop stage)

Fine edge highlights for this stage, I sometimes call this 'mechanical' painting - it's all straight lines.

• Ceramite White for the armour plates, and a little dot at the top left of the eye lenses
• Russ Grey for the main casing of the Mech
• Evil Sunz Scarlet for the bottom right half of the eye lenses
• Runefang Steel for all the exposed metal areas

5. Battle Damage - OPTIONAL STAGE

You can skip this if you want! I use this step to add character to miniatures, and to tidy up any mistakes I've made along the way.

• Skavenblight Dinge - Paint some chips and scuffs. Pick out the edges and the corners: areas where the paint will get chipped off during a stumble in a concrete warzone, or where stray bullets make contact.
• Runefang Steel - Paint thin streaks of silver on the Skavenblight Dinge, leaving the dark grey showing around the edges.

6. Finish it! (Base)

Before we do the base paint a tiny dot of Macharius Solar Orange in the bottom right of the lenses.

• Drybrush the base texture with Adeptus Battlegrey.
• Drybrush the metal base features with Snakebite Leather.
• Do a final drybrush on the base texture with Ulthuan Grey (see the final note regarding line dynamics on this).
• Chaos Black for the bevel edge of the base.

DONE!

Appendix. Line dynamics

If you look at the light grey drybrushed lines below you'll notice that they generally follow the direction of travel or attention of the miniature.

• On the left one, less noticeable, the selective drybrushing conveys a forward movement - the light grey runs parallel on either side of the right foot touching the ground. 
• On the miniature on the right, there's a very clear light grey line that runs parallel to the gun arm taking aim. This line is so pronounced it could be a pavement or road marking.

Either way, there's a method to the highlight - it's selective in such a way that complements the miniature and suggests action and direction!

The Crane Corporation. I'm pretty sure Anvil Industry are expanding this faction next year...

Afterlife - Unity Council C48 Warden Autonomous Mech

Another treat to paint from Anvil Industries Afterlife range - the C48 Warden Autonomous Mech.

I've omitted any markings for the time being, I might come back at a later date and add some detail. I have 3 more so will do a tutorial for them in the near future!

Pick up some for yourself here ; http://anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Unity-Council/Warden-Mech

#ShoutOut# Anvil Industry Afterlife - Unity Council Spectre Operative characters

99% finished paint jobs, just a few touch ups left.

Brilliant mini's, it's only during painting these that you really appreciate them... can't recommend them enough.

These two mini's come in a pack - http://anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Unity-Council/Gabriela-Aguilar

#ShoutOut# Anvil Industry Afterlife - Crane Heavy Infantry

The more I paint the Afterlife range to more and more I like it. Usually I find the opposite is true of a miniature line after I've become familiar with all the design shortcuts or sculpting flaws, or the limitations of the casting medium. That's the joy of being a sculptor...

Not with these things though, Anvil have a penchant for being flawless with their digital designs and resin casting. That's part of the reason I'm so happy they produce my sculpts for me.

These guys are Corporate Guns for the Crane Corporation.

Get them here: https://anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Crane-Heavy-Infantry

#ShoutOut# Anvil Industry: Afterlife - Unity Council Guard

Another shot of my fledgling Afterlife collection! Great mini's.

Get them here: http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Unity-Guard

#ShoutOut# Anvil Industry: Afterlife- Isaias Cortez

My first painted miniature for Afterlife by Anvil Industry.

Hiatus over... now, where to start?

It's been 6 months since my last post here, the longest gap since I started this blog!

My day job/career has gone manic but I've still had a hand in the hobby. Whilst I've done less sculpting, my attentions have been scanning the web on a variety of fronts to really assess the state of the industry and the trends in terms of releases and peoples interests.

I got a little collection of Games Workshop miniatures during my hiatus, Age of Sigmar and Betrayal at Calth, some Warmachine, Dropzone Commander, Infinity, Anvil Industries: Afterlife, and some LOTR also from GW.

The range of style, size and quality out there is mind boggling! And... it's all great! We virtually want for nothing... or do we?

Where do I begin here. I want to get at least 3 sets* out this year minimum. I don't know what those sets will be though, and if they'll be in resin or metal. The picture here is the main chunk of my work in progress stuff. If you zoom in you'll see a lot of different projects.

I hope to expand the Fallen Dwarf range with Anvil this year, a fair amount is already done in terms of sculpting.

Priority needs determined however on this short list of projects:

28mm Mythology - Ancient Greek initially
25mm Heroic - a one shot mold that will have multipart greatcoat soldiers, scaled small to make superhuman power armour look suitably imposing.
15mm Space Opera - you know, like Star Wars.
10mm Fantasy - Tolkien style
30mm heroic Fantasy - a couple of specific units to add to my small Age of Sigmar forces
28mm Rebellion Protocol - Sci-fi byzantine desert ranges


The list could go on, but you get the idea. I think the 25mm heroic soldier set is closest to finishing, and should go nicely with my Betrayal at Calth game miniatures!

P.S. Anvil Industries Afterlife miniatures are arguably the best quality in the market for their genre, and come in a friendly 'market average' scale and style, compared to say Infinity who I struggle to match up with anyone else in terms of compatibility and scale. I'm literally blown away by them and hope to showcase paint jobs for them here in the near future! Naturally you might think I'm bias here, but I'm genuinely impressed with everything about them!

http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE