Today, EverQuest II: Kingdom of Sky launches.
I've been spending the last week getting ready for it and I will probably spend most of my time this next week exploring it.
That said, I have done some work painting the miniature. I *might* get a photo of it up by the end of this week if I finish this stage of it by then. Holding your breath would probably be a bad idea, though.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Sunday, February 05, 2006
IOU
A Quest Reward IOU Note: This note signifies that we owe the bearer one (1) Quest Reward. We greatly appreciate the effort you took in completing this quest, but unfortunately, it hasn't been itemized yet.
Too funny...
The Story: I play EverQuest II. Recently they revamped all the lower level content to make it more interesting (especially for people who like to start new characters all the time). Well, during the testing phase these IOU's were used in place of quest rewards for new quests that did not have rewards assigned to them yet. Long story short... once they put the rewards in and finished testing, they forgot to remove some of the IOU's before pushing the new content to the live servers.
Too funny...
The Story: I play EverQuest II. Recently they revamped all the lower level content to make it more interesting (especially for people who like to start new characters all the time). Well, during the testing phase these IOU's were used in place of quest rewards for new quests that did not have rewards assigned to them yet. Long story short... once they put the rewards in and finished testing, they forgot to remove some of the IOU's before pushing the new content to the live servers.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Okay now...
Yesterday (yeah, I consider it yesterday still since I haven't been to sleep yet today) I left you with a primed model. Totally white, woohoo, go me, I bet everyone was impressed.
So now it was time to paint the model. Well, actually now it was time to choose a color scheme. I decided to go with a predominately blue model but with purple in the fleshy looking joint areas. The spikey bits are going to be yellow/orange and the mouth will be pink with the teeth some off-white color.
First I chose a very dark blue and painted it into the recesses of the areas that were going to be blue. Next I took a medium blue and thinned it down alot making it very watery... then I painted it over the rest of the 'to be blue' area leaving a strip of white at the highest points. Since the paint is watery, I end up with a very pale blue.
So far so good..
Now I let it dry a bit them I paint over the medium blue with that same watery blue paint.. but I creep just a bit into the dark blue and into the white. So what I end up with is a thinner strip of white and four shades of blue. Now I repeat that a few times creeping into the white and dark blue areas more each time. What this results in is a fairly gradual blending between the different shades of blue.
(( Some people mix their paints and apply it in strips but I find I just end up wasting a ton of paint that way... also with this method, if I need to retouch an area later then there is less worry about getting the color to match. Really, you want to apply your paints in thin layers anyways since it keeps the paint smooth. ))
The general goal here is for the raised areas to be the lightest and the recessed areas to be the darkest... adding a little extra depth to the model. In some places on this model I chose to leave a more abrupt transition between the medium blue and the dark blue (such as on the edges of the armor plates) to make them stand out and look a bit more dramatic.
The only other thing I did at this stage was to paint the fleshy connective areas a dark purple.
... more later
So now it was time to paint the model. Well, actually now it was time to choose a color scheme. I decided to go with a predominately blue model but with purple in the fleshy looking joint areas. The spikey bits are going to be yellow/orange and the mouth will be pink with the teeth some off-white color.
First I chose a very dark blue and painted it into the recesses of the areas that were going to be blue. Next I took a medium blue and thinned it down alot making it very watery... then I painted it over the rest of the 'to be blue' area leaving a strip of white at the highest points. Since the paint is watery, I end up with a very pale blue.
So far so good..
Now I let it dry a bit them I paint over the medium blue with that same watery blue paint.. but I creep just a bit into the dark blue and into the white. So what I end up with is a thinner strip of white and four shades of blue. Now I repeat that a few times creeping into the white and dark blue areas more each time. What this results in is a fairly gradual blending between the different shades of blue.
(( Some people mix their paints and apply it in strips but I find I just end up wasting a ton of paint that way... also with this method, if I need to retouch an area later then there is less worry about getting the color to match. Really, you want to apply your paints in thin layers anyways since it keeps the paint smooth. ))
The general goal here is for the raised areas to be the lightest and the recessed areas to be the darkest... adding a little extra depth to the model. In some places on this model I chose to leave a more abrupt transition between the medium blue and the dark blue (such as on the edges of the armor plates) to make them stand out and look a bit more dramatic.
The only other thing I did at this stage was to paint the fleshy connective areas a dark purple.
... more later
Thursday, February 02, 2006
I decided...
to make history here (personal history, at least) and post two days in a row.
One of my favorite hobbies (other than staring at a blank monitor for hours on end, but I guess that's more of a pastime than a hobby) is painting miniatures. It's a pretty relaxing hobby except for when I get lazy and don't keep my brushes in good shape. Then I either end up spending nearly a whole day trying to get them back in good condition or whining to my husband to buy me more.
A while back a friend of mine bought me a Tyranid Tyrant Guard (thanks Ed!) and I really love the model and thought it would be cool to post a progression of the work I do on it.
The first thing you have to do to any miniature is prepare it to be painted. Most miniatures have little excess peices of metal on them that are left over from the molding process. These all need to be trimmed, scraped or filed off. Then the mini needs to be cleaned. I use plain old soap and water and scrub it with an old toothbursh.
Most of the mini's that I have painted have required some assembly, and this Tyranid was no exception. Here are the pieces of the mini after it was prepared and cleaned.
Assembling this one was a bit of a bear. Since the parts are big and heavy I decided it would be best to pin them together. Pinning parts consists of drilling a small hole into each piece and connecting them with a small metal rod to give it extra stability. I've done this with many models in the past, but for some reason this one gave me difficulty. After assembling the model I cleaned it again.
Next I primed the model. Some people skip the priming process and base coat instead (painting the entire model in the one color that will dominate it) - some people prime and basecoat - some people just start painting straight away on the bare model. In most cases base coating is probably adequate, but primer does make everything stick better. I would never recommend painting on bare metal.
Because of the technique I currently use, priming in white is key...
(more tomorrow! promise!)
One of my favorite hobbies (other than staring at a blank monitor for hours on end, but I guess that's more of a pastime than a hobby) is painting miniatures. It's a pretty relaxing hobby except for when I get lazy and don't keep my brushes in good shape. Then I either end up spending nearly a whole day trying to get them back in good condition or whining to my husband to buy me more.
A while back a friend of mine bought me a Tyranid Tyrant Guard (thanks Ed!) and I really love the model and thought it would be cool to post a progression of the work I do on it.
The first thing you have to do to any miniature is prepare it to be painted. Most miniatures have little excess peices of metal on them that are left over from the molding process. These all need to be trimmed, scraped or filed off. Then the mini needs to be cleaned. I use plain old soap and water and scrub it with an old toothbursh.
Most of the mini's that I have painted have required some assembly, and this Tyranid was no exception. Here are the pieces of the mini after it was prepared and cleaned.
Assembling this one was a bit of a bear. Since the parts are big and heavy I decided it would be best to pin them together. Pinning parts consists of drilling a small hole into each piece and connecting them with a small metal rod to give it extra stability. I've done this with many models in the past, but for some reason this one gave me difficulty. After assembling the model I cleaned it again.
Next I primed the model. Some people skip the priming process and base coat instead (painting the entire model in the one color that will dominate it) - some people prime and basecoat - some people just start painting straight away on the bare model. In most cases base coating is probably adequate, but primer does make everything stick better. I would never recommend painting on bare metal.
Because of the technique I currently use, priming in white is key...
(more tomorrow! promise!)
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
So...
Yup, definitely still not very good at this 'Blog' thing.
I'm going to take another stab at it, though. Last year was a supremely bad year for me. Hopefully this year will be better and I'll be able to stay more focused and get more done.
For our anniversary my husband bought me something that I have been wanting for a long time.
It's a program called ZBrush. It's hard to describe what ZBrush is. Well, maybe it's not - ZBrush is a hybrid 2d/3d graphics program. The way you interact with it and the way it handles certain operations is really different, though. I find it to be a much more natural way of doing things, especially when modeling in 3d.
I am extremely noobish with this program right now. I've only gotten through a small fraction of the documentation/tutorials that came with it. And I really need to rearrange my desk so I can use my graphics tablet more conveniently. (Anyone want to buy me a Cintiq 21UX? 8D )
Anyways, this was the result of my first attempt at using ZBrush:
Part way through making that my wonderfully encouraging husband *cough* proclaimed it looked like a pig... so I decided to show him what I thougt a pig really looked like:
In any case, I'm really looking forward to learning this program. Hopefully I'll have something new to post about it in a few days. And if I do, maybe I'll even remember to post it.
I'm going to take another stab at it, though. Last year was a supremely bad year for me. Hopefully this year will be better and I'll be able to stay more focused and get more done.
For our anniversary my husband bought me something that I have been wanting for a long time.
It's a program called ZBrush. It's hard to describe what ZBrush is. Well, maybe it's not - ZBrush is a hybrid 2d/3d graphics program. The way you interact with it and the way it handles certain operations is really different, though. I find it to be a much more natural way of doing things, especially when modeling in 3d.
I am extremely noobish with this program right now. I've only gotten through a small fraction of the documentation/tutorials that came with it. And I really need to rearrange my desk so I can use my graphics tablet more conveniently. (Anyone want to buy me a Cintiq 21UX? 8D )
Anyways, this was the result of my first attempt at using ZBrush:
Part way through making that my wonderfully encouraging husband *cough* proclaimed it looked like a pig... so I decided to show him what I thougt a pig really looked like:
In any case, I'm really looking forward to learning this program. Hopefully I'll have something new to post about it in a few days. And if I do, maybe I'll even remember to post it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)