Presenting Echoes of Death: the Fighter (Painted 1/3/19)

So I had just finished Old Joe and I wanted to keep the momentum going. During the Black Friday deal last year, I ordered The Echoes of Death Series 1. Since I had done really well with Old Joe, I decided to see if I couldn't do a good job again with the Fighter. So I put her together, gave her a base primer and went to painting.

My decision to paint up the Fighter next was rather simple; I liked the action in the miniature, and I wanted a piece that had more variety of accessories and equipment. I've been accused (by myself and others) of not putting in enough attention to the equipment or weapons that my miniatures carry. The Fighter presented a good opportunity to fix that.

So as always, I focused on getting as much detail as I could. I used the artist's vision of the miniature as the painting scheme where possible and then went the creative route when I didn't have an idea what colors to use.

First, a comment about the details: I'm pretty damned proud of the detail quality of this miniature. I should point out that I recently got a paint brush with a super fine head, so doing the detail work has gotten easier. Still, six months ago, I wouldn't have been able to bring out such detail like the burlap sack on the Fighter's back. I definitely wouldn't have had the skill to individually paint the metal bits of the leather cuirass. And I definitely wouldn't have been able to do all this without messing up a bunch.

One piece of equipment that I took particular interest in was the lantern. I've been very interested in how Kingdom Death implements lanterns in general, but I really liked the style of the Fighter's lantern. I had no idea how the artist envisioned the lantern to look so I decided to make it a dark to light green/yellow hue.

For the armor, I wanted to use a new metallic paint that I got for Xmas from The Army Painter, Rough Iron. I really like it. I also used said metallic paint for the highlights; I just added off white paint to bring up the hues.

If it wasn't already obvious, the Fighter wields a giant bone axe. Since I wanted to pay special attention to the equipment, I tried to put in extra effort to make this weapon stand out. I used a bone colored paint for the base, red for the ribbon wrapped around the handle, and a lighter leather brown for the rope. Afterwards I used a regular wash on the whole weapon. Honestly, after this, I didn't go too much further with the details. The weapon itself is of a simple design, so I decided that less is more. It looks alright.

While I did take special attention to the equipment of the Fighter, overall I think that the details are the best I've done yet.

While there's little skin showing, I used the layering technique that I've been improving on, and there's a notable difference since I first tried this technique out.

For the leather pauldrons, cuirass, the fur skirt, and grieves, I did the regular thing: base coat, then wash, then highlights. For each of these armor pieces, I put down a base paint, then I used a darker wash from The Army Painter. Depending on the base colors, I used a lighter variant for the dry-brush highlighting. I've done this quite a bit now, and it's becoming a very natural strategy.

One thing that I'm not too thrilled about is the hair of the Fighter. The original artist concept is midnight black. While I was going to go this way, I wanted to give some additional depth using shadows or highlights. I've tried black with lighter dry-brush highlights in the past and they came out so-so. I've also done black base with various color washes. This time, I wanted to try out a lighter wash to see how that worked out. For whatever reason, I tried out white. You can see the final product. I wanted to have the roots show the most white and go lesser as the wash moved out. It actually doesn't look half bad in the pictures, but in person, it makes the Fighter look like an old person. I may fix this later on in the future. Or not. I dunno.

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but even despite the notable flaws in the face, I think I did a pretty damned good job here too, especially since I've been doing this for only 6 months. The eyes are looking in the same direction (no crossed eyes issues) the pupils look good-ish, and most importantly, the overall look of the face gives an angered impression. The Fighter looks angry, and that makes me very happy! This is the first time I would say that my work has been able to present an emotion.

I wanted to comment a bit about the base. Luckily for you readers, I'm not going to go into too much depth on how I went about making the base look the way it does (I've used this look multiple times before). What I do want to comment on is that the base isn't the original; I have leftovers from the Kingdom Death: Monster Core Game, so I thought that I'd use these bases for the Echoes of Death miniatures. The second thing about the base that I wanted to comment about is since the stone faces are not flat (duh) trying to glue the miniature to the base was surprisingly a bitch. She fell off 3 times. Pain in the ass!

So this miniature wraps up my work for 2018. Well sorta; I started and finished the Fighter on the same day, but I was still off work and so I considered her part of my 2018 portfolio. It makes sense to me. Anyway, I'm very proud of the finished product, and I'd say that she's almost good enough to be confused with a somewhat semi-professionally done miniature. Maybe. If the professional was drunk while painting.

We will see what 2019 has in store for us!

As always, I hope that this showcase is enjoyed by all whom read it. Please, please feel free share any comments or critiques. If you find my blog enjoyable, be sure to follow and subscribe. Not sure what either do but it should be fun either way.

 Thanks very much!