Other projects...

I haven't been posted here as frequently as I normally do.  That's partially because I've been sick (nothing series), but mostly because of real life tasks taking up precious painting time.  Of course, sometimes real life tasks and painting time end up being the same thing.  Although it's not mini-related, I thought I'd share a painting project I've just completed.  My wife and I are getting ready to welcome a new addition to our family in around a month.  I've been hard at work getting her room ready and did this one one of the walls...

The room has a Disney/Fairy Tale theme.  Although it was a bit of a bigger piece than I normally do, it was a lot of fun to add a personal touch to the room.

Meanwhile, on the small scale, I decided to start on a new project.  I'm still working on the mounted hussar, but I know that project is going to take me a while.  So I wanted to take a break and paint something a little quicker.  I decided to start on Pegaso's Officer of the Dragoons.  It's a pretty straightforward project (I've already painted a Dragoon, so don't need to put too much thought into my color mixes), so I'm hoping it will move along quickly.  One thing I did want to do with this figure was put into practice some of my takeways from Crystal Brush.  In this case it's the idea of working on the figure and the base simultaneously.  I feel like often my bases are a bit rushed, probably because I only start on them when the figure is all done.  This way I will hopefully give the base the time it deserves.

The first step was, of course, to actually build the base before painting the figure.  The figure is an officer in his dress uniform (fancy clothes), so he wouldn't be in the field or part of a battle.  Instead I decided to put him in front of a chateau.  I'd seen a fancy gate over at ScaleLink and thought this would be the perfect fit for this figure.  I built the pillar using Juweela bricks and then cut up the gate to make it fit.  The plaque on the pillar is from a set of name plates from Pk-pro.  I had a few other ideas, but in the end decided the didn't really add anything useful to the scene so I kept it simple.