Militia

[labrat]

Having finished the artwork for the heavy foot soldiers, I am going to start on my militia troops now.

I am going to try something a little different with these troops. I am going to use some of Jim's previous work as a close reference, but I am going to draw and paint them in my own way, so some pieces you may recognize from other of his works, or maybe not.

My primary reason for doing this is to improve my proportions so that they look better at 30mm scale. Usually I do my drawings, and they look good, but when we scale them down, they just don't look quite right to me, but Jim seemed to have that part down to a science. I hope to learn from his experience. Fortunately I have the advantage of access to much of Jim's previous work, including the files which contain all of the pieces and parts at full resolution. This helps a lot.

[kiladecus]

I can't wait to see what you come up with. Jim's or yours, from what I've seen, lots of talent from both you guys.

BTW... My favorite piece you have so far is the Choking Vines. I use those with my SENTINEL (from WWG) as the roots that emerge from the ground... Cool concept!

[Dominic]

And again you did it... Looking up the forementioned Choking Vines, I just went ahead and bought my wish list (Monster Pack I and both Fearie Packs for now) from Sanity Studios. Happy now? You are evil - pleasing to the eyes when built in paper, but evil nontheless! ;D

[labrat]

Hey you guys are awesome! I'm glad you like them. I will try hard to keep you wanting more... and more.... and MOOORE! Mwahahahahaaa!

[labrat]

Ok, First preview of the militia. As I said before I am using pieces and parts from some of Jim's previous sets, which I am drawing in my own way (basically tracing over the pieces, but altering it according to how I might have drawn it) and I'm throwing in some of my own pieces.

I wanted to do a preview at an earlier stage in the process. I just kind of threw these together, no weapons or shields or anything like that yet, just some bodies. A couple of things have already become apparent to me in assembling these previews. It almost seems as if the head is too big, but perhaps that's just the proportions it needs to be in to look good at 30mm. I will need to have more arms and hand poses to make various positions make sense. Ok rambling here, just typing my thoughts which probably don't even make sense. Here is the preview:



The guy on the left looks like he's singing to the guy on the right. Weird!

[Dominic]

I'm no parduz, but I'll give it a try:

Is the right one wearing a teddy (had to look it up, hope I got the right piece)? It looks that way, the pants seem off if he doesn't.

Anf the left one's belt is a bit strange, it looks like, well, his belly is hanging over it (hence no top line for the buckle) in the front, but not on the sides, which is probably possible in real-life terms, but hard to relay via a 2D representation. I hope I just made sense.

Could it be that one is a model of Jim origin and the other is one of yours? Specially the heady look different, with the right one having more and smaller lines. Same goes for the pants. Just a thought.

As for weapons and shields, I believe they's make excellent brawlers the way they are now.

And ther was something else I wanted to mention, but apparently I forgot...Ah, yes, nitpicking here, but the left one's right boot lacks aline - if you draw it with a closed line for the tip of the (his) right boot, there should be at least part of that on the other one.

[Parduz]

Nov 12, 2010 2:10:45 GMT -9 Dominic said:

I'm no parduz

LOL!
Look what a reputation i have now...

First things that i see are the short arms and little hands. I see them as they was scaled down to a (rough) 80%....

[labrat]

Yeah, I was worried a bit about the arm and hand proportions. Easy fix.

The one on the right just has some stitching on the inner side of his pant legs that is visible. It won't stand out nearly so much once painted.

I could use to fix the belt for the one on the left. Also an easy fix at this stage. ;D Hence the reason for me posting a preview at an earlier stage than I usually do.

I love having extra eyeballs to help me fix stuff!

[labrat]

Ok, same two dudes... with a few adjustments.



These guys probably would make some great Brawlers.

[Parduz]

Ah, much better.
Now that my eyesight is not fooled by the arms, i have to be nitpicking about the left man stance.
It appears to be on his left leg (i mean, he's putting all his weight on that leg), but the figure baricenter still falls between the two feet. This will become more "evident" if he will handle a big weapon.
So, i'd rotate the torso clockwise a bit to make the baricenter fall on the left foot.
Maybe also raising the right shoulder a bit may help, but i can't see how it will come out after the torso rotation.
And i'd swap the boots height: lowering the top part of the let boot and raising the right one could help the illusion of the weight on the left leg without having to raise the right heel.

About the right one, he maybe have the right elbow a bit too high, but otherwise it seems fine.

[labrat]

Ok, so life has been far too busy of late. Dance performances for my daughter, and insanity at work. I haven't even had much time to post random comments in the forum. But the dancing is over for the season, and things have mellowed out at work (at least for a little while), and at last I am back to working on some paper miniatures.

I am working on getting the militia troops painted and I hope to have them finished soon. The next set after these guys will be some more militia with bows and such.

Stay tuned.

[kiladecus]

Hmmm.... How can you have "insanity" at work when you work at "SANITY Studios."

[labrat]

Dec 14, 2010 3:16:16 GMT -9 kiladecus said:

Hmmm.... How can you have "insanity" at work when you work at "SANITY Studios."

On the contrary. Because of my involvement with Sanity Studios, it makes me all the more aware of varying degrees of insanity.

[labrat]

It's time for a preview I believe. These aren't finished. I still have to put weapons in their hands and I also need to do some tweeking here and there I'm sure. The backsides are finished, but I'm just previewing the fronts for now. I also still have a bunch more to put together.

[Rhannon]

Ops!

Very very good! I will buy them for sure.

After these I hope in some original human cavalry. Not camelot's knights but mounted outriders, pistoliers and arquebusiers with normal and repeater weapons.

[josedominguez]

They are very good, they jump of the screen.
Definately joining our warhammer 15mm project

[labrat]

Ok, it's time for another preview. I am nearing completion on this set. It has taken me forever, but I'm finally getting there.



These are not scaled to each other in these previews, but you get the idea.

[Tommygun]

These look great.
The guy on the right looks how I feel after all the holiday food.

[kiladecus]

WOW! Take the head off the guy on the left, and put it on the guy on the right, and it's ME!!!

[labrat]

WOW! Take the head off the guy on the left, and put it on the guy on the right, and it's ME!!!

Hey why not?

It's Militiaman Kiladecus. Your very own paper mini.



You'll have to attach your own tab I guess.

[kiladecus]

Whoo-Hoo!! That is too good!

I laughed and laughed when I saw that!

I will have to post a picture of me!

Here I am a couple months ago getting ready to cut some wood in my backyard! Even have an ax...

www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=174986&l=d441b537af&id=100001331075572

[josedominguez]

Better all the time
They are looking great.
Any chance of some with weapons in each hand and some with 2 handed weapons (flails maybe?).

Also, handguns, crossbows and bows


I don't ask for much

[WaffleM]

Dec 22, 2010 6:45:41 GMT -9 labrat said:

It's time for a preview I believe. These aren't finished. I still have to put weapons in their hands and I also need to do some tweeking here and there I'm sure. The backsides are finished, but I'm just previewing the fronts for now. I also still have a bunch more to put together.

Your coloring skills are amazing! They look fantastic!

My twisted brain keeps thinks of speech bubbles for these two:
1st Man: "Potions of Invisibility for sale."
2nd Man: "Hey! I'm not invisible, but my beard is much thicker!"

[Sirrob01]

Labrat if you dont mind me asking whats your process for colouring?

Do you vectorize your outline in Inkscape/illustrator and then colour in Gimp/Photoshop using layers under the outline?

or some other process?

Thanks

[labrat]

Currently I do not use inkscape or illustrator to vectorize, although I am looking into starting to do that. I am also starting to learn Canvas to widen my abilities. I do nearly my entire process in photoshop, aside from the initial line drawing.

I describe my process in more detail on this thread:

cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=figuredesign&thread=2483&page=1#24404

I hope that answers your question.

[Sirrob01]

Thanks Labrat I'd missed that reply on that thread.

[Rhannon]

Jan 29, 2011 6:41:41 GMT -9 labrat said:

Currently I do not use inkscape or illustrator to vectorize, although I am looking into starting to do that. I am also starting to learn Canvas to widen my abilities. I do nearly my entire process in photoshop, aside from the initial line drawing.

I describe my process in more detail on this thread:

cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=figuredesign&thread=2483&page=1#24404

I hope that answers your question.

When the release?

[labrat]

Soon I hope. Very soon. I have been getting some quality feedback from Parduz, who is my QA guy on the design team. And I have been making changes accordingly.

Aside from that, there has been a great deal of delay due to the goings on at work. Our hospital is implementing a new bar code scanning system for blood transfusions and I am the project lead for my hospital. In addition to having to set the whole thing up, I have also had to train all of the nurses and fellow lab techs on the new system. It's been a ton of overtime, strange scheduling, and not very conducive to getting my artwork done.

Sanity Studios and One Monk Miniatures will be present at SaltCon, a gaming convention in Salt Lake City on Feb 18-19. We want to have the Militia done by the time that gets here. Sorry again everyone for the delay. Life should be business as usual soon enough and I will get some more artwork done. Thank you all for your patience with me.

[josedominguez]

It's worth waiting for. Now that Jim is quiet nobody else is producing fantasy figs of this standard.

[labrat]

I have finished the artwork for the militia. It's probably not perfect, but they are better than they would be without the help of my design team. I will now be sending it on to Nik who will create the layout and cut file. Thanks for your patience.

I will definitely need to speed up the process in the future. It took waaaaay too long for this set to get done. I need to get some ranged weapons on these badboys and for the footsoldiers. As I have said before there will be some inconsistencies with the human army I am doing as I am using them to learn and practice various processes.

Stay tuned for new stuff to be in the works soon.