Sunday 25 January 2015

Kingdom Death - First Brush

Okay!  I think the Survivor Pinup from Kingdom Death is as good as it is going to get.

Kingdom Death: Monster is one of the first Kickstarter Games I pledged for.  Two years later, it's still not here, but this summer looks likely.  The campaign went nuts and raised more than $2 million.  Production for all the expansions added while money was flooding in are blamed for the delays, but the owner has put a lot of effort into creating high quality minis.

The game pieces are made from the same hard plastic (polystyrene) that model airplane kits use.  These are expensive to make and rare for games, but they are very high quality.  The hard plastic retains a lot of detail.

The company also raised money for the game with limited edition resin miniatures.  These were made in a revolutionary way at the time - all digital.  They are very popular and sell out in hours.  As well as resin game pieces, there are "pinups", characters from the game re-imagined as 1940s-60s style pinups.  They are pure collector pieces and are not used in any game.  Love them or hate them, they are very popular.  KD released a boxed set of 8 made in the same plastic as the game, and I got these to start practicing assembling and painting them.  Here is how they come - just like a model airplane, but smaller.


In the game, 4 "survivors", 2 men and 2 women, fight various monsters, collect bit and pieces and craft them into armour, weapons and other items.  You assemble the minis to represent the armour & weapons you have.  Perhaps I spent too much on the game (my wife was pushing me!)  but I have kits for more than 66 different survivors.  I really need the practice to get them put together.

So enough intro, here's the pinup:



Here are some different angles to show her face and head gear.


She on CMoN if you want to rate her!  Click on this link and pick a score in the red box on the right.

I deliberately painted a darker skin tone.  The four survivors as shown in the game have very different skin tones, so I need to be able to get some variety.  Also, I have painted a lot of pale skinned anime women lately.  I am not sure I like how it turned out ... she's a bit muddy.  I also tried using a limited palette, because I have never done it before.  Most of the colours contain VMC Flat Earth.  Hey, I said she looked muddy.

I tried non-metallic metals (for the second time).  NMM means using normal paints for metal, not metallic paints.  You need really strong shading skills and good colour theory to pull it off.  Look at the pole axe blade, the lantern, the gold helmet and bangle to see if I pulled it off (almost, but not quite).

But I have to say, I am pleased with the result and I think it's a really cute mini.

Feedback is welcome in the comments.

1 comment:

  1. I love the Glowing effect in the lantern. Would love to pick your brain on technique some time.

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