Contrasting fortunes - Speedy Haqq...

This blog is a quick demo of my current technique for painting my own miniatures as quicly as possible to a standard I find acceptable for myself rather than demonstarting any of my commission work. My standard for my own minis is a bit lower and I tend to experiment a bit more. This blog shows where I am at in my use of speedypaints/normal paints and is a hybrid approach.

The picture above shows a couple of Infinity Haqqislam minis (roughly 28mm scale for those who are not familiar) in their finished state ready for my table. Up to this point I have stuck with my normal airbrush technique for infinity models but the color scheme for Haq seemed suitable for this method.

Below are the same minis straight after the speedypaint stage. As an aside my phone camera produces really grainy pics and the roughness of texture in the pics is a side effect of this rather than an actual thing. Pictures on my DSLR do not suffer the same. Immediately you can see I am not careful with the speedypaintsand it is all about banging them on and getting the coverage.

The first step was to hit the armour with VMC dark sand then light sand leaving the speedy paint in the crevices and shadow ares. Essentially just hitting the highlights and smoothing out the gradients. Having the base colour banged in place makes this easier and I find it easier to paint the panels than have to go back and pint in the cracks! You can instantly see the difference below.

The next step is almost invisible due to poor camera work but its the back of the calves and any other bits which were retouched using British Uniform and a bit of desert yellow. Great work me....

This one is better using luftwaffe green and then highlighted with some ice yellow to get some extra depth in the original green and smooth out some of my rough speedy paint work. again the speedy paint fills the cracks and keeps the shadows.

Trousers next. To be honest these were a dogs breakfast so i went over quite hard with Olive drab highlighting just a tiny bit by adding desert yellow again. I sould have shares in desert yellow I use so much of it.

Strappage was hit with various different lighter browns with no regularity just to get some interest in dull items. If this was for customers there would be some top edge highlighting here but as it isn't there is not!

Gunnage. The guns and any other black bits were edge highlit in a blue grey who's name escapes me at the moment then sharper edged in white. Looking at the holster it could have been neater but nevermind. Too late chum!

Last step before basing was to sort the tactical rocks or whatever. I never take time on these as being below the feet which are the lesat looked at part of the model it is time I could spend painting something else. I have little time to paint my own stuff after painting other peoples' stuff all day!

Bases were completed by popping some AK light earth paste on - again for speed as this is not my commercial approach - washing with a browny colour and then drybrushing with ..... desert yellow and dark sand. I am not convinced by these bases. I will add some deserty tufts to see if that helps but if not I may use my Islamic pattern Greenstuffworld roller and give them tiled bases.

Hope this may be of some slight use. I will be completing the Operation Blackwind / Beyond minis in the same way but am not convinced this method would suit Aleph or JSA but probably will work for Ariadne.