I guess there's no point starting with the obvious (long time no post, life getting in the way etc.). Let's just say that the last couple of weeks have been as busy as usually. Another thing that slows me down is that I'm working on a few different minis simultaneously.
First of all, I've finally painted the avatar version of Lady Justice. I bought it when... Maelstrom games was still around, so that must have been a longer while ago. For some reason I've been putting working on this one away.
LJ has always been one of my favorite Malifaux characters and the original metal box was the first one I bought for the game. I used the "classic" Justice color scheme and the greenish flame effect to match the rest of the new crew (I was inspired by the original artwork on the Guild's Judgement box). I also painted some OSL around the eyes of the monsters.
I'm really impressed with the design of this model as it's all cast it metal and everything has stayed perfectly intact since gluing the whole thing together. The only potential problem I predict is that if the Ram or Crow is touched and bent even slightly, the paint on LJ's forearms is bound to chip off.
As I was working on the avatar, I also painted the new plastic version of Justice. While I really like the dynamic pose, I'm not entirely sold on the way her hair go up. It might (how would I know, I'm practically bald myself ;) look like that if she's just landed from some considerable height but still it seems a bit odd to me. Her sword is another problematic bit. In the original design it's glued only at the place where the blade meets the hilt so it's bound to break at the first chance. In order to strengthen it, I also glued it to also to her fringe. It partly blocks her face now but that's not a big problem as she's wearing a band anyway.
Enough complaining. Other than those two bits I really like the miniature. She's dynamic, proportions are perfect (more natural compared to the original larger and busty metal version).Wyrd plastics offer a lot of possibilities for practicing highlighting. There are many smooth surfaces (skin, pants, boots) that need several layers of thinned down paint to look right.
I used Cemetery resin bases from Micro Art Studio as I thought they fit the theme of this Anti-Ressurectionist crew very well.
Aaaand, I also painted the puppet version of LJ. I won a sprue of sample plastic puppets in a painting competition a while ago. The one that you can see in the pic above is cast in one piece and the plastic has a very solid feel to it. I really like the sculpt, I think it does a fantastic job of portraying the original character in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The details look nice though once again, the smooth surfaces may be seen as a drawback for some. Personally, I don't mind them. I actually feel that they give me extra opportunities to practice working with thinned down paint and with applying smooth highlights but I can understand that for some it may be a lot of unnecessary hustle.
Last but not least, here's a group photo of all the LJ minis I own. I don't have the original metal puppet but I don't plan to get it as I really like the plastic one.
I currently have several Malifaux projects on my painting station in various stages of progress so if anyone's interested in seeing some more Guild stuff, check back soon.