Miniature Rescue

In Which I Partially Redeem Myself

Let's start with a little background.  "Miniature rescue" is a term used when taking a poorly-done model, possibly damaged, and trying to get it up to a higher standard.  It is often done when buying used models, as there are a lot of unskilled hobbyists out there, and also things can break during transport.

In this case, I'm just trying to repair a model that I've always hated my work on.

Malifaux is a miniature-based skirmish game, set in a mish-mash setting of steampunk, Victorian England, the old west, and horror, with some other stuff thrown in for good measure.  It is a wild, crazy world, and the game has one of the most tight rulesets for competitive play that is out there.

I'm not a competitive player.  I'm much more into painting and trying to have fun rather than trying to devote my life to learning the abilities of 200 different models and how to counter them.

There is a local player who is really into Malifaux.  He plays in national tournaments, and usually makes at least the top 3.  He has tried to drum up a local scene, but hasn't had much success.

Despite our completely different outlooks on games, I have agreed to play against him on Sunday.  I painted up some Malifaux models in the past, so I was digging through my models to see what kind of a squad I could put together.  The problem is, the rules are transitioning into a new edition, and the stuff I painted before doesn't work together any more.  I had painted an "Outcast" model which used to work as a mercenary, but now he doesn't.  So I needed something to replace it.

One of the reasons I stopped painting Malifaux was a bad experience.  I really liked the look of Colette's crew, and I painted up Cassandra.  She is supposed to be a beautiful performer and swordswoman.

I don't know what it was, but at the time I couldn't make her look like anything but a mutant muppet.

There are 3 or 4 major problems here.  Most horrible are the eyes.  I tried several times to get them right, and at the time that was the best I could do.  Second is the hair.  Not only is the color off, but barely visible in the photo is that I somehow got gold paint all over the side of her head.  The contact between the model and the base is minimal, and she kept breaking off and requiring more glue, so there are huge globs of it visible.  The fourth, more arguable mistake is that the highlighting probably doesn't go far enough.

I had a bout of insomnia last night, and decided I'd do what I could to try and fix the problems.

I painted over the top half of the face, and started over.  I probably should have shaded the eye sockets before painting the eyes, but I was sort of able to get a black rim around the eyes by pooling some black wash into the eyes and then wicking the majority away.

I painted several layers over the gold, trying to cover it up.  The problem is that metallics are really hard to cover up with acrylic paint, and yellow has poor coverage over anything.  Putting those problems together, I had to do paint over paint over paint to get it done, and by the time I was done there was almost no definition left to the hair.  I did my best to paint some definition back in, and I was more successful than I thought I'd be, but I'm still not completely happy with it.

For the glue globs, there was  only so much I could do.  I painted over them, and least they somewhat blend into the base now.

I took some of the highlights further up, and smoothed some rough places out.  I could do more, probably, but I'm much happier with this now.  It isn't perfect, but I'm not ashamed to put the model on the table like I was before I did the corrections.

Zooming in, it still looks pretty terrible, honestly.  I think it is time to move on to something else, though.