Guest Post On Elemental Mini-Figure Painting

A huge welcome to my sister Jenelle for agreeing to do a blog post for us this week about her latest and favorite miniature that she has painted.  So without further ado here she is.

For many of us that decide to try new things, it is because someone we know has introduced us to that thing.  Well, a few months ago my sister Tiffany, started texting me some pictures of the D&D minis that she had started painting.  I instantly fell in love with all the texture and depth that she was able to put into them.

During the past like 6 weeks when I have been painting some of my own minis, I have come to discover that some of my favorite things to paint are elemental figures.  Therefore, my Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures "Unpainted Earth Elemental - Medium Size" is at the very top of my list of favorite things that I have painted.  I started with my base coat of  Army Painter "Werewolf Fur" to which I slowly mixed in drops of Army Painter "Monster Brown" and dry brushed approximately 5 different shades of brown onto the top of my solid base coat.  Each coat becoming lighter and spread over less surface to give the elemental the texture and depth of dry, cracked earth.

The very next thing that I decided to do with my elemental was to give his eyes a shine.  For this I picked out the Army Painter "Greedy Gold" color. As soon as I had that color within the eyes, I knew that I was not going to try to add anything else to the eyes for pupils.  This was when my sister Heather showed up and suggested that I use a darker, coppery color to add a little bit of veins into the cracks of the elemental's skin.  To achieve this I used the Army Painter "Weapon Bronze".  This difference is subtle, and unless you are looking closely you might assume that the eyes are the same color as the veins.

The next thing that I decided to do was to try and paint the crystals to look like quarts or amethyst. So once again I started with a base coat color just on the crystals this time. I used Army Painter "Alien Purple".  Then going into the dry brush technique again I build up about 5 layers of shades of purple slowly adding in Army Painter "Matt White" to lighten the purple as I went.  After the handful of shades of purple I took my white and added just the tiniest amount of the purple to it.  So that I had a faintly purple tinted white.  Then I dry brushed just the tips of the crystals.

Seeing that they still did not look as shiny as I feel crystals really do in real life, I decided to try a adding a very thin layer of Master Series Paint Reaper(MSPR) "Pearl White" to the crystals.  Well, this color went on way to thick to make me happy, So I only did part of 1 crystal with it and then I turned to MSPR "Shining Mithril" as I had previously used this color for a different mini and knew that it was a thinner color than the white. This new shimmery color almost accomplished what I had been hoping that it would.

The crystals were almost as shiny as I felt they should be.  So, I turned to MSPR "Sparkling Amethyst" thinking, or perhaps hoping, that this one would also be a very thin color and that it would finish off the sparkle that I wanted.  I painted just 1 crystal and had to stop.  This color was not at all what I imagined because it was coming out as a dark purple.  It was shiny, but I was conflicted.  So I turned to Tiffany and handed her the elemental.  Her reaction surprised me because she was impressed, and not conflicted at all about how much she liked it.  Then her comments allowed me to see the crystals in a new light.  She also suggested that I keep most of the crystals as they were currently painted and then just a couple here and there of the darker shiny purple crystals to the overall design.  This allowed me to really fall in love with the look of all the crystals.

After finally finishing the crystals, which took me double the time that the rest of the mini had already taken, I kept trying to decide if he was finished.  There was something that prevented me from deciding that it was indeed completed. That was when I realized that it was the rock in the hand of the elemental that needed to be a different color.  Up until this point the the rock in its hand was the same color as the main body of the elemental.  This was when I turned to both of my sisters, asking about making it grey stone instead.  That was when Heather suggested Army Painter "Rough Iron" and they both agreed that the rock in his hand needed all the veins painted with the "Weapon Bronze" that I had used previously for the hints of veins on the elemental's body.

The rock was the finishing touch that this mini needed.  I am super happy with the way that he turned out and since the time that I finished it only two days ago (at the time of writing this blog) I have continued to pick it back up and admire how amazing it turned out.  With all the thanks for the hints and tips provided to me by my sisters Heather and Tiffany.