Minicrate: Conan (and now Valeria+Kull and more!)

[Kapoteeni]

Officially licenced Conan the Barbarian model from Privateer Press’s SAVAGE Minicrate line of collectible miniatures. Based on the cover art by Esad Ribic, sculpted by Javier Garcia Ureña and painted by yours truly.

This one was painted just for fun, not to a competition level or anything like that, although I did try out some new techniques for the skin and metals (which worked pretty well for the shield and leg guards, less well for the sword, but the sword’s design was a bit weird anyway).

I had previously painted a Bêlit from the same series, but she didn’t turn out very good (and looks even worse in a photo - trying to paint see-through clothes is difficult!). Luckily I got a spare one by a happy accident, so maybe I’ll try again later. I just got my hands on a Valeria, so I think she may be next. I’m a slow painter, though, with many other projects on my painting desk, so don’t hold your breath while waiting.

[Kapoteeni]

Oh, look, I painted a thing!

Valeria, sculpted by Javier Garcia Ureña.

This is one of the best representations of Valeria I’ve seen. Her trousers are still not what Howard described in Red Nails, but I can forgive that because she looks so, so good.

The gold coins around the treasure chest turned out less shiny than I wanted, and the ground is too similar color, but so it goes. “Perfect” is the opposite of “done”.

[Kapoteeni]

I like using greens or purples to shade golds. It gives them a hint of age, tarnish, even mold (for gold coins that have been lying in a dungeon or in a sunken treasure chest), but I was just lazy and wanted to get this one finished. The coins were the last thing I painted and didn’t get the attention they may have needed.

[Kapoteeni]

Close enough to being Conan-related:

Kull of Atlantis.

Sorry for poor-quality photos. My cheap-o macro objective can’t decide where to focus.

[bigguy80]

Very nice work, good job.

[ScoisBack]

we need to play together

[Kapoteeni]

New stuff!

Where there is Kull, there must also be Thulsa Doom:

I was getting bored of the trope that evil guys must always wear black or dark colors. I mean, Megatron is silvery-white, so why couldn’t Thulsa wear white royal robes? Keeping the overall palette cold and pale should give the model a sufficiently “evil” atmosphere.

[Kapoteeni]

Queen Taramis from the Conan story A Witch Shall Be Born.

Although, the model and the paintjob around the face and eyes look kinda grim, so maybe this is the evil twin Salome instead. The dress is a pretty faithful reproduction of the way Howard described Salome in the opening scene, although as usual, Howard forgot to mention the dress’s color. Bright red felt like something a queen might wear.

[Kapoteeni]

And finally (for now - there are still more models to come), the character we’ve all been waiting for - possibly the most important character from Howard’s Conan stories:

The God in the Bowl!

[/sarcasm]
Seriously, why did this thing, out of all the hundreds of characters and monsters in Howard’s stories, make it to the list of ~20 miniatures made out of Howard’s entire catalogue of stories?

Oh well. It’s a rather nice looking model, and it was fun to paint - but frankly, I’d rather have taken a Pallantides, or a Bran Mak Morn, or a Gottfried von Kalmbach to go with the Red Sonya I just finished but haven’t had the time to grab a photo yet.

You can find some more of my painted things on Twitter (same username as here), including non-Conan-related stuff that I obviously won’t be posting on this forum.

[Sera67]

Its like a creepy snake that comes out of something to granted wishes… your afraid at first, but then realize its only few inches tall and talks in a squeaky slithery voice. XD

I dont build much of resin kits now, use to love hell out of them. I owned a few war hammer minis(never played) Think only small ones I got around to was D&D ones and Robotech/Mechtech.

[Kapoteeni]

Sorry, no Red Sonya for you because this is a Conan Exiles forum, and Sonya wasn’t a character from Howard’s Conan stories.

As a consolation prize, how about Atali, the Frost Giant’s Daughter?

Experimenting with a pale skin tone that nevertheless looks like a living person and not a vampire or zombie. And of course, the challenge I had been dreading for a long time now - how to paint hair that would look blonde and red?

Okay, now that this post is definitely Conan-related, maybe I can sneak another, not Conan-related picture in and not get permabanned for off-topicing my own thread:

Red Sonya of Rogatino, the original Red Sonya. A Polish-Ukraininan adventuress from the early 16th century who dressed rather more sensibly than her almost-namesake from the Hyborian Age (although Carlos Cabrera, the artist who concepted this model, seems to have dumped the mail shirt Sonya was wearing during the Siege of Vienna). Her dress is painted to match Cabrera’s artwork.

The pistol was a weird lump of metal, probably a miscast. That’s why it looks more like a metal, erm, you know, than a pistol. Also, my camera doesn’t like metallic colors.

By a happy accident I got another of these models, so maybe I’ll try a different paint job than here at a later date.

Coming up next: Akivasha. Another scantily clad lady to paint. My life is horrible.

[Kapoteeni]

Akivasha’s dress is… well, it is. Which is more than she had in The Hour of the Dragon, but I guess the miniature’s designer had to change the clothing options. In comparison to Atali’s “pale but alive” skin tone, I used green-greys to shade Akivasha’s skin to emphasize her undead nature. I considered a white-and-gold loincloth, to make it look more Egyptian (Stygian), but white clothes and a very pale skin would make for a boring whole.

I think this is the first vampire model I’ve painted whose fangs I didn’t hate. They tend to be ridiculously exaggerated. I still would’ve preferred her without fangs.

And let’s not forget scantily-clad men because this is the Conan universe (well, kind of…):

I’m reasonably sure that this isn’t canonical Robert E. Howard lore, especially because the M60 was developed after Howard’s death… But apparently there’s a Conan/Punisher crossover story somewhere in the apocryphal tomes of Marvel Comics. And the miniature itself is badass.

Just a couple more models to go and I have a fully painted complete collection of the limited SAVAGE Minicrate series.

[Kapoteeni]

Xaltotun.

One of the less inspiring models in the series, he’s just a generic slightly Egyptian-themed mummy. Painted over the weekend with less love than many others in the series.

The last miniature in the series is still stuck in British customs thanks to Brexit.

[Kapoteeni]

The final miniature in the series:

Here I tried to do some artistic stuff and start all elements of the miniature using the same brown color, using different hues for shadows and highlighting to separate the elements and give them definition. The end result ended up a bit flat - and now that I look at it, I seem to have forgotten to finish the teeth on the necklace.

At least the expression turned out okay.

(In fact, there is still one model in the series I haven’t painted - the first “VIP model” of the series, King Conan on a Throne - but I’ll be saving that for a painting competition. So don’t hold your breath or you might turn purple.)

[Kapoteeni]

I could spend weeks talking about the subject… but others have already done so, in a more professional manner than I ever could. I would recommend e.g. Privateer Press’s beginner tutorials on Youtube.

And if your first paint jobs look awful, don’t be disheartened or ashamed. Everyone started out as a total beginner. I still have some of my earliest miniatures from ~30 years ago I can show to would-be painters.

If you know a veteran painter, show your works to them (either face-to-face or online) and ask how you can improve. If you’re lucky, they can teach you some easy tricks.

Some people will recommend getting professional quality paint brushes from the get-go. I don’t. As a beginner, you’re going to ruin several brushes while learning how to use one. If you can find e.g. Windsor & Newton’s synthetic watercolor brushes at a local craft store (or even supermarket), they’re decent quality for a reasonable price. In fact, most of the models I’ve shown on this thread were painted using those W&N watercolor brushes. Only for the finest details will I reach for my Kolinsky sable brushes.

On the other hand, you will want acrylic paints designed for miniature painting. There are quite a few good quality product lines. Personally, I use a mix of Formula P3, Citadel, Vallejo and Army Painter, with a few random bottles from other manufacturers. The easiest solution is to pick the ones you can find at your local craft or gaming store.

For primer (that is, the layer of paint that goes onto the bare model first, to make the rest of your colors stick to the surface) I recommend Vallejo’s Acrylic-polyurethane primers. They’re designed for airbrushes, but you can easily use them with a regular paintbrush, too. Just a word of caution: unlike regular acrylics, the polyurethane paints are toxic, so don’t lick your brush while using these primers (this is not a joke - many painters moisturize their brushes by licking them).

I would first focus on learning brush control, ie. getting the paint where it’s supposed to go. Based on what I’ve seen, Oathmark miniatures have pretty easy details, so they’re good for practicing.

And don’t worry about mistakes. As long as you keep your paint layers reasonably thin, you can always paint over whatever mistake you make.

[Broc]

Excellent advice, your minis look great. Totally covet the Atali one

Slightly off topic, what does your pulse do when painting eyes?

(partially stolen joke )

[Kapoteeni]

Seems legit. It you have many identical troopers, you might want to paint them using an “assembly line” method, ie. paint everyone’s skin first, then everyone’s shirts, then everyone’s armor, etc. You get the same brush control practice, and you get your dudes painted faster (because you save the time spent cleaning your brushes between colors). The downside is that you won’t be seeing your first finished model until they’re all there.

Alternatively, you could paint one clone trooper first, so as to see whether your color scheme works, and to use as a reference for the rest, and then paint the rest using the assembly line method.

It’s tempting to start from the heroes, who tend to be more interesting - but if you have zero experience, they can also be intimidating to paint. And because heroes are the centerpieces of your army/squad/battalion/whatever unit you have, you want to make them the best-looking, most eye-catching pieces in your force. So it makes sense to save them till last, so you can at least build some skills and confidence before tackling the hero models.

[Kapoteeni]

Finally I can show you this one:

(photo courtesy of Kalle Lähteenmäki)

I had planned to take this to the Ropecon Miniature Painting Contest in 2020, but then the world ended. When Ropecon was re-opened this year, I took the opportunity to participate with this entry in the Single Small Model category. It didn’t place, but I’m happy how he turned out anyway, and the contest judges’ feedback was really constructive and encourages me to try even harder next year.

So now I can finally boast having a complete painted collection of the SAVAGE Minicrate product line, including some non-Conan ones I haven’t shown here: Solomon Kane, Dark Agnes de Chastillon and El Borak, as well as Belit and a serpent-man for whom I don’t have photos. Maybe I’ll snap one some day.

[stelagel]

That’s a fantastic hobby!
Congratulations is all I can say here, magnificent work!!!