Well, now that the mist of paint and sealer has cleared, I can finally take stock!
The vast majority of paint jobs this week were starships (which I have come to realize I may have always been obsessed with, right back to my days with LEGOs).
Lots of airbrushing, lots of touch-ups and highlighting. Our Billion Suns collection has grown in size by quite a bit!
I would say that I would only paint this many for a wargame, but then I can feel our collection of D&D-style character miniatures staring at me…
Our initial lot of 3D-prints. I tried to use consistent coloration and designs across ship classes. Notice the green utility ships with their one/two-dot patterns to denote light/medium utilities.
Initial print of one of the cruisers we went with! I figured I could pay homage to one of my most nostalgic games. I can still hear the sci-fi western music…
…and finished! The highlighting came out really great on this one. The edges really pop, and look like they have seen a good amount of weathering from battle and space travel.
Some of the heavier ship classes here. I experimented with vinyl stencils to create the ship carrier icons on the wide ships. The edge highlighting on the black destroyers in the back looks particularly good!
And just when I thought I had enough ships, I got a great deal on a set of ships from Twilight Imperium. Not sure I’ll ever play the game itself (notoriously being around 6-8 hours to play), but I love the detail on the ships!
…And here are the ships, almost done! I’ll have to post a picture of the complete fleet sometime, but I have a few more to finish up first.
One of the finished frigates from the Twilight Imperium set. Again, highlighting looks pretty great! Dry-brushing light gray onto black has seen really rewarding.
A brief break from starships! This one is Elvis, the bard from a D&D miniatures set filled with dog-adventurers! He was a bit of a slow project, but he ended looking really great!
I used some of my highlighting techniques from starships on his outfit and fur, too. I think it does ok, but is better on starships.
A failed print of a battleship (the largest ship class in A Billion Suns) which I decided to use some of Emma’s Green Stuff and try to make something out of it!
Now, flesh-puppet crewmen stalk the halls and veins of a ship consumed by a voracious parasitic organism! Finished pictures to come.
Several kestrel ships from FTL: Faster Than Light! We had to print them as splits so we could minimize supports.
These new civilian ships printed perfectly! The bottom half you can see just slaps right onto the top half, and there were essentially no supports!
And a proper-sized kestrel, since I simply couldn’t resist.
And here are all of the most recent lot, finished with their painting! There are also several Space Krakens in the background!
I’m especially proud of the weathering on the red battleship and the flesh texture on the parasite ship!
…and still more to come! Some more light utilities, krakens, and a Klingon destroyer!
Joseph Erwin - Freelance Dungeon Master 