Thorin's company #8 Brothers in arms

These two are among my favorites in the Hobbit box. Bombur was probably the best looking dwarf in the movie. His make-up was truly outstanding. Shame he didn't get a chance to talk even once (maybe he did in the extended version).

 Bofur, on the other hand, wasn't exceptional at all for me in the movie. He seemed just like another dude from the company and his funny hat actually made him look a bit comical. I wasn't impressed with the mini too but that changed when I started painting it. It proved an excellent exercise in balancing different shades of brown. I needed to mix paints back and forth to make sure each one is slightly different.

There are still a few more dwarves left in the company so you can expect an update soon. For now, I'll leave you with a nice song.

Figure Painter Magazine

Just a quick note with solid recommendation. "Figure Painter Magazine" is a new hobby magazine that has recently been released by a group of dedicated hobbyists. The layout is very professionally done and the contents present some fantastic works. It gets double thumbs up from me. You can get it for a price of £1.00 here.
In the first issue you'll read about:
- interview with the Slayer Sword winner who sold his Sword, Karol Rudyk
 - start of a series of articles on building the Malifaux board (one of the reasons I'm going to continue buying it),
- reviews from Ax Faction and Clockwork Paladin and much more

Evil Twins

I've been a big fan of Lelu and Lilitu since I saw these minis first a longer while ago. They were also some of the first minis for Malifaux I bought and have been on my backlog list for several months.

Lelu (the red one) was a nice exercise in painting red skin. I went quite far with highlights, adding a bit orange there as I aimed for a more demonic look.

Painting Lilitu was a bit more challenging as I've never worked on blue skin before. I chose to paint her dress using a vivid shade of red to add an element that would tie her with Lelu.
Not much more to say here. I'm going to paint at least one more miniature from my Malifaux backlog this month and then I'll probably need a break (moving house).

Beckoners

I painted these following the color scheme from the artwork. The main exception is that I chose to paint "human" eyes instead of glowing ones. They were hard enough to get right this way. Besides, I thought that since these are supposed to be succubi-like creatures that lure men and then consume their lives, they should look less demonic.

It was mainly a an exercise in painting skin tones. Malifaux plastics tend to have more smooth surfaces than the metal miniatures. As a result, placing highlights on them is a bit trickier and requires more time and effort. I think the olive skinned one turned out better but that's probably in general I feel more comfortable when I paint darker colors.

I also experimented with transparent look on her tights. I haven't done it before so I guess the effect is not bad.

Mr Bad Luck

These two words describe him pretty well as far as him in-game use is concerned. He's just bad luck for opponents to have around.

The mini is nicely designed but I thought he felt somehow empty on his own. I added a small girl from Hasslefree Miniatures and painted her using bright, vivid colors. She provided a colorful counterpoint to dark Mr Tannen.

As a result I created a small "diorama" featuring an old creepy guy luring a small girl with a knuckle roll with clearly nasty intentions. And that's pretty much how I'd imagine events unrolling if the situation was to really take place in the world of Malifaux.

Mr Graves

I can officially say now that this one has moved up to my top 3 favorite Malifaux minis. It's a very tight list so I'm not able to say exactly which spot he's taken but he's there for sure.
The miniature is so full of character and so well sculpted and painting it has been a great
experience. It's also been quite a challenge.

Mr Graves is not human, making a long story short he's a Neverborn in disguise so I decided to paint his skin using a very pale shade, emphasizing it with a very light blue glaze. While doing it I needed to make sure his white shirt is still distinct enough and doesn't blend with the skin tone.

Black trousers, shoes and vest were another challenge. I tried to keep the shade of black on clothes and shoes slightly different. As always, I struggled with taking pics that would show these effects well and ended up choosing mostly pictures taken with better daylight. In real life he's not that shiny, I just wanted to make sure the different shades of colors are visible in the pictures.

Second batch of Hobbit goblins done

It took me longer than I had expected to finish off this batch of minis. It felt a bit tedious as I've only recently painted quite a few of them. As a result I had to motivate myself to get going with the second batch. At the same time I wanted to maintain the same solid level of painting I had with the first batch. All of these made the process long and tiresome for me but at the end of the day I have to admit that it was worth it as the whole group looks nice put together. My favorites here were definitely the Scribe and the one with a whip as he seemed to have more details on him than other goblins.

Now I'm left with five more dwarves from Thorin's company and Radagast and my journey with the Hobbit box will come to an end.