How Long was She Under? (and) Malifaux Ranting

I mentioned early that I’ve been working with Envirotex Lite. While I certainly used it for my SDE potion counters, I really broke the stuff out for the Drowned models I am adding to my Resurrectionist crews. My first Drowned is now ready for the table.

I wanted the drowned woman to look distinctly wet and dead with a palette that leaves you unsure if she is a physical presence or just the spirit. I dirtied up her white dress to add to the heavy, wet look of the model and the starkly contrasting straight black hair added to that effect. Her eye was painted the same tone as her skin and then blended with yellow and blue washes to make it stand out as well. I liberally used purple and umber washes to deaden the highlights. By contrast to the models ghostly colors, I wanted to anchor and chain to really stand out and I am particularly happy with the combination of Charadon Granite for the base color of the anchor alongside the patches of rust.

The base had to be an extension of the model, so I wanted it to look ethereal and wet as well, but also distinctly like shoreline. I used cork for the jagged coral rocks and applied patches of sand here and there, interspersed with other parts of the base that were left bare. When I went to paint it in, I stuck to Dheneb Stone and a few highlights and shadows. The only colors added were washes, blue, purple and umber. I also went into cracks and crevices with some green wash, which helped give the coral an organic feel, rather than simply desert rock.

The Envirotex filled in the rest of the base, for a very nice shallow water effect.

The placement of the model on the base was something of a happy accident. What I knew was that I wanted her to have one foot in the water and when it came time to place her, the only way I could get it to work was to have her in an unbalanced lurch….which totally works.

Malifaux

As it has been a while since I talked about Malifaux at all, I thought I would add my thoughts on the news coming from Wyrd over the last several weeks. The truth is that over the last year I’ve been less than impressed with Wyrd and their changes.

Around my area, there seems to be a waning enthusiasm for Malifaux as a whole. I don’t think this is really the game itself though, but concerns about Wyrd. Releasing a board game, a card game, then another card game, then an RPG, all in the span of a couple years, seems risky to me. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, but I hope that the incoming 2^nd Edition will help to bring the focus back to the very intriguing world Wyrd has created.

M2E

That is a great transition into my thoughts about the upcoming M2E. (funny…it’s almost as though I wrote this). I was sad to see that the general consensus from people I talked to about Adepticon this year was that was a lot of negative attention surrounding M2E. From what I hear though, most of this negativity was more as a result of the representation Wyrd had at the con than anything else.

This is kind of a shame because I really want to be excited for M2E. Of course, there are always the annoyances of a new edition, like all new models to replace the ones I just got and not knowing whether the Drowned I just painted will even be worth fielding….but those are easily trumped by the clean slate factor M2E has going for it.

I am from the school that believes that Malifaux is a difficult game to get good at. I have yet to win a match in nearly a dozen games. This is easily fixed by playing more often, but the more I play, the more I feel like I’m stepping out onto the battlefield as a novice when everyone else is an expert. I’m hoping M2E will give me a chance to get into the game earlier and be on a more level playing field. I’m also looking forward to a streamlined set of rules that will be easier to introduce players two (matches with no masters, or no upgrades for example). All in all then, I think the new edition will be a good thing.  

I think that’s the end of my rant. Back to painting.

More to come.

-Nick