NextLevel Miniatures - Archway

 

Another fun miniature by NextLevel Miniatures. This is the Archway and unfortunately when I purchased this I missed that there was an Archway with Portal - so I cheated and made my own using a bit of A/I to give me a green portal swirl and printed that out on a color printer - not as good, but it'll do on gameday...

Using most of the same techniques as the Runed Gateway, I painted using the AK Interactive Playmarkers all the grooves in the stone and sockets in the skulls with Black. I also completely did the stepped base in Black. Then I used Dark Grey for the stones and Light Grey for "edge" highlights - and I use the term "edge" loosely because it's really a thick line along the edge but on the flat to give an interpretation of depth. For the steps of the base I did something a little bit different, I wiped off the excess paint on the Dark Grey and dabbed using the side of the brush onto the black steps and it gave me that mottled granite look I was hoping to get and then did the same with the Light Grey as a highlight/color variation.

The skulls were painted with Dirty White and then a bit of White for the highlight. Finally, the vertical plates on the column were painted with Copper - the idea of that detail being a copper plate versus carved stone appealed to me.

Here's some great artwork for your VTT session using Google Gemini...

And how about a portal for your VTT session as well...

One more - I asked Gemini to make the runes glow with the portal...

NextLevel Miniatures - Runed Gateway

 

This is an awesome miniature and a blast to paint. Again, I used the AK Interactive Playmarkers for this and I was quite pleased with how it turned out - mostly because it's a paint style I'm learning.

I started off with Light Green on the outer part of the magical portal and I wasn't particularly careful because of the opacity of the paint, any mistakes would just be painted over. I grabbed Black and ran that through all the stone lines throughout the entire model including a thin line between the stone and the Light Green of the magical portal - except for the line break between stone and portal I again wasn't particularly careful. Then I used Medium Blue on the inner part of the magical portal edging along the Light Green. Finally, I used Dark Grey on all the stones being careful not to go into the black grooves.

That setup all the base colors. I think used Light Green and carefully dripped paint into the runes. Next I took Light Grey and did a bold "edge" highlighting on every stone including the lines on the base stones. That took care of the stonework. Next was Light Blue giving the magical portal depth. The last step was a Dirty White on top of all the energy bolts and within the Light Blue lines to give it more depth.

Wasn't sure that I wanted to base the item, but I think it was a good choice for stability purposes - particularly during the game when everyone is knocking stuff all over the table.

Taking that into Google's Gemini to get some artwork for your VTT sessions...

For giggles I asked Gemini to enhance the artwork - not sure if it's "enhanced" or not - up to y'all to decide - it's interesting...

NextLevel Miniatures - Nosferatu

 

A classic vampire from the folks at NextLevel Miniatures. I thought about switching back to brush and bottle paint but I've been in a groove with the AK Interactive Playmarkers as well as the Sharpie brush tip markers so I thought I'd give it the ol' college try on some of the details.

Zombie Skin for the head. White on the teeth. Yellow Sharpie on the eyes. Then there's an inner collar of Purple and an outer collar of Red. The, and I had to google this one one, jabot collar was done in Dirty White with a Gold brooch The protective jacket Black sitting on a shirt of Red and finishing into a cloak of Purple. Pants were Red with Black boots. Then I fought with the gold marker on trimmings.

So here's my first real negative of the Playmarkers - I had the Gold brush split - so instead of a single point I now have two and I don't know what to do about it. I tried using water to rinse the brush and then a paper towel to wipe it clean before re-priming. Didn't work - a little bit better, but not what it needs to be. Which is a real shame because I was having great success with Gold on previous models.

Into the Google Gemini A/I blender and that's exactly how I was intending to paint the model...

No ShadowDark card on this one - just use the Vampire straight out of the book on p.260 - he's a badass as is.

NextLevel Miniatures - Cultist (B)

 

This was just all around fun to paint with the AK Interactive Playmarkers. Of course the cultist is going to have purple robes with gold.

Started off with Dark Skin. Then used Purple followed by Gold for the trim as well as the bracelet and the bowl. The sacrificial dagger was painted with Gunmetal. I used Black on the fanny pack and for the decorative insignia on the shoulder I chose that to be some sort of rank marking and I painted that Red to give her a "blood" ranking. The base was completed using the dithering technique with Dark Grey and Light Grey.

Fun with Google Gemini A/I to convert into artwork and it did a great job on this one...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

NextLevel Miniatures - Keeper of the Fire

The previous miniature I just started using the AK Interactive Playmarkers Medium Blue for some small details around the neck/shoulder - this time I went blue wild using it on the entire robe. This blue was silky smooth to paint on - I had great control of the color and flow of the paint.

Besides the blue, I started out with the Dark Skin on the face and hands, Wood on the hair, Dirty White on the scarf and the robe belt. Finally, I couldn't figure out what the ball was - it looked like a metal object to me - the miniature's title is Keeper of the Fire but I'm guessing that's more metaphorical, not an actual flame like this Barbed Devil. It kinda reminds me of Critical Role's dodecahedrons which held magical energy and different functionality depending upon who had them (honestly still confused about what exactly occurred with those objects). All that to say I chose Copper for it's redness but still metallic and that had very good paint characteristics as well.

The base I stayed with the Playmarkers and used a dithering technique of Dark Grey and then Light Grey on top of a Black base.

Fun time with Google's Gemini A/I gives me the following conversion into artwork...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

I had to make a ShadowDark magical item - Jar of the Fire...

NextLevel Miniatures - Aberrant Magus

 

After our next ShadowDark game at Emerald Tavern I picked up two new AK Interactive Playmarkers - a Medium Blue and Sky Blue. Purple is still my favorite and this model from NextLevel Miniatures was pretty simple - Purple! 

There were a few other colors involved - it's best when using these paints to work inside out - so first was the face, arms, and hands with Zombie Skin - I see this guy as working his way towards being a lich but he's not quite there yet. Next, the shoulder dressing (there's probably a proper name for it) looks very ancient Egyptian like and therefore I tested using the new Medium Blue on that - I do like the blue - will need to use more of that on another model. Then lots of Purple. Finally, I used the Gold for everything that I thought should pop - including some trim pieces - I think I was pushing the limit as to the level of detail I could get with a big fat brush marker.

The base I stayed with the Playmarkers using Black, Dark Grey, and Light Grey. For the greys I used the side of the marker's "brush" and tried to lightly tap to do my best drybrushing look without actually drybrushing. It helps here to use a paper towel and wipe off any excess paint off the brush tip - can always wet the tip and prime the paint later.

Having fun with Google Gemini A/I gives me some interesting results. The first conversion into artwork generates a pretty good image but the A/I engine really wants to convert the face to a skull and remove the hood from the model's eyes...

So I began the quest of telling the A/I engine to provide a face and not a skull and to put the hood back over the eyes. Many variations, most of them bad - I ended up using this one which puts a face back on the model but without the hood covering the eyes and the engine wanted to change the crown for some reason.

It also leaves the plastic's kink in the staff so I asked the A/I engine various forms of instruction to straighten out the staff. The best I received back was to hold the staff vertically - fair enough... 

Finally I gave the command to enhance the artwork - the result was a modified base, enhanced highlighting on the staff, and a bit of a glow to the staff topper to give it a magical look - what's also interesting is with each derivative the background moves from white to off-white - not sure why, but it really like to move away from pure white...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

WizKids Beholder Zombie - WZK90032

 

More fun with AK Interactive Playmarkers with a little help from Sharpie. I think this time I picked up Desert Ochre from Emerald Tavern after a game session of ShadowDark.

Purple is my go to color - it goes on so smooth and effortless and always dries to a nice looking solid color no matter how much or little paint I put down. Then I used Red around the main eye and a third of the way down the eye stalks just to break up the all Purple. I used Pink on the fleshy bits hanging off the two of the eye stalks and then on the fleshy muscles on either sides of the maw. Out of the Sharpie markers I used Yellow on all the individual eye stalks. Desert Ochre was used on the spike and the teeth. Dirty White on the main eye and a highlight on the teeth. Finally some white on the tips of the teeth.

The base was done more "traditionally" with Vallejo Black and a drybrush of Neutral Grey and then Stonewall Grey.

I left the eye blank as the package artwork left it blank and I think it gives this zombified appearance that way. However, when I asked Google Gemini to convert my photo to artwork it placed this really cool looking eyeball. I might have to rethink that a bit. I think it's very interesting to see how A/I in some cases fixes my mistakes and enhances the overall image, and then in other cases it leaves my brush mistakes in the final image.

I'll have to come back to any ShadowDark stats - the core book has the Ten-Eyed Oracle - as a GM, what I'll probably do is take that monster and add the Zombie monster talents of Undead and Relentless.

WizKids Yuan-Ti Anathema - WZK90256

 

The next set of AK Interactive Playmarkers I picked up at Emerald Tavern after a session of Shadowdark was the box set titled Skins & Flesh Tones. It comes with Light Skin, Dark Skin, Black Skin, Pink Skin, Zombie Skin, and Animal Green.

I decided to use the my favorite color Purple and then the Dark Skin on the belly and that turned out rather well. The Yuan-Ti Anathema is a tall model that sits on a 3" diameter base - so it seemed to me like it should be guarding something. I found a crate and a barrel on my Reaper Bones shelf. I then used the Leather marker on the crate and barrel followed by using the Wood to bring out the grains of the crate and barrel. The metal straps on the barrel were painted with the Gunmetal marker. The base was done more "traditionally" with Vallejo Black and a drybrush of Neutral Grey and then Stonewall Grey.

The crate and barrel came from an original kickstarter way back when - I think they sell the barrel now as Large Barrel and Small Barrel - 77249. Likewise, the crate is sold by Reaper as Crates (Large and Small) - 77248. Both sculpted by Andrew Pieper.

Kickstarter paint total 229 + 1 Large Barrel +1 Large Crate = 231

Almost forgot - let's have fun with Google's A/I Gemini and convert the mini into artwork...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...