What I've been up to

Sorry, I haven't had a lot of activity here lately. With the warmer weather, I've been out side painting the hell out of everything (watercolor, not miniatures). When the sun is out and the temperature is right, dainty flowers is the order of the day.

And when I'm not outside painting, I'm inside letting off the excess art energy with more painting. I have a hell of a lot of watercolor paper, and I aim to use it all.

If you'd like to see some of the art I've been working on, you're all invited to head over to my new Facebook page: The Art of Mouse and Friends. That way, you can at least see what's been holding up all of my minis on the painting table.

I still have plenty of Steve Barber's samurai to paint yet. Maybe on the next rainy day. He is also working on the next commission which I think many of you will enjoy -- it's little different, but still for the samurai range.

New Steve Barber Samurai

Here's the latest samurai from Steve Barber -- an unarmored samurai attacking. The blade and head come as separate pieces, allowing for a bit of conversion work if you want. The rest of the body is one solid piece of fun-to-paint folds. For some reason, I enjoy painting, layering and highlighting folds on minis. Of course, on this example, I kept the colors dark, but I have extra copies of this figure, so I will be having little more foldy fun with those.

I already have Steve working on the next commission, and it's a big(ger) one -- something a little more special for the samurai range. I'll keep it under wraps until I get some photos, but it involves multiple figures.

Zombicide: Companions

These are the companion figures from Zombicide: Angry Neighbors. They serve as allies, adding bonuses and options for the survivors. Since they aren't necessarily full-time survivors, I chose to just give them a speed-painting treatment, using the same drybrush method I use on the zombies.

After drybrushing some base colors over a black base layer, I went in with a slightly more patient brush to pick out a few details such as faces, tools, head wraps and other accessories. All the figures were finally given a light drybrushing of tan to weather them properly for the post-apocalypse. I may yet have a little fun and go back to add some gang colors to the two biker-looking fellows.

I also tried to slow down a touch and paint Mr. T here. He turned out OK. I find it difficult to make camouflage to look like camouflage, but I think it's convincing enough this time around.

All the rest of my survivors from the second shipment of Zombicide Season 3 are primed and ready to be painted, but they'll have to wait because my newest batch of 42mm samurai are also ready to paint.

This Sunday is Zombie Jesus Day! My friends gather and have lunch at Zombie Burger in Des Moines, and then we head home to play a fun game of Zombicide. That's why I hurried through these companion figures; I also painted up my extra (stretch goal) skinner zombies. No need to post them here; you know what they look like. The 20 or so figures only took an hour to get through.