On to things hobby related. I got the wonderful opportunity to paint a Totem Hunter from the Minions faction of Hordes for none other than Trevor Christensen of the Warmachine/Hordes podcast: Chain Attack! I'm a big fan of Chain Attack and frequently listen to their show when I paint. I got the chance to meet Trevor, Jay and Scott this July past at Lock and Load in Seattle and now I've had the chance to paint something that Trevor will be using to "kick someone's dick in" with in games to come!
Their podcast: http://www.chain-attack.com/
Trevor was looking for a "custom" Totem Hunter. This made me a bit uneasy as I'm not a confident conversion maker or re-poser. After doing some research and figuring I decided I wanted him jumping off a cliff/rock/wall, using his spear horizontally for balance. The default pose for Totem Hunter is a little awkward with him leaning forward a bit too much for my liking. I was a little nervous about changing his arm position with the spear but I was satisfied with what I came up with. It was pretty easy; pin the arm horizontally instead of vertically and green stuff some cloth wrapping to fill the gap. The condition of the arm pieces where they join easily adapted to my vision. With the repose, he truly looks natural leaping off a ruined wall to smite his enemies!
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When painting the Totem Hunter, I knew I wanted to have his skin color a little different. I wanted free handed scales on the flat top of his head with a tawny skin tone overall. His armor I decided to do teal (a color I rarely paint) with dark blue/blue gray for the scale armor.
Unbeknownst to me this made a really great color contrast that I didn't expect. It was a beautiful accident. Something that helped smooth the colors over and give a nice matte appearance was multiple layers of mid-tone, thin glazes on both the skin and armor.
The metal trim was probably the most tedious part of the project all together and least enjoyable. I went with a true metallic metal simply because Trevor's army was already painted with a true metallic, and the recipe for my gold NMM is a little too similar with the recipe for Totem Hunter's skin.
I'm pretty happy with the finished model and I really hope it gets to Trevor in one piece. I probably took the most time out of any previous project to pack this thing safely, utilizing techniques that Trevor himself suggested: taping the model to the bottom of a small box, and wrapping it in bubble wrap - then putting the small box inside a larger box stuffed with packing peanuts and taped up tight.
