NOVA Bound: The Final Stretch

As prep time winds down, I'm finding myself much more comfortable with where I am that I was last year. In fact, I'm done with both of my armies.

I finished up the seven warriors above, along with three rippers and touch ups on my Biovores.

The Must Paint section of my painting list is completely crossed off. My Stretch Goals this year were pretty limited, but while I'm happy with my armies, I'm not sure I'll get to the Stretch Goals to any large degree.

• Must Paint:
• Catacomb Command Barge
• Transcendent C'Tan
• 2 Annihilation Barges
• 2 Night Scythes
• 10 Immortals
• 5 Deathmarks
• 5 Scarabs
• 3 Tryanid Warriors
• Touch Up 4 Tyranid Warriors (add green)
• 3 Ripper Swarms
• Touch Up Biovores
• Stretch Goals
• 2 Crypteks
• Trios/Necron Display Board
• Malifaux Crew (Assembled)
• Jakob Lynch Crew Set
• Mr. Graves

For the display board(s), I'm thinking of doing something pretty simple, mostly a tray, but possibly with cutouts and a metal plate bottom for magnetized carrying. That said, that might be a bit ambitious for the time I'll have available to work on it.

For my Malifaux Crew (or Jakob Lynch anyway) I'm planning on doing a comic book style paint scheme, with lots of black shadows and sharp contrasts. One place I'm looking for inspiration at the moment is Mike Mignola's Hellboy. 

I find my style to tend toward smooth, subtle transitions that, at gaming height, fade away and lack visual impact. This style is completely outside my comfort zone, so something I want to try in order to push myself. I also think it would look sweet if I can pull it off. 

I got started on the crew last night, if only a base coat.

I started with the bases, but decided to actually attach the models to the bases before continuing. I had originally held off for ease of painting. However, with the heavy shadow style, the placement of the minis becomes very important to what is lit and what remains black.

The other bonus to this is that I will have the minis all together to do some pick-up gaming at NOVA. I am really excited about this project and hoping to get some more work in on it. I'm leaning to sticking with purple for the flames/illuminated, though I had considered orange or teal as well.