Cassie the Gnome Sorceress & Fairy Familiar

Currently on my workbench are Cassie the Sorceress (in bones) and the little creepy fairy familiar (metal). My goals for Cassie and her fairy familiar are to make them both as colorful and vibrant as possible. My usual painting style is more muted, earthy, and dingy look which fits well with people who spend their lives exploring dungeons. This is my effort to push past that, and try something I'm not very good at.


This is how she looks now.

My inspiration was the official paint scheme, in large part because when I'm trying something new, I find it helpful to try to copy, or try to copy a successful example of what I'm attempting.



Without a painting guide though, I have to make up the steps to get there. I started with basing both with my Happy Seppuku Temple Courtyard base stamp, and then giving them my usual warm soapy water wash, then priming the minis with brown liner. For the skin for both the fair and Cassie, I'm using the tanned skin triad. After hitting their skin with thinned Tanned Skin, I went in and did their eyes with Linen White. I also used the tanned flesh over the wings.







The real focus though is that hair and the gem on her staff. I started with clear magenta as the base. To tie that in with the fairy, I used the same color on the gem on the base of its staff.

For the fairy’s hair, I base coated with Nightmare Black, and also used it for the edges of the wings. The interior bits of the wings I started with a coat of Clear Yellow. In spite of the name, it is anything but clear. Pure would be a better descriptor… I then painted her ‘clothing’ with a base coat of Pumpkin Orange. It’s not a color that coats well, but I like it in spite of that.





For Cassie’s coat, I started with Cyan Blue as the base, and then followed that up with a second coat of it. The trim on the sleeves was done with Clear Yellow as the base. To further tie the fairy and Cassie together, I painted the scroll case with Cyan. I’m tempted to paint the rune on the scroll case somewhere on Cassie’s coat.

At this point, I can clearly see that I’m not going to be able to match my inspiration pic, but not why (aside from a general lack of skill). So I asked for help. Over on the Reaper forum, which is both exceedingly encouraging and full of really knowledgeable people, I posted a thread, and boy did I get what I asked for.

This reply from Guindyloo in particular is well worth the read.

In short these are the main suggestions:

• Starting with a thick coat of brown liner didn’t do me any favors.
• My brush control needs work. Probably less caffeine would help with that, but that’s not gonna happen.
• I need to thin my paints more
• Get a wet pallet for better control with thinning.
• Practice, practice, practice

So… at this point I think I’m just going to work on finishing up Cassie as best as I can, and then get on to upping my game. A $3 Bones mini isn’t worth stripping down. So this is where we're at now (different angles and lighting).