More Talisman Figures...
While preparing this series of posts, I have come to realize that what I have been calling my "first paining" is actually the second. The actual first painting was somewhat of an experiment for me at the time that turned out horrible (and long forgotten).
In the mid 80s, two major art stores in my town went out of business relatively close together. I was able to score about 10 Windsor Newton inks and about 30 Badger Airbrush Inks somewhere in the range of 70-80% off. I was in an inking frenzy!
This long forgotten "first painting" was grey primer with a heavy coating of colored ink over the top. Unfortunately, some of the inks (I think the Badger) were still water soluble when dry. So when applying ink next to ink, the first color would bleed into the second.
Overall, I really liked the look--It was a smooth gradation from a dark shadow to a light highlight. But with the colors bleeding into each other and grey primer muting all the colors, I chose to scrap the project (and never use the Badger or Windsor Newton inks again). As simple light scrubbing in water removed all the ink and I started over, ending up with what have been calling my first painting all along.
I will continue to forget the original "first painting" described above and refer to the second painting as the first. Which actually makes since, since I was able to go back to primer. As I indicated before, what is significant about the different generations of painting is that I didn't clean the figures, I simply painted the new paint on top of the old.
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| The Inquisitor, Chaos Warrior, and Necromancer |
Sorry for the overexposed pics. The Inquisitor is a first painting, and the other two are third paintings. The only conversion is swapping out the Chaos Warrior's shield to a newer-style textured shield.
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| The Troll, Orc, and Hobgoblin |
Here we have an example of all three generations of painting in order from left to right. This comparison nicely illustrates how my painting style has changes over the years.
I should have got a better angle on the Orc's shield. But I didn't paint it, it is a WHFB decal.
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| The Questing Knight, Minotaur, and Centaur |
Finally we have the first example of alternate figs. Talisman City and Talisman Dragons never had official figures. All three of the above figures are second generations painting. However, the two unofficial minis, the Questing Knight and the Minotaur, were painted at the time when I was painting my Talisman third paintings.
The Questing knight was a gift from my best friend when we were in grade school (early 80s). This knight has seen many hours of RPG time. But he is poorly out of scale with today's Heroic scale minis--I did consider calling him a Halfling Paladin at one time!! But he fits nicely with the older Talisman scale.
The same can be said for the Minotaur. He was an older figure and while bigger than human sized minis, he looked like a pygmy next to his brethren. Compared to the "big" Talisman monster figures he is of similar stature. The Minotaur has the only conversion between this trio. I cut off the top half of his weapon (a club, I think) and added 2 back to back Ork Choppas, creating a crude double headed axe.
That's all for this installment. Until next time.
