Melbourne Mini Painter

I like to share my work in a photo with a hand from time to time so that people can properly understand the scale of the figurines. This genie is for a new customer of mine and he had some very specific design requests that were a fun challenge on a figure not much bigger than my finger.

I was asked a question a few weeks ago by a budding new painter who wanted to get into commission painting. He said "what do you do when someone asks you to paint something one way but you think it would look better another?".

I told them it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what they want. My entire job is to provide the skills and training I have to make their dream a reality, not my dream.

In this case the customer came back to me overnight and said he'd hoped it would look more rotted and older, so I said "you got it".

&D

A short article about the work we've been doing on some board games recently and our move to the country

Melbourne Mini Painter not in Melbourne? That’s right! Melbourne Mini Painter is now rather ironically named as I have moved the workshop to regional Victoria! At the end of 2023 I packed up the shop and relocated everything to a lovely remote property in the Victorian mountains. It was a nerve wracking move as I know many of our minipai...

Could there be a more unusual host of characters in the one place? It was such a joy to be brought on board by to paint their characters for such a unique game. The incredible variety in these figures makes them really dynamic and fun. You like Sci-Fi? It's got that. Anthropomorphic animals? It's got that. Steampunk horror vibes? Yup that's there too.

I'm going to be sharing more of the Sudden Conflict models officially painted by me over the next few weeks.

I found this side by side absolutely hilarious, it looks like two chaos bros grew into primarchs. The "then" picture is an image of the first ever commission I painted. It was $20 and I was so nervous that it wasn't going to be good enough (which today, it wouldn't be).

Now I'm proud to say I have been hired by multiple game companies to paint their official models, hundreds of happy private customers and that the time put into my craft is evident. Both painting and photography have greatly improved.

I feel very very lucky to have this as a full time job, it brings me so much joy to bring these little heroes to life every day.

I have to admit, even though there's a lot of things people don't love about AI, I can't complain about the things it says about me!

(Not sure if I would have personally chosen to feature the customer feedback of "sexiest orc' but still good).

A little bit of nostalgia on the workbench this week!

Jarl never misses bath day...

I haven't been able to share my work for a while because I'm working on a few unreleased boardgames and the models aren't for public eyes yet! In the meantime I did finally get some of my own boardgame pieces painted up.

These are all 30mm models.

I'm not dead! Just working on a few unreleased projects with some clients which means I'm sadly unable to share progress pictures. Still very much painting and working away and looking forward to sharing these pieces when I can!

Always fun to work with an old customer on a new project. Captain rex is tricky with all the fine detail on such a small model but I think it looks great if you go with representative markings.

30mm

This model was designed purely to torture new painters. I feel very sorry for any beginners that try to add Belisarius to their collections. Looks cool when done, but not the easiest paint and build!

A few more Armello sneak peaks hot off the press! How freaking cool are these models!?! I can't wait to see this thing come to life.

Big thanks to King of the Castle Games for the opportunity to paint these up. Well done on kicking the launch off with such a big bang.

The Armello boardgame I painted for is off to a flying start, the project was fully funded in under 15min! So good to see the fans jumping on this project with so much enthusiasm.

I've even already had some contact me asking for commissions of their boardgames which they won't receive for a good while yet! Very keen.

If you love boardgames this will be a great one to jump on, the figures are so cute and accurate to the video game art and I'm confident the game play will measure up under the skilled hands of the designers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrebishop/armello-the-board-game King of the Castle Games

Super excited to have Armello (an incredible online game) coming to boardgaming tabletops!

I was very grateful to be asked to paint the figures for this campaign and you can see the official photos at the bottom of the campaign. Tomorrow I'll be sharing some of the pictures here.

If you like strategy, boardgames with high replayability and cut miniatures of animals then this is well worth backing!

Armello: The Board Game A strategic board game of heroes and high adventure based on the hit video game.

First mini in the brand new workshop! So excited to be back at painting guys, I missed this. Get in touch if you have any special pieces you'd like done!

The divine comedy in miniature! Dante and Virgil from Aradia miniatures for a new collector.

How cool is this!? First model for 2024 and I get to paint Mike Greaney's Bog Witch for the man himself. If you're not familiar, do yourself a favour and check out his amazing series of comics that he generously shares online for free.

https://www.mikegreaney.com/comics #/bog-witch/

Time to reflect on some of my favourite projects this year.

What a crazy year it was too with some horrific health complications that almost got me in the early months! Very happy to be recovered and back on track and super excited to see what 2024 has in store for Melbourne Mini Painter.

To all my friends and followers I hope you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and I look forward to seeing you in the next!

Which one gives you the creeps and why?

I feel like I can't go past a terrifying undead lady in a white dress myself. As thought she will be extra dangerous because she was having a nice day until all this happened...

The monsters from Carnival Zombie are all done! I deviated from the box art a little where I felt the colours were a bit too repetitive. The customers were happy with a more vibrant palate providing it still carried appropriate amounts of gore.

All the character pieces for Carnival Zombie 2nd Edition Kickstarter painted up. On to the monsters!

An extreme macro close up on the face of one of my miniature figurines.

Every now and then it's nice to just take a hasty snap with your phone and show what the minis look like in hand. It's so easy to forget how small these are but every pinprick of paint makes a big difference when you're talking about tabletop figures.

This model from Carnival Zombie 2nd Edition Kickstarter is coming along nicely...

The sculpts in the Carnival Zombie box are very crisp for a boardgame, super impressive quality.

Orders are now almost completely full for Christmas with board games, single figures and special display pieces for a wide range of customers. I'll be working around the clock to get things back to people on time, making toys at Christmas makes me sympathise with Santa!

A big step up from the dinosaur figures I had a child. What is your favourite dino?

Back to some classic D&D hero minis today.

Well here's something a bit different. These customers commissioned a model of themselves sailing as a wedding anniversary centrepiece. Such a thoughtful memento of their time together.