The Infinity Experiment

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, I've been meaning to dabble into Infinity. When I told my friends what my plans were, pretty much all of my regular dudes joined in. So the six of us are going to start Infinity, together! Amongst these guys are Sturmm and Telruna, btw.

First off, the starter packs came in today:



From the top: custom Greek starter (this is part of the ALEPH army), PanOceania Military Orders, Japanese Sectorial Army, Haqqislam Hassassins and another Japanese box.

That's five boxes and there's six of us: I know. I wanted to start Nomads, but it turns out some of the models I dislike (but want to use) are being redone in the near future. Considering I will be painting up most of the terrain and minis for one of the guys... I'll wait. I'll be arbiter, first.

OK, on to the minis: these are amazing. Absolutely superb detail. There's some flash here and there, but the mold lines are negligible and the casts are generally very, very good. It will be a joy to paint these babies.

I put my friend's Japanese together, there they are:



You'll notice they're standing on a CD spindel. That's the first piece of an entire table we're putting together. Here's the full piece:



The table is a collaborative effort. Some of these guys have no experience with painting or modelling, so it'll be a great introduction. We've basically plundered the local DIY store and started building. Here's another example, some kind of a missile silo:



Infinity requires different terrain than, for example, Death Squads. In Death Squads, having no LOS across the table is boring. Cover is usually powerful enough to stay standing and even then, getting hit usually isn't lethal straight off the bat. In Infinity, however, shooting is DEADLY. You want lots of LOS-blocking terrain. Also, I was getting tired of the gothic ruins, so I opted we go for a sci-fi jungle table. Kind of a research station in the woods.

So here's a radar station of sorts:



A selection of pieces that will eventually be able to form a long wall:



And a bunker-thingie of sorts.



Many CD's were harmed in the making of this scenery.

I'll get back to you, when we create some more stuff!

Ace looking terrain (great use of DIY shop bits and scraps) and the models are something I've been interested in for some time as well (Aleph and Ariadna intrigue me). I'll be interested to see how this works out.

Cheers Laney:D

First off, I love the terrain you made...nice work.

2nd. the Japaese models seem cool, I loved the Ninja guy with the swords.

Keep us posted.

The terrain looks ace! There is definitely some inspiration I might use!
I wish you luck with this table and I am looking forward to see it finished!

While I set my minions friends to work on the terrain, I spent most of my Christmas afternoon painting. And part of the evening, actually. It's so good to be back on a nice, clear project: painting for someone else.

Because this is what came in the mail, the day before Christmas:





Lots of new minis, and also especially made tokens from Micro Art Studios. Actually not too impressed with those, they look like they came from a second-grade printer. All grainy and lackluster colors. I sent them a mail about it, not pleased.

Anyhow, the minis are awesome and I quickly put together the rest of my friend's Japanese models:





Notice the Christmas candy in the back... lol!

The painting so far. Considering I only have black primer, I use that and paint white where ever I want color to come (noticeable on the guy to the right). We went for lots of red with these guys. The amount of detail is amazing, which makes them a joy to paint, but also a bit of a pain at the same time.





The first trooper is nearly finished. I still want to add some more highlighting to her baggy pants, but I seem to have run out of Codex Grey while I wait for my new Reaper stuff to come in. Maybe I'll just use a mix or something, haven't figured it out yet.

What do you guys think of the rifle? Should I lighten up the upper part (on top, really)?





Rear view:

Looking good (at the minute Malifaux is calling me - having picked up some Buildings of Malifaux terrain for Christmas - I only got to play with it after cooking the Christmas dinner and entertaining for 10 hours straight! They are very easy to build and my wife is happy that they pack back into a small box!).

The colour scheme is nice (standard or your own design?) and I like the purple gun. I agree with more highlighting on the pants. Rather than lighten up the top of the gun as a whole how about sharp highlight on the edges only? Just out of interest, do you use the tip of your brush or the flat to do highlights? If the former, I think you would get sharper highlights on the very edges using the flat.

Merry Christmas and I am looking forward to what infinity holds next!

Laney

Thanks Lanes, useful advice! I actually use both the flat and the tip for highlighting, but I see your point. I would actually like to blend upwards to a lighter color on top of the gun, but... I have no idea how to blend (YouTube has not really been helpful so far). Color gradients most definitely are my next thing to learn.

The color scheme is an adaptation of the stock scheme (which you can see on the starter box in the first post). I switched the general white theme with red, because I think redoing the stock theme is boring (and I managed to convince my friend of that fact, as well).

The purple gun was an experiment: now for something completely different! These are manga-themed models, so they allow for some more weird colors than you would use for 40k. I actually wanted to give this model colored hair, but my friend was against it.

My version of blending (which is by no means definitive) is based on using two brushes. Add the next colour layer (to the area where the highlight would be) using brush 1 and then use a second brush (with a little water) to draw the paint across the darker layer below. The thinner paint layer is translucent and 'blends' into the layer below (provided you've chosen your colour steps carefully enough) and the much of the paint stays at the highlight point.

I hope this makes sense!

Laney:D

OK, just tried your technique. Here's my problem: my paint is either to thin to paint straight, or it's too dry. In the latter case, by the time I have my second brush in hand to blend, the paint is already dry.

I've also tried using saliva, from an internet tip. Same problem. Someone else suggested acrylic thinner, that might do the trick.

I tend to have them in my hand at the same time when blending like that. If it's too wet a dry brush can draw off some of the excess.

The slow way to blend is use lots of (almost the same) layers one after another - but that would take forever and while lovely for Golden Demons and photography will never allow you to field a force on the tabletop! I tend to layer, wash and then blend if needed.

Good luck with the thinner - flow improver medium might help, I've used that reasonably successfullly in the past, but the pot is lost in my shed somewhere at the minute!

Laney

Got my first couple of models done! Keisotsu troopers for the Japanese Sectorial Army. Really pleased with them. I've even varnished them, that's how done they are! Haven't varnished a model in ages...

Sharp looking troops. I really liking the highlights coming through in the purples on the weapons. It's a fantastic colour but I've never been able to pin down whether I should treat it as warm or cool and I always screw it up. The free hand on the shoulders is a nice touch and red, black and white are the holy trinity good design.

Overall the Infinity models are very nice. They have a very fluid and dynamic quality that regularly escapes the guys at GW (the dark eldar are their high water mark here but that was a couple years ago now and it seems they have regressed back to expectations again).

A while back I looked at some pan-oceanic commandos. Whoever painted them had based them beautifully. I imagined them flickering like ghosts through a rain forest or jungle.

Excellent job on these guys Arachas!

The guy on the right particularly caught my eye - very nice skin tones and a great combination of colours.

Any more on the way?

Laney

Just discovered this threat...
Great looking so far Arachas! I like the terrain pieces and those models sure look great! Must be great to have a group of 6 persons playing games like this. I'm still trying to pull my friends into the miniature wargaming...
Is Infinity multiplayer?

Gatlag Stonetooth wrote:

Great looking so far Arachas! I like the terrain pieces and those models sure look great!

Thaaaanks. And there's way more coming!

Gatlag Stonetooth wrote:

Must be great to have a group of 6 persons playing games like this. I'm still trying to pull my friends into the miniature wargaming...
Is Infinity multiplayer?

Yeah, I didn't expect all the guys to jump in like that. Only two or three of them will be playing regularly, though. It's too bad, you don't live a little closer by. Although the Americans will prolly laugh at us, considering you're probably only an hour away. Remember, guys, that in Europe we pay the same for a litre of fuel, as you guys pay for a GALLON! So it's most a financial story...

As far as I know, Infinity is not multiplayer. I'm sure there's ways to remedy that, though.

To keep your appetite wet: some pics of my WIP Nomads:

Haha think they'll indeed laugh at us!

More sweet models! The first one is my favorite, great pose!

I put some more models together and primed them in a new way: black first, then white from an angle. That way you get shading AND a white basecoat for bright colors.

Hmm looks like a very effective way of priming!

Very interesting looking models. How do you find them to paint? Is it slow with all the detail and rounded surfaces?

When you take your next pictures could you take some pictures with 40k models so we can see the scale a bit more. Thanks!

The models look gorgeous - excellent detail. The primer shading works - but you need really thin coats of light colours to make it work. Hope it works out!

I just recently learned about using a white dusting to give a directional shadow from a post by Ali McVey

http://studiomcvey.com/forums/index.php?/topic/832-strain-revenant-basic-paint/

Those are neat looking models though! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

I could get half my strain models done in one session at that rate - I'll definitely be trying that out. My vanguard have taken about two days each so far.
Great find Rhuntar!

Narcissus wrote:

Very interesting looking models. How do you find them to paint? Is it slow with all the detail and rounded surfaces?

When you take your next pictures could you take some pictures with 40k models so we can see the scale a bit more. Thanks!

The models are actually smaller, than you would expect. Which has kind of scaled up our terrain - unexpected, but it works out pretty nicely in terms of: "Oh, that's a BIG building!"

The painting is sure something different from painting 40k. As you say, the rounded surfaces are a total b*tch and take forever. I try to manage with my limited blending skills: the relatively rough highlighting I used on my IG simply doesn't do on these babies. And then there's the insane amount of detail. It's up there with FW, for sure.

That all being said:

Laney wrote:

The models look gorgeous - excellent detail. The primer shading works - but you need really thin coats of light colours to make it work. Hope it works out!

Yes, the models are very, very pretty. Even if they require a little more skill (I have never seen so many butchered models as on Infinity blogs and forums, LOL), they are a joy to paint.

I'll keep you guys posted!

Are they all metal for the infantry sized models or are some resin?

Infinity is 100% metal.

As to the size comparison: