Painting challenge entry 2: Infinity Nomads

After a short break it's time for my second entry to Curt's painting challenge. A bit under 2 weeks on the painting table for 4 minis is an embarrassingly long time especially considering that they did get paint on them nearly every day.

The minis are 3 Alguaciles and a Mobile Brigada from the Nomad faction of Infinity. They came with the new Operation Icestorm starter pack that Corvus Belli released this Autumn. I'd been looking at some of the great looking minis for a few years now and as it's been getting very popular at my club the start box offered a great excuse to get in the game. I was also supposed to submit their counterparts from the PanOceania faction, but I messed up some edge highlights and in combination with frustration from trying to paint up all the details they went to the back of the queue until I gather more motivation.

I did have a couple of Infinity minis already before this, but never really got around to buying more before this. Even the older ones were of great quality, but these guys really are the best 28mm miniatures I've seen quality and detail wise. Designing the miniatures on a computer and then producing masters with 3D printing does yield amazing potential. But it does have a downside as these are already being borderline too detailed for gaming miniatures.

Of course there is no need to paint all the tiny details if you don't want to, but hell seeing the amazing work by Angel Giraldez awoke the inner perfectionist in me and I had to give it a try. After days of cursing after trying to create perfect blended highlights etc. I finally gave up and came to my senses when I had started individually highlighting all the tiny hexagons on the underarmor of the Mobile Brigada. It probably would have looked great and I might actually have managed it given enough time, but my sanity would probably have gone with it. In the end I went for something a lot easier and just decided to use drybrushing to pick out all the black details.

I did the preliminary painting with an airbrush applying a dark red basecoat followed by a few layers of lighter highlights to give smooth transitions especially on the armor. This was followed up by painting some stronger highlights by brush especially on the cloth areas on the Alguaciles and applying edge highlighting with ivory paint on the armor. As mentioned before I started trying to do smooth blended highlights on the black parts which inevitably lead to much cursing and finally resorting to an easy way out with a few successive drybrushed layers followed by a black wash to pick out detail.

The bases came from Micro Art Studio's Hangar and Warehouse lines. Should be quite suitable for the Nomads who are a faction that lives on three giant spaceships. Simple paint jobs on them followed by the application of some pigments to give a bit of variety before pinning the models on bases. Finally I decided to paint a 180 degree front sector on them to make it clear where the model is looking during gaming.

They were pretty tricky to photograph as there's quite a lot of blackish and dark areas on them and trying to bring out things lead to some areas maybe being a bit burnt out which hides some of the detail. Might have to figure out some other background for these miniatures. Or then learn to photoshop better :)

Next the German invasion of Soviet Union continues with the core of the Panzerschützen Company being about half done at the moment. I'm also planning to submit a plane for the next Fortnight Challenge. I now just need to source some suitable stand to use it as support for my Bolt Action forces.