Miniature Painting, Comic Style, Digital Sculpting – The Art of Mike Cousins

What Epic Duck Studios does

Luke Skywalker, Limited Edition, Star Wars Legion

Miniature Painting

Whether you need to put an army on the table, or want your D&D character brought to life, you’ve come to the right place. I offer painting services for single miniatures, small squads and larger projects.

Mike Teaching Comic Style Painting at Adepticon 2019

Teaching

Through live shows on Twitch.tv and tutorials on YouTube, I love teaching others how to paint their miniatures well. As COVID restrictions allow, I’ll resume in-person teaching at venues such as Adepticon and Gencon.

Sculpting & Design

Using both traditional materials and digital sculpting, I’ve brought miniatures to life for myself, my customers and game publishers. I bring my years of experience as a painter to the task, creating miniatures people want to paint.

Miniature Painting

Attention to Detail

Let me tackle the hard stuff.

While I truly love to help people paint their own armies, I also realize that there’s times when you might want something done that’s beyond your reach. Maybe it’s a special character that you really want to stand out among your forces, or a favorite Pathfinder character that you want brought to life. Whatever the case may be, I hope you’ll reach out to me for a free quote for your detailed painting needs!

Death Archon

Hobby Instruction

Live Shows, Classes, and Private Coaching

Painting miniatures is a joy for me, something I do to relax and unwind – at times it feels more like meditation than work!  However, I know that painting minis can be a daunting task, especially if you’re new to the hobby.  Don’t worry though, I’m here to help!

During my live shows on Twitch, I focus on my personal and commissions projects while helping viewers with their own painting challenges. My Twitch shows are a great place to get feedback and advice on what you’re working on, and chat with other hobbyists all over the world!

With my YouTube videos, I try to break down the process of painting good-looking miniatures into smaller bite-sized tasks to help you get the results you want.

Sculpting & Creating

Highly Paintable Miniatures and more

There’s been a trend in recent years, where the amount of fiddly detail on many mainstream miniatures has been cranked up to 11. While this makes for gorgeous minis, it also slows down painting time and can make the painting experience even more daunting for newcomers.

When I design a miniature, I do it with my years of painting experience in mind; I continually ask myself if I’ll actually enjoy painting it, or if it will just seem tedious. Usually, I also ask myself something more important: what can a new painter learn or practice with this miniature? I like to use simple geometric shapes so my creations feel familiar, and add minimal superfluous detail, so that they feel like a blank canvas.

While I can’t always design with these constraints, the fun of the painting experience is always in the forefront of my mind.

Beyond Sculpting, I’ve also branched into creating other gaming products, both under my own brand and for other companies, such as the Sundered Badlands gaming mat I designed for Black Site Studio, for use with Relicblade. I bring my zeal for simple, joyful design and comic-inspired art to my work, which gives many of my creations a unique, hand-illustrated sort of feel.

When designing this mat, I began by first sketching a full-scale black-and-white replica on paper first to lay out the major elements, regularly comparing them to actual miniatures to ensure everything just felt right. I don’t do things by half measures!