Miniatures Monday - Works in Progress and Step-by-step links

Some miniatures in various states of completion

This week for Miniatures Monday, I thought that I would do something a bit different and show some works in progress.  The stage where a miniature is partially painted is one of the most challenging for me.  When the miniature is just being prepped, I generally have an idea in my mind about what it will look like.  Midway through painting though, I often find that nothing seems to look right.  I tend to lose a bit of my initial vision and start to worry that the miniature is going to look bad.  The key here is just to push on.  A few weeks ago, I had been working on a miniature for a friend of mine and had become convinced that the end result were going to be bad.  Nothing seemed to be going as planned, but then I got to the shading and highlighting stage and everything came together resulting in a pretty nice miniature.
For those of you who might be interested in my painting process, I'm including links to a step-by-step series on a Thrud the Barbarian miniature that I did back in 2012.  It takes you from preparation through sealing and shows how the miniature develops throughout the process.

Step 1: Preparation
Step 2: Assembly and Basing
Step 3: Priming
Step 4: Painting
Step 5: Shading
Step 6: Highlighting and Sealing

While my painting skills have improved since 2012, my painting process remains essentially unchanged.