Lava!

I've done some preliminary work on the lava base--the flows coming out of the base are just blocked in and of course I've not done any OSL as of yet.  I do like the how the main body of lava is coming along.  It's still a bit orangey, but not bad for my first attempt.

I don't do it nearly justice, but this is based roughly on Ana's tutorial over at her blog: http://paintingmum.blogspot.com/2011/09/lava-for-vulkan-tutorial.html

Blog Tuesday and a bit of basework

This week I'd like to mention a great blog from France.  It was started in 2008 and is very much a fan of the Warhammer 40k universe.  There are some amazing conversions and the painting is top notch.  I encourage you to take a look if you are a fan of the grimdark future of mankind!  http://leskouzes.blogspot.com/

I've also started on the base for the hound.  It's in its early stages yet, but you can see the general form.  I started out relatively light with RMS Weathered Stone.  I've done the highlighting with Leather White and some preliminary coloring with Russet Brown and RMS Blue Liner, but will be taking it considerably darker toward the end.  All the black bits will eventually be lava.

The hound continued...

It's been a slow painting week thus far, but I have been busy with the display base for the hound.  Tonight I was able to get a bit more done on him.  I decided to outline each of the horns with a lava effect which will help to set the horns off from the skin.  I've also elected to go with a blue-black for the skin to separate it from the horns which will be more of neutral black.  I should get some work done on the base this week as well.  It's got nothing but primer at the moment.

I'd encourage you to take a peek at this month's Portal issue.  Another good month and well worth a look.  It's got a nice article on skin tones by DPowell and a pair of interviews with a couple of stellar painters, Scott Hockley and Daniel Gutl:  http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/downloads.php?do=file&id=37

Blog Tuesday

Well another week as rolled by!  Congratulations the winners at the 2013 Spring Angel event in Moscow.  By all reports the level of painting was outstanding!  I'll be looking forward to the pics popping up at CMoN, but in the meanwhile some preliminary stuff is beginning to appear.  The biggest collection of links I've found so far is over at Masterminis-- http://masterminis.blogspot.com/2013/06/spring-angel-2013-paintingbuddha-travel.html

The winner of best in show at this event was Dmitry Fesechko with a beautiful diorama piece entitled "Surprise".  I was able to locate his website which has a large gallery of his works.  He paints a broad range of miniature subjects; fantasy, sci-fi, historicals and busts, as well as more traditional painting and digital art.  His website can be found here: http://fesechko.com/en/news/.  Check it out, be amazed, and do not break your brushes after seeing his work!

Congratulations to Tre Manor on hitting the goal and then some on his recent kickstarter.  I caved in the end and bought in as well.  I was able to restrain myself somewhat, but will be looking forward to seeing what he can sculpt up.

I also elected to lend my brush to the new Bloggers for Charity campaign.  The details are getting sorted out, but I'll be giving the historical side of the hobby a go for the first time.  Quite a while back, I had picked up one of Thunderbolt Mountain's French and Indian War pieces, but never got anywhere with it.  That's changed!  This one will warm me up for the Bloggers pieces and will also serve as a break for my work on the hound.  Not terribly much more than a basecoat except on the face at this point, but here's where I am at after an evening's work:

Happy Father's Day

I hope everyone is having a good Father's Day.  I have to work this afternoon, but have had a quiet morning while the family is out at church.  I think for me there is no greater gift than a bit of silence and some time to enjoy painting.  Much better than a tie!  I'm getting there on the hound.  I'm really beginning to like the look of him.  I think I will need to modify the horns, though.  The black on black just not going to work on the head and feet.  I had not planned to originally, but I think I am going to stick him on a fancier lava base so that I can continue to play with OSL as well as some crackle medium and perhaps some water effects for a splashing lava look.

More talk, less paint

Just a quick heads up that Figure Painter Magazine issue number 2 is out!  They have expanded the content and it has a number of tutorials this time around as well as loads of great models.

Good luck to all the participants in the Spring Angel event in Moscow this weekend.  I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of that competition!

Finally, I came across another charity which I have added to my charitable events page.  This is a US based event that stemmed out of the a grow con here in Washington, DC.  The NOVA open was started several years ago and has rapidly grown in size.  A group of gamers/painters decided to put together a foundation in conjunction with this event.  This year, they are doing a raffle of three armies (Dark Angels, Necron, and Khador) to raise funds for Doctors without Borders, The Fischer House Foundation which provides assistance to military families, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  You can purchase the raffle tickets through their website and don't have to be present to win!  Check it out at http://novaopenfoundation.org/.

Less talk, more paint

The title says it all!  More of the same on the body and tail.  I broke down and ordered some fluorescent colors from Vallejo which should be arriving any day.  I'll be using those on the face and mouth to see if I can up the brightness there.

Another week rolls on

Good morning!  It's Tuesday and time for another blog highlight.  Today I'd like to highlight the blog of Nico Blomme.  He is a Dutch artist and is outstanding at dioramas!  From what I have seen on his site, he focuses on the historical side of the hobby.  He has great attention to detail on these pieces.  As you can imagine, they take some time to complete, but are well worth the wait.  Take a look at http://thedioramaworld.blogspot.com/.

On the news front, there are several kickstarters going these days.  I've been following Tre Manor's Red Box Games restart.  This time round he is working on goblins, dwarves, and orcs.  You can find his kickstarter here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1103158358/red-box-games-dwarves-and-goblins-and-orcs-oh-my  He's met the goal and now the backers are just waiting to see who else jumps on board.  It's always fun to see what stretch goals are planned.  Only five days left in this one, so time is short if you want in.

Wargods Olympus is also running and is fairly early on yet.  They started out hot and rapidly met their goal and have crossed a few of the stretch goals already as well.  This kickstarter is an expansion of Chris Fitzpatrick's Wargods Aegyptus,  which is focusing in on the Greek mythology this time around.  He's got some good looking sculpts.  I've not played the game myself, but I have heard it has good mechanics.  This one is at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1820979427/wargods-of-olympus-mythology-miniature-battle-game?ref=live

Finally, a local guy here in Kansas City has been working on a miniature range called Freeblades and has enlisted the sculpting talent of Gael Goumon, Patrick Keith, and Chris Jackson to expand his line of miniatures.  It's a small operation, but they have already done quite a few miniatures.  The complete line up to this point can be found at http://www.dgsgames.com./.  Here is the kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dgsgames/freeblades-fantasy-miniatures-falkaaran-adventurer?ref=live.  Support him if you can!

I've managed a bit more on the hound.  More of the initial cracking on the tail and legs.  I got tired of doing that, so I put in some initial work on the mane as well.  I put some gloss varnish on the horns to see if I could quickly get a polished obsidian look to them.  Still haven't decided if I will keep that part, but at least I can see where I should put the sharp highlights :).

Finally, I would like to give a huge thanks to Ian Newbold!  As you may recall, I have mentioned him in the past for his charitable work.  He recently completed the first Creative Challenge for 2013.  I am excited that he has decided to create a gallery showcasing some of my works that he likes!  He has an ongoing gallery of quite a number of artists in the hobby and I am truly honored that he asked me to join the ranks.  Thank you Ian!

Quick step by step

Now that the goblin is done and dusted, I've turned my full attention to the hound.  Here's a quick step by step on how I am doing to cracked, lava skin.  Nothing ground breaking here, just applied to a model I've not seen it done on before.

Over a black basecoat, I laid out my initial cracks.  I used VMC Ivory here, which I've found does a good job of covering black without have to put it down 15 times.  As you can see, the initial pass just get everything roughly in place.  I then went back and thinned down the cracks a bit to get them sharper and and more to the scale I was going after.  The Ivory also provides a nice base to work the red/orange/yellow off of.  Trying to get it bright over black would be tough.

 

Next I added RMC Big Top Red.  It's a nice, dark red, but unfortunately I think might have only been available during ReaperCon this year.  I followed this up by covering nearly everything with RMC Magma Red which is a nice bright orangy-red.  I finished this by once again thinning and sharpening the lines.

 

 

 

Now we start to really get that hot lava look that I am shooting for.  I took some RMS Lava Orange (good choice, eh?) and picked out some of the hotter areas.  I then took some Reaper Pro Paint Sunlight Yellow and picked out some smaller areas and finally VMC white for the brightest hotspots.

I think this comes off nicely, but I would be interested to see the same effect with some of those fluorescent pigments/paints out there.

 

 

 

 

I've got more cracking to do and will be extending it further down the legs, up towards the head and onto the tail as well, but I wanted to get this out for you all to see.

 



 

 

 





Shadow Goblin finished!

I finally finished up the 3rd of my Shadow goblins last night.  As always, there could be more to touch up and tweak, but I like him overall.

 

 

As usual, I've tossed up on CMoN.  I'd appreciate a vote if you have the inclination. http://www.coolminiornot.com/334108

I also was trolling through the web and came across a blog that I will be referring to many times in the future, I hope.  It is called Bloggers for Charity and is the brainchild of James Brewerton.  He will be joined by 3 others to organize a charity event for two causes; Men Matter, a male cancer awareness charity and Help for Heroes, a charity that supports the service men and women and their families that have been wounded in the line of duty.

They will be painting an couple of armies to recreate the Battle of La Belle Famille during the French and Indian War.  They will be accepting donations during the year and are looking for help in other capacities as well, especially in the painting category.  The battle will be recreated at Triples 2014 and the figures will be sold off with all the proceeds going to these two charities.  If you are interested in helping out or just following along, you can find them at http://bloggersforcharity.blogspot.com/

James is also celebrating 3 years of blogging on his site as well.  He's got some nice giveaways if you pop in and comment.  You can find it blog here: http://exilespainting.blogspot.com/2013/05/blog-3rd-anniversary-prize-draw-12th.html?showComment=1370503040700#c4221571153717533497

Is it Tuesday already?

Wow, last week sure went by fast.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of painting done this week, although I made some progress on the goblin and the hound (more on that later).  I've also done some prep work on The Hound from Darksword miniatures.

Welcome to the two newest members, Talespinner and Quidamcorvus!

Talespinner has been a long time forum friend over at the Reaper forums that I had the great pleasure of meeting at Reaper Con this year.  He is an excellent painter, but over the past couple of years has turned his attention to the sculpting side of the hobby and is now one of the up and coming sculptors in the industry, getting a number of his pieces picked up by Reaper.  He is also available for some free lance work I believe and can be found at his website at http://www.talespinnerminis.com/.

Quidamcorvus is a prolific painter from Poland.  He favors GW fantasy from what I have seen over at his website.  He is also working on a modification of Warhammer Fantasy by GW in which he takes the combatants to the skirmish level in a fashion similar to Mordheim.  He calls this new mixture Warheim Fantasy Skirmish.  Very cool!  Be sure and check out his blog at http://quidamcorvus.blogspot.com/

What else...Wyrd has released it's 6th issue of the Wyrd Chronicles.  Another fine issue with lots of fluff and another stellar painting article by Mark Rodgers.  You can find it here: http://www.malifaux.com/Downloads.php

The folks over at Platoon Britannica are starting another contest.  This one is called "Heresy be Dragons" and will be to support Heresy Miniatures.  You can find out all the details at http://www.platoonbritannica.com/index.php?threads/heresy-be-dragons-the-rules.2837/#post-47184

Now for my blog of the week by one Mr. James Wappel.  I stumbled across this blog earlier this year and it rapidly became one of my favorites.  Mr. Wappel is an multi award winner painter that began as a 2D artist that made the transition to miniatures.  He is an extraordinarily fast painter (and blogger for that matter!).  He loves to teach and his blog is loaded with quick how-to's as he goes along.  He will post nearly daily and not infrequently several times a day.  He finished up a kickstarter earlier this year and should be putting out a series of painting DVD's on a wide range of topics.  He is well worth a visit and can be found at http://wappellious.blogspot.com/

So what I have I been up to this past week?  Like I said, not painting as much as I would like, but did make some more progress on the goblin.  Here is the final WIP, I think.

 

 

A few more touch ups here and there, perhaps another highlight and a bit more work on the base and he'll be done.

 

I've also done a bit more freehand on the hound.  You can see I put down the cracks initially in VMC Ivory.  I find that the Ivory covers well over black in just a couple of passes and it makes it much easier to put down the subsequent red/orange/yellow.