Something new, something old

I always have trouble finishing up the last part of a mini, perhaps the last 5-10%.  So it is with the hound; I'll get to him eventually, but for now I've set him aside.  I've set my eye on a mummy lord from Reaper's Dark Heavens.  I've made some progress on him far, with the stone ruin and desert base getting close to done aside from a bit more shading.  The remainder of him is just basecoated (incompletely...) to get an idea of how the colors are working.  The brown on the wrist bracers and on the head dress will be covered with gold.  I generally will get a fair bit of my non metallic down then "save it" with a shot of dullcoat before proceeding with the metallic.

Next off, a hearty welcome to Don Hans!  Thank you for joining me.  Don is new to the blogosphere as well.  He started off about the same time as I did, just a few months ago.  He has a love for all that is Old School and has a great collection of old Citadel minis that are very nicely painted.  I love seeing old minis get a nice paint job.  Check him out here: http://realmofcitadel.blogspot.com/.

Along those same lines, I came across the revamped website of a guy over at the Reaper forums named Darkstar.  He is a fantastic painter and does some incredible stuff with freehand.  He also is not afraid to shy away from the older sculpts and is currently working his way through a set of old Talisman models. Here is the link to his Tumblr page: http://darkstarminis.tumblr.com/.

Keeping up with the old school theme, I finally like to give everyone a heads up that the Goblin Aid miniatures are finally getting out.  As you may recall, Goblin Aid was a ground roots effort to support Kev Adams who is one of the giants of the sculpting world and is well known for his old school orcs and goblins.  He was severely injured in a home assault earlier this year and the sculpting community came together to create a rather large set of goblin miniatures with the proceeds going to help pay for his medical bills.  The "historical" and "modern" sets of goblins are out and can be purchased here at the Ral Partha Europe store: http://www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk/shop/goblinaid-c-123.html.

One step back, Two steps forward

Hopefully, anyway.

After talking with some of my forum mates, I decided to scale back the cracks on the hound.  Thanks as always for the honest feedback! It was hard to remove such a large portion of the freehand I had spent quite a bit of time on.  However, the pattern was too symmetric and too linear--it might be something that would work well in a sci-fi setting, but as a fantasy creature was too artificial.  I think it looks more natural and am happy with the result.  I may even remove a bit more...

The blacks have two separate highlights to help differentiate them.  The black on the horns and nails is pure black with a sharp, pure white linear highlight to hopefully convey the look of polished obsidian.  The black of the skin is pure black, RMS Blue Liner for the shading and incremental amounts of RMS Ghoul Skin (a gray-green color) mixed with the pure black.  I give a softer look to the highlight.

Good news on the magazine front as well--the next issue of Portal is out and as usual has some great interviews and tutorials.  Take a look: http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/downloads.php?do=file&id=38

I'm baaack!

Had a nice little getaway to see the family and I returned on Sunday and was ready to get back to the blog and brush.  I had a wonderful couple of surprises for me in the mail box when I arrived home.  The first was the Arielle I ordered from Guild of Harmony--she's a new sculpt from the amazing Sebastian Archer.  Arielle is a steampunk version of  Disney's mermaid princess, Ariel.  The detailing on her is incredible!

I was also stunned by one Mr. James Brewerton over at Exiles Wargames Painter blog.  He had run a little celebration contest over at his blog to commemorate 3 years of blogging.  I was fortunate to win a prize.  I selected a group of 28mm historical from the Zulu wars.  I was fully expecting to get some unpainted lead to give the historicals a try in addition to the F&IW piece I had picked up from Thunderbolt Miniatures.  To my great delight, these were PAINTED!  Excellent detail on them and based on heavy 2 pence pieces as well.  Thanks so much to James for his generosity; I was really pleased by these and am looking forward to getting my pieces to paint up for the "Bloggers for Charity" event.

Along those lines, the Goblinaid miniatures are beginning to be released.  The first set of goblins will be the "historicals".  Take a look at them over at Ral Partha Europe: http://www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk/shop/goblinaid-the-historical-ones-c-123_124.html
I think the Napoleonic goblin and the goblin gent are my favorite of the bunch.  I'm planning on purchasing some of these once the various sets are out, but will hold off for now so I can bundle the shipping costs.

One of my readers had asked about a blow up frontal shot on the hound; here you go!

 

 

Not quite as visually pleasing to me.  The lava cracks on the shoulders along with the bright highlights on the facial horns creates a lot of stimulation to look at.

 

Finally, the next issue of Figure Painter Magazine is out!  You can download it here: http://www.figurepaintermagazine.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=33&product_id=54

 

Finally, for you competitors, WaMP is running several contests at the moment.  The most recent is Red Box Games.  Looking forward to seeing what everyone will come up with! http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/showthread.php?t=15887

It's Tuesday!

Hello again!  It will be a quick one today--off to visit family today and will be away from the brushes for most of the coming 7 days.

Here's the nearly completed work on the hound:

I still need to do some additional highlighting on the fur and a few little bits and bobs.  The basework is nearly completed as well:

It has been a good exercise in OSL for me.  Learned quite a bit about detail freehand work as well.  As usual, there are things that I would have done differently, but that's why we practice, right?

Blog wise, this week I would like to direct you to Dave Taylor Miniatures at http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/.  He is an American painter that has been blogging since 2009.  He does both historical work as well as WH 40k.  He does some amazing conversion work and it big on the army painting scene and has been entering the Armies on Parade competition for the past several years.  He has also done some charity work as well, which as you know I am keen on.

Blog Tuesday and a bit of OSL

You won't be seeing me triple post very often, but I wanted to keep my regular schedule with regards to the blog highlight.

This week I've chosen a site that is one of my favorites--Fantasygames.  He is a Polish painter that goes by the trade name C'Tan and has been blogging since 2010.  He is a very talented painter with quite a number of awards to his name.  His primary focus is Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, although his gallery shows Warmachine and Infinity models as well.  He is also very generous with his painting knowledge, which is one of the reasons I like to visit the blog.  He is a commission painter, so check him out at http://fantasygames.com.pl/blog/.

I've begun the initial stages for the OSL on the base as well:

Like a kid in a candy store...(Part two)

As if these two visits from the post man were not enough, I also got a couple of other unexpected surprises.  A friend of mine had gotten interested in playing Warhammer 40k a number of years ago.  I agreed to paint up an army of his choosing.  He didn't have a huge preference and wanted something that a newcomer could play fairly easily and that I would be interested in painting.  We agreed on starting a Nurgle Chaos army.  I painted up the first unit of plague marines and a chaos lord and things stalled out on both ends.  He never got into it, and I quickly discovered how difficult painting an army could be!  I found a tutorial online about magnetizing the rhinos and assigned him the task of magnetizing the various doors and hatches.  This past weekend he gave it back to me with the magnets in place!  He did an outstanding job on it.  I'll need to assemble it and glue it, but it's finally magnetized.

 

Finally, to top it off, I received my plinth from Model Display Products that I was fortunate enough to win for the May/June Facebook page for Figure Painter Magazine.  Martyn Dorey runs the shop there and does an outstanding job.  I've ordered from him before and, in my experience, the service has been top notch.  He communicates very well and gets your items out quickly.  If there is going to be a delay, even for a few days, he'll let you know.  He sells plinths, of course, but also stocks his own line of miniatures called War Griffon Miniatures, which are larger scale (54mm and up) as well as busts.  There also a couple of other lines as well.  He also has a wide range of accessory products for your gaming and miniature needs including but not limited to pigments, Silflor/Mininatur, Vallejo water effects, and magnetic sheets for basing.  Have a look at http://www.modeldisplayproducts.co.uk/.

 

Martyn was also kind enough to toss in one of his display bases on the right.  It is a nice little base of stonework stairs.  Both the plinth and the base are made of resin and are really quite nice.  Solid, very sturdy pieces with no air bubbles I could see.  Quality!  Thanks again for the plinth and the base, Martyn!

 

 

Like a kid in a candy store... (Part One)

After months of patient waiting, I got a number of surprises in the mail this past week.  My eagerly anticipated Massive Voodoo artbook arrived.

 

 

Well worth the wait!  The hardback book is 130 pages filled with high quality photos of Roman Lappat's and Raffaele Picca's miniature work from 2008 through 2012.  Huge amounts of inspiration!  With each piece, they also included a small write up which I very much enjoyed reading.  The second part of the package was the documentary booklet.  It is softback and includes 60 pages of work in progress photos, tutorials, and a massive (pun intended) step by step on Raffaele's Untold Honor, which won the Slayer Sword in Germany in 2012.

 

I also received my box of Reaper Bones!  Well worth the investment as well.  I easily managed to double my miniature horde with the box, much to my wife's chagrin.  I picked up a number of the larger add-ons in addition to the standard vampire pledge.  I'll break them out in the coming days to see how they fit together and make sure I didn't miss anything.

 

 



As if these two visits from the post man were not enough, I also got a couple of other unexpected surprises.  A friend of mine had gotten interested in playing Warhammer 40k a number of years ago.  I agreed to paint up an army of his choosing.  He didn't have a huge preference and wanted something that a newcomer could play fairly easily and that I would be interested in painting.  We agreed on starting a Nurgle Chaos army.  I painted up the first unit of plague marines and a chaos lord and things stalled out on both ends.  He never got into it, and I quickly discovered how difficult painting an army could be!  I found a tutorial online about magnetizing the rhinos and assigned him the task of magnetizing the various doors and hatches.  This past weekend he gave it back to me with the magnets in place!  He did an outstanding job on it.  I'll need to assemble it and glue it, but it's finally magnetized.