Chaos Cultist completed

Happy Tuesday, everyone.  Just barely Tuesday, but Tuesday nevertheless at least in my time zone! I finished up the cultist, adding the weathering pigments and some blood splatter along with a few touch ups.  The base is plain, since the recipient will be basing it on his own.

I have started back upon Kristianna, but the first sketching for the freehand are...uhhh...rough.  Not pleased at all with it at the point, bit hopefully with some patience, I can get it more to my liking.  Depending on how things go, I'll finish her up this week and move on to the next project.  I'm starting to get the itch for another display base, so I anticipate that will be next on the docket.  Have a good week!

Ahh, one more thing.  I created a Facebook page dedicated just to my miniature hobby--it's just another venue to display what I am working on at the moment.  The content will largely be identical to what is here, especially from the miniature standpoint.  I will probably keep any new tutorials here, along with the charity stuff and random musings.  Feel free to give me a like if you enjoy what you see.  The page is at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jabberwocky-Miniatures/188327428038989

Completed Hound of Judgement

Well, it took me a bit longer than anticipated, but I finally finished up the hound.  The base was left intentionally plain as the guy I am painting it for has some static grass across all his bases and I left that last part of the basing to him.  The insignia on the flank of the hound was one of his design and again is present across all the units in his army--I think it is pretty cool looking. I tried to add a bit of flesh color to the white--it's tough to capture in the pic and will be next to impossible to see on the gaming table, but I know it's there. :)

This past weekend was a very good one for competition miniature painting.  The Polish competition, Hussar 2013, is done and dusted.  The quality there looks outstanding by all accounts.  Congrats to Stefan Johnnson for the win!

Martin Goumaz (Dreamit Miniatures) took home the Slayer Sword with a wonderful skeleton at the Italian GW.  Much controversy ensued, but it does often after each GW... Congratulations, Martin!

New job and a completed mummy

I was finally able to finish up the mummy.  This one will be primarily for the tabletop, so I didn't spend a long, long time on him.  That being said, I paint slowly, so there was a good eight hours into him.  I wanted to play a bit with OSL as well.  It was marginally successful, I think.  I like the eyes but am less satisfied with the hand.  The skin tones were done with Reaper Master Series Dark Skin as a base, shaded with RMS Green Liner/Dark Skin then highlighted initially with RMS Tanned Skin and finally top highlights with RMS Palomino Gold.  I kept the top highlights relatively subdued as I imagined him dusty and dull without the reflective sheen of healthy skin.  The white on the wrap was based with VMC Deck Tan, shaded with RMS Bone Shadow, and highlighted with RMS Leather White and VMC Ivory.  I think I got a nice "natural" white recipe and will probably use that on the white uniform for the French infantryman.  Thanks to DPowell over at WaMP for his article on various ways to do white.  Let me know if you are interested in the recipes for any of the other parts and I would be happy to supply those.

 

 

In other personal news, I have taken a position as one of the proofers for Figure Painter Magazine.  I love the magazine and was pleased to have been asked to proof the articles prior to publication.  I am very excited about it!  Let me know if I missed anything in the next issue of FPM ;).  Unfortunately, this may impact my frequency of posting here, but we shall see...

Portal Day!

The latest edition of Portal magazine is out!  There are some great looking pieces in there as always as well as some miniature reviews and a pair of excellent instructional articles to boot.  Good stuff!  Be sure to take a moment to download it at http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/downloads.php?do=file&id=36.

I also took some additional photos of another one of my Reaper Con entries.  I tried to photograph it on a black background to show off the OSL of the smoldering embers, but I couldn't get it to come out entirely accurate.  In the hand, the shadows are not quite so strong.  It does add some mood to the piece, which I was trying to accomplish with my painting.

 

 

 



Something NEW?!

Yes, it's true!  The paint room is nearly assembled and the blog is up and running.  I've started out with a bit of conversion work, just for the fun of it.  I was fortunate to win a WH 40K CSM battle box a while back and have slowly been getting them off the sprues and assembling them.  I've always liked Nurgle for the conversion possibilities.  A few years ago I did a squad of old school metal plague marines and their lord:

I have started another 7 man squad and am planning to stick with the plague marine look; bloated bellies with tubes here and there.  Still have some scratches to do as well as add the shoulder guards.  Depending on my attention span, I may add some GS buboes/pustules or some more tentacles.

Finally a warm welcome to MinipainterJen!  Her blog can be found at http://minipainterjen.blogspot.com/.  She has been blogging since late in 2012 and covers a wide range of topics.  This month alone, she has painted a Reaper ghostly feminine figure, a GW tank, and a Dark Sword assassin.  The other thing I like (and will hope to mimic) is that she is constantly experimenting.  She puts both her successes and failures, as well as her thoughts as to why they were successes or failures out there for the rest of the web to learn from.  Well worth a look!

Last of the tutorials

Ok, so I've caught up on all my old tutorials.  There are a couple more in the pipeline, but you'll have to wait on those.  I've also added a charitable projects tab.  I'll add and remove to that as projects come and go.  If there is something going on that I have not listed, let me know and I'll be happy to put it up on the page.

Finally, one more blast from the past. 

 

 

This is a miniature I painted for my wife a few years ago.  It is Reaper's Jolie, the scribe.  The scroll was scratch built and it was my first go at a marbled floor.  The Korean in the book means "wisdom".

 

 

The parade of tutorials continues and Blog Tuesday

Good morning everyone.  I hope you all survived your Mondays without much difficulty.  I've added another small tutorial to that section.  I have one more to go after that and the parade will be over.  I'm in the process of moving the paint station around; I'm moving to another room in the house.  It's a lateral move--a bit less space overall, but more sun.  Depending on how long that takes, I may or may not get the last tutorial up tomorrow.

Here's another of my favorite pieces from the past.  The skeleton pirate is from Reaper's Warlord miniatures game and belongs to the Razig faction.

 

 

 

I am also planning on making every Tuesday the day in which I highlight another blog.  These are places I've come across and enjoy visiting.  The vast majority of them will be painting blogs, but occassionally I highlight some gaming blogs or anything else that gets my attention.

 

Today's blog is from a great chap named Inso.  He is a man of many talents!  He paints like a a madman and can crank out pieces with amazing rapidity.  He is also a sculptor and has put up a piece for the Goblinaid campaign.  His Grymm conversions are excellent.  Rumor has it he can sing as well...  Congratulations to him as well on getting a piece casted up as well, which can be found at Grekwood Miniatures at http://www.grekwoodminiatures.co.uk/index.php.  He sculpted the "Grekwood in a Fez" model, and a portion of the sale of his miniature will go to a charitable cause; take a look!  You can find his blog at http://insosworld.blogspot.com/.  He also has a second blog that catalogues his love for all things Grymm: http://grymnoutthere.blogspot.com/.

Another EFS tutorial added

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  The pictures are beginning to roll in from the Duke of Bavaria event, and as you might expect, there are some impressive and inspirational pieces out there.  If you troll through the blog roll, you'll see some folks that have posted their experiences.

I've added another EFS miniature tutorial to the tutorials page.  I think there will be two or three more tutorials that I have done previously and I'll be caught up there.  I have one tutorial not yet finished, but hopefully will be getting started on this month.

Here is another of my older pieces that I like very much.  This was a gift for my youngest daughter on her second birthday.

 

 



Another tutorial!

One more tutorial is up and running.  This is one of my older ones, but it was one of the turning points in my painting.  I prefer this style of true metallic painting (TMM).  It was pioneered (at least in my mind) by Seb Archer, also known as Automaton over at CMoN.  This tutorial summarizes my technique in a six step process. 

Welcome to my two new followers, Precinct Omega and Fabio Vollono!  I hope you enjoy your stay here and find some useful bits of information visiting here.  Precinct Omega is a great little operation in the UK.  He runs One Pound Wargames.  Check out his site here: http://precinctomega.co.uk/.  Fabio is there anything I can plug for you? 

For a bit of eye candy, here is a zombie I painted up earlier this year for WaMP's Red Box Games online contest.  I've always loved this pack of models sculpted by Tre Manor--they really capture the broken, shuffling gait of the dead to me.

Happy Star Wars Day!  A warm welcome to two new followers, Nissiana and Sanael!

I added another tutorial to that section.  It is an older one in which I did a detailed step by step of a wonder Eastern Front Studios sculpt.  A number of the pics are rather small and I apologize for that; the transition to the blog format shrunk them and I'm trying to figure out how to get them bigger again.

I hope my European friends are enjoying the Duke of Bavaria painting contest as well as IV Concurso Modelismo Zaragoza 2013 this weekend.  I look forward to seeing some of the amazing pieces that come out of these contests this year.

Yesterday was my eldest daughter's birthday.  She is a great fan of goblins, so I painted goblin for her again this year:

Have a good weekend everyone!

The work continues...

I'm continuing to add blogs to the list.  I also have gotten a few followers!  Thanks to Zaphod, Inso, Mr. Miniature Heroes, and Master Rozzell for joining me on this little journey.

I've posted up my first tutorial, which is a step by step on the construction of my first display style base.  It was for the Gentleman Scavenger for the Miniature Heroes online contest from a few years ago.  It was great fun doing and really sparked my interest in display basing.  I will be adding more tutorials in the coming days/weeks.  I've also set up the gallery, although it is still under contruction.

I wanted to show a relatively recently completed mini I sent off as a gift to a couple of great folks I met at ReaperCon last month.  I had known Sanael and Nissiana for some time on the Reaper forums, but finally got the opportunity to meet them both at the Con.  They are both active DM's and so I asked if they might have use for a 4 armed Alien-esque critter in their respective campaigns and they did me the honor of giving a home to this little fella.  I hope he serves them well....

Reaper Con and the Blog Highlight

So I've gotten the basics set up--a healthy list of the things I like and the places I go on the web to inspire me.  I encourage you to take a look at the blogs listed as well as a starting list for various miniature makers on our hobby (which I plan to add on to as time goes by).

I am planning on highlighting blogs or artist websites each week.  It will just be a brief overview of the site as well as my humble opinion.  I would like to start with the one site that has provided more inspiration to me than any other; Massive Voodoo.  The site is run by Roman Lappat and Raffaele Picca and I am sure if you are reading this blog, you are familiar with these two gentlemen!  If not, then I strongly encourage you to head over to Massive Voodoo and check it out.  They have a passion for the hobby that is second to none and are so willing to share their knowledge.  I hope on a small scale to recreate their passion in my hometown.  They regularly provide tutorials on various techniques and will occassionally provide other sources of inspiration they have found elsewhere on the web.

Now, a bit about ReaperCon.  Reaper is a miniature maker here in the United States, based in Denton, Texas and has been in the miniature business for quite a while.  They have a broad range of miniatures in the 28mm size and cross a number of genres--fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, pulp, and a bit of the historicals.  They also have a couple of miniature games, the most supported of which is Warlord.  Each year, Reaper opens its doors to the public and has a convention.  I have been twice and thoroughly enjoyed myself both time.  The most recent trip to Denton was a little over a week ago.  What a blast!  I've not been to the larger conventions like GenCon or Adepticon, but ReaperCon is almost more like a reunion than a convention.  It is smaller in size and I think many of the participants come on a yearly basis to get together for some gaming (both RPG and tabletop miniature gaming) as well as painting.  Artists the are employed or freelance for the company often come for the weekend and it is a nice opportunity to meet the painters and sculptors in a more intimate setting.  There are usually a few vendors there as well.  Each year, there are a number of classes taught on various painting techniques, from the basics to intermediate/advanced topics.  The artists employed by Reaper are top shelf and are well recognized within the hobby.

For me, the main draw of the show is the paint contest.  ReaperCon has a dual system for their paint contest; there is an open component as well as a competitive component.  This is one of the things I really like about the Con.  They have an appreciate for the hobby as a whole--you are encourage to bring whatever you would like to be judged in the open component, no matter the size or the producer of the model.  If you want to participate in the competitive component of the competition, all you have to do is paint up a Reaper model and viola' you are entered into the competition.  And what is at stake?  A very nice 12" resin statue of Sophie, the mascot for Reaper.

This year I was fortunate enough to get into 3 classes (they go very quickly!).  Painting Sheer Cloth effects with Rhonda Bender (Wren on the Reaper forums), Lighting and Reflections which is a basic primer on NMM with Laszlo Jakusovszky (producer of the Hot Lead series of DVD's) and Water Effects by Jen Kaufmann (Midnight Lurker on the Reaper forums).  All the classes were excellent and very informative.  My only complaint would be that the rooms themselves were rather chilly and it was difficult to paint when I was shaking!

I entered three pieces this year.  The Dark Carnival diorama, the Drunken Pirate, and Bloodmane.  I was very fortunate to receive a gold medal for the Dark Carnival piece and a silver medal for the Drunken Pirate.  I was also quite stunned to be named runner up for the Best in Show as well the Best in Show for a Reaper piece.  It was a moment I'll never forget!  I was speechless for quite some time afterwards.

 

 

 

 

Thank you to all the wonderful folks at Reaper. I hope to attend next year as well.  Time will tell, but I'm already making plans.

If you have the opportunity to attend ReaperCon, I hope you take it!  It is an amazing experience.