Cramming another in...

Well. Work for the year is nearly over, and soon it will be time to switch off the alarm clock and hope that the little one sleep beyond 6.30am! I am fully looking forward to some high quality family time, some nice food and drink, and hopefully to catch up/chill with some friends too.
Ideally I would like to do a bit of a 12 month summary between now and New Year, but more of that when it happens ;)

Before all that I have some recent progress to show, and also a look at what I have got planned to put together and paint between now and the spring, when I come out of the cave for my first planned show of 2015, which is Salute.

First up, the Kingdom Death Visionaries vignette is finished and photographed. I've named it "Onwards and Upwards", which is partly reference to the story in the piece of the boy leading the girl forwards towards the eerie green light, and most likely their doom. It is probably also a bit of a point to myself to look positively to 2015.

Here are some finished shots...

I'm pretty pleased with the final look of this piece as a whole. I've kind of deliberately left some of the brushwork a little "loose" at times, and then sharpened the more important details, and I'm particularly pleased with the warmer glow of the two lanterns. All in all it just about looks like what I intended in my head, so it's all good!

You can see a few more views in the Putty & Paint page - LINKY - and there's a big montage on Coolminiornot too - LINKY 2


The other Kingdom Death piece that has been on the desk is the Lion God, who has so far still only been worked on with the airbrush. I've enjoyed messing around with consistencies to create glazes, particularly with inks. I am quite looking forward to getting the actual brush onto him, but doing so much with the airbrush sees so much more progress, and should hopefully mean that I'll have just the detailing, final highlights and shades, plus maybe adding some additional points of interest. Whatever I do, this is a superb (and of course weird) sculpt to paint...

I may or may not keep working on him exclusively in the short term, but I've been rummaging in the box of unpainted toys and decided on the next two that I shall definitely work on. In an odd coincidence it appears that I've gone for two randomly apostrophe strewn sculpts in M'Dusa - a soon to be released Seb Archer sculpt for Twisted Games that I was given at Salute this year; and Shido'ni - a one-off sculpt by Christian Hardy...

Both should be reasonably challenging "technical" paint jobs, because both have plenty of really intricate details.
M'Dusa I've not decided on a scheme yet, but I'm thinking of a luxuriant red or purple in there somewhere. Shido'ni will be more sandy colours, I think. I will also probably look at putting goggle marks on her face, as she is carrying a set in her hand. O-O

After these two, I have 3 pieces in mind that I am quite excited about. All 3 are slightly larger scale and fairly different too.
The first is a very different take on a Wood Elf, by Carmine Giugliano...

You can see more views here - LINKY

The next is Sergeant Blackart's Kate...

More on her HERE

And finally, Blacksmith Miniatures' Clio & Erato piece, which I am particularly looking forward to, plus they are running a Facebook competition for painted versions of them, so I've tagged onto that too...

Find them here - LINKY

That's about all for this instalment, other than to say to keep an eye out for FIGURE PAINTER MAGAZINE's next release in the next few days, as there is an interview with yours truly. Oh, and look out for the next Kingdom Death news letter (and their gallery page), as I think that there may be another pinup article (or two, or three!!)

So, for now, Happy Time Off Time! I'm gonna go practice my sleeping ready for next week! ^_^

Slow steps towards 2015...

Hopefully this won't be my last episode before the time of turkey, toys and alcohol, but if it is... Happy Christmas and all that. Hope that you get lots of lovely stuff and get lovely and stuffed too! ^_^

I suspect that this year won't be bringing me any mini related stuff, but I'm happy with that because I'm sure that I have too much as it is! That said though, a recent visit to IKEA led me to eye spy some new display cabinets to rival the classic Detolf, all glass ones. The new ones are called Nornas, I've linked the single one, but there is also a double and some smaller wall box type ones. I feel some home improvements coming on!

In terms of minis, I've been a little off course just lately. Various illnesses for the family and myself have left me tired, the current season of Walking Dead had its mid-run finale (too much drama), Xmas shopping and so on, have all kept me away from the table or dampened the enthusiasm a touch. Oh, and I've taken up pilates too, cos I'm fed up with getting stupid back, hip and shoulder niggles all of the time...

As a result, I've obviously not made all that much progress. The Lion God hasn't moved on at all, so there's nothing to show there. The Visionaries vignette I was hoping to have complete by now has progressed, but there's a good few hours to go with it yet...

What I can also now show though is another of the Kingdom Death Pinups that I did a few months back with its accompanying article. This was perhaps the most recognisable of KD's models, the Twilight Knight Pinup (aka Alison)...

 

The article can be found here - LINKY 1

And further images can be found in my P&P gallery - LINKY 2 - and my CMON gallery too - LINKY 3

She was great fun to paint, and I went a little extra blingy with the remodelled sword that comes with the plastic version (it matches the Twilight sword of the male sculpt). I've painted her in the past too as a larger sculpt, so she was fun to revisit and see what progress I may have made...

Other than that, I've just completed an interview for Figure Painter Magazine, so keep an eye out for that, though I'm sure I'll mention it again when it comes out! ^o^

So, for now, keep warm, enjoy the works xmas parties, the booze and the food binges.

Cheers!