Post show busy-ness

OK. The dust has sort of settled post-Salute. For me the show was a bit of a mixture. Dealing with the painting competition side of things, I entered 4 pieces, of which 2 made it onto the finalists table - the Flower Knight and the Architect Pin Up. Neither made it any further though, which was a little disappointing, but I didn't honestly see the models that they were up against because I was extremely busy for the whole day working on the Hasslefree stand. In the end a lot of friends managed to snag awards, so it was all good.
The show itself was mental! So busy, and so much happening. We spent all of Friday afternoon setting up, then had to be in the hall again for 7am on the Saturday morning to finish off ready for the rush at about 10am!
Fortunately the HF gang treated us to a lovely meal at the nearby Ramada hotel's restaurant on the Friday night, and I followed that up with a few cheeky beers with Pete (Avicenna) and Damien (Mister Dee) and a few other painty peeps.
The Hasslefree stand was 3 deep with customers much of the day, but I managed to slip off just before opening to say "hi" to some of the Brindie gang and to the McVeys. On my way back I was accosted by Adam of Demented Games, who cheerily showed me some of his and Seb Archer's painted pieces for their upcoming KS Project called "Twisted", which is a Steampunk world with some familiar looking and sounding characters. Most impressed was I, and all the more so when Adam handed me a pre-release cast of Seb's Crystal Brush gold award winning sculpt M'Dusa that can be seen here - LINKY - so big thanks again to Adam for that. I was great to meet you and all the more impressed as you Twisted lot had been globe trotting to Crystal Brush (Chicago) and Salute (London) from Australia in quick succession!

I don't have much to share in terms of new painted toys this time as I've started on a fairly big commission project. What I can show is the fun little commission that I did for Wamp called "Thugz Bunny"...

It's a quirky little "Marmite" piece, but good fun and obviously seasonal :)

It is also well worth visiting the Wamp store in the link above, as Brett tends to stock some less easy to obtain minis and accessories all in one place. Currently, I believe he has taken stock of some of the new-ish Bombshell line of models, which is a range of pin-ups, sidekicks and just plain bizarre (in a good way) sculpts around 28mm size. Then at the other end of the scale there are a couple of the latest Michael Kontraros sculpts, including his Elf Dragon Prince piece. In between you can find the likes of Studio McVey, Hasslefree, Ax Faction and Guild of Harmony, along with paints, bases, plinths and putties, so make sure that you pop along (tell Brett I sent you! ;p )


















I really ought to get final photos of the Soda Pops piece done, but my photo rig is set up especially for the current project, and so it will have to wait for another day.

In the mean time, and with bunnies in mind, I thought I would pop in a piece that I did a little while back, just before the little one was born - wow! nearly two years already! - which I called "Girrrls Gone Wild"...

 

The piece was an idea I'd had for a while based on those cinema poster/DVD covers that you see for youth gang type films, like Kidulthood and such. So, I built a street corner and populated it with a bunch of mean looking girls from various model companies, with a linking animal costume theme and a similar colour scheme. In the scene there's lots of nods to street artists whose art I really like too. I was really pleased with the final look, and despite not being a project that has won any awards or anything, it is still something that I am very proud of as a fairly unique looking piece.

You can see more views (and put votes in if you like too ^_^ ) in Putty & Paint - HERE

And Coolminiornot - HERE & HERE

The next update is likely to be more musings than new stuff too as work progresses and I take a few days off with the family too :)

It's Showtime...

This past week hasn't exactly gone to plan, following last week's bizarre events which I am still wearing the bruises from. Most significant model related ones though have been a couple of accidents with the base of the Soda Pops walker scene, with PVA dripping out of the bottom 3 or 4 days after assembling the underside (for transporting), and then 3/4 of the black paint on the plinth peeling away with the masking tape because I'd left it on too long! My own stupid fault for not thinking about this sooner and a bit of a pain to put right now. Hopefully it won't show if I take it to the show at the weekend, but I'll review that this evening when I do the big pack up...

I'll do some sort of show report for this weekend, but just as a reminder, I'll be working on the Hasslefree stand at Salute, London Excel on Saturday. I shall put a few pieces in for the big painting competition, but mostly I'll be dashing around the stand as things do tend to get pretty busy. If you see me though, say "Hi". We all wear named T-shirts, and there's only one Scott on the stand ;)

I finally got around to uploading some minis onto my Putty & Paint and Coolminiornot albums this week.

Here's the P&P link, where there is a selection of my better pieces of the past few years and most recent offerings - http://www.puttyandpaint.com/Scott_Hockley - you can also access it from the link on the right of this post if you are on the full desktop version. ^_^

Also, I have uploaded the following to CMON. If you can stop by and pop a vote on, then it would be much appreciated...

 Cassandra

http://www.coolminiornot.com/355231

The Watcher

http://www.coolminiornot.com/355234

Laurie The Archivist

http://www.coolminiornot.com/355232

The Architect Pin Up (from my 1st post)

http://www.coolminiornot.com/355233












I shall most likely submit a couple of these for the Salute competition, but one I definitely will take along is my version of Kingdom Death's Flower Knight...

This is also in both of my albums - CMON link - and is a slight conversion of the Flower Knight where I have added a set of wings from Studio McVey's Ur-Fidyr model. Both sculpts were by Thomas David, so meshing the two together worked almost flawlessly. The build and paint of this model was a long project, but well worth it.

See you at the show! ^_^

Light at the end of the tunnel...

It's been a strange couple of weeks, not least because I seem to have been subjected to numerous personal injuries and accidents of late that have left me a bit worried about sitting at my desk for fear of some terrible Omen-like final tragedy befalling me!
What I have managed to do though is clear the desk of a load of nearly done pieces and get the two main pieces that I've been working on most recently very close to final completion.

The big thing this week that has prompted me to get some of the pieces done was to get some new matt varnish that I can use easily in my airbrush. It would appear that the matt lacquer that I've been using for years, Testor's Dullcote, is soon to be very difficult to obtain here in the UK. So I went on a little mission to find a workable alternative that wasn't going to break the bank. What I bought and have successfully used is Winsor & Newton UV matt varnish, which I picked up from the Range for under £7. A few drops mixed with Tamiya thinners and popped in the airbrush was enough to happily coat a model and due to the speed of drying when using the thinners, I could add a second coat almost immediately. It also gives me much greater control when I want to avoid varnishing metallics or areas that are deliberately glossy. All in all, a happy discovery and a product I would recommend whether you use an airbrush too, or want a decent brush-on varnish. :)

So, armed with said varnish, I needed to finish off Cassandra. The last instalment had me weighing up a couple of options for the base. Originally I had a smooth surface with little electric glows where here feet touched the floor in my head, but while digging in my spares box I found a couple of pieces of leftover parts from old model kits that I thought would suit entirely. One was a broken robot body from an old Statuesque sculpt, and the other was a spare head from the old Kabuki Hellenika sculpt. Stuck the two together and I had one (male) vanquished enemy robot for her base. I quickly cobbled a stone floor together and here is the result...

 

With that built, it is now just a case of drilling out for my transit bolt underneath (for transporting her to shows), creating a plaque, and gluing it all together.

Here are some "final" shots of Cassandra in place, with a few extra details added to the dead robot. The plaque is kind of built and the drilling yet to be done, but this should be done this evening.

 

I also tried out a new background to my photos which make things quite (melo)dramatic!The background was just a free download that I printed onto a piece of A4 paper, which when set far enough back from the model creates a really effective look. In fact, I was so pleased with the new varnish and  back drop that I took the camera to a whole host of models in the cabinet, some of which are already in my various galleries, but some have never been shown in their final forms, so I thought that I would show them off in the next few blog posts while I am busy with commission pieces that I haven't got permission to show yet.

This is one such model...

This is "The Watcher", who is the end of game boss model for basic box of the forthcoming Kingdom Death: Monster game (incidentally, both this sculpt and Cassandra were created by the enviously talented Thomas David). There are in fact several add-on bosses when the game finally drops, and I do have a couple of other models from the game to do.

I have plenty of others to show soon, plus the Soda Pops Walker vignette is nearly done. I was unfortunately too tired to take photos last night when I assembled the scene, but I'll get some decent shots up once I add the accessories and tidy up where I glued it all in.

Oh, and it's just one week until Salute. I'd better get some sleep in! lol ^_^

Friday Fun

Well, the blog makes it into double figures in terms of updates, which is nice, lol. And I haven't resorted to cat pics or llamas yet either. This is encouraging.
The first of my little run of commissions has arrived in the post today, so I had best get some models finished and clear the decks.

With this in mind, I made some real progress on Cassandra last night, working through her skin tones. The idea was to make the skin cool coloured, with plenty of subtle (and not so subtle) hints of the other colours already on the model. This involved quite a lot of glazing and adjusting of the skin colour itself as I went along. I also added a couple of cuts and scrapes to her. I think that there was one as a part of the sculpt on her hip, but that may have been me being careless in the clean up. Speaking of which, I wasn't as meticulous on the mould lines as I should have been, and now I shall need to address that. Just got to decide whether to fill them and paint them, or make a feature of them. I shall also now need to make some final decisions on the base for her.

Anyway, pics...

Shiny shiny

Whilst I have been enjoying this model, it does feel like it has been taking a long time, and that I've not made as much progress. However, with this new update, I think that Cassandra is definitely moving towards her finish.

So, what has been done since the last update? Well, being a sucker for punishment, I've gone a bit all out with the shield by adding some sky-earth type non-metallics to the outside around the fish, and then around the rim on the inside. Further, I then decided to paint on a load of electronic circuitry to the inside of the shield.
I've tidied up the glowing areas (and removed some parts that weren't working around the shield and the little faces in her armour), making them more concentrated and enhancing one or two spots, most specifically the glow of the angler fish' lure, which I'm quite pleased with.
Then, most recently, I've painted the rather provocative spear, with its glowing, erm, business end... lol
Lastly, I've started to sketch in the light and shade of the skin. The intention is for it to be the combination of blue and pale flesh that you see, but obviously blended in better. After that I hope that it will be final tidy ups and final decisions with the base as I am torn between two options which I'll reveal another time.

For now here are the pics...

In other news, I've picked up a couple of commissions in the last week or so. While this is really good for me, it will more than likely mean that I won't be showing off anything without clearance from the clients (one commission will definitely not be shown for a while). And so I'll have to fill the gaps with musings about new releases and some older minis. I also will be working at Salute at the ExCel centre in London on April 12th for Hasslefree miniatures, so I'll try and do some sort of report on the show, with pics of what I succumb to buying! lol

Just keep swimming...

I've not spent as much time at the table as usual in the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure whether it is due to me avoiding finishing the Soda Pops walker scene, tiredness in general, or a bit of a lack of enthusiasm for painting.
One thing that I do feel that I need to do is a little bit of shopping, most specifically for some new brushes. I've been a bit harsh on my brushes lately, and as a result they've not lasted as well as they might usually. I'm also feeling the need for some new paints. I'm looking at maybe picking up some of the new Scale75 paints, which seem to be largely positively reviewed. Also, from the videos that I've seen, they look like they behave well in airbrushes, which is a plus for me.

I shall think on with that, but in the mean time I've been tickling along with Cassandra.

Most of what I had been doing was tightening up parts of the model, but the more I fix, the more I see right now. So I'm going to need to stop "progress" shortly and tidy up the bits that I have done - probably after I decide what to do to the skin, for fear of finishing areas that I then blob skin tones on by accident!

What I have done though is carry on with the metals, making some parts look kind of like chrome (I repeat, kind of...) and add a splash of colour for the helmet...

 Having done this I felt that the red needed a lot more shading and I also added some neon style source lighting, but I'm not so convinced by that at the moment - it will definitely need some fixing up.
However, more progressively I have decided upon the design for her shield. A bit of Google-fu on Hoplites and Ancient Greek shields tended to throw up the same images repeatedly, most of which just weren't suitable for what I wanted to do, particularly as I wanted to somehow incorporate the circle which is on one side of the shield.
A lot of versions of Cassandra that I have seen have erred towards Giger, which is fine as she is a cyborg lady. :)
For me, I was looking at Tron, which is a Disney product, and somehow in the midst of my Googling, I was reminded of another Disney product... Finding Nemo! lol!
And in one scene of the film there is a big scary angler fish that nearly eats Marlin and Dory...

And so, the brain started to play join the dots -> Tron style glowing model + Glowing fish with big eye = A quick sketch and this design was born...

Still plenty to do with the shield yet, but the "difficult" part I am quite pleased with :) 

Ladies, please. One at a time...

Having forged ahead with the walker model, I have been feeling unsure about how much or little to weather the panelling, and particularly whether I really should have done some pre-preparation for the weathering to be "under" the paintwork... This is the perils of not planning the piece ahead enough, but I'll put that down to the fact that this is really the first model of this size that I've attempted in over 15 years.
It shouldn't really be a major issue, as I can do some sponging and fine scratching with sponge, brush and possibly pencil; and then I can add pigments, greasy glazes and such as final effects.

With this crisis of confidence I was in danger of letting the piece as a whole stall. So, to keep fresh on it I decided to have a play with the base, throwing down some fairly heavy weathering to give the impression of a very well used area where running repairs are always going on... Nothing too difficult, just washes, pigments and a bit of ink here and there. Since these photos I have actually distressed the tiles further, but

I don't have a decent shot of this yet.

Having worked on the base, I was no closer to picking the walker itself back up, so I painted up the pilot.
Colour scheme is essentially the same as the walker, and a few tweaks are still needed to refine the paint and add a bit of interest here and there, but most of the paint is on in most of the right places! ;)

This weekend just gone I was fortunate enough to spend some time at the table (and the pub! yay! ^_^ ) with my good friend, Chris Octive. There was much chatting and chuckling, but while he worked on painting his latest Carrasco piece, I decided that I would make a proper start on a model that has been up on cork for a while now. This is Cassandra, from Thomas David's Agora line. I've had her for a couple of years now, and I have always had in my head that I want to paint her in a very clean, Tron-like finish. The fluorescent glow will come later, but the shiny dark/light contrast effect that I am aiming for is happening quite nicely so far (an afternoon's painting essentially)...

 Plenty still to do, but a nice change of pace to the more varied pieces in terms of texture. I plan on doing more bluey metal colours on the thighs and arms, and then some pale skin tones. The helmet is still under debate, as Chris suggested something quite left field that I may try out.... ^_^