Rawr

Hi all.

It's been a tough week or so with work, but I have been (mostly) determined to get the Lion God finished - though I discovered the free GW app game "Drop Assault", and subsequently lost a couple of evenings shooting heretics etc... lol

This evening I put the final touches to it and got some final shots. I haven't actually counted how many lanterns I had to paint on the model, but I doubt that the entire box set of models in the Kingdom Death game will have as many as this one on its own! The glow has been a bit of a chore, and there has been endless tweaking of colour and brightness. In the end I decided to let it be and move on. I still need a final plinth to place it on, but I shall get my friendly neighbourhood joinery to turn that out for me presently ^_^

So, here are the final pics...

The next model will be something very different, and positively demure after this. I think that this Lion model could be the most "What the...!?!" I've ever seen, and for that reason, I'm very pleased to have done it!

You can also see it (and vote if you're a member) here on Putty & Paint - LION GOD

*edit 30/1 Coolminiornot voting link added - LINKY

Until next time. Don't have nightmares... *_*

Scott

How rude!

So. 2015 thus far hasn't exactly gone quite as well as I had hoped. Less than halfway through the first month and, returning from a rather lovely break in the UAE which we tagged onto the end of the Xmas holidays, we found that we had been burgled in our absence!
It's quite an unnerving experience and some difficult to replace items were taken, but fortunately no one was actually harmed, and the house wasn't completely trashed, so it's a small comfort.... I guess :/

Obviously, being overseas has meant very little time at the painting table - more time at the dinner table and bar though! ^_^ - but I did get some painting done last night and really there's no easy way to say this... I spent much of last night painting a mutant lady garden. There. I've said it. Best move along to the photos I think...

Sometimes a few pictures can speak quite eloquently for themselves, so perhaps I should say no more on this one, other than to say that I have a LOT of lanterns to paint in that base very soon!!

Other than that, I have just started a new facebook page for the blog - https://www.facebook.com/theblackhandsblog - so do please stop by and like/share the page

Cheers ^_^

Hooooootenanny!

Well, the new year is here, and with it a profound hope that any and every visitor that has taken the time to pop by my little blog has a great new year.

For me personally, I saw the new year in quietly, but we had some additional fireworks at about 4am, when a house opposite ours had to call the fire brigade. I don't think that there was any serious damage, but it was an interesting early punctuation mark in the new year!

I hope that this year will be one of a few more shows than I managed in 2014, and a little more "structured" time at the painting table. I am sure that family needs and work demands will do their best to intervene, but I'll at least start the year in optimistic hope! ^_^

The actual break though has been most welcome, and the absence of the alarm clock from my life right now is just bliss - even if the little one only ensures that we only get about an extra half an hour or so of sleep! lol

In terms of time at the table over the Christmas break, I think that I managed about 2 hours, but it is the start of adding some details with the brush in hand at last, so that was encouraging...

There's a lot still to do pretty much everywhere, but I want to move onto the mane next to at least establish all of the base colours, then I can tweak and alter as I go from there - the face needs a lot of work still, but I wanted to see if the pale purple colour would work. - I'm toying with the colour palette, but with the colours already in play, a very pale or very dark (or both!) yellowish tone could be the way that I go for. Either that or I go with more of the pale grey purple tone. We'll see...

Other than that, there's not a lot more to see or say right now other than thanks for joining me on my first year. I hope that year two will be filled with painty goodness!

Oh, and check out Painting Buddha's "Black Betty" Indiegogo campaign. It's a great collaboration with one of Kingdom Death's sculptors, Hector Moran, and looks ace. Wish I could spend more myself, but I have a holiday to pay for and more toys than I can comfortably count already!

Until next time, cheers and beers (unless you're in January detox, in which case stick to the tea...)

Scott ^_^

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!