Shake it off...

It's been a little longer than hoped since the last post, but to be honest, I've been having a small block with regards to painting. I'm sure that all painters get them from time to time, and most either take a break until the urge came back, or push through until it feels more fun again - obviously full time pros have to do the pushing through bit!
Fortunately for me, I don't have to do this as a job right now, so I could "afford" to take a little time away from the table.
The reason for my block? I don't know, but I've been struggling with inspiration for my next piece and the piece after in terms of colour scheme for the current piece, and a setting for the next one.

Lets deal with the first one, Seb Archer's M'Dusa...
There's only a couple finished versions out there that I am aware of, the first is painted by the Twisted peeps - likely Seb himself, I'm guessing - and the other is a lovely colourful version by Marike Reimer. Both can be seen on the Twisted Games Facebook album.
I wanted to do something different. Initially I was thinking of how to apply snakeskin texture to the model, but she is so small that I just don't have the skills/inclination/patience (*delete where appropriate) to carry it off, nor do I have the vision in this instance as to where to apply said texture.
So, I spent at least a week procrastinating/researching what to do. Then last night I was having a little flick around and a Giger image popped up. Bingo! The kind of colours used in much of Giger's work was just what I wanted to try out, plus the details of the sculpt leant itself ideally to a Giger-esque scheme.
So, brush in hand, I set about her with renewed enthusiasm, and moved along quite quickly...

 
There's obviously a lot of tidying up to do, and also a lot of picking the details out before adding some more subtle tones - it is also rather glossy at the moment - but I'm quite pleased with progress so far.

After M'Dusa, I shall be moving onto Clio et Erato.

I've been looking at the comic strip that relates to this - spending quite a long time translating Italian into English! - and I think that I have an idea of the scenery that I want to do for them. Need to do a little bit of image searching, then I'll likely show my plans in the next instalment or so.

In other news, I received a rather wonderful, and unexpected, parcel last week from the gang at Kingdom Death, with a nice note attached too. Inside were some samples of the plastic pinups that will come with the expansions on Monster - which now appears to be moving towards its later stages of production at last - I shall be putting these together very soon and doing a new series of articles to accompany them. This may mean another quiet period, but not for a few weeks at least, as I have plenty to keep me occupied.
Yay for Kingdom Death! ^_^

In a slight aside to my usual flagrant self promotion (lol), I would like to point you, dear reader to a few places that I visit (perhaps not as often as I ought to...!)

David Zabrocki's site - www.davidzabrocki.com - an inordinately talented chap, who I believe paints almost entirely with enamels(!!). A top guy who I have been able to get to know a little over the last few years while attending Euro Militaire, where he is also a judge. Really inspiring painted works indeed!

Damien Pedley's blog - http://deespaintfilledhellhole.blogspot.co.uk/ - Another rather talented chap, who tends to do Games Workshop stuff, but with his own twist.

Rafael Garcia Marin's blog - http://volomir.blogspot.com - Won just about everything to do with paint, so why wouldn't you look!? ^_^
Plus he was gracious enough to pick out my Lion God as a model to watch out for recently too, so one good deed deserves another ;)

His blog is actually already on my Shiny Blogs list, the link to which is on the right side of the page ------->>
So, be sure to check out the links on there.

That's about it for today, so, erm... Bye! ^_^

Another one bites the dust...

Since the last post I have been mostly weaned off of Drop Assault, preferring to get back to the desk a bit more and push Shido'ni along - Well. When I'm not hooked on Walking Dead or Fortitude or on who killed Lucy Beale (yeah, I'm a part time Eastenders watcher... What?! *_*).
Fortunately I had chosen to go for a super simple cracked desert base, so once the actual painting of the model was done, the base was mostly washes and pigments - and a load of sanding where I hadn't prepared the plinth properly...

In the end I'm quite happy with the amount of weathering that I've put on, and most of the rest of her too. The shoulder and gun icons were a cause for annoyance, to the point where I repainted 3 or 4 different designs before settling on the one that you see below.

I am most happy with her face, and eyes in particular. I wanted to get the wind burnt face and goggle marks, which I just about managed, but the sculpt of the eyes really needed me to get them just right, and I do think that I got that about as right as I could do.Hopefully you do too ^_^

As usual, here are the links to her on COOLMINIORNOT and PUTTY & PAINT

If you like her, please do stop by and leave a comment/vote. They are all appreciated. :)



Next on the corks is Twisted's M'Dusa, who I previewed in an earlier episode. She will also be a "simple" paint the model and stick her to the base job, but I am about to start researching snakeskin... gulp!

I also was the very fortunate recipient of a lovely present today. One of the regulars over on the Kingdom Death Kickstarter page sent me the Wrath of Kings Twilight Knight special model...

With my (obvious) affinity to all things KD, I shouldn't be surprised if she doesn't end up on the corks very soon. Thanks very much Alice! ^__^

That's it for now. My usual Thursday painting session will undoubtedly be mostly spent watching the 'Enders 30 year live show... Too. Much. Drama. Lol.

Motivation...

I'm in a little dip of motivation right now. Can't quite put my finger on it, though I've found it easier to laze on the sofa grinding levels of Drop Assault rather than head to the cave and pick up the brush over the last two weeks...

That said, I have done something, which is make a start on my next piece. I mentioned her in a previous post, but for those who haven't seen, she is Shido'ni and she was a private piece sculpted by Christian Hardy

She appears to be some kind of fighter/survivor in a desert, so I've done a very simple cracked earth type of base (not shown here) that is actually a resin base I modified slightly.
The colour scheme is largely going to be ochre and sandy tones, with her face likely to have goggles marks and some sun/wind burn.
I'm not certain what I'll do with the hair and cloak yet. I think maybe some camo design to the cloak perhaps, but I'm tempted to use a bold colour for her hair...

So far I have airbrushed some general light and shade, using yellow/cream for the light, and blue/brown for the shading. I then started to work on the torso and exposed shoulder pad. There's a long way to go, but it is working OK for now.

It probably doesn't show in the photos, but she is rather little (32mm to the eyes), but Christian has crammed a lot of good details in there. She is also a very simple assembly - I think that she was just two pieces - with very little clean up needed. So, a really cool, quick, build-and-paint model. Hopefully she'll come out nicely.

More hopefully, I'll get a little more enthusiasm going and push on not just with her, but also with the other pieces that are either in the queue or primed ready to go.

Fingers crossed! ^_-

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! ^_^