End of season roundup...

First of all, people will be thinking "what the hell is he going on about with this End of Season stuff?"

Well, in terms of competitions and such, this is probably true, as the likes of Monte San Savino and the UK Golden Demons, or whatever they are calling them now, are still to come before the end of the year. However, I'm personally done with my quota of shows for the year.
Admittedly, I've not exactly scoured the globe for every show to attend - I've only actually visited Salute and Euro Militaire this year - but work commitments and having a lovely two year old who enjoys spending every waking moment with me at weekends, along with a lot of significant "milestone" birthdays personally and around the family this year means that I've been less "visible" in 2014. I don't know at this stage whether I will attend more shows next year, but I hope to have a few more new pieces of a "level" to be able to take with me wherever I do go. :)

So, typically, now I retreat to my cave, stock up on tea (and beer), and see out the winter while tinkering away on pieces here and there until inspiration strikes for competition pieces. This year though, I have a solid pile of models and ideas that I really do want to work on. There are a few cherries that I want to pop too - like painting a bust and creating an historical vignette. But I also would like to try using oils on a model for the first time too, as I found myself frustrated with the limitations of brush-on acrylics on the drapery of larger models recently - so I'm going to get the last few bits off of my desk, and get building.

I mentioned Euro above, and this year was a really enjoyable year for me on a sociable note. But it was also a much more satisfying year for me as a judge for the competition. Last year was my first year and I ran around like an excitable puppy, missing some of the important stuff around the show where I was so focused on "my" category, and then found that the actual judging process was quite intense because I was fearful of getting it "wrong". This year, I deliberately went nowhere near my category until time for judging. Instead I chose to wander round and get to say hello to as many people as I could. Then, when time for judging came, I looked at my class with fresh eyes and last year's experience under my belt. The standard of entries in the class overall were excellent, with very few not making the cut and getting some kind of merit award - Euro holds a Gold, Silver, Bronze, Highly Commended and Commended merit scale. I was then also more confident this year that I could come back to the hall on the Sunday and chat to any of the entrants that wanted to speak to me about why their pieces scored what they did. This is an enlightening process as much for me as it is the entrants, and will be something that I shall do my best to maintain in years to come.
Honest feedback as much about what we are doing right as doing wrong is invaluable as far as I'm concerned. From it we can gain a different perspective from others who haven't invested the hours and efforts that we have, so it stops us doing too much of the "yeah, but..." stuff if we fall short of the grade.

In this way, I was a lot more philosophical about my own performance in the Fantasy class this year. I was more aware of the standards, and what the judges would consider. The devil in me made me try out two completely different models to test my theory, but I got the result that I expected.

Ainariel picked up a Commended badge, which in the circumstances was about right. I knew that there were certain aspects - like the skin - which would really need more contrast to pull the judges' eyes. I was extremely mindful of NOT going too heavy with the skin contrast, as this often makes female sculpts look "old" and a bit weather beaten, but the hall at Folkestone can be very bright indeed, and so bleach out the shade tones. The other main issue was a mistake repeated by many acrylic painters at the show, and this was a problem of "specularity" - basically things that were too shiny where they should have been more matt, and vice versa.
Essentially, I should have got a bit more matt medium into my paint and a bit more matt varnish onto the parts of the model that needed it - mostly her cloak. I'd taken the time to paint texture and patterning, but not enough time making sure that it would be seen! Photography of the model doesn't "lie", but polarised lenses and a static lamp position make this less of an issue compared to when a model is in hand.
So, in reflection (pun intended), Ainariel got what she deserved on the day. That said, I do consider her finished, and I am pleased with her as a first real go at a Fantasy model at this scale. She was also my first attempt at painting a Joaquin Palacios sculpt. I very much doubt that she will be my last.

These are the final shots that I took of Ainariel though, and you can see her in my Putty & Paint gallery along with my Coolminiornot gallery (links below)

 

Here are the gallery/voting links - CMON and PUTTY & PAINT

The other piece that I entered for Euro was Cassandra, the Greek-esque cyborg girl that I painted several months ago. She didn't really get a look in. I wasn't surprised as she's mostly naked, which doesn't sit with the judging rules at Euro, and the coloured non-metallic metal style is often not favoured by the judge of this category.

This was Cassandra...

CMON and P&P links

Moving on and not wishing for the grass to grow under me, I've popped out a quickie and I'm nearly finished with an oldie that has been hanging around for too long!

The quickie...

I had the Rihanna song "Diamonds" as an earworm going round my head lately. Dunno why, but it was there. I then had an idea for a mini that I knew was in the pile. Half a dozen hours later, this was the result...

She is Hasslefree's harem dancer, and she is tiny, at around 22mm high to the top of her pole! The stand she is on is a lid to a Paul Smith perfume bottle too. :)

She was a great fun piece to do pretty much while I waited for some paint and varnish to dry, with the actual painting part taking around 5 hours.

She can also be found in my Coolmini gallery - HERE 

The oldie is the Painting Buddha vignette. I've pretty much done this except for possibly adding a little greenery to the scene, and maybe either glossing the visor of the girl, or repainting it in a reflective style. To be honest, I want to draw a line under the piece, so it may well be a gloss and go situation, but the overall scene feels about right now and the scene might end up being called " ^_^ " seeing as there are actually 3 of them in the scene - the visor, graffiti and also, barely visibly, inscribed to her gun...

So, this brings a quite a long episode to an end. Currently I have 3 pieces primed that will get painted before I move onto the next batch of ideas. They will all be "fun" pieces too (although all pieces should be classed as fun, really!), and then it will be time for some "bigger" ideas again.

Until next time.

Scott ^_^

2 steps forward and 1 back...

It's been an up and down few weeks of late, but nothing that anyone will find remotely interesting, just "life" stuff, stress stuff and all that blurb.
What this has done though is leave me feeling a little underwhelmed with my painting. After the high of the metallics in the last instalment, it's been a bit of a slog with this Andrea piece. I think that 54mm for me isn't my natural habitat on the whole, and so I've been feeling a little like I'm not doing it justice. As a result, progress is painfully slow compared to my normal output and enthusiasm tends to then wax and wane.
That said, I have made quite a lot of progress...

The skin is done, the cloak has received a lot of extra attention and the freehand is in place - still need to get some light and shade in there - the bow and much of the quiver is done, as is the skirt.
I need to decide whether to add a small freehand to the tabard, then the hair, jewels and metal parts of the quiver need to be done. Oh, and I'm going to steal a long hair from the cat for the bow string! After that I plan to put the model down for a few days and come back to it with fresh eyes to see what I'm "missing".

Once this is done I have a couple of really quick, fun pieces to finish off before I decide what my next project piece will be. I've been discussing what I think is a great concept for a dual effort with a good friend too (over a few drinks a few days ago). If that gets off the ground I reckon it could be a really cool, and creepy piece... ^_^

Until next time.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...

There have been a couple of hobby related things that have thrown me off balance over the last couple of weeks. One is a model that was frustrating me because the image in my head wasn't working out with what I was painting. The other is an ongoing situation with someone taking a specific dislike to either me, my painting style, or my choice of models...

The first of these issues I am on the way to resolving, as I'll explain below. The other remains something of a dilemma really...


A few posts back (in May), I mentioned that someone has taken exception to my models on Coolminiornot. Well, their campaign continues unabated with each of my models submitted since May being subjected to their trolling "fun" to a greater or lesser extent. As things are unlikely to change any time soon, and the identity of my nemesis remaining unknown, I can only really remain philosophical about it and take the view that I must be doing something pretty decent that this someone takes that much time out of their day to try and tear it down! *winks*
And with that very much in mind, here's my latest Kingdom Death Pinup, The Phoenix Dancer...

I had actually finished her a little while back, but I was in two minds about the base. I had made this base a while back from a glass effect clear plastic stopper from some cheap Xmas smellies and a perfume lid. I had to sand and buff out the mould lines and flatten the top a little to accept the model.
Once glued on, I have a LED base from a laser etched glass ornament which I sat the base on, so that I could shine the light through the middle of the base and light up the bubbles within to bring the rainbow colours in the sword into play too.

The colour scheme is based again on Lokman Lam's concept art, and I should mention that this was a preview cast of the sculpt (by Thomas David) that I received from Adam around the time of the Kickstarter. It will be released as a part of the Kickstarter soon(ish).
This was the art by the way...

Harking back to CMON, here is the voting link for her - OH HAI!
And here is the Putty & Paint link (member votes here are more than welcome) with larger images and additional views - CLICK ON ME!
^_^

Moving swiftly on, I previously showed a paint in progress of the Andrea Ainariël piece. I had painted a load of colour on the cloak, but felt unsure of whether I was happy with what I'd done. This led me to put the piece down and temporarily lose my enthusiasm for the model. A few years back I decided that I would no longer paint models that I didn't enjoy, and particularly that I wouldn't paint models specifically for competition. Now, I'm pretty competitive in many things in life, and I still like to win, but I now see it more a case of making sure that I take something new with me when I do go to shows and competitions, regardless of whether I think that they will win anything.
So, I sat and looked at this partially painted model (or tried not to look at it sometimes!) and tried to figure out what was stymieing my enthusiasm for it. In between I prepped and started painting a couple of fun pieces that I'll show in a future Ep, and inadvertantly in doing so I decided to open and try some paints that I'd been a little intimidated about since I bought them a couple of months back.
The paints in question are the Scale 75 Scalecolor Metal N' Alchemy paints, and my goodness they are a revelation! For a couple of years now I've been using Vallejo's Model Air metallic paints ahead of other ranges because the paints had much finer metallic pigments than any of the other acrylic miniature metals, and I had no experience of the likes of metallic printers' inks, alcohol based metallics or similar. The results with the VMA paints were pretty good, although I still preferred to paint in non-metallic style because I felt that I couldn't get the same quality of finish painting with "true" metals...

Not any more.

A lot of painters have been very happy with the behaviour and appearance of the majority of Scalecolor's paints, but these are pretty much game changers for me. The metallic pigment is almost liquid like in each of the paints, so no more visible flakes, and even when diluted you get great, flat coverage within two or three thin coats that is really convincing. Add to this the numerous colour tones in the range that allow you to create subtle, and not so subtle, colour shifts, you can create realistic looking reflections and effects without resorting to witchcraft. Further to this, I've been using the Scalecolor inks relatively successfully for a couple of pieces, and they can be mixed with or glazed over the metallics to great effect too!

So, armed with these new toys, I picked Ainariël back up, and set about her with renewed vim! And so happy was I with the metals that I've moved straight on and begun work on her skin. The skin is intended to stay mostly pale and pinkish, but almost none of it is finished at this stage.

 

Now, I've still not resolved the cloak in my mind, but the metals have inspired me to get on with it, and maybe something will pop into my head as I go along.

 Until next time, ne te confundant illegitimi ^_^

Another guide and some gardening

Hi all.

If you have seen my activity around FB or any of the forums that I hang out in, then this may not be news, but I have had a third painting guide published on the Kingdom Death site - LINKY

This model is the Preacher pinup, and is again a part of the Pinups of Death box set and painted to resemble Lokman Lam's lovely concept art. I have now completed all of the models and am currently working through the painting guides for the upcoming months, so watch out for that. :)

I've put her into my CMON gallery - HERE - and also my Putty & Paint gallery - HERE - so if you feel like popping by and leaving a vote or comment that would be great. :)

Moving on with what I'm doing right now, I've progressed the Andrea elf a bit. I am actually a little intimidated still with regards to the drapery on the model, and have done some early blending, but I want to add a lot of either texture or embroidered imagery to the cape, so these shots are likely to hold little resemblance to the final piece.

The base I think I shall call "done" barring some touch ins of the black and a name plaque. I've done a warm/cold contrast with some warm coloured plants to the front and centre and darker, more autumnal tones to the back and far edges. There's some real plants, Silflor tufts and flowers plus some laser cut leaves scattered around. I may yet add a few coffee grounds to the soil, but I'm fairly happy where it is right now.

Hopefully I'll more her along some more this week.

Cheers ^_^

Apologies for the delay. Normal Service Now Resumed...

Well. With the best of intentions, the last couple of months have been very busy working on a great commission. There will be a wait before I'm cleared to share the pictures, but the box is on its way to the new owner and I now have time to set my sights on my favourite show, Euro Militaire.

I have several ideas in mind, but with only 7 weeks left we'll see how far I get. The first model that I've decided to work on is an Andrea piece that I had almost forgotten that I had. This is Ainariël, Arrow of Light, and I think that she is the first Freeman sculpt that I will attempt to paint. I have decided not to do any conversion work on the actual model, largely due to her being cast in metal, and the base that she comes with lends itself nicely to just building some ground work around the metal. I found an aftershave lid that fits the shape of the model superbly too, so that will be her plinth :)

 

There was a small amount of filling to do, but I actually received her as a second hand model, so a lot of prep work had already been done in terms of mould lines and pinning.

I plan on completing the base with earthy tones, grass tufts, fallen leaves and such, all in an autumnal scheme, and then allowing that to help dictate the colours that I will use on the model either as a complementary or contrasting scheme. I also plan to use my new Scale 75 metal alchemy paints on her armour for the first time. I have heard good things about them, so I hope to share good progress on them very soon.

Other than this, I haven't had much time away from the commission work to paint or prepare anything other than the Kingdom Death Phoenix Dancer that I started quite a while back. She is a lot closer to completion now and I am quite pleased with her as a representation of Lokman's concept art...

There is still some work on the feathers, little lanterns and sword hilt to do, then I need to create a base for her, but I've enjoyed working on her when I've had a few minutes to spare.

I do also still plan on working on Shido'ni, as mentioned in the previous post, and I think that I may do the Twisted M'Dusa model that I picked up at Salute, if time before the show allows. If it doesn't, I guess that I will probably just paint her anyway, because she is a great looking sculpt! ^_^

In other news, while I've been away, I've had a big birthday (40), which has involved quite a lot of eating and drinking, plus the ongoing good weather here has encouraged that extra beer or two in the garden of a weekend or evening. Think I need to squeeze a bit more exercise in before I can't squeeze into my clothes! lol

Cheers (and beers!)

I ain't dead. I've just been busy...

Well. Apologies for not posting sooner for anyone who may have been wondering what I've been up to, but I think that I mentioned that I've been working on commission work that would become public when the client was ready. This coupled with the World Cup being on during my hobby time has meant that I've not been as prolific of late. I have in fact been quite productive and I'm moving into the later phases of the commission work, so in a few weeks I'll have more to show.

Aside from this, it has been a really busy few weeks at home and work too, with weddings, birthdays, surprise visits from my sister who lives in Australia and trips to toddler based entertainment events and amusement parks. So, again, all of this has scaled me back a bit.

With the preamble dealt with, I do have something nice to show, and I am really happy to say that I've been published again on the Kingdom Death website.

The piece is another Kingdom Death commission piece, and my first painted piece from their new hard plastic range. I've got to say that I was really very impressed with the kits for the quality of detail and faithfulness to the original resin versions of the sculpts (despite the very slight increase in size vs. the resins). The most impressive part though was the amount of thought that had gone into how the individual kits were cut up for assembly. In this particular model, I think that there was one, maybe two obvious joins on the whole model that needed any filling, and looking at the others in the set, this is carried across to the rest of the sculpts.
Like the brief on the previous piece that I did for Kingdom Death (the Architect Pinup), there is an accompanying article which can be found HERE.
The process of painting is less exhaustive in this second article, but mainly because a lot of technique chat was done in the first article and much of that need not be explained again :)

So, here is the Forsaker Pinup...

I've said it in the article, and I'll happily say it again that these new plastic go together just brilliantly, and it makes a pleasant change to paint something where you aren't constantly worried about bits breaking off like you do with resin! Yet they still have almost all of the details as the original sculpts, and still nice and crisp.
This gives me good incentive to paint the others and soon, so watch this space! ;)

You can find more views on Putty & Paint - HERE - and also on Coolminiornot - HERE

Unfortunately, this is the only new thing that I can show right now, but I have been shopping for a couple of indie pieces too, most notably Shido'ni by Christian Hardy

And also Laurent Leleu by Yannick Hennebo

Sometimes individual prijects like this just catch the eye and you have to just buy them when they come out. I shall especially enjoy painting Shido'ni when the commission pieces have been finished off. She will make a nice change of direction before the madness of Kingdom Death:Monster finally ships...! ^_^

Hope that you like the Forsaker, and with the World Cup coming to a close soon I hope to get some personal painting done too, maybe with an eye on Euro Militaire.

Cheers! ^_^