30 Mar 2015

Welling Model Club Show - results and photos

Last weekend I was taking part in a club show held by lovely guys from Welling Model Club. As always show was really friendly and the day was a pure pleasure: right mixture of meeting with friends, friendly competition and a bit of shopping.

I was lucky enough to bring home golden medal for all pieces I entered. Sadly only 3, but lately my hobby time is a bit more limited...


Photos from the show will be slowly appearing on my photobucket here. It's gonna take me a while to postprocess all of them, so please be patient with me. As always not the greatest quality, but I don't feel like taking my tripod to a show, so I have to do best with what I have.

cheers

'eM

28 Mar 2015

Al Hippone's plaque - short SBS

This is gonna be really quick SBS, mostly photos (some of them not very good, using my phone's camera is much easier but there is always a risk that photo won't  be super sharp),  of how I made my plaque for Al Hippone.

First the idea was to order a plaque from Name It, as I always do. I like their elegant finish, and the fact that I don't have to worry about making them. Unfortunately the font I choosen doesn't really look good, so I decided to get a bit more creative.

Because ot the name I've choosen for my bust, Al Hippone (he has this old time gangster look after all), I decided to go for an old newspaper, preferably something about Al Capone. It would be a nice touch, known only to me, but still. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything in right format (taller than wider) so I went for just a newspaper from the right place and more or less time, and changed it a little.
When, after few unsuccessful attempts, I was happy with the look of the 'front page' I printed good few copies on tracing paper. In works like this I always prepare few copies just in case someting goes wrong, especially when I'm experimenting and can't be sure that I'll be happy with the outcome at the first try.

Next I applied paper tape under first few plaques to make it less transparent, and thicker, more sturdy. After that, I carefuly cut it out using a ruler and hobby knife.
Why even bother with tracing paper and paper tape, why not use normal paper? Thefirst reason is finish you get with the trace paper. It's more sleek than normal paper, and gives a bit more 3D effect due to it's thickness and transparency. And paper tape instead normal paper as and under layer, because tracing paper expands a lot when wet, and the surface gets wrinkly very easily. Besides paper tape is off white, creamy so it looks more like and old paper from the start.
And why did I use tracing paper not printing foil? To keep the paper feel to the plaque. With printing foil everyting would be easier to achieve, but it wouldn't feel like paper.


Now it's time for some weathering. Using only two GW washes (Agrax Earthshade and  Seraphim Sepia) I painted the back of the plaque, again due to the rippling properties of the tracing paper, I was careful not to soak the front, but few stains didn't do too much of a damage.


While  the paper was drying between aplications, the ruler laying on top of it was helping me to keep it more or less straight. It's not really necessary, but for me it was easier  this way.


With the 'back' as dark as I wanted (paint applied from the back still afected the front of the plinth), I just added few thin layers of wash in the corners and the plaques were ready. I was wery carefull not to apply too much of the wash in one go, to avoid wrinkling of the material. Unfortunately, when all was properly dry, I noticed that they are just too dark, especially placed on a black plinth. Below you can see photo of the plaques on white paper and black plinth, hopefully you see the difference (not only in the temperature of light).
 

The easiest way to make the plaque brighter was to add another layer of paper tape. So I just glued it on the back of the plaque and cut out excess of tape carefully.

After that there was just a matter of sticking the plaque to the plinth with use of double sided tape. Again, I glued the plaque to one side of the tape, cut out the excess and then removed the protect layer on the other sinde and glued the plaque to the plinth.


I hope you enjoyed this little SBS, and you find it inspiring in creating your own unique plaques.

cheers
'eM

25 Mar 2015

Welling Model Club Show 2015

This weekend I'll be attending a lovely club show held by Welling Model Club. It's gonna be my third year (41 for the show), and I'm really looking forward to it.  Nice company, a little bit of  shopping, and a painting competition, what's not to like:)


cheers
'eM

24 Mar 2015

Back to basics




Today I'd like to share with you something special. Well at least special for me.
This month I statred a series of articles about basic things in our hobby: preparing miniatures for paint, priming, basic techniques and such. Apparently there is a lot of people asking about such basic things we all assume everyone knows. So if any of you finds the subject interesting, please let me know what would you like to read about, ask questions if you have any. I'll do my best to cover all interesting topics and after every part, will have a small Q&A about previous one. Of course if we'll get any Q to give them an A:)
 


First article is about preparing miniatures for paint, cleaning them, fixing issues, removing mould lines. Next one will cover priming. I hope you'll enjoy the whole serie, and even if you're not beginners in our hobby, you'll find some interesting things.

cheers
'eM

22 Mar 2015

Al Hippone

A nice bust I'm working on right now. I was trying to depict colours of real hippos on his face. It's not perfect (should be bit more fleshy pinkish than violet) but it's close enough for me and I really like the effect. The bust is almost ready, I just need to repaint the tie, and fix contrast on the cloak and the nose. Looks like I should be able to finish it before Saturday and Welling's Show:D
BTW, I bought this little handsom fella from Path of Chameleon. If you like him, just give them a shout, they'll sort you out:)



21 Mar 2015

The dwarf is in da house

As some of you might noticed, I stopped doing reviews here on blog a while ago (circa 2 years...), the reason being, that I started doing reviews for Figure Painter Magazine, and simply didn't have enough material for reviews. But with this little beauty, and the company that made it, being covered not long ago in one of the issues, I decided to do a short review here. I'm not sure if I'll be doing them here too often, but I'll at least try to do it once in a while.

The company that made this beautiful bust is Spira Mirabilis and you can find them on Facebook.
As you can see the box is pretty awesome, with the seal and all. And hay used to line the box for protection suits both the box and the subject.


The bust is sculpted by Lucas Pina in scale 1:12. And as many other cool pieces recently it is a Limited Edition of 300 copies (with mine No. 42)
The cast is almost primer ready... I seriously couldn't find a single mould line or other issue, and I say almost only because I had to remove this small bar of resin underneath. Other than that I could just wash it and prime.

 

There is not really much more to say... The bust is one of the best casts I've ever seen, and I will most definitely keep my eye on Spira Mirabilis in the future.

cheers
'eM