Al Hippone finished

After a long while I managed to finish something new, pretty fun bust from a group called 'Patch of the Chameleon'. Really nice piece to paint, even though it took me so lond to finish it:D

pnp

cmon

cheers

'eM

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

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

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:)

Hurry, hurry, only one week left!

With only one week left till EuroMilitaire, and tickets lying in the drawer, I'm doing my best to finish two busts I got on my workbench. It's not as easy as you could imagine, me being constantly tired to death, my hands acting up sometimes, going  numb without any reason, and my free time seriously limited. But I'm doing the best I can in these circumstances.

I managed to do some more work on the Landsknecht. The biggest change so far is the colour of the tiny bag hanging on his chest. I really liked the goldish colour I used previously, but it was drawing too much attetnion from the face, so it's dark brown now. I still need to add stronger highlight to the left side of the bag (right on the photo), but other than that I'm quite happy.
The other big change is the red feather. I couldn't get it right, so decided to change colour. I tried few options and finally decided to go for goldish like the other. I must confess, they're pretty hard to paint. And I have 5 more on two other busts. It's not making me happy to be honest.

Other than those two changes I finished the shirt and belt, and did a bit more work on the bere and beard. And as I'm really happy with the way the belt turned out, I'm not so happy about the beard. As you can see at the bottom photo, it looked  (at least for me it did) way more structurized, organized when only undercoated.

Right now it looks more chaotic, I can't really see the nice waves, as I could earlier. I'm not sure if I'll be able to fix it and make it look like I imagined. I guess we'll see.

 cheers

'eM

Capt'n Sapo finished

I know I didn't even post any  WIP photos of this bust here, but at least I got some photos of the finished project.
The bust comes from a nice range of Figone miniatuers, and recently was a subject of a competition called 'The Sapo Challenge' held by the creators of this little beauty. The comp is closed now, but if you're inerested, you can find all the details and other participants here.

I'm really happy how it turned out. I know of course it could be painted better, with higher contrast or whatever, but I had a chance to work on a different type of textures here, and as always, I learned a lot.

cmon

pnp

cheers

'eM

Slight progress on Mr Leo

I made some progress on one of the busts I started recently.
Actually I did some more work on other pieces as well, but they're not yet ready to be shown to public.

Anyway, here he is, Mr Leo, a beautiful bust from Yedharo models (the bigger one).
To be  honest with you, I picked up this bust first, because it looked easy and simple to paint. And I was hoping to finish it quickly, to warm myself up, and move to other projects. But now I know that it's not gonna be so easy. The further I am in painting this little buddy, the more details I discover;]

At this point the finished parts are: leather shoulderpad, the strap on the front, belt bucle, and the sword (without the golden thing at the top of the hilt). Face and the rest of the body still needs a lot of work, but the toughest task is the hair. It is beautifuly sculpted, full of detail and textures, but painting it believable will be a trick. And even if the hair around his face are fairly easy, the back of the head is completely different story.

cheers

'eM

The Grinder is ready

Finally I managed to take photos of finished Grinder. I hope you like him. It was a real pleasure to paint, and I learned quite a lot.

 

 

 

cmon

cheers

'eM

Euro Militaire 2012 - Shopping

Shopping wise it was a really good weekend, trust me.
So many nice stands with lots and lots of awesome models and accessories... All Vendors so nice and friendly:) Everything shiny and tempting:D

First group photo, ofc with Inspector Bombel:

You know, this cat is a big one (almost a stone). So taking that into consideration, the loot looks even more impressive;]


And because not everything is clearly visible on the photo, and because I'm still extremely excited about my new treasures, here is the list with official photos:

1. Landsknecht Soldier (Pegaso Models, 90mm)

(c) Pegaso Models

Sculptor: Andrea Jula
Painter: Diego Ruina

2. Iroquois 1760, or as I like to call him: pi**ed off Indian (Pegaso Models, 75mm)

 

(c) Pegaso Models

Sculptor: Andrea Jula 

Painter: Franco Mocci

3. Francois L'Olonnais (Pegaso Models, 75mm)

(c) Pegaso Models

Sculptor: Maurizio Bruno 

Painter: Danilo Cartacci

4. Port Royale (Andrea Miniatures, 54mm)

 (c) Andrea Miniatures

5. Norse Lord 800 A.D. (Andrea Miniatures, 54mm)

 (c) Andrea Miniatures

6. Brock the Wanderer (Scale 75, 75mm?)

(c) Scale 75

Sculptor: Joaquin Palacios

Painter: Alex Varela

7. Apache Lipan (La Meridiana, 200mm)

(c) La Meridiana Miniatures

Sculptor: Carles Vaquero

Painter: Danilo Cartacci

8. French Courtesan (El Viejo Dragon Miniatures, 1:10)

(c) El Viejo Dragon Miniatures

Sculptor: JR Arredondo

Painter: Pepa Saavedra

9. Gem Smith (War Griffon Miniatures, 1:10)

(c) War Griffon Miniatures

Sculptor: Raul Fernandez Romo

Painter: Adrian Hopwood

10. Leo Bust (Yedharo Models, 1:10)

(c) Yedharo Models

Sculptor: Fausto Gutierrez

12. Animal set (Mantis Miniatures, 1:35)

(c) Mantis Miniatures

12. Few bits and pieces : airbrush holder, a plinth (so called einzelstucke;p), set of sanding cloths,  few pigments.

I do believe it's all...

I think I should be done with buying new minis till Xmas;] Or maybe,  if I'm really lucky, till Salute next April;p

cheers

'eM