Pegasus Project - little disaster in the process

Today I decided that it's the time to glue my Templar to the base, before adding mud, sweat and blood. But suddenly it turned out the cloak doesn't fit. And that was a surprise I must say. I did  try if it's fitting before glueing miniature together, but you know, it's rather hard to check it exactly if you have few heavy pieces in your hands.
So basically I had to file quite big chunks of the cloak and base, to make it happen. Not a funny thing to do, especially if the miniature is fully painted and only two days left for the competition;/
But I did it finally, and I lost only half of the day...
Anyway, that's how it looks now. Arrows, dirt and blood are still missing, but it will be there before Saturday's morning:D

 cheers

'eM

The Grinder - almost there

Ok, Grinder is almost ready.
I had to attach him to the plinth so I could glue swords in place and work with the skin knowing exactly what will be visible.
I still need to fix some issues on the skin, but other than that I can't see any other areas that need to be corrected. Ofc it might be because I lost my objectivity here;]
If you can see any other problems than the skin, please let me know.

Photos are rather mediocre, I know. But I was in a hurry, and they're not final ones so you know...

cheers

'eM

From Hall of Shame to Hall of Fame

Yay!! I managed to finish one of the minis from Hall of Shame!!
 
I must admit, this one was fairly easy, as I did most of the painting almost a year ago, and put it on the side because I lost all my heart for this mini. I was hoping that at some point it will pass and I'll be able to finish it.
Sadly it didn't, so I decided to fix the biggest issues (like the missing shadow under the mini) and put it on the shelf with other finished miniatures.

So here he is, Marquis de Carabas
from the SMOG, a Victorian Fantasy range by Smart Max.

Cmon

If you're interested how I did the base, you can check my articles about candles and bones.


cheers,

'eM

Pegasus Project - some more painting

Some  more photos of the Pegasus Project. Thist time mostly Templar.

Everything still more sketchy than being close to be ready. Well maybe except of the face and leather elements.

 

And that's the only pieces of the Viking painted so far.
Not much, I know. Maybe I'll try to do skin today.

cheers

'eM

Pegasus Project - Assembly

I did some more work on those two fellas. Well, mostly making sure that the parts will fit in nicely, because it looks like most of them will need be glued in the process. Only the small pieces of the viking could be attached at the moment.
Anyway, I think I should be able to prime them today, and maybe even do some painting.

But of course I simply couldn't avoid a mistake with assembly of the viking.
As far as I can see I should glue together his head/shoulders and the rest of the cloak, instead of gluing it together with the rest of the body. At the moment, with his head attached to the body it's rather impossible to glue the rest of the cloak together and then attach to the body, so I'll have to do that in pieces. The only hope is that the joining points will stay hidden behind the shield.

cheers

'eM

Pegasus Project

Yesterday my second Pegaso mini arrived, so of course I had to start preparing it.
And because I didn't want my Teutonic Knight to feel lonely on the table I decided that Viking Chief will keep him company. You know, Pegaso fellas should keep together:P

I thought I could call it Pegasus Project (not very original, I know).

Here are the minis I'm working on:

Viking Chief:

(c) Pegaso Models,
sculptor: Andrea Jula,

painter: Diego Ruina

And Templar Knight from XII century:

(c) Pegaso Models,
sculptor: Andrea Jula,

painter: Danilo Cartacci

And that's what I could achieve so far...

Impressive pile of metal, isn't it?


And few more close-ups (shields mostly):

At this point I have no idea how to deal with it further. Should I glue everything I can together and paint? Or maybe paint in parts and glue it later?
Never faced such complicated minis like these.
Anyone has any ideas, or maybe painted one of them already?

cheers

'eM

Monster Bottle from Maow Miniatures

I'm really happy to say I managed to finish another mini.
Monster bottle from Maow Miniatures.

 

cmon

I know there are few weaker spots, but I must say I'm happy how it turned out. Especially eyes and teeth.
I hope you'll  like it as well.

cheers

'eM

Menhom Dark Shadow

Finally!!! I can say he's finished and ready to rest in my cabinet:D

Great pleasure to paint, even if it took so long:D
I learned few more things thanks to that mini.

Definitely not the last piece from Andrea, although I know I need to be very careful with the cast quality next time.

cmon

cheers

'eM

Salute 2012 - the loot:D

Maybe it doesn't look like it's a lot of minis, but trust me I'm really happy that the pay day is this Friday... I won't be starving too long:D

Cheers

'eM

Quick update - Menhom's base WIP

Here is the first version of the base:  dry earth, bones and lots of dust.

 I'm not entirely sure if the cracked earth is the best choice here. Maybe I'll swap it for old and also cracked stone floor... But bones and dust stay in both cases. I just need to rearrange bones in nicer way, when I'll be sure what type of the surface will be used.

Dress is not yet ready, It lacks few more dots and lots of glazes to unify them a bit and bring back the redness of the midtones.

cheers

'eM

Hall of Shame Part 3

Time for Episode 3:D
Mostly black and white, not particularly artistic, simply preshaded.

cheers
'eM

Menhom Dark Shadow - Review

Another mini under the loupe, this time my first purchase from Andrea Miniatures.

Menhom Dark Shadow

(c) Andrea Miniatures

I felt in love with this piece few years back, when a friend send me a link with the pic. And it was the love at first sight. Unfortunately at that point I was on a verge of quiting the hobby, or not sure if I should get back to painting (don't remember exactly when it was), and the mini itself was too pricey just for a whim, so I didn't buy it. But never really forgot about it. And finally managed to buy it few months ago.

The mini itself is from an Andera's range Warlord Saga, the line of 54mm fantasy miniatures (some really nice stuff there - check it out).
I did measure it, and from the top of the spike to the floor it has 80mm, so it's quite tall even for it's scale (please notice that Menhom is bending forward, standing straight, he'd be even taller).


Packaging:
The mini comes in a paper box, not too stiff, but parts are secured with thick sponge, so there is no way anything can move inside. It's very important, as the metal used for that mini is rather soft and can bend easily.

What's in the box:
As you can see, in the box we find 15 metal parts and one resin (the bottom part of the body).
All the spikes and horns are on one bar, which is nice, because they're tiny and some of them are really thin.

Quality:
The metal parts of the mini are rather clean. You can find few mould lines, but they are easy to remove. You need to be careful with the thin parts, like sword or spikes, because the metal is very soft and can bend almost under the weight of the brush.
Unfortunately the resin piece is way worse. The resin is rugged, especially in all these places that are hard to access, and by the look of the dress, you can say, that there is lots of such spots. There are also few mould lines, but comparing to the roughness of the surface in the recesses of the folds, it's not a big deal and easy to fix.

 

Assembly:
I'm rather happy with the way parts fit together. Even hands and wrists have little 'pins' to make the joints stronger. The only problem here are spikes, especially the longer ones. It's very difficult to make them fit the recesses and even if we manage to do that, making them stay there - it's completely different matter... I guess the only way is to paint them separately and glue to the mini at the last minute.


Overall opinion:
'Beautiful mini with issues' - that's the simplest way of describing this piece. If you don't mind prep work and can be patient with fixing all the imperfections, Menhom will be a very nice addition to your collection.  I'm not the fan of the intense preparation myself, but luckily the mini isn't bad enough to discourage from buying more Andrea Miniatures in the future (I got my eye on few Vikings there:D).


Were to buy:
If you're from Poland, I'd suggest to go straight to Jama store, they have great choice of minis (and even if they don't have it at hand, they can just order it) and the service is swift and very firendly.
UK - SK miniatures.
For the rest of the world - google closest retailer:)

Or of course, you can buy directly from Andrea Miniatures website.


Other Andrea Miniatures reviews:
Urmuth Scars of War

A dress with a serious case of 'chicken pox' - WIP

Yesterday I was thinking what can I do, to make this huge surfaces of red dress more interesting. After a while (old and rugged golden embroidery even if very spectacular, is a bit too complicated for me atm) I decided to go for worn and old look of the fabric in 'Natalya style'. Well, tbh she's not using this technique to get worn look, but I hope I can adapt it for my purposes.

So dots, dots... lots of them....
And after one evening, the effect is hmmm... interesting at least, but not even close to the original;p

For now the dress looks like it has a chicken pox or something like that. But I'm trying to convince myself, that it's gonna look like I want in the end.
Don't get me wrong, I kinda like how the dress looks atm, especially on the pic that shows the back of the mini, but I'm going for a different look, and I'l ltry to achieve it.

But I guess it needs to be something more in this technique than just mindless stabbing the mini with a brush:)
I can promise, that if I find what's the 'secret ingredient' here, I'm gonna share it with you:D 

cheers

'eM

Hall of shame Part 2

Another portion of minis found in my deepest drawers.
If I didn't miss anything, there will be at least three more episodes:)

Cheers

'eM

Hall of Shame part 1

New subsection of my blog is live now:

Hall of Shame

Here  you can find first part of my forgotten minis.
For now first 5, but next will be published soon.
I hope putting them on a public display will help me find time to finish them:D

Glossy eyes and other works - WIP

Monster bottle:

As you can see, I added lots of delicate redish and blueish veins in the corners of the big eye, gloss varnish and some light reflections. I'm affraid I need to redo them, because the natural ones from those two lamps, I was doing photo under, look way better:)
But other than that, I'm quite happy how the 'face' of the bottle is looking now.

The Grinder:
Not much to say for now. This is an extremely early stage. Only the leather elements are touched. I'm hoping I'll be able to try oil paints on this one. All these flat surfaces seems to be perfect for that, but I can't be sure if I won't chicken when it comest to that.

Menhom, Dark Shadow:
Next project I'm about to start;p
It's almost ready to be glued together, and I'm really excited to paint this one:D I even have clear vision of colour scheme and base, and that's rare for me.

At this point I think I should start new part of this blog: Hall of Shame, for all those started and abbandoned minis. I got the feeling that my HoS is allready huge, but I tend to hide unfinished and abbandoned minis in my drawers, so they don't make me guilty for starting a new one:P Maybe looking at them all in one place, would motivate me to finish at least some.
I do envy people who are able to work on one project from the beggining to the finish without distractions. Or at least are able to work more methodically than I do.

And how would you describe your workflow? Methodical or rather chaotic and full of various projects 'on hold'? I'm really curious if I'm the only one with ever growing  Hall of Shame?

cheers

'eM