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:)

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

Back from the dead... again.

It's been a while, I know. And right now I can't promise that I won't disappear for a longer time again. Sadly my everyday duties keep me too busy to paint too often.

This pirate is not the only piece I'm trying to paint recently. But the only one that looks presentable enough to be shown in public.

Of course still a lot to do, but his left forearm, fist and left shoe looks the best.
When I started this miniature, back in 2013, I thought that the bottle looks pretty cool, but right now I can clearly see it needs to be redone, not only due to paint marks.

We'll see if I'll be able to finish it before the end of this year;p

cheers

'eM

Old Gnome bust finished

And here another piece finished recently. An Old Gnome, gorgeous bust from War Griffon Miniatures. Bronze at Euromilitaire. Huge fun to paint. I learned few new things painting it, just need to use them from now on:D

Voting links if anyone feels like it:

cmon

pnp

 

 

 

 

 

 

cheers
'eM

Landsknecht bust finished

Hi there,

not much to say really, just photos of a finished bust. As you know already it got commended at Euromilitaire.
I must say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was a pleasure to paint.

pnp

cmon

cheers

'eM

Euromilitaire results.

What a lovely weekend it was!
I had really great time, seeing all my friends,  making some new ones... indulging in the hobby, seeing lots of awesome paintjobs and buying some of the amazing products avaliable during the show.
It's a real pitty that now we have to wait a whole year for next Euro... I know, I know, there are some other great shows later this year (MSS, Hussar, Bugle Call and maybe more), and early 2015, but sadly I won't be able to go there... so I'm waiting for yet another trip to Folkestone, and planing what should I paint;]
But let's talk about this year's show for a while longer.

First shopping.
I bought most of it on Saturday, so chronogically it should be first.
As you can see on the photo, I didn't buy much.

• Just few unique bases, I love buying them during shows, where you can see them from every angle and find best ones that suit my models. One of them will be used right away, for my Diablito, cute little guy sculpted by Roberto Chaudon.
• A beautiful bust of Aquila, Roman Legionary, made by Nut's Planet, scale 1/10, casted in resin. I've seen it recently around painted by many amazing painters and feel like I'd like to give it a go. Not much of a chance to do it completely different than others (you know, the uniform and all that) but I hope I can leave my mark on it anyway.
• Battle Chick, One of new releases from Nocturna Models, a beautiful girl from the line Necrospace. The mini is 75 mm tall (according to the producer's website), 1/28 scale, cast of course in resin. I think I'll be doing some small changes to her equipment, but othet than that, she's trully gorgeous.
• And a piece I had in my mind for few years alerady. A gorgeous Mermaid from Origen Art. Another resin cast in 1/28 scale. I feel the right time came to finaly buy her and paint. I can't wait to start with all the rust and weathered parts, and the mermaid itself of course.
• Two video tutorials from Painting Buddha, about freeehands and basing alchemy (first part earth). I have their first set of DVDs and can't wait to see those two. 

Entries, and badges.
This year I entered 4 pieces, all of them busts, one historical and 3 fantasy. Luckily enough all of them got a badge.

Sapo - Gold
Old Gnome and Leon - Bronze
Landsknecht - Commended
I'm more than happy about that, as it shows some consistency in my painting, at least I'd like to think it does. And I gathered some valuable feedback from judges, so there is a chance my painting will improove in the mentioned areas:D
Below you can see a solo photo of my golden boy, Sapo.

Photos from the show:
I tried to take as much photos as I could. But both, social side of the event and my unability to take decent photos during such a busy show, stood in the way;]
My photobucket gallery. and some found in internet:
FB gallery of Andrew Nai,
FB gallery of Pekka Tapani Nieminen,
Platoonbritannica thread,
Photos taken by Rob Pollock and presented at imodeler.com: Part1, 2, 3, and 4,
Photos taken by a fellow PB-er Theunrealisticartist,
Photos published on militarymodelling.com,
Some photos found on the very nice blog The curious way.


cheers
'eM

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