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

Wet on wet, for the first time

With Old Gnome waiting for the skin to be finished, I felt I need to 'warm up' a bit on another model. You know, it's always easier to start over again when only the face is painted, not the whole miniature. I decided to go with SK Miniatues piece.

Beautiful Landsknecht bust (scale 1:9), sculpted by Yury Serebryakov. Pretty big face, and the rest looking deceptively simple and fast to paint. And what's more important, I got it p repared already for few months now. At some point I decided to prepare and prime several miniatures and busts. If you're courious about my preping process, I described it in some more details few posts (and almost a year) ago.

And, as you probably can imagine, I got carried away.

With face basically finished (just few touch ups here and there, when whole thing is done) I just continiued painting. For the first time I managed to successfully use wet on wet technique. Till now I was struggling with big time. I've seen countless video tutorials on this technique (well maybe not countless but a lot for sure), but couldn't get it right. Luckily this time it just worked. I'm especially happy with the red of the tunic and black on the emblem on the front. Both red and black were really difficult for me to paint with high contrast, and this time I quite like the effect. I hope I'll be able to use this technique from now on without any problems. Below you can see a massive close up of the red and black elements. It looks kinda rough here and there, but please bare in mind that the photo is few times bigger than the whole bust, so of course all imperfections are well... bigger.

Right now it's almost finished, just like the Old  Gnome piece... And I can only hope I can finish both of them without further distraction.
The face is somehow desaturated on the photo. I seem to be unable to get the colours right on my new camera, but over all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Like I said I'll be doing some more work here, but I'm almost there.
For the rest of the bust I need: repaint the pouch on his chest (draws way too much attention away from the face), fisnish the belt, shirt, beret, golden elements, and of course beard.

cheers
'eM

Euromilitaire is upon us!

and I'm burried in nappies... instead of paints.

And with less than a month left, I'm affraid I won't be bringing too much to the competition. So far I have only  Leon, and Capt'n Sapo, two busts finished at the beginning of this year.

I'm hoping I'll be able to finish something else, but it all depends on how much sleep and free time I'll be able to  get these next few weeks. So far the most advanced is Old Gnome bust (from War Griffon Miniatures). At this point basically only the flesh needs to be finished, rest is more or less ready.

As always I'm struggling with the skintones, that's why I tend to leave it for the end. It's a real pity, as the face is the most important part of every miniature, bust especially. And if I won't do it good enough, the whole paintjob will be, well, wasted. So finger crossed I won't mess it up this time.

For the first time I'm trying to do directional light, shining on his left shoulder, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull it off. We'll see how it looks with the face ready. Hopefully it will work.

And if I'm really lucky, and wil be able to get into 'the Zone', I might even paint something else, something small and simple. If I'm lucky...

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

Few announcements for the next month or so.

Just a short post to highlight some of the events that's gonna take place in London in next few weeks.
I'm hoping to attend all of them;]

1. London PB Meetup, Dark Sphere
March 23rd, 2014

I know it's the last minute notice, but maybe someone will have a free afternoon.
As previously, we meet around noon and paint/chat til 5-6ish (plus some nice lunch somewhere around).
The address is:
Dark Sphere
Arch 186 Hercules Road
London
SE1 7LD

2. Welling Modell Club 40th Anniversary, Welling, Kent
April 5th, 2014

As you can see there is a big anniversary coming for the folks from the WMC, so it would be nice to be there to celebrate with them:)

3. Salute, ExCeL London
April 12th, 2014

You can check all the details here.

4. BMSS Nationals Annual Show,  Holiday Inn, Coram Street, London
April 26th, 2014

Really friendly show in the center of London.  If you never heard of this, maybe this year is time to check it out. More info on their website.

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

Another London PB meetup

Finally, after long months, we'll meet again.
On the 16th of Feburary 2014, as always third Sunday of the month, in Dark Sphere.

If you feel like joining us, feel free to come by.
The whole thing will start around noon and will last till 5-6pm.
We'll be painting and chatting so if you feel like bringing your paints and miniatures that will be great, if not, we can still chat about the hobby and other stuff.

Just notice please, that Dark Sphere has moved. 
And the new address is:
Dark Sphere
Arch 186 Hercules Road
London
SE1 7LD

Tel: 020 7928 1373

As you can see from the map, it's not far from the previous venue, and looks like a walking distance from Waterloo station.

See you soon

'eM

Detolf finally pimped (even if only slightly)

Finally, after many months of thinking about it (and complaining how far the Ikea is, and how inconvenient it was to order it online, you know... so many clicks and stuff;p), I managed to get the lighting for my miniature cabinet. Of course I had to buy few more things 'by the way', i.e. sofa;], but right now I can proudly announce, that I do have some light to shine upon my precious minis.

I know, I know... it's not a major improvement, but I'm happy anyway. And it not only gives some light for my minis, but also adds nice ambient light, so it's win win for me:D

cheers

'eM

Back from the 'dead'. Hopefully for good this time.

After months without the brush I finally felt like I'm ready to go back and paint with pleasure and some consistency. Well almost without the brush, I tried to paint from time to time, but it wasn't very successful. So right now after a few days with painting I really hope the 'dry spell' is over and I'll be creative again.

Because I'm not really a fan of preping miniatures, you know cleaning them, assembling, priming... Especially priming. I use Mr. Surfacer 1200, which smells really nice, but still is not the healthiest thing to inhale, so I need to use a mask and all that stuff, and it takes time... you know.
Well anyway, I decided to prepare bunch of miniatures, prime them at one go and be over with it for a while. Below you can see the minis I chose to be painted next. As you can see, mostly busts and bigger scale. I'm not quite sure if I knew what to do with 28mm mini right now:D

At this point, the minis are all primed and 'preshaded'. Because I use light gray primer, I couldn't just use white paint from the top to mimic zenithal lighting, it wouldn't be wisible enough. So first I applied a fairly diluted, dark gray paint from the bottom (+/- 45 degree), and then again diluted white from the top (+/- 45 degree). Thanks to that I can see much better lights and shadows on my miniatures, which should help me to build the volumes. The darker and brighter areas will also look a bit different when covered with paint, wihich is an additional help to the contrast.

And here the last step of my work with airbrush. Of course if I had all colour schemes planned out already I could do much more, but I'm still hesitating, so I did only flesh parts. Here again I applied first lights and shadows, but rest of the job will be done with the brush.

cheers

'eM