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