Urmuth Scars of War - final photos

I just realized that I forgot to post official photos of finished Urmuth.
So here they are:

Cmon

Putty&Paint

cheers

'eM

Welling Model Club Show 2013

Yesterday I visited really nice show. It was held in Welling (London) and was organized by Welling Model Club for the 39th time (next year is big 40!!).
It was a  nice day, even weather was merciful and it was warm and sunny. It is always a pleasure to meet fellow modellers and painters, talk about the hobby, exchange experience and buy a new mini or two.

The competition itself was really friendly and well organised (some of the judges are judging also at EuroMilitaire). I managed to take photos of some of the entries, but because I forgot to take my camera, and was forced to use my mobile... most of the photos is rather crappy and doesn't do the justice to the paintjob, sorry guys. But yesterday i had rather hectic morning, and I'm happy I didn't forget my entries...

I must say I'm glad I didn't, as I managed to win some medals there.
I took 3 miniatures to the show, and two of them placed really nice.
Urmuth Scars of War was awarded with gold in the Fantasy/sf category, and The Grinder with bronze in Bust category.
Poor Yoda the Bloob got nothing... but I received some nice feedback and might tweak him a bit before Salute to give him fighting chance.

And here's a short photo gallery from this event. Just please remember, before you check it out, that these photos were done with my mobile and they're mostly horrible and don't do any justice to the miniatures:( Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to link another gallery here, with decent photos done by my friend John (who won silver with his Wolf!)

cheers

'eM

GW Wraith step by step - part 1

The mini


I painted this miniature for 6th CofC Miniature Exchange. The reason behind this choice was lots of space for textures and freehands. Recently I paint mostly bigger scale, and ME mini has to be 28mm, so this wraith is win/win for me. Within the range of scale and enough of nice surfaces for some experiments.
By the time this SBS is published, the mini is with the recipient, but now I can only hope, he'll like it.

Preparation:
As you can see I skipped preparation of the mini. I was so eager to start working on this piece, that I forgot to take pictures. But the process of preparing this wraith for painting is pretty straightforward.
The mini consist of 5 plastic parts:
- 3 parts of cloak,
- hands and scythe,
- head (3 options available).
The parts fit together nicely, and the cast itself is clean, with good details. The assembly was easy and only small amount of putty was necessary to get rid of the junction.


The base

I decided to go for one of Scibor's bases from egyptian base kit.
I had an idea that the wraith is rising from the remains of a tombstone or something like that. To emphasise this effect I was thinking about somehow mixing the colours of the wraith and the stone on the places where they join. Or maybe simulate the 'sucking' of some sort undead energy from the stone to the wraith by painting thin, glowing 'veins' (in the wraith's colour) on the stone, gathering at the joining points.
But eventually I ran out of time to do that, so the message isn't that clear.

Preparation:
The Scibor's base was a little too big for the regular Warhammer base, and for what I was going to do with it, so I decided to modify it 'slightly'. On the photo below there is a base before and after modification. As you can see, I cut big chunks of resin, getting rid of most of the 'earth' and sand. I letf the insect on the cheek. I know it supposed to be a scarab, but it can also be a common forest beetle. I also separated the 'shield' a bit from the face, because after removing some of the earth from this side, it looked somehow odd.

After reducing the size of the base quite significantly, I made sure that there is a place underneath for the little rock wraith is attached to. I decided to glue it on the side, with both long ends of the robe touching the statue, to make it look like he's rising from the stone. I had to cut the outer side of the rock, and mask it with some sandy paste.

To make sure that both, base and wraith, are securely attached to the black base I pinned them together.

And now just a bit of  putty, sandy paste and few small rocks, and the ground is ready.

To emphasise the effect of life being sucked out of the terrain by creation of the wraith I decided to add few fern leaves half dry and dead. I know, a lot of Scibor's bases have sculpted ferns on it, and my idea isn't that original, but using etched brass fern should give me a bit more natural look than sculpted leaves.

Because etched brass is rather delicate, I thought it would be better to keep it and separately from the base and glue onto it when all painting is done. That's also the reason that all the moss was glued at the very end.

So at the moment the whole mini is ready for primer.
But more on that in the next episode:)


cheers

'e M

Demon (Evil Miniatures) - review

Today I will show you one of the last minis I got in my hands, Demon sculpted by Vlado Turek who's the man behind Evil Miniatures.
I found the mini on the PlanetFigure forum a while ago, and simply couldn't resist (and trust me I was trying:D).


The Mini:

(c)Evil Miniatures

Name: Demon
Manufacturer: Evil Miniatures

Sculptor: Vlado Turek

Material: Resin
Scale: 1:32 (65mm tall, 49mm to the eyes) 

The box:

In the box: 

As you can see from the photos above, parts are secured with rather thick cartboard box and few layers of bubble wrap. On top of that parts are placed in small plastic bags, so there is no chance something will get lost.


Quality of the cast:
On the first glance after removing parts from the bags, cast seems to be absolutely crisp and flawless. Under further examination I managed to find few small mould lines:at the back of his legs, at his back and one little below his back:D (the last one will be covered with the fabric stripes though). Front of the mini and other parts, as far I can tell, are free from any mould lines. 
I found also few airbubbles under the surface of the mini. There is only few of them, placed at the back of the thighs and on the chest (the sufraces facing up while the mini was casted I guess), and they're small and easy to fix. 
There is a little bit of flesh on his claws, but it goes away under a fingernail. Shoulderpads and fabric stripes are clean and pretty easy to detach from the resin bar, even though some cleaning of the detached surfaces is necessary.


Assembly:
As far I can tell at the moment, assembly of this model will be easy and very straightforward. Parts fit together nicely, and Valdo made sure to make it for us as easy as possible.
He even made sure that the places where we need to attach demon's arms are hidden under some sort of armbands, so no filing is required whatsoever. Shoulderpads and stripes of cloth also fit really nicely, and only minimal amount of putty will be required to hide the joint.
On the photos below, you can see some details of the cast and assembly.

Overall opinion:

(Once again I'd like to remind that the opinion is absolutely subjective and based on my copy of the mini and my personal, slightly twisted, taste)

I must say it's a great miniature, I absolutely adore the sculpture and I'm really happy with the quality of the cast, packaging, and 'customer care'.

cheers

'eM

Best freehand ever:D

Quick WIP of one of my many many projects... Bloody Yoda from Knight Models.
Quite an early stage, clothes are just mess after trying new technique (not really working thb;/), but the face is almost ready. Of course there is still some work to be done but at least you can see features of his face... And that's all freehand, seriously. At the poto below you can see him just after priming. only the nose and right eye are more or less visible... Left eye is just a blob, mouth... is somewhere under the nose. And tbh that's the face after an exchange;] The first cast it was just one porous blob instead of the face... So I must say, I'm proud of his face now, and of my freehand skills;]

cheers

'eM

Textured material - approach 1

This article on how to paint fabric texture has been moved to it's new home: Minichix Studio website.

You can read the new, better version of the article about texturing materials here.

6th Cofc Miniature Exchange mini published

Here is the miniature I painted for 6th Cofc ME. My recipient Hellspawn, just received my package so I can post it here:

CMON

 cheers
'eM