January 25, 2012 in Stormlord (2012)
Well its no great surprise, but I finished off putting together the rear autocannons last night and glued them in place, which means that the Stormlord is fully assembled and with the exception of those two guns and the main gun, was undercoated on Monday evening so ready for paint. I’m currently suffering from a cold so may well spend some of tonight airbrushing in the warmth of my office.
January 24, 2012 in General
Well a few months have passed since my last post and for a change only a portion of them have been idle. After the New year I decided that my office/painting & modelling area was well overdue a tidy as the abundance of crap on my desk meant I couldn’t paint or model there even if I had been able to get through the deluge of further crap on the floor. So three weeks ago I set out and have sorted out the whole office into a usable state. I once more have a floor with visible carpet, a desk with my computer set up and a desk with a clear area for painting & modelling. I’ve got some extra “bitz” storage on the desk and have tidied underneath the desk so that I can actually get my legs under it. The cupboard has had a rudimentary sort out and on Sunday I got a load of surplus miniatures up on eBay so that I can free up space and make a bit of cash as well. One thing that I’m very concious of is keeping the painting & modelling desk tidy enough to use throughout the year. To this effect I’m forcing myself to only work on two project’s at a time – one painting and one modelling. Modelling projects inherently cause more mess so it’s likely I’ll only be actively working on one thing.
October 3, 2011 in Vehicle
After a bit of random searching on the eBay, I picked up a Tau Devilfish cheaper than shop price (around £16). My idea is that I’ll give it a decent colour scheme and apply weathering as per the Forge World masterclass book. If I’m happy with it then I might even buy a different FW weapon turret for it. I’ve not yet decided on a decent colours scheme, but possibly a pale blue/purple one, almost cloud like. However light purple can have a habit of looking like pink, so a bit of experimentation is required.
September 26, 2011 in Vehicle
IN MY musings of a potential idea for GD2012 and a 40k vehicle, I’m going to go over lots of different ideas and although the new Necron codex isn’t yet out have had a bit of a mooch and found a few Jes Goodwin concept pieces for Necron Vehicles.
Warmachine (big cannon); War Alters (transport); War Barque (heavy transport for destroyers)
Now all of the above look really characteristic of Necron’s and in principal would be straight forward to create due to their angular construction. The Warmachine would be the most complex as it has “horseshoe” shaped pieces around the giant gun and would likely require a small run of resin casts to create. Depending upon the version, one of the War Alters could also be quire difficult as it has some quite curved bits – the difficult bit being the fact you need a identical mirror’d pair, but a pair of plasti-card pieces which you fill with a green/milliput type putty would actually work quite well for this.
One thing that would be worth doing is to design and create a full set of brass etchings to use (link on places). This would allow for the various Necron symbols to be displayed all over the actual model and extra details too. Due to the way brass etching works, you could get a huge number of pieces out of an A5 or A4 sheet which would add a really nice level of professionalism to the overall effect of the piece, plus it’s pretty easy to knock out in Adobe Illustrator. I would need to make some very detailed plans of what I were to do, before I actually do it, which would allow me to ensure that all the pieces fit together happily – however it may be sensible to knock this out in a CAD package, which in itself might take more time than I want…
September 26, 2011 in General, Golden Demon 2011
Despite my best efforts (and one evening staying up late on caffeine energy drinks), I didn’t manage to finish off the entry I was doing for Golden Demon 2011. About 6pm on Saturday (the day before the event) I spotted a mold line on one of the legs which only appeared with a certain light direction and after the application of a light colour and just admitted defeat. This does mean that I can now take my time and finish off this model without the pressure of having to rush bits. I need to look into the best way to strip the paint off the legs as I’m not happy with how they have gone.
Games Day 2011 was pretty good although as with all things there are things that could be improved on. This year all of the “sales” element was collected together at one end of the NEC and access to this was restricted to perhaps a 50 or 60 people at a time. This was really good as you were able to get round and buy stuff very effectively, however I personally felt quite rushed as I knew there was other people there waiting to come in. My biggest complaint is that the queue for being allowed up to the area had no definition and you really didn’t know where you were meant to queue and where not. I’m sure that next year they’ll address this. Unlike some years there seemed to be enough things to view so that at no point did my brother or I feel like we were wandering round aimlessly.
July 19, 2011 in General
This is my thoughts behind how you should look at any modelling project for the purpose of a display piece. This actually applies to both large and small displays.
Focus
Depending upon the size of the piece you will require one or more focal points, in the event of a single miniature or large monster (without rider) this will likely be the piece’s face, however it’s down to you to decide that. A dragon’s focus may be a gout of fire being breathed from it’s mouth, a Shaggoth’s focus may be it’s axe, a magic user could be an outstretched hand. There is certainly no hard and fast rule and you may pick a different focal point to somebody else. The idea of a focal point is that anybody who looks at it, should have their eye drawn to the focal point in the first instance. Once their eye has taken that in (providing it’s inspired the viewer), their eye will naturally start absorbing things around it. For particularly large pieces, or a piece that has a lot going on (such as a bar brawl) you should pick a primary focus and then some secondary. In large enough pieces, you can have more than one primary focus, so a 1ft x 1ft bar brawl may have the barman shooting a blunderbuss at a trouble maker and also two patrons beating each other senseless.
It is important that whatever your focal point, that this has enough detail for the viewer not to be able to take it all in with a single glance. Hold their interest for marginally longer than it takes to see everything, because the viewer has had to engage their brain they will be more inclined to look at the rest of the piece.
Natural Focal Points
There are certain points that naturally lend themselves to becoming the primary focal point, miniatures may have “pokey out bits”, such as guns, platforms for miniatures to stand on or an area that has higher detail (such as the face).
Other Considerations
It is also important when thinking of focal points to think about the environment the piece is going to be in – a Golden Demon cabinet will require different approach to a shelf in your dining room or indeed as part of an army. These all can be grouped together however by thinking about the direction in which the piece will be viewed. In a Golden Demon (or indeed any painting competition), the piece will be closely inspected from all angles. It will naturally be viewed from the front and back – the back being as important if not moreso than the front as this is where the judges will initially see the piece. When being viewed on a shelf you are only bothered about it being seen from the front, and likewise an army will be viewed mostly from the top. A piece may naturally have a focal point visible from all angles, but at times you may have to create a secondary focal point from a different angle.
How to Draw the Focus
So you’ve picked your focal point – how do you make people look at it? Well the answer is quite simple and relies on the quality of your paint job. The focal point should be painted to your highest standard without question – it will be scrutinised close up. You need to make your focal point more prominent than the rest of the piece. You can do this by:
painting everything else to a lesser detail level;
by using slightly drabber colours on the rest of the piece;
by painting the area around the focal point slightly darker than it should be;
by making the focal point brighter than the rest of the piece;
by adding something unique of interest;
These are not by any means the only or best ways of doing this, but should give you an idea of how to approach creating a focal point.
Non Focal Points
When painting the rest of the piece you need to do your best that you don’t paint in such a way that you’ll draw the focus away from any focal points. This can be done by not pushing the highlights quite as far or using slightly drabber colours or just being sensible and not trying to cover every inch of the piece with high detail.
Summary
There isn’t a hard and fast way of “perfect” for everyone. By picking a focal point or two you can actually have a really good bash at producing something that is pleasing to the eye and will encourage somebody to spend time looking over all parts of it. Don’t over detail your piece as that is actually worse than not having enough detail.
July 19, 2011 in General, Golden Demon 2011
So I’ve been bad and rather than sticking with the Wraithlord I was converting as a Golden Demon entry, have decided to go for another project. Again it’s an “almost out of the box” miniature, but this time is actually Warhammer Fantasty rather than 40k. The project however, I’m going to keep top secret for a number of reasons. The biggest one is that it means that nobody can nick my ideas and do them better 
Another is that I won’t feel like I have to take photos every five minutes. I shall be taking work-in-progress shots, but don’t need to take one every time I do something.
The model was purchased a couple of weeks ago and I have almost finished tidying the flash and mold lines and filling any gaps. By the weekend everything should have received a black undercoat and any missed bits will be corrected and then I have exactly two months to get it painted. It’s going to be quite tight as between now and the end of August I have exactly one weekend home to myself! I’ve almost got into the habit of modelling until around 11.30pm now so am getting in around 2 hours of modelling most days. Providing I can keep this up without killing myself through lack of sleep, it should give me enough time to get it all done, including a nice scenic base.
Watch this space…
June 17, 2011 in General
Yup, having to do housework is a pain as it really eats into time that it would be nice to do modelling and painting :s Project wise, I have borrowed some Milliput off my brother and am well on the way to finishing filling and sculpting my Wraithlord, which I still hope to have done for Golden Demon this year. I still have three months, although the next two really are going to be quite busy – I just need to give myself that kick to actually do some every evening, rather than “just” watching the telly.
My brother is currently looking into the collection side of a new 40k army as he’s purchased all of the miniatures he wants for his 1,000 point Daemon army. I’ve a feeling he may increase it to 1,500 at some point, but is currently planning out a Dark Eldar army – not sure what points size currently, I would imagine 1,000 to begin with. As with our usual method of collecting, I will also build up a counter army, but am torn between a few different directions. The biggest restriction for me is money. If I’m sensible, I should be able to spare enough money (£20 to £25) to purchase a single boxed set of miniatures every month. I expect we’re looking at 12 to 18 months to collect our army in total, so if we say I’ll have between £240 and £300 to spend (plus miniatures purchased for presents) I’m really looking at one of the more “elite” armies that have few miniatures – i.e. Imperial Guard, Orks and ‘Nids are out!
April 18, 2011 in Golden Demon 2011
Hehe, it’s the middle of April and I’ve pretty much made no progress on modelling for the past four weeks. The past couple of weeks I’ve been busy researching, buying and setting up a new fish tank as I’ve always wanted fish, however I did make a concerted effort last night to finish basecoating the yellow components on my Rune Priest – very theraputic doing a bit of painting with a fish tank gurgling away!
Anyway, the following CMoN Post, is a really clever way of doing effective banners which I may well adopt for my GD2011 entry.
March 30, 2011 in Golden Demon 2011
I have now got and opened the Wraithlord model that I intend to convert & paint for Golden Demon 2011. It’s a lot more delicate than I thought it was going to be in all honesty! However it’s going to be a good model to enter.
I’ve gone over various ideas and have narrowed it down to a couple of firm ones. I could go really traditional and just paint it craftworld colours, or I could convert it to a specific aspect path.
