Quick Update

Just been too busy of late to get around to posting, after the Hell Dorado miniatures I had a small rush of painting covering Flames or War, Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k The last job reminded me of how different it is to paint on plastic miniatures over metal ones. It may just be that the P3 paints aren't the best for the job when it comes to plastic or that I've simply being doing so many metal miniatures for so long that I've forgot how to do plastic ones :) Either way there's just somthing about metal minatures that says "quality" that plastic ones don't have. It's a real shame that Privateer have moved to plastic now too! Anway as well as painting I've been helping out a good friend here set up his Bangkok gaming shop. It'll be great to have somewhere to promote painting locally and build up the miniature gaming hobby.

Time for Hell Dorado and The Lost

After many many weeks of War Machine and Hordes work I now have something a little different to work on with an array of models in queue for multiple game systems. First up is a Hell Dorado set , "The Lost Starter Box." 8 very diverse models to work on. Already got the base coats and undercoats done on them all as they use all use a similar core paint scheme, from here on though it'll need a focus on each individual model as they are very different in style and presentation beyond the base colors.

After this I have some Lord of the Rings models, about 40 Flames of War infantry and a tank! Variety is the the spice of life :)

Wrapping up warmachine jobs

Well my last 3 months has been solid WarMachine and Hordes, I've lost count of how many models I've done, but I think I managed to get pictures from each unit onto the photo gallery. Still having some issues with the pictures, sometimes they look great and sometimes they need a lot of manual work to get them to look half way okay. On the upside clients are all happy so I'll not spend too much time worrying about the pictures just yet. Running out of some core paints though and need to get some more in. Been using the Formula P3 so far and been happy with the results.

Anyway I have about 6 models left to do for Warmachine, all Solos of one kind or another and then I have a batch of WH 40k, some 15mm and some FoW troopers and tanks to do. The change of theme will be nice for sure.

Khador , Khador and some other stuff

Not had much chance to update the site as I've been working through an army of models this past week. I started off with Laddermore, which was easier than a lot of cavalry given the amount of armor the horse is wearing, but trying to not make the blue wash away all the other colors took a little work. She's a little too blue.  I also had a couple of Lug and Cragback models to do. The bear was a cool combination of armor, fur and blood.  And after that I've been doing Khador...dogs, casters, Doom Reavers and more... lots of red paint being used :)  

Precursor Knights and Unit Attachment Done

Busy weekend here, but Monday is a holiday so I have had time to crack on with some work.Complete a complete unit of Precursor Knights and their unit attachment. I still need to spend more time working on the eyes of models as some of them come across looking a little "off" at times. I decided to give the Knights a bit of a "been in battle" look as they just came across as too clean and white. A little muddied effect looks good on the clothing. Didn't come across so well in the photos, actually all the photos were a little off from the lastest batch, I was in a rush and didn't spend enough time to get the focus right.  Note to self : take pics when I have more time! Next up I have a range of Solos to do, mainly unit attachments and a couple of casters.

Fixed Gallery and Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corp

Found that the gallery was having a few display issues and fixed most of them, struggling to find the page that makes the largest image appear though as there is some kind of link error there that I could fix....if I could find it.

Anyway in between fixing that I worked on a large unit of dwarves. Units of 10 odd models that are the same isn't the most thrilling of projects, but I can usually do 10 models that are the same in the same time it takes to do one large unique model.


Above are some of the Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corp dwarves from WarMachine. You'll also note the photo quality has improved vastly. I changed from using the macro setting with flash to using the AV setting and no flash. Looking good!

Also did a slightly custom version of Anastasia di Bray, changing the black for a seductive lilac scheme. I prefer it to the dark standard scheme.

Great Bears of Gallowswood, Kovnik Markov and Photos

Just finished working on a few more Khador models. These are for a local friend so he was okay with me trying a few things with them to see how they'd turn out. One thing I was keen to try was a snow effect. I see a lot of figures with "snow" terrain that just looks like a layer of white "stuff" on the base. So what I decided to do was apply a rough and grass terrain first and then apply the snow over this. I think they figures turned out okay and you can check out the results in the gallery as shortly. I was tempted to try adding a scattering of snow to th figures themselves, but decided to stick with the horses hooves for now and get some feedback before getting carried away. Anyway, the Great Bears of Gallowswood and  Kovnik Markov.

The pictures look to have improved too, changed the way I was working on them and the results look better, though I won't know for sure until I edit and upload them. What I do need though is a better background than "all white".

New Gallery Up

Okay loaded up a nice PHP gallery software to handle all the pictures, I used a very nice (and free) software which took about 15 minutes of uploading and tinkering to set up, it's called Plogger . Which enabled me to set up galleries and albums, auto creates thumb nails and is searchable too. Not at all bad for free! Oh yea, new gallery is here.

Pictures of Rorsh and Brine

Couple of pictures if Rorsh and Brine below. Need to work on my focal depth and lighting for these pictures!

Minion Casters Done

well Rorsh and Brine are now complete and I'm far happier with the results on this pair than on Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath. It might just be my general perference for darker paint schemes, but either way way the guy who commissioned me for Dahlia and co was happy, so that's what counts. That said I'd like to take a shot at doing them in a custom scheme sometime, darker colors would be interesting to try

Rorsh and Brine on the other hand flowed far more easiy and were fun to do. No desire to take a hammer to them and although Brine presented challenges with the skin tones it worked out well. I also worked on a nice custon base for Brine. I Certainly need to get some pictures of the finished piece.

Now I'm just wrapping up a couple of Strider Deathstalkers (Hordes Legion) models. Getting the black feathers to stand out on the dark purple cloaks took a little more effort than expected and still, in the shade they can appear to be almost totally black from behind.

Minion Casters

Well I've been working on a couple of Hordes Minion War Casters over the past week, and they are challenging. The most challenging by far has been Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath. The light tones used on the models are far different from the average metal, dirt and grime of most models. Getting my head around the shades has driven me up the wall a couple of times and I've had to take large breaks to quell my desire to take a hammer to Skarath. However Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath are now done, I'm okay with the work for Table top, but it's going to need a few more runs to get the quality up for them. Rorsh and Brine present their own challenges but they are easier than the other two and the main challange is Brine's skin and the fact I haven't done this model before, anyway it's going smoother than with Skarath

Painting Resources

I got some great DVDs this week from the folks over at Miniature Mentor, they cover in depth some really great topics as well as some areas that I'd really not thought a about a lot up to now. It's great to be doing something where I'm always learning noew techniques and styles.

This weekend I wrapped up a couple of Professer Pendrake models as well as finished up painting som Cygnar Squire models. The squires I really did't get much of a kick from, they are just so "ho hum" as models. However this week I am starting on some Minion Warcasters and Beasts for Hordes and thee models for these are awesome, it's going to be a total blast to paint them.

White Mane and Rowdy Done

Okay that was slow, I blame it on the holidays, but I'm happy with them now and they'll be packed and delivered shortly. Next on the project list is a small Cygnar infantry unit and some Farrow Bone Grinders. The Bone Grinders will be interesting as I've never done them before and unlike a lot of warmachine models they are using leather armor rather than chain or plate. I really need to get some pictures done and loaded!

First Post

Well, this is my new blog and this is the first post so for now I'm talking to myself here on this blog I imagine, but well, got to start somewhere. So lets start with what I'm working on right now. It's a bit of a mixed batch of War Machine and Hordes models. The two I'm focusing on right now are a Cygnar War Jack called Old Rowdy and a Hordes Solo "White Mane". I generally enjoy painting large individual models over large repetitive units and Old Rowdy has been no exception, though when I "finished" the model last week, I could see the effect of trying to work over the holidays when my mind wasn't focused on the job. Not great, so I started all over and now it's looking fine. Just the basing to do and then back to the White Mane who also suffered from the holiday focus lapse.