30 Sept 2012

Talrashi - back to 'tiny' scale

With Grinder and Templar back on the WIP bench, I need to get back to 28mm scale for a while.
At this point I'm planning two 'tiny' projects, Talrashi from Red Box Games and Isabela from McVey's. 

On the photos below, first colour on girl's dress and 'family' photo with bigger uncle;]


Talrashi is a very very early WIP so far, so there is not much to say really. I just hope I still rememeber what to do with such a tiny minitatures;p
To be fair, size makes a difference;p

cheers

'eM

26 Sept 2012

Euro Militaire 2012 - Shopping

Shopping wise it was a really good weekend, trust me.
So many nice stands with lots and lots of awesome models and accessories... All Vendors so nice and friendly:) Everything shiny and tempting:D

First group photo, ofc with Inspector Bombel:

You know, this cat is a big one (almost a stone). So taking that into consideration, the loot looks even more impressive;]


And because not everything is clearly visible on the photo, and because I'm still extremely excited about my new treasures, here is the list with official photos:


1. Landsknecht Soldier (Pegaso Models, 90mm)

(c) Pegaso Models
Sculptor: Andrea Jula
Painter: Diego Ruina


2. Iroquois 1760, or as I like to call him: pi**ed off Indian (Pegaso Models, 75mm)

 
(c) Pegaso Models
Sculptor: Andrea Jula 
Painter: Franco Mocci


3. Francois L'Olonnais (Pegaso Models, 75mm)

(c) Pegaso Models
Sculptor: Maurizio Bruno 
Painter: Danilo Cartacci


4. Port Royale (Andrea Miniatures, 54mm)

 (c) Andrea Miniatures


5. Norse Lord 800 A.D. (Andrea Miniatures, 54mm)

 (c) Andrea Miniatures


6. Brock the Wanderer (Scale 75, 75mm?)

(c) Scale 75
Sculptor: Joaquin Palacios
Painter: Alex Varela


7. Apache Lipan (La Meridiana, 200mm)

(c) La Meridiana Miniatures
Sculptor: Carles Vaquero
Painter: Danilo Cartacci


8. French Courtesan (El Viejo Dragon Miniatures, 1:10)

(c) El Viejo Dragon Miniatures
Sculptor: JR Arredondo
Painter: Pepa Saavedra


9. Gem Smith (War Griffon Miniatures, 1:10)

(c) War Griffon Miniatures
Sculptor: Raul Fernandez Romo
Painter: Adrian Hopwood


10. Leo Bust (Yedharo Models, 1:10)
(c) Yedharo Models
Sculptor: Fausto Gutierrez


12. Animal set (Mantis Miniatures, 1:35)
(c) Mantis Miniatures


12. Few bits and pieces : airbrush holder, a plinth (so called einzelstucke;p), set of sanding cloths,  few pigments.
I do believe it's all...
I think I should be done with buying new minis till Xmas;] Or maybe,  if I'm really lucky, till Salute next April;p

cheers

'eM

25 Sept 2012

Euro Militaire 2012 - results

Well, not much to say really. This year I didn't even made a single cut.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit dissapointed (everyone likes being appreciated), but on the other hand, to be perfectly honest with you... my works weren't the best there;p There is still lots for me to learn and practice, so I can only hope next year will be better.

But I didn't left Folkestone completely empty handed;]
I did proper shopping (list and photos soon) and had a chance to speak with few judges (big thanks guys for your patience:D), so I brought back really decent feedback:D
Thanks to that, Grinder and Templar are back on the workbench;] I'm not sure if I'll be able to make them winning pieces, but at least better looking ones:D

cheers

'eM

22 Sept 2012

My EuroTrio;]

Here are my boys:D
Quick groupshot for now, but everyone should have a solo photoshoot closer to the next weekend.


cheers

'eM

21 Sept 2012

Pegasus Project - Templar Knight, last touches

Almost there, still few little things need to be fixed, but I'd say I'm quite happy how he turned out. Especially after all stress and horror of yesterday;]

And what do you think?



cheers

'eM

20 Sept 2012

Pegasus Project - little disaster in the process

Today I decided that it's the time to glue my Templar to the base, before adding mud, sweat and blood. But suddenly it turned out the cloak doesn't fit. And that was a surprise I must say. I did  try if it's fitting before glueing miniature together, but you know, it's rather hard to check it exactly if you have few heavy pieces in your hands.
So basically I had to file quite big chunks of the cloak and base, to make it happen. Not a funny thing to do, especially if the miniature is fully painted and only two days left for the competition;/
But I did it finally, and I lost only half of the day...
Anyway, that's how it looks now. Arrows, dirt and blood are still missing, but it will be there before Saturday's morning:D



 cheers

'eM

14 Sept 2012

Pegasus Project - Templar Knight... still in a deep forest...

Not much to say really.
As you can see, base is more or less done. The same goes for leather and metal elements, face and bottom of the tunic (and shield, not included on the photos). Cloak and top of the tunic (mainly cross) still need lots of work.
And after that, when all will be shiny and smooth, I'm gonna go crazy with dirt and blood.





And at this point there is only 7,5 days left...
Not good, not good at all.

11 Sept 2012

The Grinder - almost there

Ok, Grinder is almost ready.
I had to attach him to the plinth so I could glue swords in place and work with the skin knowing exactly what will be visible.
I still need to fix some issues on the skin, but other than that I can't see any other areas that need to be corrected. Ofc it might be because I lost my objectivity here;]
If you can see any other problems than the skin, please let me know.



Photos are rather mediocre, I know. But I was in a hurry, and they're not final ones so you know...

cheers

'eM

9 Sept 2012

Euro Militaire - social announcement;p

Ok guys:D Euro Militaire in less than 2 weeks now! Time for panick, at least for me!!

So who will be attending the show this year? Who will I have a chance to meet? Hopefully it's gonna be lot's of us and this year will be even better show than 2011;]

And if you don't know me, but you want to say hello, just look for overly excited dark haired chick, trying to buy everything. That's gonna be me:P

see you soon:D

'eM

6 Sept 2012

The Grinder - little update

Still lots to do, mostly skin (and eyebrows!!), but I guess I can see the end here;]

Leather elements and that fabric around his hair are finished.
Hair itself and metal elements need some final definition. Other than that, only skin left.
At this point I must say I'm particularly happy with the look of the cloth (some close-ups below). That was the first time I was trying to mimic this kind of texture.
And what do you think? Does it look real or not really?

 
 
 




cheers

'eM

3 Sept 2012

Textures - leather

Before I'll start talking about painting the leather elements I should spend few minutes to show you various types of leather you can encounter, and maybe try to reproduce on a miniature.
To be honest, if I'd like to do that properly, I should do the whole article about types of leather, how do they age and  how do they look when old and worn out. But that's blog about painting miniatures, not leatherworking, and because I don't wanna bore you to death with this theoretical part, I'll simply reffer you to the the article about leather on wikipedia and show few pictures of new and used leather I found in internet.


Grain leather





Vachetta leather







Suede




That's not all leather types of course, just the most common these days. So, I'd say, you should do some proper research by yourselves, especially if you're trying to paint some less common types of leather, i.e. deer leather used by native americans, kangaroo leather or something more exotic and luxurious like snake or crocodile leather, or perhaps fish leather (it does exist, seriously, and looks pretty cool).




Painting
When I  paint leather, usually I start with fairly light colour (beige, light brown, ochre, yellowish shades of brown), and then slowly build  darker parts with washes (devlan mud, black, sepia, ogryn flesh, and even green and blue if I'm going for colder shades.
I don't paint too neatly, rather use irregular spots and uneven layers mixing various colours.
To add more worn look I go over the glazes with the base colour or some darker shades of brown. When I'm more or less happy with the lights and shadows I add some highlights (washing them lightly in the process to make them blend better).

Texturing
Lots of washes and paint layers applied unevenly to the surface, helps me to build three dimensional texture of the leather. But if you want even more texture, to mimic really rough leather, you can use almost dry brush with a bit of colour and dab it in the surface where you want that particular colour and roughness. This technique is very impressive especially on bigger scale models, where it looks very natural.

Adding damage to the leather elements
Normally leather while used gets darker (due to contact with oil, water and other stuff) so if we disturb that top layer, we can often see the lighter colour showing beneath. To recreate that effect we can make sure that the whole surface is showing some signs of being used.

1. Surface
This type of damage is achieved mostly by uneven application of paint in the process of adding shadows. But if that is not enough you can add some more using almost dry brush with small amount of bright beige and dab the leather to create random spots. Just concentrate on the places which are most likely exposed to that kind of damage.


2. Edges
To create damaged and worn out edges, I use bright beige (off white if the overall colour is rather light) and simply paint thin lines in the places where I think leather is most likely going to be damaged. And then glaze them a bit with one of the washes to get more unified look. I use that method mostly on belts and straps or on the edges of bigger surfaces if that looks believable. Thin lines of damage can be added in the middle of leather elements, but we should be rather reasonable, and do that only if that type of damage could be explained by the usage of the item (i.e. leather armour). Just remember that the whitish lines are not holes (crackles) in the leather but represent damaged top layer of the surface.


As you can see the technique is really simple and requires only some practise and, what's  very important, proper research of the type of leather you want to recreate.


I don't really have any step by step pictures of how I paint leather, but I gathered some, to show you more or less what I'm doing.

Menhom Dark Shadow (finished piece)

 Pegaso boys (WIP)

Mr Grinder (WIP)
 


Colours
Contemporary leather can be dyed in any colour you can imagine. So when you paint modern or s-f miniatures, feel free to choose whatever suits your colour sheme.
With historical pieces I'd rather go with natural shades of brown, gray and black, as I have no idea which colours were avaliable back in the past. If you are really curious about that, feel free to do some deep research on the subject:) I'll just go with natural browns. It's safer this way, and I won't have to explain to people that according to some old and dusty books, this shade of colour was avaliable on leather in that particular times;]

And I guess that's all I got to say about painting leather elements. I hope you'll find some tips and inspiration in this tutorial.

cheers

'eM