Do Not Miss: February 2012

This is the most interesting stuff I've seen in the internet on February 2012:

• Simple scenery using sprues: This is a guide to make the cheapest wargaming scenery ever with quite impressive results. I bet you never thought about the use you can give to so many of those sprues you throw away.
  
  
• Space Trooper by Romain: Finally Romain Van Der Bogaert has finished this bust from which we have seen progress photos since long time ago. Amazing work as usual, and he will be casting copies!
  
  
• Trio of Mage Students by MIKH (Soda Pop): These little beauties will be a future release in Soda Pop's range of models. I simply love them. Great idea to add the magic halo/energy fields.
  
  
• Knightmodels February releases: Amazing new piece for their military range (the Alpinist) and some other awesome goodies for their other ranges. Fantastic work as always on the sculpting and painting!
  
  
• Corporation new releases by Remy Tremblay (Mantic Games): Remy is sculpting practically every miniature in Mantic's new line of miniatures for the Corporation in Warpath. This is indeed good news for everyone! Check out this miniature, you will find more Corporation miniatures in his blog.
  
  
• Taking pictures by Iguazzu: This is an amazing tutorial on how Iguazzu takes photos of his miniatures. One of the most discussed topics of all time in miniature painting, let's try his approach!
  
  
• Rhino King by Jarhead: Roman spent a lot of time on this one! Check out on Massive Voodoo the amazing result of his work in this Rhino King modelled by Allan Carrasco and painted beautifully by him introducing scarred tatoos!
  
  
• Painting demo by Pepa Saavedra (Figurines-tv): Rafa Coll brings us this is a wonderful masterclass by Pepa Saavedra on Figurines-tv about the use of airbrush to paint skintones on big scales. It's very long and it can be a bit slow but it's highly recommended for learning, its very instructive to see how she works! The only bad thing: she speaks in spanish, so if you don't know the language you won't understand a thing she says.
  
  
• The Usurper by Pedro Fernández: Rafa Coll (again) shows us some photos about this miniature sculpted by Pedro Fernández for Nocturna Models (Historic Art).
  
  
• Historic Art new releases: These two new miniatures are the Huntress in 30mm (Nocturna-Historic Art had this miniature in a bigger scale) and a very interesting interpretation of the famous mith "The rape of the Sabine women". Once again, from Rafa Coll's blog.

"The Last Stand" is on GW front page internationally!

This is something that has touched my heart today, as a big fan of GW universe that I am. In GW "What's New Today" blog they decided to mention my "The Last Stand of the Crimson Fists", as they are now celebrating the 25 years of Warhammer 40,000 and say my piece as a good example of a tribute to the classic imagery of the game.


Here you can see the article they dedicated to my diorama:

GW: What's New on 17 February 2012
It's actually on GW website frontpage for every country! The dream of a little child come true, there's tears in my eyes! :)

Thanks to my friend Carletes for letting me know!

Remember there are more photos of the diorama on my blog and there's even a massive diary about how I made it. Quite a lot of effort I put into that one, indeed!

WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 2

Previously on... WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Now I will do some minor transformations to the swordmasters. Mainly I will add extra rows of scales in between the others which already exist, and then fill any gaps or imperfections with putty. So for the work on the extra amour scales, I'll first knead a little thread of putty (Green Stuff and Milliput mixed on a 50-50 basis, because it provides the flexibility and stickyness of the Green Stuff and the ability to be sanded after cured of Milliput).


Then I will pose the thread in between two rows of scales, carefully making sure it adheres properly.




With my "lightsaber" (a custom made tool which resembles a GW sculpting tool but slimmer) I start giving shape to the scales.


And this is the result!


You do this exact process for each and every one of the rows you want to add on each swordmaster and after some hours of hard work (not that hard really, but at least it takes quite some time) you have pimped the whole unit. Notice that I also filled some gaps in the banner and other areas, like some fixing I did on the hero's face.


Good job, I'm proud of myself. Now let's give the babies a little bath with soap, scratching gently with a toothbrush to scrape all dirt and grease away.


Watch them dry on my ugly towel! (The towel where the Sea Guard dried was actually prettier).


And now time to prime them, with my usual airbrush tecnique, Gunze Sangyo Hobby Color Matt White.


This time I will try something slightly different. To mark crearly where shadows will be, and by the way, outlining and saving some time, I will airbrush all the swordmasters with black from below, creating a guiding shadow.



Here they are, after the lower black priming.


And as I said before, I will base them before painting, to save time (proof of why experience is so highly valued). The bases are made with Milliput, pressing the bases to some one side moulds I have of these temple terrain, I place them over the base before the Milliput is cured so that they fit perfectly.


Once the Milliput is hard, I remove the miniatures from the bases, prime the bases with a dark colour (I used black and dark blue) and then glue them to the bases.


Time to paint!

Continue to WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 3