Do Not Miss: August 2012

This is the most interesting stuff I've seen in the internet on August 2012, a quiet month in the miniature painting blogosphere (vacations aren't merciful):

• Golden Demon Germany 2012 link collection by Bestienmeister: Another year of German Demons, and another edition of Chris' link collection on his blog. Enjoy!
  
  
• Looterz of the Caribbean by Ben Komets: Amazing diorama by my friend Ben, superb painting and idea, I love Captain Duckheart! It won gold in GD Germany.
  
  
• GD Germany report by Picster: Having just won the Slayersword in Germany, who better to do a little report on the event!
  
  
• Gandalf in Moria by Arsies: Loving the LOTR miniatures range from Knightmodels as much as I do, it wasn't hard to imagine that this miniature from Arsies was going to be on my Do Not Miss for the month!
  
  
• Veer Myn scourger and stalkers by Remy Tremblay: New sculptures for Mantic Games' range of miniatures.
  
  

WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 4

Previously on... WIP: High Elf Dragonlord

I continue the work on the armour plates of the neck. It can be a little tedious but it's ok. As I said, it needs some cutting and shaping with knife after the putty is cured.



More changes to the overall composition. Some feedback I was given suggested that I should change one of the dragon arms so they don't have exactly the same position. So what I'm going to do is lower the left leg by cutting the rock there a little bit and position the hand on top of the remains.



This will change the arm so it doesn't look exactly the same as the other. Anyway, it has to fit into the hole in the rock, so I use some liquid mask again and putty, again to ensure it does not become one piece.


Time to attach the horns to the head. I position them pointing down, forward and tilted a little bit so they are the least perpendicular to the mouth as possible. Breaking diagonals!


While the work on the neck progresses, I want to fix the union between neck and head because it plays a vital role on the whole set. Let's do that. I make it removable anyway, at least for now, so liquid mask, milliput...



And I also need the unions of the back legs to the rock. These have to be removable, if I don't want to die painting! I won't attach those probably until the very end of the painting process. Those putty ball you see are just the excess bits of putty that I mix and don't use. All of that will be covered completely by more putty, this is just a way of using as much putty as I can without wasting any.



Also the same applies to the right leg, though this one needs to be sculpted entirely. Until I do that, I'm just using some putty ball to fix the position of the dragon on the rock.


Now that I have the position of the dragon safely fixed, I can test the pose with more confidence. Also, I found the old head! That's great because I am definitely going to use this one. I will probably take off the bandage of the face and then sculpt a nice elven helmet like the one in Tribute to the Fallen.



Doesn't look bad so far to me...

Continue to WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 5

And not satisfied with it, they decide to interview me again!

Yet even more love to me? What did I do to deserve this honour! Another interview!


Look at Rebecca, she's so happy to read about it... Check it out, courtesy of Kombo Studio (in spanish I'm afraid, for those of you still learning the language):

INTERVIEW FOR KOMBO STUDIO
Let me use this opportunity to say, that even though I'm having lots of interviews this week in my country, I had nothing to do with this wonderful artwork recently revealed in Spain:



I wish I had the skills of the woman who reimagined the century year old painting and decided to restore it with her own personal view. She's a genious and the next big thing in contemporary painting. She has become my reference from now on!

Thanks to David for the interview! A pleasure and an honour as always!

WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 3

Previously on... WIP: High Elf Dragonlord

Back to the Dragon with the new stuff from 2012!

Now I decide to glue the left leg to the body. I am definitely going to use this one in the kit.


And I continue with the modelling of the armour parts in the neck. It's a slow process, but working with Milliput to do this is perfect because I can cut and shape the plates once the putty is cured, to make the surface smoother and sharpen the edges.


I also start the right leg, some wire and then bits of putty to create the first volumes, to see how it looks like. Now the piece really starts looking like a lizard!



As I said it's been 18 months, so it wouldn't do harm to see the overall look of the miniature again. I can't find the old head I used for the rider so I'll use another one, from the High Elves kits(my god, they are so bad, there is no way I'm going to use this head, this is just to see how it looks like).


Notice how the base is getting higher and higher. The idea is to place the dragon in some rocks in the sea shore, to make some wave effects just like the ones I did for Tribute to the Fallen, just this time it's going to be bigger and much more epic. So, I'm going to bring the rock up! Let's do some work on the base, with DAS putty.



Introducing some Elven materials from the Dragon kit, stuff the elves want on their sea shores of Ulthuan.


The position of the rock is key in this case, it's going to force the main view of the miniature, and I want it to capture the strength of the idea. The rider pulling from the reins, the dragon opening his jaws, the lizard climbing on the rock, the waves, the wings spreading all over the frame... so I need to spin the rock around a little bit so the neck of the dragon is in a diagonal direction to the base and the rider with the axe breaks that diagonal to the other side, always avoiding any parallel line, may that be to the ground, to the base or to any other object.


Let's see some shots of the different views of the piece so far. Notice the addition of the horns in the sides of the head. The reins will be attached to the beginning of those horns.






DAS putty can be tricky, it's cheap and useful but it has trouble sticking to surfaces, so I have to seal gaps with Milliput, to make sure that the whole base does not create any cracks or separates from the plastic base.


And now some more shots, with the brand new addition of the advanced terrain and the showcase plinth! This is moving forward!








Good looking!

Continue to WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 4

Can you put up with me talking for half an hour?

Seriously... who can be so dumb to want to hear me talking for such a long time...


It could be good for your spanish though! So if you want to check it out, here it is:

INTERVIEW FOR "CON LOS DADOS EN LA MANO"
I can't guarantee non-spanish speakers will understand everything!

WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 2

Previously on... WIP: High Elf Dragonlord

Let's continue with the Dragon! It really looks good so far so I'll start fixing stuff. First of all, the neck. I want some nice curves in the neck so it gives the whole body of the lizard with some interesting shapes. For now I think it would be wise to make it removable, I might want to paint it separate from the body, so I put liquid mask on the union of the torso and neck so that the putty doesn't glue them together. Then I'll put putty on the neck to make it final.



The curve looks nice but it might not be enough. With the help of my good friend Lord_Azoth, I push the concept a little further. Why not make the rider as the central piece of the miniature, and show the dragon submit to its legendary power? I could do the rider pulling the reins of the dragon so that the head falls back and the neck twists a bit more. Let's do some tests with the rider on top.

By the way, the rider needs a little presentation too. He is going to be a mighty Elf Dragonlord, but also a White Lion of Chrace. My army is going to be based around White Lions of Chrace so it makes no sense to put a dragon in it, but they are so cool that I don't care about this. So he will have the usual White Lions marks... a lion head on his shoulder, big badass axes and so on. I make the rider out of spare parts of elves I have at home. The legs are from Dark Elves on Cold Ones, much more suitable for my purpose.

Here are some pics of the early concept trial:







I really like the effect, it looks like the dragon is totally dominated by his rider. The main problem is the rein. It makes no sense that it is attached to the mouth of the dragon like that, so I have to revise the concept even at the risk of losing a lot of strength of the pose.






So a classical two piece rein seems much more fitting. As you can see, now the sensation of strength pulling back from the rider is much less. On the other hand, I gain realism because now it makes sense that the dragon has reins attached to the side of his head. I'll take it from here, as I lose a lot of time trying to fit in all the pieces with blu tack just to see how the whole composition looks like. Let's start by making the neck a little more final.

Here is where the neck attaches to the body. I put some liquid mask as usual so I can model on top and make sure that the putty doesn't glue the neck and torso (I don't want that yet). I really want to have torso and neck separated for now, for modelling purposes.


Here's how the neck union looks like at this point.


In the meantime, I can also start on some details that are not vital at this point of the project. They will be very important later on, but not now. Like the axe, I want it double-bladed so I make the other side of the blade with putty. It is true that I don't need it know but it may help to give me a rough idea of the composition when testing the pose.


I'll being modelling some of the armour plaques in the neck of the dragon. I want them to look like the ones that come with the plastic kit.


That one was the last photo I made back in 2010. The project was set aside at that exact point, but I took it from where I left it less than a month ago. So there's a 18 month gap between the last pic and the next ones! Stay tuned for the new progress!

Continue to WIP: High Elf Dragonlord Part 3