Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Do Not Miss: January 2012

For the first month of 2012, this is the most interesting stuff I've seen in the internet:

  • How to win a Golden Demon by Bestienmeister: Chris is doing this series of articles on how he thinks a painter should approach his participation in a Golden Demon contest. A great idea I once had to do an article about, maybe I'll give my views on this matter in the future, but in the meantime check Chris' opinion, very interesting and instructive!

  • Royal Navy Captain by Pepa: Impressive painting of Pepa on this bust of "Captain and Commander". The portrait is absolutely wonderful. I love it.

  • Knightmodels 30mm new releases: Amazing new releases from Knightmodels, and awesome new "army deals" so that people can maybe start armies? Maybe a future game? Who knows... I'm so excited about this. Expect to see figurines from these range of Knightmodels from me in the near future... for sure!

  • Reaver Lords by Remy Tremblay: I love this new miniature modelled by Remy Tremblay for a new brand of miniatures called Reaver Lords. It is wonderfully dynamic.

  • Predator 30mm by Remy Tremblay: And yet another new miniature by Remy Tremblay, this one is just impressive for the quality of the details and how impressively well made is the resemblance with this famous character. Fantastic, outstanding!

  • "Morena" by JJ (in Rafa Coll's Blog): I really liked this scene made by JJ Barrena starting from a miniature sculpted by Pedro Fernández for the range Spherewars. Of course, this all comes from Rafa Coll's Blog, who always brings us little marvels from the south of Spain.

  • Female studies by Tom Meier: Whenever Tom Meier posts a new article in his blog, I just jump in excitement. He's just the best. Look at this amazing female studies un 32mm (specially the wet undine, oh my god!!).

  • Valentine, 54mm by Benoit Cauchies: Excellent Benoit Cauchies sculpture for Kabuki Models, part of their line of sexy girls to paint. Alfonso Giraldes is in charge of the painting of the box-art which, as usual, is a little miniature marvel.

  • Ismael the Vampire, by Mauganra: This miniature is from long ago now, but I just recently saw it on coolmini and it's very nice, and very much in tune with the recent vampire counts trend. I specially love the face.

  • Modelling "The Sorcerer" by Pedro Fernández: Another great post in Rafa Coll's Blog, with photos of the sculpture process of a miniature sculpted by Pedro Fernández, in this case, "The Sorcerer", a miniature which is part of Nocurna Models range of figurines.

  • Viking on Horseback by Joaquín Palacios: A new historical figure from Andrea Miniatures, a horseback rider on 54mm sculpted by Joaquín Palacios (Freeman). I think he used the horse from Zorabeth, the elf rider, or at least it bears the same pose! I love Joaquín!

  • Vercingetorix by Joaquín Palacios: Another new historical figure from Andrea Miniatures, sculpted by Joaquín Palacios (Freeman), as usual. Simple, like all historical ones, but still amazing. Great conversion material too.

Citadel Colour: get them all in 5 pots!

Painting is not an expensive hobby. Colour theory says you can get all the colours from the basic 3 primary colours, plus black and white for desaturation. Well, it is true, in theory. I always say this in my courses but some people don't believe it. So that's why I post some charts I found in the internet, which can help you out with your mixing. These charts tell you how to make the entire Citadel Colour range out of the basic 5 pots. Of course, don't fool yourselves, the exact colours are impossible to get for many reasons, but you will get pretty similar ones.

Bear in mind that even though this chart is very useful, you must not underestimate the wonderful exercise that is trying to get an specific colour without any cheatsheet. It will help understand better colour theory and will help you make your own personal tones. So use the charts with responsibility!















Thursday, January 26, 2012

Sunday 29 January: Painter's Day at Leviatán (Local store in Madrid)

A friend and former pupil of mine opened a miniature store in Madrid which I encourage you to visit if you happen to be around Madrid. It's called "Leviatán".


This Sunday (January 29, 2012) you are all invited to attend "The Painter's Day". We will gather in the store, grab some brushes and spend some happy time painting and enjoying our hobby together. I will be there, I hope to see you there! And of course, we will have some beers after this painting afternoon. It's a must!

Leviatan's address: Calle puerto de maspalomas 6 posterior, Madrid

:)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 1

Next in line in my project to build an army of high elves around the hero that is the elf prince of Tribute to the Fallen, today I start the WIP series of articles on the Swordmasters of Hoeth. I hope you guys follow and enjoy this new series which will go on for a quite a long time, I'll try to be as fast as possible!

The miniatures are from the Warhammer: Island of Blood box, just like the High Elves Sea Guard I painted in 2011. I am going to follow a very similar approach to the painting. I'll perform some little conversions, specially to the armour scales, too big for my taste, and also modify the banner so that I can paint a nice freehand instead of painting some boring reliefs that I dislike. Then I will use airbrush as much as I can so that I spend as less time as possible, and get the best out of it.

There is another thing which I'm going to do differently this time: the basing process. What I learned from the previous experience is that even though it is much more comfortable to paint the miniature separate from the base and glue them after they are all painted, it is much more time consuming, because you paint things in the base which you don't need to paint, and also, gluing and basing after the paint is done is also quite dangerous, you can destroy the work already done. So this time, I'm going to convert first, create the bases, glue the miniatures to the bases, and then I will start painting. Let's get to it!

So first of all, let's take the miniatures out of the sprues and clean them.


No mercy for those horrible mould lines!


As I said, I hate those nasty reliefs they did on the banner, so I'll trim them off very carefully with the knife. I said very carefully... I can't stress this strongly enough. The less care you give to this trimming, the more putty you will have to use to correct defects afterwards.


Of course, you can always go for the chaotic approach, destroy all the reliefs with a dremmel or similar and then cover all up with putty. Whatever suits you best. But I'll be careful this time.


I'll also pass the knife around the edges of the flag, that way I'll make them thinner and more like actual cloth, and not thick and unreal.




And I will also dig a hole on the horn of the musician. There's nothing worse than a horn or a gun nozzle without a cavity, it's so unreal!


I can't forget to trim out the reliefs of the hero's sword. What a bad idea from GW designers to do this stuff. I hate when they do that!


Ok then! Ready to start with the putty! Formation!


WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 2

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Back in Madrid

Finally yesterday I arrived back in Madrid after my various trips over the United States.


Looks like I won't be having any other trips on the next months so now that I am much more calm and established at home and with normal routine, it's time to get back to painting. So expect news very soon! I've got many things on my desk right now, ranging from the Imperial Fist from Master of the Forge to a new unit of elves for my army, some new Krieg and many other projects... lots of things and very little time, as usual!

Stay tuned!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Confirmed dates for Golden Demons 2012

Games Workshop has published confirmed dates for Golden Demons 2012 all over the world. I've seen this piece of a spanish White Dwarf on the Spanish Team Forum which confirms the dates:

    • Spain: July 1 (Sunday)
    • USA: July 28 (Saturday)
    • Germany: August 12 (Sunday)
    • Australia: September 9 (Sunday)
    • UK: September 23 (Sunday)
    • Italy: October 14 (Sunday)
    • France: October 28 (Sunday)

I've just updated the dates in the events calendar of the blog, so use it to keep track and plan events and contests!

Also, Golden Demon Spain will be held this year back in Barcelona, as it was done before the last 3 years. Not good for me as I live in Madrid, but better for all europeans who would like to attend as it will be a little closer!

Time to start planning what I will attend this year!