Saturday, June 30, 2012

Do Not Miss: June 2012

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

  • WW1 german fighter pilot by Arsies: This bust represents a WW1 german fighter pilot, called Josef Mai, and its a new release from Stormtroopers. This is the boxart made for the company by our friend Arsies.

  • Batman 30mm, the green: And these are photos of Batman's sculpture. The detail is so amazing its hard to believe its a 30mm!

  • Blood Maw, new beast from Banelegions painted by Ben Komets: This monstruosity (huge by the way) is one the new releases from Banelegions, Maelstrom Games (these guys have a tremendous production rate). The painting by Ben is exceptional, and he says he had a great time painting it! They are a bit overpriced to my taste though.

  • Marie from the Aristocats, by Poisonauta: Leo has started a blog about his modelling, and he recently posted this little beauty. Because not everything should be soldiers and beasts!

  • Jekyll and Hyde, Roman Tribune, Scale75: These new releases from Scale75 are worth a line in our Do Not Miss. The Tribune is nothing extraordinary but the Jekyll/Hyde has a lot of potential!

  • Concurso de Fuengirola 2012 (Damek): Report of this contest celebrated in June by Damek in his blog (in Spanish).

  • Concurso de Fuengirola 2012 (Rafa Coll): Another review and photos of the Fuengirola contest, this time by Rafa Coll (in Spanish).

  • Gretchingrad by mörback: Amazing army of Gretchins painted in a very cool scheme, really good work, must have required a lot of time to complete!

  • About driving and contrast: Mahon from Chest of Colors made this amazing comparison between speed sensation when driving and contrast sensation when painting miniatures. Have you ever heard "you need more contrast" but never knew how to make it happen? Give this article a good read.

  • Dr. Watson by Infamy Miniatures: This is an absolutely exceptional kit from Infamy miniatures. Modelled by MIKH, one of my favourite sculptors in 28mm, and painted by Javier González (Arsies), I simply love it. Great work guys!

Friday, June 29, 2012

Great weekend ahead! GD Spain 2012

So this weekend Golden Demon Spain takes place in Barcelona. And we will be there!


In the past few years Golden Demon was held in Madrid, and even though it was much more convenient for us in terms of logistics (very very close to home) I actually preferred the old days when GD took place in Barcelona. The event was much better and many more international painters came to visit us. And I anticipate there will be some coming this time!

I'll be entering the contest with the Artscale Imperial Fist which I will hopefully finish today. Probably the WIP will end up unfinished because I just can't get time to make photos while painting but I'll do my best.

I will make sure you are informed about the contest and will post photos of the minis as soon as I can. I already prepared myself to post results and pics just when the event ends (I hope I am able to do it!). So be tuned to the blog on Sunday afternoon!

Also, Spain is playing against Italy in the finals of the Euro 2012 football championship, and we will see the match there. Hopefully we will win and that will be a great excuse for some more party!

¡VIVAESPAÑA!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

WIP Artscale Imperial Fist part 2

Previously on... WIP Artscale Imperial Fist

Now that I've decided I will bring this little dude to GD Spain, it's time to continue with the WIP! It will be fast... I have to finish in a week and a half!

Let's get into the red and white parts. Simon had the head magnetized so I can separate it from the body and paint it separately. So let's use the airbrush to get a very smooth result. I'm going to prime the areas in red and white with just pure white. Then I will mask the white areas and will airbrush in red.

Here's the helmet. It has yellow from the airbrushing of the whole miniature. Let's bring it back to white.



And here's the body. As I said, I mask the areas around the red and whites and prime back to white with airbrush:


And now once I have them white, I'll mask the parts that I want to remain white and airbrush red all over.



First some darker shade of red on the lower parts.



Followed by some classic Blood Red from the top as the lights for red. And this is how it looks after I take the masks off.


As you see masks are rarely perfect, so I have to give some touches with normal brush to make it cleaner. Here I also start glazing shadows on the kneepad to integrate it with the rest. Another thing to remark here is that I have outlined all the areas in the left leg, interesting thing to see opposing it to the other leg. Really important job to outline, don't you think?



Now some more reds and whites, but using a normal brush. The space now is too little to use the airbrush, and its not worth it.



Without following any planned order, I start basing little elements so I can see better the whole colour composition. So here's me priming the purity seals in their base colours.


In the next step I go back to the airbrush to shadow a little more the right leg on the inside. With the addition of reds, whites, and bases of purity seals, I realized the yellow needed more depth. So I airbrush the inner part of the leg with more bestial brown and black.


But by using the airbrush without too much control, I stepped over the right foot. I want the light back on there, so I'll start that area again, by masking the area around, prime back to white, give a yellow base, and then careful shadows of bestial brown. Seems a lot of colour changing, and indeed it is, but I have practise and the whole operation shouldn't take me more than a couple of minutes.


After that, some more progress to the right leg. Outlining like I did on the other leg, and improving a little the lights on the kneepad and also outlining it.


Looks like I might have overdone the light outlines of the foot, I will leave it as it is now and once I have more insight on the rest of the mini I'll go back there if necessary.

More coming very soon! Stay tuned.

Monday, June 18, 2012

The sweetness of failure

I was preparing a Thunderwolf Cavalry Space Marine for the next Golden Demon Spain. I really worked hard on it, spent many many hours converting... but finally yesterday, after so much time of intense suffering...

I FAILED!


Sometimes there's just no excuse...

I decided to leave that project. It was a horrible horrible mini and probably the worst thing I've ever done in my painting life XD. The suffering I was condemning myself because of it was so big that I think I started to have nightmares. So yesterday, when I started my painting afternoon and took a look at it, it hit me. It's not worth it. It was a very bad idea and I failed miserably in every single step of the way. So it was better to accept defeat and start having some fun with painting, which is what it's all about.

And now I feel so good!! It's such a relief that I won't be seeing that damned son of (Fenris) again. It's time to go back to enjoying my painting time!

Golden Demon Spain is very close and now I have nothing to enter competition with! Sad as this is, it may be perfect to use this situation to put my attention back into unfinished business of the past. So I decided I will finish the Artscale Imperial Fist from Master of the Forge and enter into Single 40k. That way I get to finish that project and also have something to enter in GD!

Also, I realized I have many many projects started but never continued and I want to put an end to this nonsense. You can see there are open WIPs in the blog but there is also other stuff I've been keeping secret. Well, that's going to change. I've decided to put an end to secrecy. I'm going to reveal all the material I have on my projects in progress right now, and will do so for everything I start from now on.

Here's a list of stuff I have started and left unfinished:


All of this and a 75mm Boromir I am going to start once we get back from the GD. I ensure you that will have quite a lot of material to go through in the weeks to come. And I will have a lot of work to do!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Incoming Boromir!

Just a week ago I decided to post a Wishlist of miniatures I wanted to have. Well, this has certainly been a very fast response. My very good friend Piti (Jose María Arnaiz) has given me the first item of my wishlist as a gift!!
Boromir, 75mm, Knightmodels




THANK YOU PITI!!!!! YOU ARE THE BEST!!!!!


Of course he gave it to me as a gift on the condition that I painted it. I promise to do so once the GD season is over and once I finish other compromises I have (Imperial Fist Artscale). I can't wait to put my brushes into this one! This character from Lord of the Rings has a lot of meaning for me, as you can guess just by looking at my nickname. I'll explain more when the time comes...

Also, for your interest, I have updated the Spare Parts Shop page of the blog with the new photo layout which I'm sure you'll find much more appealing, and of course, more juicy items. Don't forget to check it out often for more stuff! You might be able to grab yourself a bargain!

And to end this little tribute to my friend Piti, here's a wonderful picture we took of him this past weekend. Enjoy his beauty dressed as a metalhead!




PS: That June "Do Not Miss" was obviously not intended for today :)

Monday, June 4, 2012

Photos from "VI Encuentro Miniaturismo San Lorenzo de El Escorial"

As always, after the weekend of the event, here you have photos of the miniatures and the awards. I prepared some photos of the Fantasy section of the contest that I could fo thanks to being part of the judges and because I had access to all the pieces of the event.

First of all, here are the categories of the Fantasy section:
  • D1: Less than 54mm
  • D2: 54mm and over 54mm
  • D3: Vehicles
  • D4: Scenes and dioramas
  • D5: Scratch and heavy transformations (painted miniatures were accepted but only sculpture was judged)

And now the photos of those miniatures that received award or were part of the awarded displays. They were done with my mobile phone and with a terrible light (the one of the event) so please forgive the quality (specially the authors). You can click on them to see them bigger.

Savage Orc, oro en D1
Space marine, plata en D1
Obi-Wan, plata en D1
Comical Terminator, plata en D1
Zombis on the run, bronce en D1
Count Dooku, bronce en D1
Assasin, bronce en D1.
Fantasy couple, bronce en D1.
Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, bronce en D1.
Violinista, bronce en D1.
Anakin Skywalker's Podracer, oro en D5 (única entrada de la categoría)
Ork Bust from Luis Gómez Pradal, oro en D2
Ork Bust from Diego Esteban, plata en D2
Varathar, plata en D2
Gunman, bronce en D2
Pilot woman bust, bronce en D2
Sherlock Holmes, bronce en D2
Gabriel Blackburn, bronce en D2
A 54mm from Pegaso, bronce en D2
Olfo in the forest, bronce en D2
Flutist, bronce en D2
Lex Luthor, bronce en D2
Any problem? by Diego Esteban, oro en D4
"Han, now is not the time", plata en D4
Amores reñidos, Yarry and Kendra, plata en D4
Wizard and dragon, bronce en D4
Duel in the heights, bronce en D4
Skaven attacking bronce en D4
Blood Angel Large Scale by Diego Esteban (with Alfonso Giraldes), oro en D5
Chaos Space Marine by Diego Esteban (with Alfonso Giraldes), oro en D5
Detail from the Chaos Space Marine
Detail from the Blood Angel
Gandalf's bust, plata en D5
Pilot woman bust, plata en D5
Nurgle Space Marine bust, by Diego Esteban
Tyrion Lannister, bronce en D5
Zombie bust, bronce en D5
Diego Esteban's diorama "Any Problem?", which you will probably remember from Chicago's Crystal Brush where it got the second prize (a juicy reward of $2,000) was for me the best entry of the Fantasy section, and of the whole contest. However, the judges team voted and decided democratically that the Best of Show should go to a diorama from the Historical section, completely scratch built. Here you have some photos of details that I could take from both entries.
And that was it, the "VI Encuentro de Miniaturismo de San Lorenzo de El Escorial". More next year? :)

PS: Do you like the new photo layout for events? Do you prefer this new one or the way I posted photos in the past? Please give me your feedback because what you say will probably determine whether I will post photos like this or how I did before!