Do Not Miss: March 2013

These are the most interesting things I've seen in March 2013:

• Metallic Color Comparison Chart: Massive Voodoo surprises us again with this magnificent and very useful chart to compare different metallic colours from various paint companies. Choose your metal!
  
  
• Maya and Ronin from Romain: Two busts finished from the great Romain, which are absolutely impressive as always.
  
  
• The return of Poupée Canope: Emanuele is back for good with this AMAZING new miniature, one of the most incredible sculpts ever in the history of Fantasy modelling, and resembling the legendary and never forgotten line of Crete Hurlantes from Ilyad. Pity it sold out in a couple of days, but stay tuned because I'm sure he will release more awesome creations in the future.
  
  
• Knightmodels new releases: Another great batch of wonderful releases, from their DC licenses, their Batman game, and the great Saruman the White in 70mm.
  
  
• Scale75 new releases: New line of Sci-Fi models, wonderfully sculpted digitally by Joaquín Palacios and painted by master Elías Alonso. And a new range of paints designed by Elías! Great news.
  
  
• Pentesilea, Infinity: I've recently started to look a lot into Infinity (which appears to be the boom lately) and this new release is awesome. Reminds me of the good old days of Final Fantasy VII.
  
  
• A Necron Lives Forever: Such a simple and cool idea. I love these little jewels of good taste!
  
  
• You Shall Not Pass by Arsies: Great tribute to this wonderful miniature, painted by David Rodríguez some years ago.
  
  
• Dyndraig Trooper by Roberto Chaudon: Another great sculpt by Roberto for the company Mierce Miniatures.
  
  

Back from The Weekend Workshop

I'm back from Liverpool! The Weekend Workshop has been awesome, lots of fun, lots of good people and good painting. Not even the extremely cold temperatures (I'm Spanish) could spoil such a good weekend (ok, maybe a little) but no worries because I'm pretty sure that the Beatles hometown will be revisited in the future.




Cheers to all who attended! Especial thanks to John Harrison, organizer of this wonderful initiative, for his hispitality and for all his hard work to make the Workshop possible. If you missed this one, do not despair! John is already organizing the next one which presumably will take place in June and will be hosted by another great international painter.



You will find all the information you need in The Weekend Workshop website or on their Facebook page. Look often for updates!



There you can also find lots of photos of this past Weekend Workshop and see how they all did with their painting. Of course, if you see us drinking some chilli tequila shots, do not freak out, it's also part of my learning methodology.



And remember: if you happen to run into a pretty female human warrior being assaulted by some orcs(eses), kick their asses and save her! Years of playing in a punk band might not do the trick but there's nothing sexier that being a dwarf paladin! XD

Games Day & Golden Demon UK 2013 Confirmed?

There seems to be some good news at last.


This post on GW Oxford Street London Facebook page seems to confirm there will be a UK GD this year:

Greetings People of London,
Have you been having trouble painting faces or skin in general? I, Sargent Greavus will be running tutorials all day to get your little dudes looking awesome. Also Andrea is here to help out with any non metallic metal problems you may be having.
With Games day a mere 6 months away we are on hand to have a chat about your GOLDEN DAEMON and ARMIES ON PARADE projects!
So get down here today and lets get the ball rolling.
"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!"

Other sources confirm that the official date will be September 29, already delivered to GW Stores Staff and that they will announce it soon in the next WD.

Will we have news soon about Germany and Italy? With France officially cancelled and Spain presumed dead, UK might be the only hope for GD lovers this year...

Introducing "The Weekend Workshop"

My friend from the UK John Harrison (also known as Darkmessiah in the internet) has started a wonderful initiative to organize painting and modelling courses in England, and he intends to bring to the island some of the most well known painters in the world to give masterclasses to interested painters who wish to learn some new techniques, master those they already have or simply see how other painters from far across the seas manage to create their art pieces.


It has been called "The Weekend Workshop".

So far it has hosted masterclasses by great painters such as Christopher Octive or Tue Kaae. John told me of his plans and I didn't hesitate to become part of it, so the next painting course will be imparted by me, and it will take place in Liverpool, on the weekend of March 23-24. We will try to paint one of the miniatures in the Wild Orcs box by Games Workshop, and the whole weekend will be centered around the topics of Colour Theory and Contrast. A great chance to learn some new moves! And if they already know everything I can teach, then I can try Harlem Shaking! (see Painting Crusade X).


Check out John's site on The Weekend Workshop where you will find all the details you need to know about this and other wonderful workshops.

And of course, this is the first time I move to another country for a painting class but it won't be the only one. If you are interested in setting a painting workshop, just contact me!

III Encuentro de Modelismo Estático de Leganés (Photos)

This weekend Leganés held "III Concurso de Modelismo Estático de Leganés" (in English, the third edition of their modelling contest). I hadn't been able to attend in previous years and in my profound ignorance, I thought that this contest was quite local. When I arrived at the venue where the event was celebrated, I could verify how wrong I was...


The event was celebrated in a local sports centre, with lots of space for the different activities celebrated and numerous stands for commercial brands. There we could see a Z brush sculpting demo in the stand of Scale75, Pedro Fernández's demo on tradional sculpture at the Origen Art Stand, painting demos by Elías Alonso, gaming demonstrations... And of course, I could meet again with tons of friends and acquiantances from the modelling world, and seriously, I wasn't expecting to run into so many!


I leave you some photos that I took, shamefully they are very few and quite bad. If there is something that I didn't like of the event was the way they exposed the painting works. There was a great contrast between theme, quality and size of the figurines, and the quantity of participants was huge. Even though the shelves for the expo where large and broad, the figurines were piled against each other and there was a security lanyard of about a meter between public and miniatures. Also, the height was very low so if you happened to be a little bit tall you would end with back pain. This way, the paint works that were the most appealing were the big dioramas in the historical section while the individual ones were not so evident. I think this is very important, so it should be fixed in next editions of this contest, a great one in my opinion.

Raspura Oscura reunited!

Lots of people, let's see if you can guess who is who.

By the power of the "pincho moruno"!

Roi's Diorama (The Prancing Poney)

Nils's Diorama (The Taming)

Stealing some sausages

Star Wars spaceships

More spaceships

Dungeons and Dragons

More dioramas

Ultra cool dioramas in the historical section

Ultra cool dioramas in the historical section

Ultra cool dioramas in the historical section

Ships

Sculptures

Sculptures

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Fantasy Master

Different expo neverending shelves

Different expo neverending shelves

Different expo neverending shelves

Pedro Fernández's demo sculpture

Next year more and better! And who knows, I may even participate and all... ;)

Games Day France 2013 officially cancelled

Word is, Games Day France is officially cancelled this year 2013.


Check out this phrase in French on the GW website:

NB : vous vous demandez sans doute pourquoi les finalistes d'Armies on Parade ne se rendent pas au Games Day comme les années précédentes. L'année 2013 ne comportera pas d'édition française du Games Day. Nous avons décidé de profiter de cette année pour remanier le Games Day et ainsi vous proposer une expérience hobby hors du commun pour la prochaine édition.

Being the important part in English:

There will be no 2013 edition of Games Day France.

As you can see, there was only a very little note on GW's website about it. Should we expect the same about next GD cancellations? Will there be any more official announcements at all? Will we have German, Italian or UK's Games Days?

Thanks to Julien Casses for the information.

III Concurso de Modelismo Estático de Leganés this weekend

The first relevant miniature contest of the year in Spain will be celebrated this weekend, the "III Concurso de Modelismo Estático de Leganés", commonly known as the "Leganés Contest" for being this Madrilenian city the location for this event.


It is a contest in the Open format in which we are hoping to see many great Spanish painters and modellers. As I've been informed, in the Fantasy side of things we will be able to see lots of old friends such as Elías Alonso (morsi), Pablo López (paloji), José Manuel Palomares (JMPN), Javier González (Arsies) and all the gang of The Cursed Monkeys (Iguazzu, Piquifl), etc.

Personally, I will not fail; I will not participate in the competition because I don't have anything new to show, but I won't lose the opportunity to meet all my friends and have a good time with all the great artworks. In all probability you will be able to find me on Saturday.

As always, I hope to be able to upload numerous photos of the weekend so that all of you who won't be able to attend have something to console yourselves with.

See you in Leganés!

Proud of these guys!

Forgeworld newsletters arrive to my mailbox every now and then, but the last one was very special. Forgeworld announces their Open Day, on the 7th of April. Until here, everything's normal. Except when the mail shows us the list of Forgeworld designers which will attend the event:

The entirety of both the Forge World and Warhammer Forge design teams will be attending the Open Day, showcasing all manner of work-in-progress models and recent releases.Simon Egan, Blake Spence, Stuart Williamson, Daren Parrwood, Will Hayes, Phil Stutcinskas, Mark Bedford, Edgar Skomorowski, Keith Robertson, Steve Whitehead, Trish Carden, Matt Murphy-Kane and Neil Cook, along with new designers Israel Gonzalez, Alfonso Giraldes and Peter Hutchins.

So you might have already guessed what's special about this issue.


These two SUPER ARTISTS have joined the Forgeworld Design Team at the beginning of this year, and I can't wait to see what they are creating in their new adventure. Obviously Forgeworld has raised their quality level by hiring these two.

I want to wish them both the best for this new endeavour. You guys rock!

WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth Part 8

Previously on... WIP: Swordmasters of Hoeth

Sadly, I wasn't happy with the star. So let's wipe it out of existence.


Before you start shrieking in confusion, let me explain. Some of you might have guessed what was wrong. If you go back to our previous computer design you'll see I didn't take into consideration the top shape of the banner. So without considering that part of the banner, the star is placed high in the standard, but when the gaps come in, the star is placed way too high and the composition is not balanced. So back to our white canvas!


And back to our computer to re-position the computer design.


Now the star rough drawing is situated much lower.


The goal now is exactly the same as before, but the process in freehands is not a strict guide to follow, so I'll finish up the gem first, just because I feel like it.


Now I colour the whole star.


Then shadow the lower part of the arms.


Ice Yellow again for the metallic frame.


And now that the star is starting to look good, I'll focus on the background. I'll use airbrush to shadow the outer parts of the design to concentrate the light on the star, which is what I'm interested in.


I realize now that maybe shifting out of my normal airbrush template process wasn't such a good idea. But no worries, I can improvise some template for the star rays with the actual printout of the design.


Carefully, and masking other parts of the banner to avoid troubles, I use it as template for the airbrush and this is the result. I will clean it up with some brushwork.


The upper part of the design is a little empty, so I'll introduce a couple of elven runes to fill it. This is after I cleaned the airbrush work, of course.


But as much as you clean, there is always more cleaning to do.


Now it looks nearly finished, so it's time to integrate it all together with some glazes with the airbrush, again shadowing the outer parts of the flag to make the star pop out.


And a bit more to make the contrast higher.


And finally, back to the brush to bring back the pure white on the areas closer to the star.


That is more like it. Now I'm happy!

More work on the other side of the banner soon. Stay tuned!