Do Not Miss: June 2014

To compensate for my lack of activity this month (so many trips!) the list of Do Not Miss June 2014 is unusually long! Enjoy:

• Beastman Warchief by Ringil: Very cool paintjob of this beastman warchief from Avatars of War, by Ringil.


• Painting the colour black in Massive Voodoo: Very thorough article on painting the colour black, by Roman in Massive Voodoo.


• Taking photos of our miniatures (in French): Interesting tutorial about photography to miniatures in le Blog dé Kouzes. In French!


• Ajax and atalanta with spotbot by River: Nice Infinity miniatures by Nadezdha Reka.


• 3D mask tutorial: The polish guys of fantasygames tell us how to build complex masks for minis.


• Painting true metal: Another approach to painting true metal in the 5th dimension blog.


• Dragon priest step by step: Tutorial on how to paint this miniature in Massive Voodoo.


• Painting a feminine face: Julien Casses walks us through the not so easy process of painting a feminine face.


• Avengers diorama by Arsies: Already started last month, but here are the next steps, 2 to 5. Don't forget to check them all!


• Boromir conversion by Flameon: It's not very common to see GW LOTR miniatures converted. This is very well worth the look.


• Space eldar army autarch on jetbike: River continues his work on the space themed eldar army.


• Primitivo, the base: Tutorial on how to build the base for this project in Massive Voodoo.


• How to do leather: Sara shows us the way she approaches the painting of leather.


• Roi Mort Vivant by Ángel Giráldez: Normally you'll see lots of Infinity miniatures painted by Ángel, but this time he paints something completely different and I liked it very much.


• Eul Grotbizar: More additions to this fantastic Ork army in Les Kouzés. Even more, here!


• How to create candles: Candles made easy in Massive Voodoo.


• Shaun Ram Tribe Warrior: Tutorial on how to paint this bust in Massive Voodoo.


• Fire Elemental by Raffaele Picca: I really like this version of this Drakerys miniature.


• Lizardmen by Roberto Chaudon: Roberto keeps up with his good work for Mierce miniatures. Check also this and this!


• Hechicera elfa oscura tutorial: Dani shows us how he painted the Dark Elf Sorceress in this tutorial, only in Spanish.


• Painting Wildcat: Julien Casses goes for an Infinity miniature in this article.


• The Transpoter: Kyrill uses the man who screams and runs, and makes this wonderful diorama.


• Arreat Crater level II: Solmar painted this Diablo barbarian and it is pretty nice!


• Painting drone patterns: Very cool pattern for tau or for any kind of sci-fi miniature.


• Carving plaster walls in Massive Voodoo: An article on how to work with scenery using plaster and carving it.

Back to Warsaw and Berlin, and see you later Fallen Frontiers

I just arrived from South Africa on Saturday, and I am already thinking about leaving Madrid. I'm going to Warsaw again tomorrow!

I hope to be able to meet again with painters like Bohun and the rest of the Polish guys from Warsaw, and have some nice vodkas and perogis. Also, this time I'm going to make a stop in Berlin on my way back, since I have to stop there anyway to fly to Madrid, and spend the weekend with my good friends from Painting Buddha (Michael, Ben, Mati and Matt). Can't wait!

I'm going to use some space in this post about my travels to comment on the weird cancelling of the Fallen Frontiers crowdfunding campaign, which, as you already know, I was very keen to see ending successfully. Being as I was travelling back and forth, I suddenly found that they had decided to cancel the campaign, and apparently, from what I have read and people have told me, it seems like there have been doubts surrounding the capability of Scale Games of making the project happen, and also about the size/scale of the miniatures, some people even say that Scale lied on this matter. (Mi thoughts regarding this last part: ¿?¿?¿?)

If I remember correctly, before starting the campaign, this photo was published, where we can all very well see what the size/scale of the miniatures is. I have seen comments saying that Scale mentioned in the campaign that the size was 32mm and then people said that they were 35mm, and because of this some part of the audience started accusing them of liars. I am personally amazed by all of this. Talking in terms of "x mm" to refer to a scale is a commonly extended technical mistake in the miniature world. The scale is really indicated by, for example, 1/30, 1/40 o 1/50, and no one is correct when talking about scale when this is not mentioned in this way. GW for example says that their miniatures are 28mm, when if they were truly 28mm in size, they would be smaller than what they are, and on the other side, their miniatures do not maintain the proportions between them. As an example, think about a Space Marine and an Imperial Guard: the miniatures are basically the same height, when an Imperial Guard represents an average human 6 feet tall, while a Space Marine is supposed to be around 9 feet. Considering all this, I don't understand where the problem is. The photo is very clear! A whole different thing is that people want to use the miniatures to be proxies for other games. That is great, but I don't think that was the point of Fallen Frontiers. I personally think that the size that FF was proposing is great (slightly bigger than the typical 40k size for example), and proportions in this case are properly maintained, so are they relative sizes between miniatures. Therefore, I don't understand why the hate campaign against this project!

Apart from this, apparently there have been doubts whether Scale would be able to produce the miniatures complying with quality and time frames. I can't say much about that because I'm unaware of how that was going to be handled, but I know first hand that Fallen Frontiers has been developed for two years now, it hasn't just appeared out of nowehere, and its a very serious project with the support of a miniature company that has been producing not only miniatures of very high quality, but also paints, and they also have the possibility of producing the miniatures themselves (a possiblity which I believe not all companies have). I was a backer of the project because I firmly believed that they would make it happen without problems, and I do not really understand very well why all the negative comments I have been reading all around. Crowdfunding, like any investment, has its risks, it's all a question of trust, but trying to actively destroy a project? That's a whole different thing!

I don't know, sometimes I feel like there have been dark interests behind this hate campaign against Fallen Frontiers. In Dakka Dakka apparently there was people convincing others to take their money out of the Kickstarter, I have never seen such a thing, inexplicable for me. If you don't like the initiative, do not participate. But trying actively to go against it? It seems weird to me. Dark motives, hidden interests, other companies, personal vendettas...? Certainly a very interesting and weird story that makes me think about a lot of things! Who knows!

So, basically, this is a big loss for all in my opinion. I really wanted to get those miniatures! I'm pretty sure anyway that all the work done will not be discarded so easily (especially the artistic part, which I know first hand that is top-notch) and they will probably make it happen one way or another. This will only delay the release, so I'm sure we will be able to get them in the end.

All that's left is the wait. They will come sometime! I have Siklas Feen at home in the meantime! :P

And now to South Africa!

And yet another crazy last minute trip in my quite busy life of late...

I'm going to Pretoria! South Africa!

Again, non miniature related since it's a work trip, but I will be away from my painting table all of this week. Siklas Fenn from Fallen Frontiers will have to wait until I come back next week!

Announcing Monte San Savino 2014

We're coming close to the end of the first half of the year, and before everyone goes crazy because of the Stressa World Expo in July, there is a very important yearly announcement for the miniature painting community, so that everyone has time to prepare!

Great portrait Loreta and Raffa! :D

Monte San Savino 2014! November 7-9!

Some people had doubts regarding this year's edition because of the World Expo taking place in Italy just a few months before, but Monte San Savino 2014 is going to happen. You can't miss it!

It's a DO NOT MISS event, tons of friends and fun and food and drink... and... miniatures I guess? XD

Meet your painting heroes and embarass them!

I'm a Special Guest this year, and because of that I will be performing a painting demonstration on Saturday, so the more reason to come! Time to organize the trip! Better to do it now than to wait because the town is very small and accommodation is quite limited. Don't say I didn't warn you in advance!

Only part of last year attendees are in this photo...

TO MONTE!