The 2015 Miniature Events to come

You can feel it in the weather... Spring is coming! And with the new season, it's time for miniature events all around the globe!

I have updated the Events section of the blog, where you will be able to find all the dates of the 2015 contests worldwide (that I have knowledge of). Some contests that will likely take place this year, are still unknown (like Golden Demon 2015, as if we didn't expect that). But of course, if you can give me more information about contests that you know, please do! :D

Have you decided yet which ones you will attend?? ;)

Just this weekend we have Painting Crusade in Belgium! One of my favourites! I will not be able to go this year because it coincides with a wedding (its also that time of the year) but if you have the chance, I strongly recommend you to go. It's a wonderful experience!

But keep your eyes peeled because the week after here in Madrid we will celebrate the fifth edition of the Leganés contest! I will soon post about it because this year it is a bit especial for me. ;)

In the meantime, as I know some of you are a bit lazy to go and click on the Events section of the blog, let me share them here for your convenience. Enjoy!

MARCH



• 7-8 Painting Crusade XII: Open contest, organized by the Belgium Miniatures Team. Brussels.
• 13-15 V Concurso Modelismo Estático Ciudad de Leganés: Event organized by the association Model34. Leganés, Madrid.
• 14-15 Montreux: Montreux's miniature show, Salle Omnisports de Clarens, Montreux.
• 14-15 La Condotta: Contest organized by the italian association of historical figurines La Condotta, in Calenzano, Florence.
• 19 Crystal Brush: The CoolMiniOrNot contest, the one with $10,000 for the winner in the Adepticon, Chicago.
• 28-29 Expo Hobby 2015: A new contest in San Fernando, Cádiz.



APRIL



• 2-4 CIM Escala 2015: Forum Metropolitano de A Coruña.
• 10-12 AMT Torrent 2015: The contest of the AMT in Torrent, Valencia.
• 11-12 Montrouge: Concours international de l'Association Figurines et Maquettes de Montrouge (AFM).
• 24-26 XII Concurso modelismo ACVAM: Simancas, Valladolid.
• 25 Salute 2014: The world famous wargaming and miniatures event in the ExCel, London.



MAY



• 8-9 MFCA Show: Contest of the Miniature Figure Collectors of America (MFCA), Valley Forge Casino Resort, Pennsylvania.
• 15-17 Duke of Bavaria: Herzog von Bayern 2014 - Ingolstadt, Bavaria.
• 16-17 Open de Bretagne: VIII edition of the Open de Bretagne de la Figurine, organized by Chevaliers du Centaure, in Salle l'Estuaire, Couëron.
• 29-31 III Concurso Modelismo Estático Ciudad de Elche: Centro de Congresos Filet de Fora 1, Elche.



JUNE



• 12-14 Concurso Fuengirola: XXI edition of the contest Fuengirola Un Sol de Ciudad, in Fuengirola, Málaga.



JULY



• 27 Figureworld: Miniature expo event, no contest! School Great Hall, New Street, Oundle ( near Peterborough ), PE8 4GH.



AUGUST





SEPTEMBER



• 19-20 Euromilitaire 2015: The legendary contest Euromilitaire in Folkestone.



OCTOBER



• 10-11 Scale Model Challenge 2015: The Scale Model Factory event in The Netherlands.
• 30(oct)-1(nov) Soldat de Plom 2015: Contest of the association "El Baluard", in Girona. Open format.



NOVEMBER



• 6-8 Monte San Savino 2014: The greatest party in the miniature painting world shares weekend with the contest that attracts the best painters in the world. Open format.

Do Not Miss: February 2015

Second month of 2015, check out the most interesting things I've seen in the modelling blogosphere:

Miniatures

• Manfred Von Richthofen by Joel Guillamón: I liked this vampirized version of the Red Baron.


• Battle of Thermopylae, 480 B.C by Antonio Peña: This bust based on the 300 spartans is absolutely magnificent. Great painting and conversion.


• Herzog Wilhelm von Bayer by Kirill Kanaev: Kirill strikes again with a historical miniature, beautiful.


• Roman General (Gladiator) Young Miniatures : Another bust from the Korean company painted by Kirill.


• Arcadia Quest painted by Rémy Tremblay: One of the latest trend is painting boardgame miniatures to a showcase standard. Remy is doing Arcadia Quest. Beautiful! You can find more here, here and here. Stay tuned because it looks like he is going to paint the full set in the next few weeks!


• Latest sculptures from Rémy Tremblay: Apart from his paintjobs of Arcadia Quest, we have also seen Rémy updating his blog with his last sculpting works. Here you have Thorley, but also this miniature from Blood Rage, or this one. Check out the blog because they are all little marvels, as usual.


• Littlefinger and the Iron Throne by Flameon: The force from Game of Thrones is quite strong in this one.


• Border Reiver and Iroquois by Ernesto Reyes: A couple of new minis painted by Ernest: The Border Reiver and the Iroquois.


• Sentinelle du Culte in Le Blog dé Kouzes: It's been a few years since I stopped playing 40k with my Imperial Guard, but I remember the Sentinels dearly, and this conversion is very cool.


• Life/Death by amon_chakai: A few months ago we saw his first Magic/Miniature creation, but this one is better than the previous one. Absolutely amazing idea! So cool!


• Trollslayer by Banshee: According to him, one of the most difficult commissions he has ever done. And that is quite a statement! Brilliant work as always.


• Nosferatu bust by Aris Kolokontes: I don't usually bring you bigger "miniatures", but the work of Aris demanded me showing this in the month's list.


• The Muse of Death by Thomas David: Thomas returns to his own miniature line, Agora Miniatures, with this wonderful miniature.


• Parawn by Roberto Chaudon: Roberto keeps working hard for Mierce Miniatures, this dragon is well proof of it!

Articles and tutorials

• Paul's modelling workshop: This is quite an old post, but I just saw it recently. Check out this dreamland for any modeller!


• Project Nurgle by David Soper: Project Nurgle continues (part 7 and more) in Sproket's Small World.


• Simple High Elf freehands tutorial: This article might be helpful for those starting their way on simple freehands.


• Viking shield explained in Coloured Dust: How to paint a viking shield (for a bust).


• Flower Witch and Warlord for Kingdom Death: Tons of goodies from the great Thomas David for KD.


• Painting Wood in DieVincis blog: Simple tutorial on painting wood.


• Aran the Barbarian by Roman Lappat: Another one of those tutorials you have to read from Massive Vooodoo.


• Prevent Super Glue from drying: The simplest solution possible to prevent headaches with Super Glue.

WIP: Ellyrian Reavers Part 9

Previously on... WIP: Ellyrian Reavers

Now that the paintwork on the Reavers is finished, it's time to put them on their bases. Normally I have them already done before I put the miniatures on to save time, because we don't have to bother painting areas which are not going to be visible. In this specific case, I didn't have a clear idea of how the bases were going to be. My take from the very beginning was to do the Reavers riding in the closest waters of a shore, following the general coastal idea of the whole army.

The objective would be to create tiny waves over a base of calm water and finally add water splashes and foam., all using resins to make artificial water, snow and paint.

Following this plan, the first is to create some calm waters. Therefore, I begin with a thin layer of putty on the bases, to make a plain ground to start with. The idea is not to texture the base, on the contrary, hide the grain from the plastic gaming bases and fill in the gap between base and miniature.

Once the putty is dry, I paint it with a very generic brown. This will be the ground that is underneath the water in the shore.

At this point I apply a couple of layers of artificial water resin to simulate the acuatic base. I will be using Vallejo Water Effects which is a thick paste that becomes transparent when it dries. If the layer is too thick, it is possible that the result may not be transparent, but rather misty. For this reason, it is better to apply thinner layers letting them dry in between. Water Effects resin can be applied with a modelling tool and shaped if necessary; when dried it becomes hard and keeps the shape.

After applying a layer and letting it dry, I saw that it was too brown, so I painted that already hard resin soil with touches of turquoise blue (greener than the one used in the elves) and then I put another layer of Water Effects on top.

This process can be repeated many times until you are happy with the thickness of the water layer and the colour of the floor. Using different colours in each layer will leave a realistic colour effect under the water, where light constantly refracts in different ways because of the sea movement and produces many colours (as well as shines and reflections, already in place thanks to the natural gloss of the hardened resin).

After this is prepared it is the moment of working on the splashes. For this, I took many scrap pieces of hardened water resin tainted in turquoise that I kept from when I did the water base for the High Elf Dragonlord.

The scrap pieces can be cut in different shapes with some clippers, to create small resin triangles that will be used to simulate water splashes.

The splash bits are very small (we are dealing with ~28mm miniatures) so we will use pincers to work comfortably.

After this we will locate the place of the base where there will be a splash, in our case, where the horse shoes have just hit the water.

Carefully, we put the resin piece and use glue to put it in place. It will be useful to have a glue pot with large dropper, or use some tool to let us reach the are with enough precision to avoid any damages to the paint of the horses.

We continue doing the same thing with the rest of the splashes, we pick pieces of resin, cut them in shape and glue them in place.

We will try to simulate in the best way possible the splash of water. It will not be very convincing at this point, but for now it will be enough to achieve an approximated basic shape of the water splash.

Once all the splashes are in place, we apply another layer of Water Effects over all the base, especially in the base of the splashes, to fill in the gaps and join them with the rest of the water.

In the areas in which, because of the movement of the horse when galloping, the shoes of the horse are just leaving the water, we have to take into consideration that there will be a water spray behind. We will apply Watter Effects in that area but modelling it in such a way that we simulate the movement of the water.

With all the resin pieces glued in place and the Water Effects applied to fill in the gaps, we create the foam from the waves and splashes.

Very easily, it is just a matter of stippling with different shades of white in the areas were there is foam. We will try that the dots are not painted homogeneously and that there is more white in the areas where the foam is more intense.

Just by doing this we will have a quite convincing foam effect.

To make it more realistic we will use texture. We can put talcum powder or artificial snow in the places where the foam is more intense. It will be an additional touch of colour variety and grain that will be very appropriate to make it look like real water.

And with this we get to the end. Now we just need to take final photos to see how they look like...

Very soon!

Retrospecter: Tribute to the Fallen

It's Friday! What a good day for a good old...

Retrospecter!

Let's go back into the past and dig up some old classic from my gallery! Tribute to the Fallen!

It was the year 2009. My life that year was undergoing major changes (relationships broken, transition from student to full time worker) and miniatures were the glue that stuck it all together. For the first time I wanted to have a try at a big project with a single miniature, and while I spent a lot of time modelling Malus Darkblade at first, my attention quickly shifted to this new project as it came to my mind, and I stopped everything else to see it through.

Inspired by a gamer conversion that had used a High Elf lion from the Chariot kit, I decided to try my own version of a lion rider. Check the creation process here!

With a lot of help from my friends (the great Elías Alonso, Marc Masclans, Pablo López Jimeno among others), I managed to take it to GD Germany 2009, where it got Silver just behind my friend Stephan Rath. Stephan got Gold with his marvellous version of Valten on horseback, and then also picked up the Slayersword with a very cool Dark Elves diorama (though I liked the Valten even more).

Tribute to the Fallen was about things lost, but also about great things to come. So he marked the beginning of my greatest project so far, the High Elves Army, still ongoing of course!

Remember...?

Until our next Retrospecter, enjoy the weekend!