Seeeeeecret miniatures from a secret man for a secret something, so sh!

Heeeeiiiiiidihoooooo!

Sorry for keeping you waiting for more WIPs of the ugly warrior thing. I visited a friend at the weekend in Berlin and there I painted a miniature for another friend. I can't show you that miniature because he hadn't announced it's release yet or didn't even show pictures of the sculpts yet. But, sometimes buts are good, as he showed two other scuplts of his and can now show you three miniatures I painted last year.

First the rasta man, the first miniature I've painted after a 2 years pause:

here the link for more pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/RastaBlondie

Second an engineer:

here the link for more pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/ING6


Third the lady:

here the link for more pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/BigButtLady


As you see the sculpts got a similar clothing style which is a hint what they are for and what might be released this year or next year or sometime in the future.

The ugly warrior thing will have to wait a while longer, because there's another paintjob for him. I do these paintjobs for free for him because he is a friend of mine and because I don't make a living out of miniature painting. And because I like his stuff. Very puristic and nice suits to paint.

Well as he already showed the sculpt of my next mini, I can show you WIPs when I've started painting it during the next days. So observe us soonish!

Introducing: Charity!

Hello dear readers,
soon we'll celebrate the first anniversary of (T)Raumschmiede!

I never thought how fast it would grow or how many people we could reach.
With a few hundred people reading here every day, being listed in many great artists bloglists and linked on various websites we are able to spread word and reach many people and thats a great thing.

Today I want to use that possibility to spread a serious issue and maybe help some people realizing a really great project.

Some fellow students drafted a school building for the Capacity Center Fernandez in Argentina.
This project already built a kindergarten, classrooms, shelters for teachers and students, ...
The place turned from wasteland to a shining glimpse of hope for the region, as they offer the possibility for education and approved graduation.
The project is so successful that there is way to less space to teach all the children who need it.
The new building will contain 4 new classrooms and a auditorium, with information center.

They will fly to Argentina for three months and build it together with volunteers, the projects founder and people from the region.
It will be raised in traditional materials, found in Argentina and there is a lot of research in it.

I think this is a great project and a opportunity to make something better, change something.
It is not a big organization, which takes your money and builds administration buildings instead of schools.
(Yes, I am no friend of that big "helping companies" )

Education is one of the most important things, it gives future aspects and all those people who graduate there won't have to become criminals.
Education brings understanding each other, peace and our future, even, if we won't be affected by those people the world will be for sure.

This projects needs donations, they already raised half of the sum but still, some is missing.
You can donate on their website and you also can get a acquittance for that donation.
The money just goes into the building of the school, nothing lost on the way.
Even little sums help my friends.

I will paint a miniature and auction it in march, the money will be donated to this project.
When I see how many money I spent during my life, supporting Kickstarter Campaigns, buying miniatures never to paint and such stuff, I think a few euro won't hurt me.
I may not get something material for that money, but some other human gets a chance.

Have a look at their site, you'll find a presentation there and all the detailed information.

I will also stay in touch with the 4 students and show some progress of the growing school here in our blog.

Why I support this special project?
Because I know the people doing it, I saw how much work they put in, our university and some professors worked hard to get a good, payable and working draft.
The people who will build it are reliable and I am sure, the money will be spent rightfully for their project.
And I think, every person who actually goes down there, doing something deserves support.

Read you soon my friends,
prepare for much color as I will spent two weeks of painting madness in big Berlin after I made my exams.

Step by Step, uuuuh baby....

Heyho once again!

This time it's time for a kind of step by step. "Kind of" because it was the first time I tried the thing I've done. So it's about.....(please make a drum roll with your fingers on your desk to build up some excitement till I reveal what's it about)..........(just a bit longer)....it's about....I'm really thinking about clouds, how beautiful they are...sorry got disattracted...it's about two component water effect (sorry to keep you waiting for it).

I bought the one from NOCH and it was the first time I used 2-component-water effect. So I read about it how to use it a while ago, and I remembered some of it but not the important bits.

Well I wanted to fill the bathtub of my Maulg with it and  I had to build a barrier so it doesn't run out of the tub. First I took a strip of masking tape to attach it to the tub so that the next coming tesa tape doesn't rip of paint when I strip it off afterwards. Now I  attached one strip of tape from the outside of the tub, made some cuts into the protruding part of it to attach it tight to the tub.

Same with the second strip of tape.

I attached a strip from underneath just to close every channel the water effect could flow through.

Then I prepared two strips to fit from the inside of the tub against the other strips so that the water effect doesn't touch the sticky side of the tape.

Attached some patafix and it was ready for Water effect.

So I followed the instructions in the manual, took one part of resin and one part of hardener and mixed them together. The good thing about the NOCH water effect is, that it doesn't seem to be a really exothermic reaction, meaning it stays cold. Welllllll but while stirring it, it became somehow really cloudy due to all the bubbles in there. I have to say that in the manual it says it is really liquid and after sometime when mixed together gets the consistency of honey. Hmm yeah right, the consistency of both the hardener and the resin was already like honey before mixing it. But I hoped that the bubbles in there would somehow melt together so that I could easily get them out of there after filling it into the tub. I filled it in the tub and waited a while. A while longer. Well the bubbles stayed where they are because they were ultra small and there were like millions of them. And due to the viscosity of the water effect and that the bubbles were to small, they didn't rise up to the top of the water...weak bubbles, be ashamed of yourselves!...At this point I asked the all knowing internet and found a tip from Crackpot first, but afterwards I remembered I've read it before in a comment by Grumbler. The tip really did it for me. And the tip was.....(again please make a drum roll with your fingers on your desk to build up some excitement till I reveal what's it about)...again a bit longer (yeah I know you're not doing it and just read on, but I still have hope for just one person doing it)....you have to warm up both components so they get really liquid. First I pured out the first try of water effect out of the tub into a beaker. Then I boiled up some water, filled it in glasses so that it wasn't boiling anymore and not too hot, then I filled the components into the little beakers but this time 3 parts hardener and 2 parts resin and put each beaker into one glass of warm water. 

While standing in the warm water I stirred them slooooowwwwly, geeeeennnnntly until they were really liquid. Then I mixed them in a beaker which was standing in warm water too. I stirred the water effect sloooooowly, geeeeennnnntly  so that nearly no bubbles occured and still the water effect got mixed properly. Sooo now it was time to fill the water into the tub. Everything went fine, no water leaked out anywhere. So I just removed the lonely bubbles with a thin wire and covered the whole thing so there couldn't get any dust into it while it hardens. I waited for three days, just to be sure that it gets really hard (in the instructions it says I only have to wait for 18 ours or so, but I wanted to be sure). During these days I checked the water effect from the first try and the rest of the second try in their beaker graves if they were hard, somehow they were hard but the surface was still sticky... after the third day I didn't want to wait any longer and stripped off the tape from the tub.

Tadaaaa eveything is looking sweeeeet:

Martin was around one of the days and looked at the water effect of the first try with the millions of bubbles in there and said "dude this looks like ice". Hmm it really does, and over a layer of clear water effect you could create a view from the side into a frozen lake for a base...awesome! Well I've seen this kind of base a couple of times, but if I remember correctly the ice has always been done with something else.

Well the water effect had an edge that pulled it self up the tape, so I cut it away and sanded it.

Now I wanted the surface to be clear again. I've read about hairspray to do the job. No hairspray in my house. So I just took some glossy varnish with a bit of water in it. Naaaaah I saw the brushstrokes, sanded it again. Hmm had some nail varnish....noooo not again brushstrokes, added some tamiya thinner to dilute it, didn't work, sanded it....I found some varnish spray....oiiii forgot it was matt varnish...sanded it again. So again I asked the all knowing internet. It said hairspray...got none...glossy varnish....must have done something wrong...and at last one component water effect diluted with water...got that,tried it and it was okayish. Well due to that I sanded it again and again, and due to the fact that the finest sanding paper I got is 1000 grid, I still was able to see scratches from the sanding through the 1K water effect...it was also really annoying to sand because the tub is only attached to the base with two little feets. One broke and the other one got damaged. I read later that jarhead said something about 12000 grid sanding paper for the second last step (don't remember with which grid he started) and for the last some tamiya polishing paste or so.  

The water is clear again, not as clear as before the sanding, but clear. When you hold it into the light you still can see scratches and parts where the 1K water effect didn't dry flat and made a bump. But I'm still satisfied with the result. And next time I think I know how to do it better, which doesn't mean I will...More pics of the Maulg are to be found here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/BadewannenMaulg 

Hope you liked this kind of step by step.

Till then make a drum roll with your fingers on the window!

Some finished Miniatures and a WIP

And hallo again!

This time it's some finished miniatures. The first one is the bust, I already showed you WIP pics off. I'm really satisfied with the overall look. Here and there it the blending could be better. I'm not sure what to think about the slime on the worms. I do like the whole mouth area and the eyes. The third eye was supposed to draw focus with it's bright green colour and it's three pupils. I tried some texture on the cloak. The blood in the wounds is okay, but I'm not sure what to think of the blood that drips out of them and runs down. I for myself like the nipples. What I really do not like is that I didn't prepare the mini well enough, meaning I didn't fix all the bubbles. I didn't see them before priming and afterwards I was too lazy...but I'm still satisfied with the bust. First some photos and then a link to some more photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/SchleimigerTyp


Next is he bathtub Maulg, there will be an step by step or more an experience report on the water in the bathtub. I started the miniature 2009 on a Matt Cexwish and Ben Komets Workshop in Hamburg. I nearly finshed the skin there and did finish the axe blade. I did build up the base back then. The rest was painted in November last year. I didn't want to invest much time because the skin which is most of the mini was nearly done and done with the wet-blending technique I didn't use since then due to my 2 year painting pause. So I just put some more lights on the skin, softened some colour transitions and painted the rest. The idea for the base came during the workshop when leichtmatrose had some already mixed putty left which he gave to me. I've put it over a bottle of pigment fixer which somehow gave it the form of a tub. With a wee rest I formed the duck the Maulg hides behind his back. So I painted the stuff around his hip as some kind of towel and soaps. He's standing before his tub and protects it, because it's his bath to take and nobody should dare to play with his little ducky...here some photos and a link to the rest:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/BadewannenMaulg

I like the colour of the skin and the little duck. I really like the lips and the eyes. The transitions could be smoother and not so chalky in some places. The pattern on the towel is not fine enough for my taste. I ran havoc on the tub with the rust. I dabbed it with colour on a sponge, it was like...dab...dab...dab...dabdab.....dabdabdab.... dabdabdab dabdabdab dabdabdab dabdabdab...ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddab...dab...dab...dab...too much, too much, you took toooo much...but I still like it. I haven't done these kind of effects that often.  The water, the water....you will read about it in the step by step.

The last finished one is a weeeeee halloween boy sculpted by Badsmile years ago. He gave it to me in 2009 and started to paint it in october 2011 and finished it november 2012. Something quick, rough and nothing too fancy. Did try to make him look like it's dark outside and the light comes from the not visible door in front of him. I like how the shadow turned out on the base. I had problems to colour the grass, again a thing I haven't used often yet and which I have to master.  No more words here some pictures and a link to some more:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/HalloweenBoy

And finally some WIP pictures of my next project, a pest warrior thingy by TIN:

Not much done, the metallics will get some more washes, rust, lights, damage...something like that. Hope to do it tommorrow, meaning later this day...uahhh so late already...cleaning the flat and making some "Quarkbällchen" is also on my to do list...

 So that's it. Hope you will be back here during the next days to see what the step by step is doing.

Old study stuff - part two

Aloa my friends,
welcome to some more old stuff from my studies.

I hope you don't mind the advertisement but it is necessary sometimes.
We also need to buy our food and pay our bills.

Tomorrow a bunch of auctions ends (and a new one will be up every week until my soon lost studio is empty) and you got some nice bargains there.
You'll find 5 limited things that are sold out, two statues, a gothic ruin and two codizes
some original packed kits for big monsters, a no longer sold Assault on Black Reach...and of cause the


WHITE SCAR CAPTAIN ON BIKE

Just check in and get something  nice for you or maybe some loved people ;)

Find all the stuff HERE !

And now, finally, pictures!

That was a sports hall we drafted for a local school in our 4th semester.

Today I would do a lot things different, maybe I'll find some time for that someday.

Second semester and hell I loved it.

The task was to take a sheet of paper and cut into it, fold it etc to create a house.

I just changed the scale and won place for some more buildings that all are just one room.

All the ways, the pool and the inner garden are the rooms "footprints" , all the sides that are needed to create them from a two dimensional sheet.

Very experimental but satisfying to do.

My next week will be full of rendering, let's see what this pictures will look like, so long after the ones I showed you. 

I am exited for sure!

Read you soon,

Martin

Old study projects - architectural models and some renderings

Time again for an episode of:
What I am doing besides the miniatures.

Yesterday I gave a short introduction class to some software we're using in our studies, cad software, rendering and so on. To have a few files to explain some things, I searched through my old external drive and found some things that I did through the last 3 years.
I really get in love with the models I built, everyone reminds me of people, times of my live and nights without sleep.
So I thought I'd just show you some of them.

The first one is a bike stand that was a theoretical draft, situated at our university .
This one was a hard job, as my work group split a week before presentation and I had to do a new one in just a few days.
I remember gluing these countless staples and my room being an ocean of fluffy tree sponge stuff after it.

These pictures are from an homeless facility that I planned in my second year. We had an empty parcel and should do something with it. I remembered straying through some empty houses there taking photos, where I found countless cellars with sleeping bags and filth, where some people tried to make a living.
So I planned that thing, a place where you could spend the cold nights, get food and a room, some showers and most important, contact to the rest of the districts society. It was placed at a big street where everyone could see it, to force people to notice.
I always hated,  how most people ignore such social problems, as long as they hide in the basements.
The concept also was about the countless old people there, left without a family, spending their life alone.
A place to meet, a place to find new possibilities, explaining the whole idea would take walls of text.
This weren't the best renderings for sure, I was new with the software and experimented.

Some views from different projects...

We didn't learn anything about using your computer to design things, draw blueprints or make pictures, so the early ones aren't that awesome. But I really like them, because there were just few people taking the task to learn everything by themselves and spending the nights over tutorials and such stuff.

Today, they remind me of the importance of working hard, working extra and do something instead of complaining.

That thing was great, the task was to create a cubic house and I hated my academic advisors...

I remember only a few occasions during my first years that were as funny as this presentation.

And they were so flashed with the boldness that it got one of the best marks.

I think I'll show the rest some other day, this post got long.

Well, this were the beginnings and I had some great (and some not so great) memories while posting them.

It's the same with miniatures and everything.

Open your old army cases, boxes, look at some pictures from your first games, old friends, old armies, old great character models that represented you as general...

Memory is one of our greatest treasures I think...

Now I'll work a bit at my present draft, so little time left.

Read you soon,

Martin

Ps: Don't forget our running running Ebay-Auctions!

Jérémie Bonamant Teboule is looking for help (New DVD)

Heyho,

over on www.das-bemalforum.de Jérémie Bonamant Teboule posted in his thread that he is looking for people helping him to translate his new DVD. On the bemalforum he was looking for people translating it from french or english to german, but I don't know there might be other languages he wants to translate it to.

Well I did that today instead of painting in my new hobbyroom, and there is still a lot to translate it seems.
So if you want to help him contact him via his page. Here is the link:

http://www.jeremiebt.com/index.php?page=siteuk

and also the link to his thread on das-bemalforum:

http://www.das-bemalforum.de/showthread.php?p=145694#post145694

Hope there is somebody out there to help him. I bet this DVD will be awesome!

As I'm going to bed now I wish you all a good night.

WIP shots? Not really, but somehow they are...

Hidiho again!

Well I said on Tuesday I would post WIP pictures of the bust I have been painting. Well sorry no WIP pictures of the bust....the bust is finished and I will try to make proper pictures (well still lousy ones) next weekend. But...there is always a butt (the double T was intended to make it read funny...giggle, giggle)... I worked alllll weekend on my hobby room (and my flat). So now I got my ooooowwwwwnnnn hobby room, only for painting, converting, sculpting and all the other stuff. Well but first from the beginning on.

I moved to Dresden due in the middle of october to a new job. And for the first time I rented a flat just for myself, no more flatshare for me that is. It has three rooms, one for the sleepy-head me, one for the eaty- and lazy-head me and one for the nerdy-head me. But the flat has only 53 m². This makes the bedroom 9 m², the living room 15 m² and the hobby room 7 m². The rest is the entry room, the kitchen and the bath.

So with three rooms I could use one as a hobby room, my preciousssss hobbyroom it would be.  During the months before christmas I already spent money for furniture for the other rooms. There was never money left for furniture for the hobby room. But after christmas it was the time for furniture for the hobby room. With enough money after christmas (thanks Santa) I bought all the stuff I needed for the hobby room and also some furniture for the rest of my flat.

On saturday around 8:30 am they finally delivered everything. So from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm I was busy with building everything up. For the hobbyroom, I've build two desks and a showcase. One of the desks is 80 cm high and the other one around 110 cm. So I got one desk I can paint on while sitting and on the other one while standing. I also ordered two stand aids for the higher desk. Here are the pictures from saturday:

All the sweeeeeet furniture...all hail the rather unknown swedish furniture shop!

Sparkling blue screws, nearly couldn't build them in, my preciousssss....

Sawwwwwwwww!

First desk finished.

Aaaaand second desk finished (it's already dark outside).

Showcase showoff.

In the evening Martin came around for a painting session till 3 am. On Sunday I woke up tooooo early around 9:40 am...tried to sleep till 11 am...couldn't sleep...so I stood up, had breakkie and only had to attach the shelves to the wall and then put all my stuff back into the room. This somehow took me longer then expected...till 8:00 pm...uaaah...not much relaxing time this weekend. But I'm done with the hobby room and I'm really happy. Here are the pictures from sunday:

Shelves attacked to the wall (again he k is there to make you lough or shake your head about what kind of an idiot I am)

DONE!

STILL DONE!

I can't wait till I paint miniatures in that room. I think tomorrow will be the first time. Jayyyy!

Hope this was kind of interesting to you (booooooring I hear you scream).

See you soon.

Klaus