Some kind of Liam Neeson...Knight

So, let me show you another miniature - like the last one done before the Duke of Bavaria in 2013.

This time it is "The Crusader" by Nocturna Modles. AND if you have seen Kingdom of Heavens, you know the miniature or the other way round. All in all it is a real pleasure to paint this portrait of Liam Neeson. But somewhere during the painting process I got stuck and lost the passion for it - probably when the sword broke of the second or third time..... brittle little thing. But I grit my teeth and finished him.

Probaly not my best work, especially the base, but I hope you like him nevertheless. If you do, leave a vote at Putty & Paint

Keeping the Promis from Eastern

Hi folks,

as promised some days ago, I will start to show you my resent works. The first one actually is from 2013 , to be precise form the Spring just befor the Duke of Bavaria 2013.

It is the Celtic Chieftain by Elite Miniatures, sculpted by Raul G. Latorre. He is roughly about 54 mm in hight. I really had fun painting this beautiful sculpt - especially as it was my first historical miniature. (If you can get your hands on one of Latorres sculpts, pay the price, actually pay every price necessary. Those are some of the best sculpts you might ever get and since Latorres own studio is closed again, they are running low :( )

During the process of assembling and priming I lost the scabbard. So I had to replace it. The original one was quite dainty, but I decided to go with a simpler one as a replacement. Before I go into too much details, let me show you the pictures

Concerning the paint job I went with a simple one, mostly because tattoos, complex shield ornamentation or weaving patterns would have been quite a stretch, form the archaeological point of view. Normally I don't care to much for historical accuracy, but in the process of painting this little fellow my inner "Fachidiot" kicked in and I did some researches. To be precise I bought a Osprey book about the Celts and.... lets say I sat down in the library of the archaeological Landesamt Sachsen-Anhalt and had some fun comparing popular book content with the archaeological texts..... Osprey has nice pictures but if you really want to learn something about the epoch they shouldn't be your first choice.

So I hope you like the celtic chief, and if you want visit him on Putty & Paint. No CMON Links anymore, they killed my account out of the blue. 

Stay tuned for more. I will work my way through my shelf during the next days/weeks.

Look what the easter bunny dragged in

Oh boy, it's been a long time since I posted something and an even loger time since I showed you some of my works. I beg your pardon, humble reader, so much to do, not much hobbytime, used to paint rather than post.

But: the Duke of Bavaria is coming near and my brushes are smouldering and because it's Easter, I have some pictures for you.

First, a little WIP of the latest mini, the Toad King by Allan Carrasco - the man, who sculpets dicks at everything....

And as an extra the finished Scion Plasmaguy. Finaly some GW minis that have a nice tone again.

+

So, thats it for now. I'm off to enjoy the weather, grill some dead animals and spend some time with the Lady - she wont see much of me the next week, painting madness ist starting.

After the Duke ist done, I'll come back with more pictures, for sure this time.

Tau army wip

I started painting commissions last year, and one of the first (and still far from finishing) was a Tau army.
Lot's of battle suits, tanks and infantry.

This had some serious drawbacks again and again, from the two months of paint stripping instead of two days (never...NEVER use some cheap acrylic wall paint for your miniatures if you plan to maybe repaint them in the future) to hardware problems with the airbrush. As I am struggling with this one for a while now, I am happy that first progress is showing.

The customer wanted a simple paintjob, nothing to expensive and so I tried to find a good middle way between basic painting and nice looking colors with simple gradients.

So far he likes the ochre. The colors where Tau Light Ochre for the base tone, Skag Brown for the shadows and a mixture of Tau Light and Kislev Flesh for the highlights
Next step will be detail painting, adding some red armor plates and darklining and these will be ready to go.

Weathering gone wild - video tutorial skyshield landing platform

Cutting some old videos I collected over the last  months I found this skyshield I painted for our store.
Hope you enjoy!

Vidlog back and working - Enjoy the complete video tutorial for the Swamplands

I am happy to announce that video production is rolling again. It's quite disturbing how a broken pc stops the workflow today.

On the channel you can find all 5 parts of the swampland gaming table in a playlist, everything from styrocutting the rocks to the final paint finish and water effects.

Build your own!

I hope you enjoy our second finished video series, and prepare for more to follow soon!

Have a nice day everyone!

Talking with plastic, or thoughts about inspiring trophies

Hello my fellow miniature addicts,
todays article will have a look on something most tournament gamers and competition painters desire on some point of their hobby career - trophies.

Who didn't ever want to win one?
But its not about winning them, instead I'll talk about creating them!

The trophies I created for our local hobby stores painting competition, the Golden Gobbo.

So first, why should you want to create one? The simple answer is, they add a nice feeling to many things, campaigns, tournaments, competitions or just as a gift to the special person who invests all his time and energy into your hobby club.
Even amongst friends who only play for fun, this little thing will have a special place on the shelve and bring back memories every time being looked at.

I think most of us like a trophy or two in their flat, and thats not a bad thing at all. We held a painting competition at our local hobby store last December, the Golden Gobbo painting competition.
Over the last years, I planned and held many events there, from gaming events to painting classes and my private hobby past also saw many of them in our gaming group.
Purity seals my RPG players got for their final victory in a years long campaign, the typical golden /silver / bronze sprayed marine for the early painting contests, certificates for scratchbuilding events...

This time I wanted to create something more personal, something the participants would know was specially designed for them. I think this can make a real difference between something they never take home from the store or something, they will enter next years contest to get hold of. (We still got a gold trophy two years old, simple marine sprayed gold, that was never taken home)

So for everyone out there who wants to organize a contest or honor their fellow gamers, games masters and organizers, I thought it could be interesting to write down my thoughts on this topic.

The first step is to consider, what deed shall be honored?
Whilst golden dice and rulers can be fitting for a gaming event, they would look awkward at a painting event.
Something very useful here is a name! Don't organize a painting competition, rather choose a theme based thing, like who paints the coolest dwarf or who wins the final battle at Skullfang Mountain (sorry, old warhammer chap here). If you want a more generic event, name it! We call our 40k tournaments the Eastern front massacres, as we are the most eastern GW in Germany. Here in Germany, things associated with the East could be anything from Vodka bottles to bananas, winter themed bases and snow and ice...and we have a big pool to choose from. Some things won't be serious enough, or depending on your taste, way to serious. But ideas begin to form in our mind!

My example will be our Golden Gobbo.
Now comes what i call talking with miniatures. It's strange and some would consider it crazy but who cares? I knew I wanted to use Goblins from the Night Goblin Troop box. Ok, but 9 Trophies with a simple metallic goblin? LAME!

We had 3 categories, Single Miniature, Unit and Big Miniature. So I imagined the bunch of crazy little greenskins in front of their boss, squabbling about how they want to look and why they should be the coolest greenskin in town!

Single Miniature
Ey Boss, you're serious?? Something on MY socket? Damn your ideas, I present the Single, so I won't share. Not even for a bottle of fungus beer, naaa it's mine and dare you other weeklings step on it.


I guess no proud Goblin would accept anything but him on a trophy for a Single entry. So all they got was a second, smaller socket and themselves. As these are the most proud, the Champion and Musician seemed just right for me. 

Unit
Unit hmm? Good, another idiot in front of me, catching all the fire and injuries! I mean, thats what units are good for, right? Other meat protecting my sweet green ass!

Very easy, they would need another chap on their socket, cause a real greenskin lives in a horde. Not because they are weak cowered  little gits...well ok, because they are exactly that! And because of that, they also would need some chests and things to hide behind, if needed.

Big Miniature
I am the biggest, NO I am, naaaah you couldnt be taller then me standing on each others shoulders! 
We shall see...a horde of little gobbos climbing to the highest piles of stuff they can find, to decide who's the golden trophy.

I really had fun with this ones! They represent tanks and monsters and want to be the biggest Gobbos in the mountains. 

The making didn't take too long, they were simply airbrushed with the awesome Vallejo Air metal colors and the socket labels were created using this helpful tutorial from Massive Voodoo

The winners were really happy with them and everyone knows, no other has the same in his shelve or cabinet. Thats a real motivating thing and first questions for the 2014 version arise. Personal trophies can add much to any competition and are worth the extra effort you put into them. Cause after investing time, energy and money into your contest, why not make the best you can out of it?

Talking of the Golden Gobbo, why not have a look on the entries?

So much for today, read you soon!