Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Do Not Miss: May 2011

Seen on the internet on May 2011:

  • Zorabeth by Arsies: My friend Arsies (Javier González) is always swamped with commission jobs and he rarely gives all he has to offer in miniatures he paints, but in this one he says he's been up to his highest standards. Judge by yourselves! It entered competition in AMC's Torrent 2011 and was awarded gold. Amazing paintjob! I only wish we could have bigger photos.

  • The First Avenger? by Simon Modrow: Simon sculpted this tiny beauty and I really liked it. Let's hope we see it painted soon in red and blue as its supposed to be!

  • One Shot, a study of commitment by MIKH: Check out the story of how One Shot, the new mecha from Soda Pop was created. Amazing engineering behind the scenes. Totally worth it!

  • Dance Morko Dance by Alfonso Giraldes and Diego Esteban: Enormous article on the creation of this shaman giant which was awarded third place in Crystal Brush 2011, and the impressions of our two colleagues about the trip and the contest itself. The only bad thing about it, its in spanish!

  • Grand Master by Paul Deheleanu: Another great photo procdess from this amazing sculptor. In this case, he shows us the Grand Master miniature created for Scale75.

  • Lady of the French Court, s. XVIII by Pepa Saavedra: I'm not a big fan of busts but this one really caught my attention. I love the softness of contrasts and specially the expression she managed to get out of the eyes. It's a boxart for El Viejo Dragón.

  • Frutti di Mare by Robert aka Muhani: Robert from Massive Voodoo has finished his awesome diorama which started with a simple idea for Smaulg being a captain of a boat an ended in this massive diorama. It's been a neverending process but the results are simply breathtaking. Congratulations Robert!

  • Frutti di Mare by Robert aka Muhani: Robert from Massive Voodoo has finished his awesome diorama which started with a simple idea for Smaulg being a captain of a boat an ended in this massive diorama. It's been a neverending process but the results are simply breathtaking. Congratulations Robert!

  • Viking by Alfonso Gozalo: Great photos of the making of the viking new release from Historic Art-Nocturna Models. I love this miniature! What a great piece.

  • Gabriel Blackburn by Freeman: This is another new release from Andrea's sci-fi line of miniatures, Dark Nova. Very simple idea but amazing sculpting and great possibilities for painting!

Monday, May 30, 2011

Golden Demon France 2011 Photos (Units, Diorama and Open)

As I said, I took many photos of the miniatures in the contest. I'll divide all the photos I have into 4 different parts. Today, photos from Fantasy Unit, 40k Squad, Diorama and Open categories.


Here's a pretty bust of an orc shaman.



This unit of trolls has great colours, reminds me of the one from my friend Piti! Remember last year's Bronze in Fantasy Unit GD Spain? Well this one was bronze too.



This elf is a great sculpt and the pose and composition is awesome. Bronze in Open by Olivier Bredy.



Nice traitor guard squad. Silver in 40k squad.



Space Marines! Attack! Bronze in 40k squad.



Shitty photos, this piece deserved better pics from me... it looked great in the contest!



Terminator bust. Silver in Open.


Awesome space wolf bust.


Very bad pic of this unit of dreadnought goblins. Gold in 40k squad.


Very nice dio. But very bad pics from me!


The great Imperial Guard Commissar by my friend ARI-A-KAS from Spain. No awards but the miniature is wonderful.


A picture from far away of Remy Tremblay's Slayersword.


Wall-E!


It's a trap!


Love the colours of this Krieg Centaur. But it's not the first time I see this one I think.


Check out the window on this one! Amazing.



Weird digital effects on this space marines.


Astaroth and friends.


Space Hulk squad.


Bad pic of the bloodletters. They got the Gold in Fantasy Unit.


A team of Dark Elves for Bloodbowl. Silver in Fantasy Unit.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Golden Demon France 2011 Winners Photos



I was going to post my own photos made in the contest but GW has just released the official photos from all the winners and they are of course better than mine. The light on the cabinets was awful and all the photos I made are not as good as these.

So, here's the link:

GW Official Photos Golden Demon France 2011

They are all quite awesome, but I would like to point out the Gold in Single Fantasy from Bruno Lavalle which was one of my favourites of the contest. And also, of course, Remy's diorama which is simply breathtaking and we couldn't really admire it in all its beauty as it was very difficult to see it in the cabinet.

More soon!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Golden Demon France 2011 First Impressions

I'm back from Paris! What a great weekend I had. It's true that I didn't enter competition this time, and its quite strange specially because I travelled using the GD as an excuse, but anyway, without the pressure of having to present something to the contest, I had more than enough time to enjoy the city and its pleasures.



I'm travelling a lot lately...

Regarding our shared interest, the Golden Demon once again proved to be a great contest. The general level in France is very very high and this results in great competition. We may miss some of the greatest names France has given us, but new generations are also offering great proposals.

The slayersword went this time to Remy Tremblay, very well deserved, for his Skaven Diorama "The 13th Hour" (amazing). He posted photos of details in his blog:

"THe 13th Hour" Slayersword winner France 2011 (R.T.ART)
"The 13th Hour" Details (R.T.ART)

I have many many photos of miniatures in the contest and some stories to tell. I'll put them all in order and post them so you can catch a glimpse of this year's GD in France.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Next in line: GD France 2011



This weekend (sunday 22) I'll be attending Games Day and Golden Demon France 2011, in Paris, at Le parc floral. I won't be entering competition because I have nothing totally finished for contest but I'll be giving a painting showcase to which, of course, everyone is invited. It will be a great chance to meet you guys if you wish! Here's the program of the painting showcases, they all seem very interesting:

Painters showcase program:
  • 11h00-12h00
    • Jerome Otremba: Metals
    • Vivien Chesnel: Painting a Kroot face
    • Cédric Lurkin: Using pigments

  • 12h00-13h00
    • Guillaume Lemas: Painting a human face
    • Mathieu Fontaine: Gradients
    • Vladd Jünger: Freehands on a banner

  • 13h00-14h00
    • Michael Delcroix: Vehicles and realism
    • Julien Casses: Tyranid Chitin
    • Stefan Kochoswski: White armour and weathering

  • 14h00-15h00
    • Matt Cexwish: Earth and soil effects
    • Rémy Tremblay: Painting a skaven
    • Christophe Bauer: Leathers

  • 15h00-16h00
    • Steve Party: Red clothing
    • Rafael Garcia Marin: Contrast
    • David Petit: Lizard skin

Now you know where to find me! I hope to be able to take good photos of the contest to post on the blog. And good luck to all of you who participate in the Golden Demon!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

WIP: Death Korps of Krieg Army part 2

Previously on... WIP: Death Korps of Krieg Army

We continue with more material from 2009.

This photo shows all the miniatures together to show you that I was painting all at the same time, not just the two guards you can see in the previous pictures.



And the madness continues...

At this point I painted the insides of their coats and cuffs. I painted them in a black base and then I dotted various shades of gray (just adding some basic white to black) to get the lights, rensembling some sort of black leather. This must be done carefully, with an old brush which is no longer of use and taking care of the quantity and dillution of the paint. We must be careful with this step, if we take too much paint with the paintbrush, we will be painting instead of dotting, and that's not what we want. We want to paint small dots, but we do not want the paint to be too thick, we must find the right balance. Once I put the lights I gave a quick wash of Black Ink and some Dark Angels Green Ink and also bit of blue to tone the colour to the rest of the miniature. The inks will give the proper brightness to the cloth so it looks like leather. We can paint little cuts in the fabric which always look good in leather. Finally, with the grey that I used for the lights I outline the edges of the fabric by giving intermittent strokes to leave a dashed line instead of a continous outline, perfect for this type of texture. This step took about 15 minutes per miniature.

I took pictures of all the models one by one so they can be appreciated better (those photos far away of all the troops where not as good as they could be).














From now on, everything I'll post is current updated work!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

WIP: Death Korps of Krieg Army part 1

Long ago I decided to paint a Korps of Krieg army, based on the same scheme in which I painted a squad of five Krieg Grenadiers (you can see the squad here). I decided to retrieve the process which I started since it is possible that I resume working on it. The first two parts that I will show are from early 2009 so they are a little outdated, but the following parts will show the current work.

I can divide this long and laborious process in three distinct parts. One part will be about the infantry miniatures, another one about the vehicles and a third part will show the work done on the bases.

INFANTRY PAINTING

Painting a lot of miniatures in high standard and the fastest way possible is difficult. The most important thing is having a good plan regarding the process. The best is to try to use the airbrush for the most part of the process as possible because it saves much work and time. Of course, although boring, it's very effective to paint in series. This form is appropriate until it becomes a torture, then it's best to stop and get on with whatever other thing we prefer to paint because it can turn into a horrible task and suffering is not our goal. Here I show the process I followed on the first batch of guards.

First I assembled, cleaned and glued all the guards on temporary bases. Then I glued the bases into another base, which in this case is an old paintpot (currently use plastic sticks glued to the feet of the figures because that way the airbrush work is easier, but back in 2009 I used old paintpots). The bases are temporary because when I finish painting the figures, I will take them off from there and put them on their final bases which are painted separately, making it much more easy and efficient for me.





After that I primed the miniatures in the predominant colour which in this case, is Vallejo's Dark Navy Blue airbrushed. Not the best paint to use with an airbrush but I wanted to use more or less the same colours I used for the other Kriegs I painted. After this I painted the lights with airbrush, first with Citadel's Hawk Turquoise and then with a mix of the Turquoise with Citadel's Shadow Grey and a bit of white.
I put pictures of the two basic types of Krieg I have.




Now I give shadows with a normal brush (I can also use airbrush for large areas in shadow) with Vallejo Chocolate Brown and Black. The truth is that the change is not very noticeable in the photos but if you look carefully you might see the difference.




Now I painted the plates of all the shoulders and the vests and shin guards of the grenadiers with Rotting Flesh. I did it with normal brush and it proved pretty horrible. At this point in the process I realized that I did wrong, it would have been much more productive to start painting the pads directly with airbrush, and then once finished, cover the parts in Rotting Flesh with Maskol and then paint the uniform with airbrush. Now it is much more difficult because I would have to cover the entire uniforms with Maskol so it is not worth it. For the next I'll keep that in mind and my work will be simpler and shorter. This step took me 10 to 15 minutes per figure, considering that the grenadiers have much more work put into them because they wear chest vests and shin guards. Total time so far per figure: about 1 hour.





Now I make a gradient on all the plates by just using the base colour. The lights will be done adding Vallejo's Ice Yellow to the Rotting Flesh base up to pure white in final light points. I did the shadows adding Citadel's Catachan Green to the base. Then I gave glazes of Citadel's Green Goblin to make the colour closer to my original grenadiers (these differences in tone will be corrected in the end when I have a complete picture of all the miniatures and their colour). This process took me about 15 minutes per set of normal infrantry and 30 minutes for the grenadiers. So at this point I spent 75 minutes with each infrantryman and 90 minutes with each grenadier.