Sunday, September 14, 2014

Beeeeeoooooorn!

I actually got something accomplished all in one weekend that didn't spill over into Monday thru Friday.  It's also actually been a few weeks since I painted any miniatures exclusively for myself.

So I picked this little kit up last weekend and cracked it open last Thursday night.  For a finecast set, I was actually impressed with the quality.  The resin itself felt like something from Forgeworld instead of that brittle shit I've gotten used to with Games Workshop Finecast.  Minimal greenstuff was needed and cleaning it up took less than an hour.  As far as the newer Finecasts go, I can honestly say the QA department is actually doing they're jobs.  Kudos to you GW QA guys.....  though your price-points still suck.

That being said, lets take a look at Beorn in man form and bear form...
















These two models were a joy to paint.  I experimented with the skin tones on Beorn the Man, using a darker skin palette then I'm used to.  I wanted his flesh to be a bit more tanned and bronzed than when I usually paint flesh.  I ended up using some glazing techniques to tie it all together towards the end as my brush strokes were a bit too visible for my tastes.  My goal was to get him looking as close to the box cover as I could with a little bit of a dark tone.  I think I succeeded in this.

As for the bear, well I though his base was a bit too plain, so I sculpted the stone from the cork and covered my seams with some fine sand giving it a very realistic texture.  The bear mainly consisted of a little dry brushing and very minimal layering on the face, tongue, claws, and teeth.  It's a very easy model to paint and even a beginner could get fantastic results with little effort.  I put the flower on the base to add a little color to the piece and I think he turned out pretty good.

That's it for now....

Sunday, September 7, 2014

OOP Warhammer Watchtower

This entry will be a less wordy than my usual entries on this blog partly due to the fact that it's almost bedtime and I wanted to put this up sometime this weekend.  I decided last weekend to do a terrain project since my pile of unfinished terrain is starting to stack up.  I chose to do the OOP Watchtower.  I was hoping this would be a quick project, but alas, it took me over a week to finish.

I went back in time with the photography on this one due to the fact that it really doesn't fit good in my light box.  I don't think the cluttered desk takes away from the piece, but you be the judge of that.

















It was a fun project to paint.  The little bits here and there were a little frustrating, but for a piece I mainly dry brushed, it turned out much better than I thought it would.  Thanks for viewing my work.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

The Fellowship Project Finally Complete!

It's been well over a month since I posted anything.  It's not like I've just been sitting around, but summer tends to be one of my more less productive times when it comes to this particular hobby.  My professional career kicks into high gear and I quite frankly have less time to do hobbying really.

Lets get down to business.  The fellowship project....  So a few posts back I showed a picture of a few unpainted miniatures from the out of print Mines of Moria starter set along with the DeAgostini Mines of Moria display piece primed in black (the way I bought it).  I've basically put a ton of hours into this piece because I wanted every miniature to be as top level as I could get and this project is a birthday present for my nephew.

Take note, this is going to be picture heavy.

So we'll start by showing the piece as a whole with the miniatures.











Now lets take a look at just the base itself....














Now the miniatures....











































So there is the miniatures.  Now maybe a closer look at the display with the miniatures.
















So I think that about sums up this project.  My thoughts.... I think all in all it turned out pretty good.  That being said, I hated painting these miniatures.  The sculpts are terrible and it's hard to tell what is what.  Of all the Fellowship models available, these are the worst.  I know it's early plastic, but they could've done a better job with the casting.  Aragorn model looks nothing like Viggo Mortensen as well as Legolas looking nothing like Orlando Bloom.  Gimli's head is so scruntched together it was hard picking out any of the details.  All the hobbit models look like generic hobbits (minus Samwise, he actually is the best looking model of the bunch in my opinion).  Boromir is another model that I liked in this set.  The rest are pretty bad.

When I picked up the paint brushes for the second time in my life (as an adult), these particular models were some of the first I had painted.  One thing that has always annoyed me when looking at other people's blogs and hobby sites is the fact that they show they're awesome paint jobs, but never models they did when they first started painting.  As a painter who's been painting roughly 4-5 years now, I like seeing my old models compared to my new, as it gives me insight on how far I've come as a painter.  I would love to see some of these top painters first works, but alas they never post them.  I might not be a top painter, but I like taking comparison shots and posting them for the world to see.  I hope it gives people who are struggling insight into the fact that we all didn't start off as fantastic painters.  

Take a gander at these.....  the ones on the left are the ones I just painted and the ones on the right are ones I painted when I started up again after a 15 year hiatus (in which I was amateur back then at best).  Note, the ones on the right have been used in games many of times, so there is a little wear and tear on them.



















As you can well see, there is a very clear cut difference between now and then.  It really is amazing how your skill increases with every miniature you paint.  That's about all the pictures I got for now.  I hope this makes up for my lack of LOTR and content in general lately.  I hope you guys like what you see and I hope my nephew enjoys them.  Thanks for looking!!