GW Rhino 2.0

I got a bit more work done on the tanks last night. I worked on getting the rust effects looking right. I used the hairspray method as mentioned in the last post. Once that was done I sealed the model with Tester's Gloss Coat. then it was time to work on the Golds and Silvers. The golds are Vallejo  Alcohol based - Red Gold, and the silver is P3 - Pig Iron. Pig Iron has been my favorite silver since the old GW - Chain Mail went by the way side. It has similar dark tones to it which makes it a great base for highlighting, it also has amazing coverage.

So here are a few pics to keep you satisfied. I also need to fix the line between the purple and white. As you can see in the picture I got a bit of bleed over when using water to activate the hairspray underneath the paint.

Our first painting class!

Today I held my first painting class at Game Links in Fowlerville MI. We had 9 students show up and it was a great time. 

We started by talking about brushes, brush care, sable vs synthetic and how they are used. After that we talked about cleaning brushes and how important brush soap is to the longevity of your brushes. 

Priming was next up on our list, followed by base coating, highlights and shading. 

We worked on undercoating gold and why its important. Then moved on to silvers. 

Next up we tackled skin tones and how to make them more realistic. 

Then the big one.... 2 brush blending. 

All in all a great day

Herne is in the house.

So last time I showed you Jonne from Herne and Jonne. I figured it would only be right to finish up the other model in this dynamic due. These sculpts are some of the oldest from PP and while they are showing their ages they are still fun and full of character. It was a real treat to work on something different and it has definitely been a pallet cleanser and a catalyst for me to want to get into painting other miniatures from different lines.

So without further adieu. I give you Herne.

Bombardier Bombshell 2.0

I let the primer cure overnight and it was time to get some paint on the model.

I started with VMC - Black/Grey to set the base color as dark as I am comfortable (see previous rants about using strait black).  Then moved on to the under highlights with VGC - Stone Grey.

As you can see I went really heavy on the highlights. I want the red to really pop on this one so the brighter I go now, the more Cherry Red it will be when complete. 

I did a quick rinse of the airbrush while the paint dried and then it was time for the first red ink to go on. 

Once that was in place, The second highlight of VMC - Flat Flesh Tone was applied to give the highlights a warmer feeling. 

And onto to the second coat of red ink. 

After the ink dried (and that's critical) I gave the whole thing a heafty dose of Testor's Gloss Varnish.

And now we wait for the gloss to dry and cure. Next up will be the browns and base colors for all the fiddly bits and details.

The long awaited, and frankly quite long Photography post.

As some of may know, I taught the miniature photography class at Warmachine Weekend. I also shot and edited the pictures of all the entries for the painting competition, which can be viewed here Warmachine Weekend Painting Comp Entries.

Since the pictures have been posted I have received quite a few inquiries about how I was able to produce the results I did.

There are a few basics that must be understood for taking decent (to great) pictures of miniatures.

1. Equipment matters. A good DSLR will always take better pictures compared to a phone or regular digital camera. I shoot with a Cannon T2i and 300mm lens.

2. Lighting, lighting, lighting. It's crucial to taking good pictures. I use at a minimum 3 lights around my light box, and sometimes a 4th in the front if a model has too much overhang, leaving too many shadows. I personally use daylight bulbs in my set up but even good desktop lamps with LED bulbs will work just fine. If you find that you have too much glare on your models, a good cheap trick is to take a bit of parchment paper and LOOSELY wrap the head of the lamp, it will act to diffuse the light.

 2.B. Light should never be focused directly at the miniature. My setup has one light on each side and one light over head. I aim the lights behind and at a down angle causing the light to bounce off the walls before hitting the miniature. This has given me a way to remove shadows with out washing out the miniature.

3. Background. Ideally you want a darker, contrasting background. (you would not want to shoot a blue model against a blue background....) Choose something that is on the darker side that really brings out the colors of miniatures.

 3.B. I was generously given backgrounds made by Hangar 18 Miniatures for the photography class and for the WMW shoot. They are the best I have come across for miniatures as of yet. The colors they use are subtle enough to not take away from the miniatures but contrasting enough to make your mini's stand out. They are longer than a standard piece of paper and bend well without creases so that you can have them as the floor and background of the model. A few words of caution when using these backgrounds. The images are a bit fragile, so gentle handling of the miniatures when moving them around on it is required. Also I would recommend adding a strip of  Velcro to the back so that it will hang in your light box. Most light boxes I have played with have a strip for Velcro on the back wall. All in all the Hanger 18 stuff is great and I would recommend picking a few up if your going to take pictures for CMON or other websites, competitions etc.

4. A light box. This is something that you do not absolutely need. People achieve amazing results without them. I find it easier and more convenient to have one. They range from $30 to several hundred dollars. A good $50 light box will fit all your needs and can be found on amazon, eBay etc.

5. A tripod and remote. As you will read about later in the post, having a completely still camera is one of the keys to taking a great picture. You will need a steady tripod for this. Now your tripod does not have to be a $150+ studio quality job. I have a $25 tripod that meets all the criteria and is fantastic. Things you want to look for are, rubber feat. A good wide stance, lot's of levels and easy head adjustment. As for the remote. Just go get one, They run $5 on amazon for just about any camera.

OK so we now have our shiny camera, that is sitting on our new and awesome tripod. We have our light box set up with the lights shining down upon it. Why are we still getting poor to mediocre pictures?  Settings, the answer is settings. So your shiny camera has an auto setting that you are probably aware of. What we need is manual mode. We want to be able to control the white balance, shutter speed and ISO. We also want to control the F-stop (aperture) but that's gonna be on the lens.

Let's take an aside and talk about the things we can control. Our ultimate goal is getting a proper exposure.

 Here is a brief summary of the notes I give out when doing a photography class.

Proper exposure - Too bright or too dark washes out information (pixals).

The three things that effect proper exposure.
1. F- Stop aka Aperture.
2. Shutter Speed
3. ISO (light sensitivity)

Aperture – Controlled by the lens. Basically the hole the light comes though. This allows you to control how much light comes in. (can help stop whiting out your pictures). Larger the opening the smaller the number (think gauges). (DSLR cameras move f-stop at 1/3 stops). I shoot at between 16 and 22 depending on light.

Shutter Speed – How long the sensor is exposed to the light. Measured in percentages of a second.
Longer exposure times gives more data to the image.  For miniatures we generally want a longer shutter speed.  (Again on a DLSR they move by 1/3^rd) and why we want to be on a tripod with a remote to keep the camera still while the sensor is exposed. 

With longer shutter speeds we want a smaller aperture.

ISO – Light Sensitivity, higher the number the brighter the image. Need to be careful, the brighter the image the grainier it becomes. Lower numbers will be a bit darker but will give you better raw data. (Very important in low light situations) For a light box with lights. 200 – 400 are going to be your sweet spot.

Picture formats.

8mb medium

16mb large

RAW. RAW is what you want to shoot it. This gives you the true data so that editing is “easy”. 

Another thing we want to look at is our White Balance. White Balance is basically a setting on your camera that gives the little brain inside of it a way to gauge how much light is there for it to use. We want to create a customer White Balance when we are setting up our shoot. It will vary with natural light if your in a room with windows (even with a light box) ect. It's very easy to do and I'll let you look how in your manual or on the YouTube. 

Everything above is are the basics of getting great pictures out of your camera. But there is more to the story. We need to look at editing. There are things that we will have to do on the computer. It's time to color edit to bring out what you want to see. We might want to lower our exposure levels, decrease the white, raise shadows etc. I recommend Adobe Lightbox. For what we do Photo Shop just ins't needed. Light Box can do all the editing without creating layers and I feel like its a more user friends program. 

So there you have it. Let me know if this helps or you have any questions and I'll try to answer them. 

Also if you would like to book a shoot for your models send me a line and we can work something out!

The Countdown to WMW Continues........

In my quest to get fully painted for Warmachine Weekend. I have been working on getting all the models needed to at least a table top standard. What is table top you ask? Well to me its all about the 3 foot rule. As models on the table are seen from about thee feet away its all about looking good from that perspective. This is wildly different from a competition or display piece. A table top standard model usually take about 1-2 hours per and largly consists of blocking in your main color, contrast color and accents. Followed by a heavy wash and a dry-brushing of the highlights. Display pieces and especial competition models can take hundreds of hours. And then you though on the basing and on and on.

So with that in mind, and seeing as I only have another 4 days to be done. It's time for some fast and dirty painting.

Here are 2 units of Khador Greylords. As they are the same models in two seperate units I wanted a way to not only speed paint them but be able to see which are which at a glance. I kept the color schemes the same (again for speed. Seeing a pattern here?) and use the base arc markings to differentiate the two. One unit has my standard red stripes the other I went with a neon green.

As an addition speed boost I worked on the Koldon Lord at the same time. As he is kinda-sorta a grey lord he shares quite a few of the same features/colors.

So here is what I have for table top on these two units and the solo. The pictures were just taken with my phone on the painting table as I didn't feel like they were worthy of the light box and the good camera, nor did I want to spend the time in editing photos for these.

In case you are wondering, this leaves me with about 20 models to go before I leave Thursday morning!. 

Happy painting everyone, You know I will be!

Butcher and his little Kodiak friend.

Not a big post but lot's of pictures.

I finished up the Butcher tonight and got the Kodiak done as well. So now its time for a beer and some rest.

Warmachine Weekend Prep.

Hey everyone. It's been a while since I posted last. School, work, and family have taken up my waking hours over the last few weeks, and let's be honest. While my hobby is wonderful and stress releasing it's still only a hobby and has to take a backseat to real life sometimes.

That being said I finally had so much "need to paint" backed up in me I went downstairs and got some stuff done. I put together eZerkova and her body guard, two units of Greylord Ternion (for her list) and The Butcher 3 unit. Now before you ask, yes that is quite a few pins and all of the pins in Butcher are large. Like 1.5mm thick brass rod large.

Then it was prime time, after a few hours of curing I was able to get the reds onto the Butcher and that is where I stand now.

With only 60 days to go before Warmachine Weekend it's time to put the peddle down and get to work Here is a list of what all I have to get done with before I leave for St Louise. 

Butcher 3 and his dogs

A full unit of Iron Fang Pikeman with Black Dragon UA

Tactical Arcanist Corp

The Full WGDS

2 units of GreyLords

Koldon Lord

Saxin Orik

The War Dog (just needs to be based). 

Full Unit of Greylord Outriders. 

Ayana and Holt

and anything else I am forgetting. 

It's gonna be busy so expect quite a few posts over the next two months!

Tournament Tray Reduex.....

In my ever widening approach to not getting my Iron Fang Pikeman finished, a friend had seen my tray and asked if I could make him one as well. Naturally I jumped on the chance to help a buddy out and to play in the wood shop. Let's be honest, how doesn't love to play with power tools?

I started by figuring out how many of what type of bases were needed, then headed to the local hardware store to pick up a piece of scrap wood (for free!). After that I asked my wife to do her amazing sign/graphics/vinyl cutting juju and she created a fantastic template that would work. We secured the template to the wood and basically drew quite a few circles. This gave me a guide on where to cut and most importantly where not to!

With the board in hand it was time to go to the drill press. I used Forschner bits and set the depth to about 5mm below the level of the board. This gave me a good cut and prevented me from drilling too deep. It took about 30 minuted to drill all the holes and we had this.

The next step was to sand the whole thing. The goal is to get it nice and smooth to both prevent splintering and to make it easy and smooth when I apply the paint.

After sanding I used a bit of Wood filler to cover up the drill holes in the middle of each cut out. I did not do this on my previous board and now I wish I had. The wood putty dried in about an hour and then it was time to sand that down to level.

Now for the fun part...... painting. I used an all purpose oil based enamel paint for this. I wanted something that would both seal and protect the wood from drops, scratches, getting tossed in the trunk etc.  A quick note about this paint, it's sticky and takes hours to dry between coats. So I recommend getting outside if the weather permits, grabbing something cold to drink and a good book or your fully charged electronic device of choice and go at it. Also wear gloves when working with this type of paint. It's a bear to get off your skin.

I started by painting the underside. It's quicker and a flat surface so its easier to put up on blocks for when its time to flip over the board.

After this dried for a few hours it was time to turn it over and do the front....

In this step you want to make sure to get paint into all the nooks and crannies. as any light color will show up starkly against the black. Additionally make sure as you go that extra paint is not pooling into your cuts. It would suck to get this done and then your bases don't fit because the paint made the holes a bit small.


Now its just a matter of waiting a few days for the paint to cure then I'll varnish it and add a few vinyl decals and blam another board is done, and the Iron Fang Pikeman will still be sitting on my desk.....

Display Base for the Kodiak.

Alright folks, I have decided to enter the Khador Kodiak into the painting competition at Warmachine Weekend. In looking at past entries from this and other competitions it's clear to me that I need a display base. As I have never actually made a display base I did what we all do in times of need and headed to The Google. I found a few fantastic articles on Massive Voodoo and other sites and a few painters have offered me some great advice.

So with a bit of research in hand and a whole lot of "hold me beer while I try something" I decided it was time to get it done.

I started with the plinth. I picked up a good size piece of wood at Hobby Lobby for about $4, after which my wife suggested that I probably would have been able to get the same piece from a hardware store for free..... I then sanded it down and rounded off the edges. While at the Hobby Lobby I grabbed a package of air dry sculpting clay for the ground on the base. I am using clay for a few reasons. First it allows me to create slopes and uneven terrain, Second it gives me something to ancore the "trees" and "rocks". Last but by no means least its a heck of a lot cheaper than using Green Stuff.

For the trees and rocks I sent my kids outside to look for sticks and bark. In 28mm scale twigs look a lot like a tree. I've let them dry in the basement for a few weeks to get any moister out.

On to assembly. I started with getting my fingers a bit wet to work with the clay. Once it was in place and I was happy with the slopes and stuff. I basically stuck the trees into place. Then added the bark that will simulate rocks. Now its time to let the clay dry for a few days and then it will be time for the paint, bushes, snow etc.

As a last thought. The more I look at the base, the more I am thinking of removing the front piece of bark and going with maybe some run off water from melting snow.

Thagrosh the Painter 3.0

Well here is a quick update on this model.

I was able to get blending done on the cape. The more I play with two brush blending the more I love it. I'll write up a blog post on how to do it sometime soon in the future. I just need to figure out how to effectively write it up, and lets be honest there are tons of YouTube videos out there on it. So look it up if you really want to see it done.

After the cape, I cleaned up the over spray on the torso and worked the darker browns onto he spiky-bone things and the horns on his head. I also added the first blue to the eyes.

Then all that went into the spray booth for a gloss coat.

I added the second layer of still water to the base as well. 

Next up it was time to work on the super tiny Mini-Juggernaut that will sit in his hand. This thing just screams Micro-Machine from back in the day. I got the base colors on it and will work on shading soon. 

I also started work on the paintbrush. I'm thinking of making some water slide decals to give the brush a realistic look. 

Well that's it for now. This project is a lot of work but I think it will be fantastic when finished.