In Miniature

Moved! Now at http://arrch.blogspot.com

2009-05-13T11:49:00.003+10:00

I've relocated to:

http://arrch.blogspot.com

Everything at this URL will stay intact, but new posts will be made to the blogspot location. You will find all of the existing posts (plus more) at the new location!

Sasia Samaris Redux

2009-03-25T11:41:00.001+11:00

This is sort of like an improve-o-meter figure... except I didn't strip her down and repaint her. I've had this one sitting in my shelf for years... think I painted her late 2002/early 2003:

I had a spare trophy base sitting around after I re-based my Ork Nob bust, so I decided to do it up as a scenic base, and rebased her on it. I took the opportunity to repaint her head (just scrapped the paint off with a scalpel) and added some more highlights to the red and brown bits, and made the shading on the skin a bit more subtle.

B-Team and Thugs

2009-01-15T02:19:00.004+11:00

So I have been painting Foundry lately, and practicing my 3-Stage "Dallimore" technique. It's great for these sort of gaming miniatures - it's centered around eye-popping contrast and impact, while maintaining an emphasis on clean, sharp brushwork. For me it is good practice, clean and neat is something I sorely need practice in (especially when it comes to doing freehand or patterns on display miniatures). Anyway, without much further ado...

The B-Team! Their guns were a pain - most of the detail they should have had weren't there, so I had to make it up as I went along.

Random thugs (two miniatures from Gazza's Boot Boys, in fact) also finished. Bad guys for the B-Team to kill.

Ork Bust

2008-11-19T02:09:00.002+11:00

I finished this bust the night before the Australian Golden Demon finals! I entered it in the Open Category, which is the only category you can enter on the day. It didn't place, but it was fun to paint.

OzPainters has compiled a list of results and winners from the 2008 Australian Golden Demon.

Ork Kommandos

2008-11-18T12:00:00.001+11:00

Firstly, thanks to Sebastian for taking some really good shots of my unit! In fact I am going to steal the photo as the first in this thread.

I actually started this unit back in June, I was planning on entering them at GDLA. Unfortunately, due to the excitement of being on holidays, I didn't get a chance to finish them off properly. So I decided I would enter them back in Australia instead.

The conversions have been kept to a minimum - only a few weapon and hand swaps (I didn't like the hand weapons, so I turned them into stikk bombz, and replaced two of the hands with those from the plastic ork boyz).

There are so many little areas I could have improved on, in particular I think I over-did the weathering in some parts and not enough in others. I also found weathering the Dark Angel green a lot tougher than weathering the red - probably due to my colour selections. There are also a number of areas where the painting could have been a bit sharper and crisper - in particular, the backpacks and their grey shirts. Anyway, I got more Orks planned, so it was a good learning experience!

For more information, including step by step photos:
http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=1816

And the same article in chinese, thanks to Panzer for translating and posting:
http://bbs.warac.cn/viewthread.php?tid=11020&pid=94381

MOAB 2008

2008-10-06T16:00:00.000+11:00

Rob, Sebastian, Paul and I ran the MOAB painting competition. Congratulations to all the winners, entrants and others who have contributed their time to make this event happen. Secondly, thank you to the sponsors: Shadowforge, Asmodee Editions, Maidenhead Miniatures, Derivan and Mainly Medieval for providing the prize pool, trophies and certificates!

We have a list of winners and photos at OzPainters.

Rob brought in his pirate town display which really livened up the display cabinet! We need to plan something even bigger for next year!

Games Day LA 2008

2008-09-01T05:37:00.001+10:00

Congratulations to Todd Swanson for winning the Slayer Sword! I had a fantastic time at the Demon Lounge catching up with the US painters, and a few visitors from Europe too. Although I didn't place, I was really happy to make finalist with my Orc boss in Warhammer Fantasy Single - it was a really tough category, and as you can see in GW's coverage, the winners were all fantastic.

Games Workshop's GD LA 2008 Golden Demon Coverage

Games Workshop's GD LA 2008 General Coverage

US Trip in August

2008-07-18T17:29:00.003+10:00

Some of you may know that I will be attending a few conventions in August. Here is my itinerary:

14th-17th August: Gencon Indy (Indianapolis, Indiana)
23rd August: Games Day L.A. (Ontario, California)
29th-31st August: Penny Arcade Expo (Seattle, Washington)

Hope to see some of you there!

Onyx

2008-02-23T22:42:00.000+11:00

Pretty much finished with this one for a friend, but I'd like to hear feedback since I have a few other unpainted wolfen to do in the future. So this was both a bit of practice and also a semi-commission.

I did something a bit different with the base, and actually did it all up with flock and stuff first, and then undercoated and proceeded to paint it it. I like the effect of painted flock, think I'll do this more in the future.

Feel free to leave some comments here: http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=1074

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T00:11:00.003+11:00

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful festive season! Here's a quick one I finished up, commissioned as a Christmas present for a friend. It's a Reaper knight, with an added cloak. The armour was coloured through multiple washes of liche purple, dark flesh, hawk turquoise, terracotta and oxford blue.

More French Foreign Legion

2007-01-07T23:34:00.000+11:00

I was just mucking around with doing Foundry style all white backgrounds and whipped this up using the Castaway Arts French Foreign Legion I painted a while ago.

Certainly gives a much different look to the figures! Goes to show that different backdrops do make a difference to the way the figures look, or at least, people's initial impressions. I imagine that using an all white background like that you want to have quite bright and contrasting paint schemes so that they stand out.

Thousand Sons Dreadought

2006-11-15T23:00:00.000+11:00

I was very lucky to walk away from the Demons this year with a bronze! I honestly didn't think my Dreadnought would place, it was quite a rush to get it finish, and it is the first year I have entered a stock, unconverted model (due to most of the year being devoted to thesis and other university related work).

Painting related things? Well not much actually. A rather stock standard paintjob I'm embarressed to say! I did try to concentrate more on the weathering though, as it is something often omitted from Tzeentch models. So lots of little metal chips, running rust marks and stains, and dirt build up. I did a small bit of glow effect on the plasma gun, but it is hardly a feature - I kept the glow small and not spread it onto the body or legs, incase I wanted to swap weapons later on (I know, you probably think I'm crazy for having weapon swap options on a Demon winning model!).

The other winners? Well congratulations to Glen, for walking away with his fourth slayer sword! That chaplin model was totally 40k and oozed a lot of character from the universe. Also congrats to Sebastian and Rob for a Chatswood triple sweep of the golds in the Single Figure categories!

Gashapon Repaints

2006-10-17T23:23:00.000+10:00

I finished off these two guys recently, they are characters from an anime called "Kyo Kara Maoh". They were painted as a gift to a very special friend, and originally started life as keychains.

I removed the chain connector from their heads and filled in the holes with Greenstuff, which I then discovered was a bad idea as it was really hard to get a smooth finish (the figures were made of a PVC type flexible plastic). So I removed the Greenstuff and did it again with Milliput that worked much better!

The bases were laminate circles I had lying around, over which I sculpted some flagstone with Milliput. The ducks were litle accessories from Eureka Miniatures.

Overall I am very happy with the way these turned out, as it was not only something out of the ordinary, but also the first figures I had finished after taking almost a year off from painting.

OzPainters

2006-10-13T18:32:00.003+10:00

In discussion with a number of painters, I have set up a new forum called OZ Painters, that will try to consolidate the painting community in Australia and provide a useful resource for anyone interested in painting miniatures for competitions or to a high display standard.

You can find OZ Painters at http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters

The annual Day Before Demons workbench photo

2006-10-06T14:28:00.000+10:00

So it's Golden Demon Australia time already. Here is my annual tradition of taking a photo of my workbench as I rush to finish my entry - it's actually pretty clean this year!

I only have one entry, a Thousand Sons dreadnought, sitting there in the middle. The Warmachine and Inquisitor retinue models are there for painting reference, as is the book on the right with the Egyptian imagery. Up the back is another Forgeworld Dreadnought - the MK4 Venerable Bling Dreadnought.

My paints are a mix of Vallejo, Palmer, Games Workshop (that Boltgun metal sitting near the Dreadnought was a pain to open!) and Matisse-Derivan. My brushes are taklon brushes, primarly a size 0 and a 5/0 liner brush. Haven't actually had to use anymore than what you see on the table.

Well my next post will probably consist of my MOAB commentary - we had a great turnout for the number and quality of the entries. I'll get photos up very soon! Till then, good luck with last minute GD painting.

McFarlane Dragons

2006-07-14T00:00:00.000+10:00

Ok, so it's been a while since I posted anything. It's been even longer since I've even painted anything! So this is really just a short post to say I am still alive. This week I have been busy preparing the details for the MOAB Painting Competition, to be held at MOAB in October. I'll put some details up later, but I've cut down on the number of overall categories and increased the number of cross-category prizes. Hopefully it will be as good as, if not better than last year!

The other week Rob Jedi did an order to Case Fresh and I tagged along an order for 2 McFarlane Dragons. The order arrived this week and I must say they look fantastic (and they cost the measly sum of approx. $15 AUD each!). I don't think I ever need to buy any more dragons again, especially heavy, unweildy lead ones. These ones come painted and put together and should be good enough for the majority of my gaming needs.

So here they are. This is the Red Komodo Clan dragon from Series 2:

And this is the Blue Komodo Clan dragon from Series 1:

I actually like the Blue one better for gaming, it's a bit more compact and has less movable bits so it isn't as likely to topple over. There is also a larger Green Komodo clan dragon from Series 3 which looks fantastic. I'll need to pick that one up sometime when it is released here.

Did I mention they look really great as display pieces on the shelf too?

Conflict Sydney 2006

2006-04-12T16:01:00.000+10:00

I will be at Conflict Sydney 2006 along with Sebastian Archer (automaton) and Robert Sakaluk (Rob_Jedi) doing the masterclass/hands-on painting workshops. Here are the details I managed to pull of Games Workshop Australia's website to save you the trouble:

Where:

Charley and Playfair Rooms
Rooms Main Arena,
Sydney Showground,
Sydney Olympic Park.

When:

Sunday 30 April

Cost:

Tournament Players: $35
General Admission: $10

Tickets on Sale:

9 January 2006

Time:

10am - 4pm

Look forward to meeting some of you there! I currently have no real projects to work on, I've been really busy with other things, but I'll see what I can come up with. I don't believe you have to be a tournament player to join in on the painting. General admission is fine, just BYO model.

Ravage Special Issue 2

2006-01-26T19:26:00.000+11:00

For those unaware, the second Ravage Special Issue is on painters around the world. It contains a fantastic collection of photos from world renowned painters, and is on sale now. Here's a picture of the cover:

You can order a copy from the official site (I think). The issue is in French, but it's the hundreds of photos that make it special, so hurry up and get a copy. Just ignore the crazy painter on page 25, his work isn't worth looking at. :)

Imagery of Games Workshop: Subjective and Objective Points of View

2005-12-15T23:15:00.000+11:00

The debate has cropped up time and time again of entries to the Golden Demons being disqualified or brushed aside for their use of real world connotations. Let's take an objective point of view - that ideas should be built on establised ideas and only what is "canon" in Warhammer. Case examples of entries that have adhered to canon (and placed) from previous Golden Demon competitions:

Victoria Lamb's Squiggoth entry for Warhammer large 2002 - at the time there were no rules for squiggoths in the books and she mearly entered it as a proxy for a chariot.

Allan Carresco's Mutant from single model Spain 2004 - there are no rules for them in 40k however it is a translation of a concept that appears in the Inquisitor game.

Jakob Neilsen's Adeptus Custodes single figure from UK2004 - again no rules for them in 40k, and not even in a satellite game, with the inspiration of for the model lifted from artwork appearing in Horus Heresy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a subjective point of view, where the imagery portrayed might not be in the existing ethos, but (according to the painter) could conceivably fit in. Examples are:

Victoria Lamb's "Light Horseman" Rough Rider was based upon ANZAC imagery, inparticular the colouring of the uniform and the slouched hat.

Liliana Troy's Lothen Sea Guard muscian with oriental designs painted on his robes. I remember golden demon high elf unit done up with oriental imagery right down to having kanji script painted on the banners and shields.

Glenn Lamprecht's Wood Elf command group with a lot of American Indian influences.

Today we'll be examining the latter aspect of subjectivity and real world influences.

So to what degree with judges tolerate proxies or figures inspired by the imagery of the world versus strict adherance to publised army lists and already established canon? To examine this question we look at two particular pieces:

Jeremie Bonamant's elephant riding ogres, the Hindu connotations are obvious, especially if you see these close-ups.

The question is then, does this imagery have a place among the Warhammer World? It is obvious that the races in Warhammer draw from many real world historical and mythological references. Here we see an intepretation of some sort of ogre man-eater who has travelled to the distant realm of Ind, and somehow gained power and wealth. No one has been to Ind before, so whether the realm is based upon a Hindu influed mythology or not we don't know. Hey, I've never met an ogre riding an elephant before, have you?

In which case do we find the judges asking the question: Has there been changes made to real world references so that they subtly and elegantly fit in with the established ethos?

And here is where the debate comes in. I'm not going to comment whether Jeremie's model should have been d/q or not - he's won the sword, so on the day those judges decided his work was worthy of a win. But let's throw up an interesting "what if". Suppose the Ogre Kindgoms book had not been released yet, and someone entered a Ogre dressed up as a ninja, standing on bamboo decking and appearing as if he busted through a paper wall. Would it be disqualified?

But let's look at another example. Victor Hardy's daemon Golgotha. To refresh people's memories, this was a model that was d/q at UK GD a few years ago. The problem? Golgotha had very obvious (anti) Christian connotations - the name, the images on the banner. So how is this different from Jeremie's model? We go back to the question above. The imagery on Golgotha was neither subtly or elegantly translated into the established ethos. The name itself is fine - Warhammer 40,000 uses many mythological and biblical names. However, the world of Warhammer 40,000 does not have dipictions of the Madonna or baby Jesus, and using these stock images on a demon is clearly walking beyond the line of the established ethos. That's the word given to us from GW on why Golgotha was disqualified.

So there we have it. I've ranted on and yet we still don't have a definate answer to how far we can intepret the imagery GW has created or yet to explore. Sometimes I feel GW themselves have set up an almost unfortunate precedent of lifting imagery from real world contexts and doing a sloppy job of translating them into the established game worlds (a fine example is the Imperial Guard regiments released in the mid 90's), to which many painters simply follow suit.

Praetorian Rough Rider versus Ork

2005-12-08T21:36:00.000+11:00

Back to updating after a small post-Golden Demon break! Here is another oldie, but one of the favourites in my collection. I started this diorama in 2002, but didn't finish it until 2003 for Golden Demon. Out of all the entries I have done for Golden Demon, this one I feel is my best. After a lot of on and off efforts, everything just came together in the end and the piece just worked.

It managed to win Gold in it's category, and a lot of contraversy was caused that year because Vic's Fiery Angel duel only got 3rd (if you don't know which piece Fiery Angel is, I suggest you check the top 10 miniatures on CMoN). Some in-progress pics of this piece are shown below.

Oh yeah, Games Workshop Australia have also updated their website with the winners from Golden Demon 2005. I have to say, great photos this year (though the ones shown on the website need a sharpen and a resize), check them out at:

http://oz.games-workshop.com/goldendemon/2005/default.htm

Golden Demon Weekend

2005-11-28T21:24:00.000+11:00

I had a fantastic weekend at the Golden Demon, this year held in Parramatta. I managed to walk away with two trophies, a Silver in 40k Squad with my Ordo Xenos squad, and a Bronze in 40k Large with my Nurgle Terminator Lord. A big congratulations to all the participants and winners, competition was fierce this year and will only get better next year.

Also congrats to my fellow Chatswood entrant, Sebastian, who not only won gold in 40k Single, but managed to walk away with the Slayer Sword!

And no Golden Demon coverage would be complete without mention of the dinner afterwards, held at it's traditional venue, Thai Laong in Newtown. Photos of the night can be seen here:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c306/oz_gd/2005/golden_camel_dinner/

We all had a fun time. No figures were lost in the food, though some food might have been lost as people were busy sculpting, painting or glueing! And the suprise ingredient for this year... No Metallic Paints! That's right. Everyone had to speed paint in NMM!

Congratulations to Ben$quig for winning the trophy! And congratulations to everyone who came along for some truly bizzare, creative and inspirational miniatures! The link above has photos along with everyone's name/nickname.

Also thanks to Games Workshop (for supplying us miniatures at the last minute!), Matisse Derivan (for all those paints!) and ASACS (for giving us tools to lick and greenstuff to play with over food).

Here is a collage of the minatures we came up with on the night.

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Squad

2005-11-05T16:29:00.000+11:00

My Ordo Xenos Inquisitor squad done up for this year's Golden Demon. I entered it into 40k Squad with the minimum unit size of 5 models as proxies from the existing Inquisitor rules so they still have rules from the existing codices; being the Inquisitor, a Scribe, a Warrior (Servitor), a Warrior (the pet Genestealer, sort of like a Daemonhost or Arco-flagellant), and a Sage (the Xeno Magos).

Nurgle Daemon Prince

2005-10-30T16:58:00.000+11:00

I need to fiddle around with my camera a bit more - ended up with a fairly reddy hue to the backdrop. Anyway, my entry for 40k Large - a Daemon Prince of Nurgle. Still in his maggot infested terminator armour, and little nurgling hitching a ride on the top.

Gandalf the Grey

2005-10-27T01:25:00.000+10:00

My Lord of the Rings single figure entry! This is a photo of Gandalf from 4 years ago, when Fellowship of the Rings came out! But I tarted him up for single figure (well... I didn't really put much effort into it). So here is another of my Golden Demon entries for this year. Enjoy!

I also found out that the Round 1 Results are now available too! Congratulations to all the qualifiers.

Grey Knight Brother Captain

2005-10-25T00:38:00.000+10:00

I painted this fellow in February 2004, originally planned as a Golden Demon entry for 2003 but never got him finished in time. I've entered him in a few things since then, but he's failed to place every time, so I'm resolved to keep entering him till he places somewhere. So long story short, this is my entry for Warhammer 40000 Single Figure this year (though I doubt he'll even get close to placing, I've seen some fantastic entries in single already that wipe the floor with this entry).

You can also vote for him on CoolMiniOrNot, though the site seems to be down at the moment so I can't fetch the link.