Progress!

Hello again,

So I finally got down to some serious study time, naturally the first thing to suffer is the procrastinationary activities.

However, I spent a little bit of time on the last few anatomy bits I wanted to get done... now to start covering it up in strategic locations!

There is now a head, and hands! Still to be added is hair and ears, but I'll get to that! The wrists are going to get tied up leather guards, which will nicely cover up the limpness currently afflicting them.

Boots have been started, in trying to go for a fur pelt that's been lashed into place sort of look, with the fur on the inside, and the top of it folding out around the knee. We'll get there!

Picture time! Feel free to comment on anything!

Nathan

A more rounded gym experience

One exam down, three to go. Hopefully that was the most challenging exam that I now have behind me. The one tomorrow morning is a banker, a lovely maths exam to bring the numbers back in my favour.

I was up late studying for the previous exam. It brought new meaning to the lyric "I'm up all night to get lucky"..

Anyway, on to my distraction.

Some decent progress since last post, been tipping away at it. I have my mind made up to acquire some tools for smoothing of GS for future work, but one thing at a time.

Still not happy with the back, but it is certainly an improvement over what it had been earlier in the week.

Pictures! Please feel free to comment or criticise!

Nathan

Leg day!

Between bouts of study, which is slowly advancing... (I now have clearly defined my view on Technology... Such a nebulous and fuzzy subject)... I have also made some progress with these two projects.

The Orc is base coated with a 50/50 mix of Averland sunset and skarsnik green. Then shaded with progressive washes of beil tan green shade and ceolia green shade, thinned with medium. I'm currently working towards smoothing that back out to the base colour. Oh and that's grey primer, not bare plastic! I'm going for a faux zenethal effect... I've shaded deeper on the undersides and lower body than on the tops, I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Before I move on past the skin I can always deepen the Lower sections again.

The legs are almost done, for this section anyway. If I want bare legs on the model, I will need to do some more work later... But for now I will continue just putting the muscle groups in place.

Criticism welcome!

Nathan

Ah here... I am just spoiling ye

Study for Bio-Medical Science exam you say??

That must really mean sculpt some anatomy!

Tenuous link for the win!

Work on second project, as yet untitled. Skinned the wire on top, and adjusted the pose. I started adding muscle to the leg. I have left out a muscle group as it was becoming too difficult to hold... Still quite flimsy really...

Thoughts so far, proportions aren't exactly right, wire is too bendy, and I used too much GS in skinning the leg wires.

So far I am leaning towards a hammer wielding Viking/savage warrior. Possibly to be followed up by a really tiny lad holding a nail.

That's all for now!

Bloody pot holes!

First of the aforementioned projects is finished!

Not that it was a huge one or anything.

Results below. I'm reasonably happy with it. I think I went a little over board with Agrax Earthshade, the tone seems a little too ... earthy... Over all, I think I prefer the source material ahead of my own efforts, but such as it is.

I should really have cleaned up the decal, but this was only an experiment after all!

Nathan

Green shoots

Right,

so in between some serious studying (..ahem..) I have started on a couple of projects. And there will be another shortly as well.

Here is three out of four. Ed Normal posted his traffic bases over on thepainterssurgery.blogspot.co.uk, and I decided I needed to have a go, so hence the white filler based blob on the far right.

In the middle is the beginnings of a new sculpt, I'm going to try something in 54mm scale. This guy is inspired by the orc on the left. I want to try a big muscly fella. I intend on armoring at least some of the guy. My current concept is a hammer wielding maniac.

Next, the orc. One of the fatal four. After "declaring" the Bastilladon finished... it wasn't really finished, but was just so fed up of looking at it, I glued it together and I'm going to do this instead. This guy needed some orthopedic surgery on his ankle, including an implant to strengthen the bone. He got himself locked in the luggage compartment on a plane and broke it. Mentalist! My intention here is to adorn the chap with some tattoos... currently thinking something in the vein of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's sieve tattoo. 

Finally, my fourth project is another sculpting project. Locally in Waterford where I live there is a festival called Winterval. For this year, a Marvel artist has created a character for them: Valgard. Here he is:

Anyway, that is all for now, cheers for reading.

Nathan

Tau Marking Scheme

When I was painting my rather small Tau force, I wanted a cohesive system of markings that I could apply across all the miniatures. And I wanted it to be scalable... If I added stuff at a later date I wanted it all to make sense.

What I ended up with is below.

Might be of use to a few others with Tau in mind!

"Opening Salvo"

So, decided, after suggestion by a newly met fellow painter to start a painting/sculpting/hobby blog.

I had only ever kept a blog when I was travelling before (32counties32nights if anyone wants to read), but other than the odd post on Advanced Tau Tactica or Bolter and Chainsword, I hadn't really done this.

This post is about laying a bit of a base coat with what has come before, less padding out a new blog and more illustrating my starting point before hopefully improving beyond that! Below is a few pictures of some stuff I've painted and sculpted.

What I am currently working on is a Lizardmen Bastilladon, which I am pretty close to finishing now. Pics to follow. After that the plan is to work my way through a collection of sets that I have waiting for me... including:
-Vampire Counts Black Coach
-8 Empire Knightly Orders
-"Stella" the Lizardmen Stegadon
-Repaint an Old Space Marine captain which I just stripped the paint off of
-the "Fatal Four"... I recently attended an 'Eavy Metal Masterclass which had included in it four models to paint and take away (these being: Dark Elf Witch, Orc Warboss, Chaos Lord and The Sanguinor). After crying in the dark about how bad a paint job that I ended up with, I threw them all into Dettol along the aforementioned Old Space Marine Captain... they will then be painted.
-The restless Dead Box Set (Vampire counts inclusive of Wight King, Skeleton Warriors, Horse Dudes... etc... 36 minis)

These are in no particular order, but not far from the order listed.

So anyway... PICTURE TIME.... Actually I'm amazed at how few pictures I have to actually post... Maybe more to follow!

Cheers!