WIP "Oficial de los Tercios Espanoles"

I spent way too much time on Diablo 3, so I decided to move my painting area to the living room. That was a very clever idea, because all of a sudden I paint again. As a Latorre-groupie, I once again have to point out, that his sculpts are a great pleasure to paint. I tried a lot of new things here, most of all blacklining. I always thought that this tecnique looks very artificial but I am satisfied with the result. Blacklining seems to add the impression of more and finer details, although thats not true at all. Another new thing I tried is the X21 flat base thingy from Tamiya. This also works fine for me, it makes your colours look dry and almost dusty. I am still stuggling with the right mixture of colour, water and X21 but it gets better and better.

The last thing I tried was to avoid using colours from the pot. That turned out to be a good decision on the finished cloth, as I can regulate the colour temperature of the lights and shadows way better. Usually, I use warm colours for the lights and cold colours for the shadows, this time I did the opposite and I like the outcome of it.

The finished parts took me 3 evenings so far.

Today, summer holidays started here in Bavaria. Expect updates on the blog an a more regular base the next 6 weeks.

Chris

Miniature review: Art Gironas "Oficial de los Tercios Espanoles"

Original boxart, painted by Fernando Ruiz Ceano

I told you about my love of Latorre sculpts. In my opinion, he perfectly understands what a painter wants. His work leaves enough space for creativity concerning light, focus and overall impression. This mini is a very good example for his work.

The figure comes in the typical Art Girona box, I didn't take a picture of that. On top is a picture showing the mini from the front and back, on the backside of that picture card are some notes about the uniform colour in Spanish. Inside the box, you will find a very well packed miniature. Here is a picture of all components.

Typical for Latorre sculpts, the main body comes in one part with the head already attached. Seperate parts are the left and right arm, a short sword and the hat.

The sculpt itself shows a rather tall man, Latorres latest sculpts seem to have become a little bit bigger. The casting quality is on a very high level, the minor mold lines can easily be removed.

Something I have not seen on Art Girona sculpts before is the already attached pin and the pinhole. Saves a few minutes of extra work.

The only big problem is a huge gap between the cloack und the body. I tried to attach the cloack in different angles to the mini but this is the best result I got. Some putty will hopefully do it.

Dry-fitting the mini shows the great job Latorre has done. A very unique pose with many details.

Chris





Just another base wip

Yesterday in the evening I felt it was time to do something productive concerning my hobby. After weeks, maybe months, I started to build a base that I was thinking about for quite some time. About two years ago, I bought a laser cut fence from fredericus-rex.de. Yesterday was the right time to build it up and see what it looks like. It is made of real wood and looks fantastic in my opinion. I hope you like the progress so far, the sclae is 54mm. I have already chosen a miniature for the scene that I will show you soon. This will be a fun project, nothing I will work on for decades.

Chris

Day-to-day life

The last couple of weeks have been very intense for me. The graduation of my pupils really kept me busy but the final results have been a great success and a real satisfaction for me. Therefore, and because of my ongoing unwillingness to paint miniatures, I took a break from my beloved hobby. I spent an enormous amount of time looking for error 37, just to notice that it was patched away. Holidays will start soon in Bavaria and I am considering to take up the brush once again. There will be at least one painters meeting with my friend Erik, maybe that will get me motivated.

As a result of my current aversion to painting minis, I decided not to take part in this years Games Day Germany. I made that decision about 6 weeks ago and it really helped me. At the moment I don't even think about any projects, plans and contests for the remaining year.

However, I finally had the courage to try something out, I always wanted to do. I bought a canvas, thought about a motive and started painting. The result can be seen here:

As a teenager I loved to read mangas. Today, only one is left, "Vagabond" by T. Inoue. This picture shows the main character Myamoto Musashi, a ronin and maybe the most famous samurai ever. The picture can be found in one of the mangas, I decided to paint it on canvas. This was so much fun (started yesterday, finished in about 5 hours) that I am thinking about doing much more paintings like this one.

Chris