Birthday Haul (and a Warlock)

First of all a big "Hello!" to my 2 new followers!

On Friday it was my birthday. The big 2 7 and dear God do I now feel like an adult! Primarily because I hardly got any presents :( However the presents I did get were pretty damn awesome and all down to my loving (read patient and accommodating) girlfriend Jen!

At Christmas she got me some paints and basing materials but she's really stepped it up for my birthday. Check out all of my goodies!

Pretty good huh?!

So, first of all I need to congratulate her on getting me something that I've never seen or even heard of; the 'Eavy Metal Edge Highlight Kit. The kit consists of 9 paints that have been requested by the 'Eavy Metal team for extreme edge highlights. So far I've used them to lighten up my highlights rather than using white. They give a really good pastel colour to your highlights making them blend in waaaay better.

Secondly more basing material is always good and I LOVE basing snow but have never owned any snow flock. Now I do! You also get some little plastic icicle sculpts in there. Me thinks some Space Wolves may be in order to make use of these beauties! My only snag with these little kits is that they are stupid expensive (£20!!!). A fact I pointed out to my GF to which she countered "That's why they're good to get as presents"......"Touché" said I.

Thirdly, the High Elf Dragon. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a little intimidated by this beast. It's big, stunningly sculpted and if I make a mess of it Jen will literally kill me.......I think I'm going to save it until I'm OK with using an airbrush. I want it to look awesome and every Dragon I've ever seen that looks good has been painted with an airbrush (plus, I can't face painting wings with a regular brush!).

Lastly an honourable mention needs to go out to a non miniature related presents....

Just Awesome...

We saw this t-shirt on Think Geek and it had me absolutely cracking up (Jen didn't get it) so she bought it for me. All in all a good amount of hobby related birthday gifts. I have to say though, nothing will ever beat an Xmas present that Jen got me a few years ago....

More Awesome....

I don't get really excited by a lot but this model nearly brought me to hopeless nerd tears of joy! Such an awesome and iconic sculpt but I just can't bring myself to paint it. I started the base coat but lost courage half way through and now I'm ashamed to see dust piling up on it obscuring all the details. Maybe I'll give it a clean with the airbrush once it arrives and steel myself to start again. I just really don't want to mess it up.....

Now that my birghday ravings are over I have actually managed to finsih one of the projects I have on the go. Behold my Skaven Warlock....

And here he is! I'm actually really happy with the end result of this model. There were certain parts during the painting that I wasn't too sure how he would turn out but I think the mix of colours work really nicely with a few little splashes of colour. Since most of it is quite muted though I think the warpstone really pops! I used some of my new edge highlight paints to get the warpstone effect, using it to lighten the Moot Green I used as the top layer. As I said previously it just seems to blend a little nicer and allowed me to get a more 'cloudy' look to the warpstone globes. 

I also took my first foray into more advanced painting techniques. I tried out some object source lighting (or OSL for the cool kids) which turned out OK I think...

I think it works really well on the globe on his back but I couldn't seem to get the paint on his halberd to feather properly. I was thinking whilst I was doing this though that if I don't try these techniques I'll never get better at them and for a first attempt I learned a  lot about the application of the paint, consistency etc. My next try will be better!

The base was another whittled piece of wood with added flock, plants and secret recipe basing material....more on that later.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Comments and suggestions are super welcome as they'll only help me to get better!

Cheers

Phil

Games Day 2011 Challenge

So a couple of years a go I went to Games Day with a friend (Adam from ilikepaintinglead). Throughout the day we managed to not partake in any of the games, studios or activities through a mix of fear, shame and awkwardness! We decided that next year we would definitely get involved. As a result we bought a box set between us (the Island of Blood set no less!), and vowed to each paint up an army and play a game at next years Games Day. We didn't. In fact we did exactly the same as the first year. Oh well, there's always next year...

In 2 years Adam has managed to paint about 4 skaven and a rat ogre as he keeeps getting distracted by other, older miniatures (most of which are featured on his blog). I on the other hand have painted about 3 quarters of the minis in my army (one of which happens to be featured in my previous post). I thought maybe I'd post my current progress. 

Here are some pics of the finished Swordmasters unit;

And a fully painted unit of Elyrian Reavers;

That's how far I have got so far. I've actually got the majority of the archers from the set done as well but I'll wait until I've completed the entire unit of those before I post them. The swordmasters were actually the first models I had painted for years so I'm actually pretty happy with them. The reavers on the other hand are OK but there are a few bits, like the white and the horse flesh, that I'm not overly happy with but they are most definitely table ready. As I finish more units I'll post them too. As always, comments are most welcome!

Cheers!

Phil

First Post (and a Griffon!)

So, this will be my first time blogging... Seems a little weird to be currently speaking to no one but I created this blog to motivate myself to paint so I guess that's OK.

For the first post I wanted to show a model I have just finished. I only very recently (in the past year or so) really got back in to painting after a long absence. I've painted a few things here and there but not any where near as much as I am now. I think this model is me starting to get back to the standard I could paint at back in the day. Quite fitting then that it would be the first to appear on my blog! I'm still not totally happy but close enough for now I think.

Without further a do here are the pics!

So there it is in all it's glory! The High elf lord riding a griffon from the Island of Blood box set. I have to say that the mini was an absolute pleasure to paint and I flew through it in about a week (which for this size of model and the actual time I get to paint is damn speedy!). I really loved doing the front of the bird and the rider, amazing detail throughout the entire sculpt making it really easy to shade and highlight. The only part I struggled with was the lion portion of the model. I could never seem to get the colours right and the shading just seems to deep. However, it does look a whole lot better now I've got the matt varnish on it.

Post number one is now done! Any feedback on painting or pics (as long as its constructive mind you) is more than welcome. Hopefully I'll manage to post at least one thing a week and I'll be able to track my progress, at the very least WIP updates on my current projects will be forth coming. Maybe I won't be talking to myself by then too.....

Cheers!

Phil