Spring fucking clean

Hey all!

So the time has finally come: spring arrived with full force (24*C last Friday!!!) and with all consequences - spring clean...
Yup - I hate it but such things just happen and any resistance is useless. So today best time for painting was brutaly consumed by cleaning, vacuuming and repositioning furnitures. Spring clean was also applied to the blog - as you can see I am still changing layout elements and improving my HTML/CSS skills.

Fortunately only one day was ruined by cleaning and rest of the week was pretty successful for me - and of course the hobby!
Without more unnecessary introductions - the biggest hit was finishing Rackham aberration!!! Taking pics was a bit tricky but all in all I am satisfied - pics ain't that bad (could be much worse) and the model inself presents just sweet in my glasscase. Ladies and gentlemen - here's my baby:

I want to thank to Chest of Colors users for all constructive feedback I got for the model. I know which parts could be done better and I hope to use all the advices while painting the second aberration - this one will be much brighter and probably based in more natural scenery although it's just at idea.

Speaking of Rackham stuff - once again this company dominated my hobby activities:

yesterday I managed to assemble another sweet model from Dirz' Alchemists: dasyatis clone. I even started building base for it but it turned out to be too small - this close in one big badass! But no worries - the base will not be useless for a long time.

In the middle of the week I also managed to assemble and prime Mid Nor war staff. I'm quite sure I'll be having great time with painitng these deaders. I hope to give them fancy wooden display base but I'm still gathering materials - finding proper wood ain't as easy as it might seem.
Some time ago I thought if this squad turns out fine I'll take recently painted Rackham stuff to some painting contest - I haven't won anything for ages and I thing these minis are examples of my better paintjobs. Once again it's just a thought.

The last thing related to Rackham is the fact last night I managed to contact with the mysterious provider of my Rackham stuff (heya Alek ;) ). There's a chance I will get some more sweet stuff in exchange for some painting services. We'll see...

Unfortunately not whole world spins around Confrontation minis so sometimes I paint other stuff as well. Enchanced by success of Chaos Lord put on Ebay 2 Thursdays ago I painted another yet another CSM character which was just getting dust at my place. The Chaos Sorcerer will be searching for new owner on Ebay for the next 10 days.

It was supposed to be Nurgle Sorcerer (that's why I put the maw on the right shoulder pad) but I believe he would fit any other legion of Chaos. Besides some time ago I painted whole squad of Chaos Terminators so who knows, maybe the client will decide to add another character to the detachment.

Since we're at Nurgle models - last Thursday I ordered champion of God of Decay and I hope to recieve t just after the weekend. I must say it's one of the best imo Nurgle minis GW "recently" released so I hope to paint it fast, have some fun and put on Ebay before current auction ends. I'm curious if fantasy models are equally popular as science fiction. There's no better way to check it that start painting!

What else? Last evening I started building display base with forest theme on it. Initially I wanted it to become base for fantasy Nurgle model but then I thought potential buyer might want to play with it so such base will be used for another project. I have to paint a miniature for a friend and despite the fact the model hasn't bee chosen yet I can build and paint the base anyway.

And last evening we finally managed to play Arkham Horror game!!! If I remember corectly about 1,5 year passed since we were trying to keep Ancient One it the slumber not mentioning about saving the world (well at least Arkham city). But last evening stars were placed in right constellation so 3 adventurers were hunting down Mythos Creatures on streets of Arkham in order not to let Yog Sothoth wake up. Too bad there's not much negotiations with this Ancient One and very shortly after he opened one of his eyes (or whatever else Yog Sothoth sees the universe thru) we were all dead. We were still lucky though: we managed to survive 2 rounds of combat!

See ya next week!

Hello Spring!

Hey again!

Last week was pretty busy but because of weekend at Univ it wasn't as productive as I hoped for. Which is a bit sad because I really enjoyed working on one of my Rackham aberrations. So let's start summing up:

As you can probably see there were some technical blog changes. I decided to experiment with colors to make it more comfortable for an eye. Black layout was fine for me but I think it made readers tired much faster than kinda beige tone used now. We'll see - I think it's still not the final version of blog layout.
And speaking of layout - I think it's time to start thinking about the banner on top of the site. Choosing proper font is much more challenging than miniatures from my collection for the picture but I hope I can handle with this problem one way or another.

Speaking of miniatures - (surprisingly) as I planned I managed to finish Chaos Lord and also put this piece on Ebay. Yup, it's there waiting for new owner. Painting is definitely nothing special but I deeply hope to see the theory that selling Space Marines ain't problematic working.
Especially the model is heavily converted using some resin parts and also head from old Chaos Raptor miniature (by god these raptors were ugly!)
The auction ends next Sunday - fingers crossed for it!!!

Another fact related to minis is I got new backgrounds for taking pics. Last week I found very good quality inkjet at my workplace - one of my mates designs buildings or does sth very similar. He was also kind enough to print 4 ink-heavy pages which now are ready to use in my micro photo-lab.
I must say both Mahon and Radovan were correct - pics taken on such backgrounds require much less digital enchancing and they also turn out much more natural and realistic. Thanks guys once again!

But the true cherry on the top of this cake is the aberration.

It's of course still work in progress stage except for the base which is done (no idea why colors on pic differ from colors in the flesh but when the model is finished I will do my best to get as decent pics as I can).
While painting Space Marine head used for base I had to use my emergenct Raphael brush to paint eyes details - it worked SO great that I think I'll save it especially hard or tricky situations - don't wanna waste such a great tool on something that any other brush can do equally well.
I want to finish the beast this week but don't want to rush with painting aberration. The plan is to paint lots on nuances on the flesh to make model much interesting - we'll see if Mr Illusionrip was right ;)

What else? Not much really...
Dante's inferno is ok, much better that World at war but cannot say it's something jawdropping - apparently I am getting to old to play video games =(

That's all this time - next week I hope to show you finished Dirz beast and at least one new base prepared for another Rackham model!

Take care!

PS. @Tucznik: it's especially for you - this time I am writing that new whey proteins work really fine and therefore my progress at gym is easy to spot ;)

It was a good week for hobby

Hey again!

I am glad to announce that passing week in contrast to the previous one was very successful for my hobby!
Of course it could always be better (much better) if I only could remove such silly obstacles like wasting 8h of life every day in the office but don't think it will happen this life...

So let's start:
I began the week with preparing molds for casting. Thanks to the fact yesterday I had to go to Univ for the one day (the boss didn't need to know it was only one day instead of whole weekend this time hehehe) I got 3 day off work so I was able to pour the rubber into molds to see what happens.
I am pretty satisfied with containters I constructed for molding - no leaking, proper size etc but unfortunately everything couldn't be so perfect:
during molding I realised a single big bucket of silicone isn't enough - I still need at least half of bucket more.
Second thing - it turned out the rubber wasn't mixed enough so 2,5 of 7 molds are ruined. All in all I will have to get more silicone anyway but I really hate wasting money and that stuff ain't cheap. On the other hand - learning hard way is the best way to learn anything so now I know fucking well what should I avoid and what can I do better.

Last Monday I also went to photographers meeting: I took lots of pics on pendrive to share and get some useful tips / constructive advices but it turned out some fuckhead screwed up and laptop wasn't at place so all we could do was some theory.
Yet is was still ok because I learnt some stuff I wouldn't make up myself. Let's hope next time all gear will be delivered so I can learn much more.
Another achievement at this matter was getting more photo-tips from Mahon and Radovan (Dark Tower) - I printed some backgrounds I got from DT (too bad it was lasterjet instead of inkjet though) so minis I present this time were photographed under new conditions.

So the model on the top of this post is scavvy boss from my beloved Necromunda gang. It was painted a few years ago so it's nothing jawdropping but I really love this sculpt, I had tons of fun playing campaingns in the Underhive and it's good example of using one of new backgrounds.

You can compare it with artifical background used for the last hydra warrior I have: it's nice bit you can clearly see it's not natural. Speaking of Mid Nors - I am so glad I finished the last one.!!! Models are really nice and lot of fun to paint but apparently 3 zombie-goat-dwarfs in a row were too much for me. There now based and happy necro-family standing in my glasscase. I like the way models turned out on pic but don't like yellowish hue on the background - it's fault ot the damn laserjet.

And since we're next to Rackham range - last Wednesday I took 2 aberrations to the office and pinned these sweet models. One of them (aberration prime if I remember it's name correctly) was even undercoated. Today I wanna cast some bases so I also hope to build one for this Dirz nightmare.

As for the rest of the week - I started painitng Chaos Lord for Ebay (as I wrote - rubber ain't cheap) - it's heavy converted model so I hope some Nurle collector will adopt this piece - auction will start on Thursday.

I also got some old Mishima models from Warzone range - I always wanted to paint some of them and now when Dark Legion can use corrupted samurais - I want to paint them even more!!! The only problem is converting them into Dark Legionaires but I already have some ideas.

And the last thng this time - I sold CoD: Modern Warfare and got Dante's inferno for almost same price! Hope to start oblitering hellish minions tomorrow!

That's it for now - take care and see ya next Sunday!!!

Hey again,

So we already have March but I really hoped to start new month with some sort of a blast instead of solid dose of boredom...

There are many reasons why my hobby-kung-fu was so weak last week:
First of all the Univ - I have to go there 4 weekends in a row so it takes pretty lot of time which I could spend in much more hobby-productive way (and speaking of it - yesterday I passed civil law test ^^).
Another reason is I started some tests with silicon and resin. Last Monday I built some boxes for molds and hopefully soon I will solve the problem of lacking display plinths. I deeply hope to achieve some success because materials I had to purchase costed lots of money so screwing is not an option... Can't wait to see any results - all preparations take so long...

And speaking of money - there are still severaly days until my auction for CoD:World at war ends and if I manage to sell it (3 watchers so far) - I think I will get Dante's inferno PS3 game - I've been playing it's facebook version at work (I must say it's one of a few reasons I'm still alive - recent days in the office are deadly boring) so now it's time to kill some demons in HD 42" screen hehehe.

Despite passing week was all in all hobby failure I managed to use a few drops of paint: I started painitng the last Hydra warrior (also hoped to finish it last week...). The model is very early wip so I didn't bother taking pics but I took wip shot of group display base for my Mid nors.
As you can see all bases are ready and only one of them misses the model.

Pics are crappy therefore tomorrow evening I'm taking some sample photos and hope to get some useful advices on photographers' meeting (fingers crossed).

Last week arrived I ordered some time ago - I bought it to help pass time while waiting for the classes. It's Elephants on acid by Alex Boese. That's right: dosing LSD to elephant is just one tiny example reader will find for human stupidity.

Looks like it's the end of summary. In a few minutes I'll prepare my airbrush and paint base colors on chaos lord and sorcerer (from a few posts ago), highlight Lich Lord Terminus and hopefully work on hydra warrior so wish me luck!

demi