Monday, August 29, 2011

Deadly Silence


Ok Synthia is now ready.
Quite happy with her, since she is my best sculpt so far.
Hope you like her too=)


Time to start working on the DethSynth.....hmmm how do you play synth that operates brainwaves with forbidden technology?

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Influence & Inspiration: John Bauer

I'm not very good at remembering names. When someone introduces themselves to me, I'll probably forget their names before it's even my turn to introduce myself. That can be very awkward for time to time. You know, this forgetfulness happens especially when it comes to remembering artist names.

There was one artist whose name I didn't know, yet his artwork had penetrated in to my mind when I was just a kid. I remember reading this book of Swedish folk lores with my big sister when we were visiting our relatives in Sweden. I think I was around 6 or 7-years-old back then. Anyways, that book had very powerful illustrations about trolls, elves, kings and such, the kind that really made the fairy tales come to life and fed the young imagination.

What made the images very special for me was both the distressing and fascinating feeling I got from them. To tell you the truth, that feeling didn't help me to get sleep when we were reading the book just before the bedtime.

Few years ago I was looking for inspiration for my projects and I started to remember pieces from that book I had run into on our visit to Sweden. I had never come to find out who had drawn those pieces of art so it was time for me to do some googling. All I knew was that the book was about Swedish folk lores, though I knew what the pictures looked like (thank god I'm not that forgetful when it comes to images...) so it didn't take that much time to find out who was behind those wonderful images from my childhood. The name was John Bauer.

Here a small collection of Mr. Bauer's work...





 
I still get the same feeling that I felt the first time I laid my eyes on these images.

John Bauer uses contrast in very interesting way, especially when it comes to characters; There are innocent young children standing alongside dark and twisted trolls and giants. Colours and milieu underline the tension, everything is framed by an ancient nordic forest full of long tree trunks and mossed stones. If you ask me, his works would work very well along with the tales by brothers Grimm...

Nowadays, when I wander the wilderness there's no gap between stones that I couldn't image being a small lair of a pixie or wind-felled tree's rhizome that couldn't be a hairy troll shuffling between the trees.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Achtung Achtung!!!

Hell'o my dear friends!

I think i speak for both of us, when i say that we are VERY sorry that Spikey has been so quiet place lately....There are numerous excuses for that, but the point is that we have both been very busy with the hobby also...

So here we see new Synthia WIP- pictures.
(Hair is obviously just a mock-up blue tag)



WTF?
oh! its just me, getting totally wasted in a bar at the other night ;)

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Rat-shirt W/ Logo

Hear-ye, hear-ye! I thought to try out how the Creeping Spiky Rat would look on a t-shirt. Here's the first go...


I used red light effect to bring the thing alive. Still need to rework colours a bit. Hopefully we'll get these printed before this years UK Gamesday... If you have any feedback, please let me know!

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Long Lost Sculpting Madness!

Finally im back on sculpting again!

I decided to start working on Synthia first.
This time i will sculpt in 40mm scale, because it gives me little more to work with(the curves;) + i want to test which scale suits me best:)




You have seen the concept sketches already, but there will be some slight changes here and there. J.B already gave me some cool ideas to work with and i think i'll be using some of those too.



Here are some new sketches for the DethSynth speakers. (Thanks boss rat!)

My goal is to get this project ready before our trip to Nottingham.
I must have something fresh to show, when i get there ;)

Tales Of The Goblyn Slayer - GD'11

Blacksmith's son he was, drunk as a skunk in Blueberry Moon Inn. Verse after verse of tangled words spat out of his mouth. Fiddling song on a drunkard's tongue it truly was.


He was no poet nor the sharpest pencil in the scribe's pack, that I could tell without fail. Yet his incredible story of foolhardy deeds of the 'goblyn slayer' caught my curious ear...


It was Ulf the Goblyn Slayer's [t]rusty sword that beheaded the last goblin. Dark blood streamed from the throat of the greenskin, making expansive puddle on the mud beneath him. Imp's grin-faced head plumped down the ground, making satisfying crush sound when hitting the lichen stones.


With a mad gloss in his eyes Ulf bend over the twitching corpse, picked up the head from its bone white iroquois hair and bound it to the top of his trophy banner looted from his previous victims. His breath still heavy from the recent struggle, he mumbled: "Got you filthy goblyn, got you good..."


The violent confrontration had been over just in a matter of seconds. Their ambush had been well planned, yet the only survivor was he, the Goblyn Slayer - if not counting the handful of goblins fleeing for their lives... Gump the tracker, one of the member of the paid retinue, had been pierced from his thorax with a rusty spear, easy death for him so to speak. Samuel, son of a farmer, the adventurous young lad had not been so lucky, being cut down by a pack of wolfriders in most savage way. Poor boy had been ripped to pieces in a blink of an eye, his mauled face frozen in a permanent scream of a horrific agony. The trapper, Werner, had tried to flee, but instead of getting out of the trouble's way he had been holed by a dozen of shortbow arrows. There he was, lying on his stomach in the edge of the forrest, his back like one of the porcupine's.


But what had been left of the one and a half dozen greenskins could only be described as a total butchery. In frenzy had the Goblyn Slayer rushed towards the nearest scouts, crushing the first one down with his grotesquelly shaped shield and cutting deep in the other's belly with his sword, spreading the greenskin's guts out. Gump the tracker had lounched his crossbow towards the nearest wolfrider, dropping it down and alarming the rest of the greenskins with this insolent act.


Young Samuel had trembled with his short sword in panic, loosing his cool and attracting the wildest part of the goblin pack towards him. As soon as the adventure had started for Samuel, it had ended for him in one messy way.


Pretty much as soon as the fight had started, Werner the trapper had ran for it, but a hail of short pointy arrows had stopped his short tempered attempt. Slowly had his steps died off and the breath escaped from his lungs, painting his thoughts with a grim thought of dying.


With the shaky hands Gump had reloaded his old reliable crossbow, picking up his next target. Ulf had moved with a fast pace towards his next victim, a boldfaced goblin warrior. Even before the goblin was able to think about raising his guard, its head had been parted from its torso, the goblin's mind slowly fading away with a rethinking thought, wether to raise jagged dagger to parry or hit the ground in terror...

A handful of greenskins had fled just a moment after the first of their casualties, leaving only three of the unlucky comrades to face the inevitable. Gump had launched his crossbow towards the escaping goblins, putting one of them down for good, and at the same time ignoring the true threat, menacing goblin with a long spear charging at him. The spear had pierced him with a force, penetrating his chest and killing him instantly.


Ulf had not noticed the perishing of his hired retinue, nor could he really care. The moment after he had slain the rest of the goblins and gained back his cool, had he took what ever loot he could find and left the scene, without giving a pitying glance back to his fallen friends. Live or rot, Ulf had thought...



Ulf was well known for his skills to hunt and exterminate pesky goblinoids. He was a hired sword, not the priciest one but still talented enough to make his living by killing. 'Goblyn b'gone' was his motto, his services popular amongst the farmers of the southern parts of Kislev, amongst those who were constantly tormented by the small goblin raiding bands.

So, Ulf "the Goblyn Slayer" is my UK Golden Demon '11 project. It's going to be full of old school spirit, kind of a tribute to my favourite fantasy artist and miniature designer...

Monday, August 01, 2011

Love And Marriage

...This I tell ya, brother, you can't have one without the other.

So, I got married last Saturday, hooyah! What a day I tell you! It was perfect in every aspect. We had tons of fun with our friends and relatives, good food and good drink. I feel both relieved and sad that it's all behind. But now it's time to put our sights to the future and push forward.

I think it's time to unveil what's my current secret project that I've been working on lately. I and Mikko are going to travel to England next September and attend to this year's Gamesday in Birmingham. It's gonna be a hell-of-a trip I'm sure of it! Since I was a kid and early hobbyist I've been dreaming of attending to this event. Now the dream seems to come true!

So, I'm also planning to take part in the Golden Demon painting competition with the project I'm currently working with. So far it has been a very interesting and teaching process and I'm not even half finished yet! I don't have any high hopes but I'll do my best and see how far it'll carry.

Sorry, no WIP photos before the zero hour. Maybe some sketches in the next post ;)