Ambient Imperium II

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Entities by Bounded to Eternal Time And Space
Skumring by Pjusk

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The Perdition

*Budda Budda Budda Budda*

Jacovy ran as fast as he could. Ricocheting bullets whistled inches away from his winding path, making small dusty clouds around him when hitting the dry stonewall behind his slim silhuette. He tried to cover his face with his free hand while running, but the small splinters and junk flying off the wall did their best in trying to bite his pale skin.

On the far side of the ruin, Sebbi, the robust guardsman of the 15th Regiment, was crouching behind a small hillock no more than fifty yards away from Jacovy, flailing with his hands and spurring for Jacovy to make it in cover alive.

Winded by the sprint that nearly took his life, Jacovy crashed towards the wall next to Sebbi and yelled with a hoarse voice: "What the fug is that thing?"

"I have no idea!", yelled Sebbi back, "But what ever it is, it will tear our beloved flesh in to the pieces if we stay here for a sec longer!"

"I... might have an idea!", yelled Jacovy between the short bursts of rugged gunfire.

"What?!"

Jacovy drew a big breath and yelled as hard as he could: "I HAVE AN IDEA!"

"Please, Jac, share it with the rest of us alive!", Sebbi yelled back with a dark ironic glint in his eyes.

Jacovy paused for a brief moment and continued: "I still have my issue of frags and smoke! If you'll try and pull that thing's fire at you, I migh have a shot!"

"No fugging way man! No way! I won't let that thing pierce my precious skullcappe just so that you could have a shot!"

"Trust me! When the thing is realoading, run for it and make yourself seen! I know where it is shooting at us from!"

Sebbi gave a piercing stare to Jacovy and murmured with a sour tone in his voice "If you say so..."

For a moment it felt like the stentorian pounding would never cease. Smashing bullets ate the wall around them like small greedy flies. Pieces of concrete fell off the wall and rained on their hunched backs.

*Clack Clack Clack*

Jacovy heard a familiar noise of hammer hitting the null. That was the sign for both of them...

+ Hagard & The Færwyrd +

Will the two buddies be able to escape the wrath of the Færwyrd, we might never know. But this I tell you, Hagard is now finished and is parading the best he can.

The result is very much ispired by the conversions made by John Blanche, PDH, JRN and Migsula. I believe I would have never started working on this thing if it had not been the awesome work these guys have done with their Lords. The mini is maybe one of the simplest yet most versatile creation that the design studio has made so far. Really lovely piece to work with.

This time I also put some more effort for the actual photoshooting. The idea for the black reflecting surface came from Tammy of Tear's of Envy (cheers!). The black shiny surface gives a touch of class for the work. I also decided to add some flavour to the background by dropping a small dark box on the back. It brings a nice element of scale and also works as a mood bringer.

200

Hooayh! The Spiky Rat Pack has now 200 followers! This is a great moment in our blog's history. We shall celebrate this event and put the date in to history - maybe have a raffle or something.

Many thanks to all of you who have been tracking us and following our antics and yargonish chatter. We sincerely hope that you'll be doing so in the future too!

Horns of Apocalypse - "The Fourth"

Whooaaash! Fireball lightened the dark corridor in the northern sector. A man in heavy robes was turned into human torch as he leapt into his doom down from catwalk fifty feet above, to be crushed by metal wreckage in ground.  The assassin watched the man go down, and opened her com-link -

"That was the last one I think lord Pherion"

"Well done my girl" answered the old man "I think you're right, the daemons are gone now. Those cursed Demagogues always put up a tough fight don't they?"

"They all go down in flames in the end"

"Yes they do, there's really no one who can stand against the burning wrath of Emperor, not to mention your flamers my sweet girl"

She seems to be the fourth member of the Task Force Pherion. A quick respond to Kari's wonderful Hagard character. Assassin with two hand flamers, a gun slinger with horns!

Simple sketch with Rotring pencil and W&N inks

Hagard & The Færwyrd, WIP II

The fat bloke is well on his way to the painting stage. I'm almost done with the greenstuffing and just making some finishing touches before basing and priming. Maybe this time I'll add skull or two on the base...

As you can see, I decided to add more layers to the shoulder guard to make it resemble a bit more like one shown in the drawing. Also, Hagard got some hair on the back of his head, which I tried to align so that it would look like the wind is moving it a bit...

A couple of purity seals on the shoulder guard give a feel of movement on the otherwise pretty stiff looking model.

So far Hagard does look something that I imaginated him to look like. I had some doupts if I could find suitable bits for the kit-bashing session from my rather limited bit-box. After a while my eyes started to pick up thing or two and the pieces just fell in to their places.

Good old days at the blogsphere?

Still remember the wonderful Spyglass Asylum Blog? Steve Buddle writing about the hobby and the scene around it?? I really miss those posts full of wise an thoughtful words.

As we know, Steve got hired into Games Workshop and he can no longer share his wisdom with us that freely anymore... which is good thing in a way because Steve's a skilled sculptor who is top choice in the continuum of turning the GW heritage into 3D form. Steve happens to be my friend and Im really happy for him about that matter =)

What Im trying to say, or write in this case is that I have always wanted to do something similar that Steve did before. Share some of my thoughts about this hobby, or in my case - the attitude towards this hobby. Im no true artist nor Im not very experienced one either, But still I wish to share these few thoughts with you anyway


- OK here we go -


There are many blogs out there where people paint and convert miniatures but then always have excuses why their creations aren't as good as they have wished. Very often it seems to be "horrible" camera that makes the paintjob look bad, and how "in reality" it is so different and much cooler. If only they would have enough money to buy better cameras or optics with prizes starting from 1000 ->

The truth is that these days you can do miracles with budget cameras or even with mobile phone's tiny cameras. Kari shot these with just an iPhone 4 on a bright day in Nottingham. If you just want to share your painted miniatures with your blogger friends, that quality should be all you need? Below you see my modest set up, that I use to shoot my Punk Moth material - 6 year old camera with very modest specs and couple of daylight lightbulbs to get good lighting.

Good lighting is VERY important in miniature photography. You can get bad shots with a good camera if you have poor lighting, but you can get pretty impressive shots with cheap cameras with good lighting.

The backdrop you see in the picture is The Emperor's Will slipcover! (you gotta be creative)

Im not saying that I take perfect shots with my cheap setup, Im saying that that gritty quality is perfectly enough to transfer my vision in to the interwebs for you to see.

Smartphone camera, blister foam and good ol' daylight too expensive for ya?

Little men need little photo studios

Painting the miniatures seems to be problematic for some people also, why? because all the skilled painters have gained their skills trough some dark ritual, where they sacrificed their souls for their inhuman painting skills. how can you compete that?! better just carry on with Chaos Black as shade tone and Skull White for the highlights right?? The key here is practice practice practice, practice when you had an awful day at work and no strength to do anything but watch Telly or play Ps3, practice when you are inspired and full of good spirit.

Most of all study different styles. I love how John Blanche paints his miniatures and paintings rough and gritty, but full of soul - that's why I study his style very closely, very very closely. You must learn to copy well before you can find your own style. I have not found my own style yet, that's why the GW artbooks in my bookshelf are always worn out from continous browsing! But again I know that someday I will get there and find my unique style to do these things.

The attidude is all that matters. You don't have to be super skilled painter/sculptor to make cool miniatures, just carefully study what others have done and you get there some day. Try out different mediums, write cool background stories, draw sketches, paint with inks or oil colour and be very inspired, all that stuff.

You want to paint or sculpt the good looking miniatures but be merciful on your self for you are not able to produce the coolest stuff in the Cmon right from the start...

But also don't let yourself on too easy either. stop only when you are sure that you couldn't have done it any better at that moment. If you doubt that something could have done better, do it again and again (just browse through my old plogposts and you see how I threw almost finished sculpts into trash with bloody tears running down my cheeks) you gonna get it right eventually.

Hope all this don't sound like some old master of the art speaking or anything silly like that. Im doing hard work every day to be good sculptor, but Im not near the skill demanded to be a GW sculptor, not yet I mean;)

I just felt that this needed to be written for my own sake.

I hope that you could see, that it's the attitude and hard work you need to get to the top. Not technology or supernatural Daemon gifts!

Be creative, be very creative

- okkiW

Task Force Pherion - Let The Hunt Begin!

Finally!

What can I say about this. Not completely satisfied about the paintjob but it's alright. The model became way too complex for my painting skills! I had lots of fun experimenting with W&N inks though ;)

The Hatching is now completed and I am ready to join Kari into Caterpillar phase. I can assure you guys that we have some wicked plans for that phase also!