Moodboarding Gaga

I've finally settled in my new apartment. I hate moving, it's one of the most irritating thing I know. This was the fifth time in the past two years, so in some pesky way I've got used to it. Me and my fiancee tend to joke that maybe we should start our own business that handles moving.

Amidst the chaos me and okkiW have changed a couple of phone calls and talked for long hours, mainly about our current projects and the hobby in general.

Mikko is a bit occupied with his latest sculpting project, The Lemminkäinen, so there's very little time for his other projects. His latest sculpt, Pirato Captain Gaga, has been standing in the undercoat for a good time now, so I thought to lend my helping hand to okkiW and asked him if I could paint this beauty.

To tell you the truth, I've secretly been raring to get my hands on that sculpt, after all, it's the best one from okkiW so far. Lucky me, Mikko told me that it would be nice if I could paint her, so the deal was on!

I thought to start my task with a moodboard. Doing so I started gathering images around the web, pictures of things that will inspire me when painting the Captain.

I have a bit of a bad habit to pick up shots of painted miniatures when making moodboards. In this case, I took couple of pictures of John Blanche's Femme Militants painted by Jakob Rune Nielsen. Nielsen's painting style is something I really like, it's very clean and harmonic, but still somehow very edgy - I love those Chaos Warrior regiments! I'm aiming to have the same kind of colour scheme Nielsen has used in his Femmes, so it was natural for me to put those ladies in my source of inspiration.

Lady Gaga's picture is there to remind me of what is the seed of this projects. I'm not a big fan of her (my son is), but I think I can manage my daemons. That picture of Gaga is great though, I really like the pose and her shoes, which remind me of the captain's high heels.

But what is Marilyn Manson's face doing there??? Well. his make-up and eyes will be giving some edge for the Pirato Captain.

So there we go. The overall feeling of the Captain is going to be murky, grim and edgy (as usual). I'm really looking forward for the painting process, so without further words, to the painting station!

The Hero Returns!

I finally managed to sketch down some conceptual stuff.
This time, i tried little bit different approach when sketching the Lemminkäinen...

First i created the pose by using my own body as an example. I took the pose, that was then photographed and transfered into Photoshop
(For your viewing pleasure i wont post the originals here;) .
In photoshop i rendered the picture with Wacom tablet. This way i was able to get correct anatomy and pose very quickly and easily. Finally i drew the hole picture with Wacom and added little effects to create "sketch-like" look.



I wanted to create a pose that would express the tragedy that is present with this Character.
I imagined the Lemminkäinen calling the demons of the Tuonela standing on the riverbanks of the Death's river, baddly scarred,,, after he's magical resurrection from the dead.

I am quite happy with the result really. I think i managed to express the desperation and anger that Lemminkäinen is feeling. I left the sketch quite rough 'cause i didn't wanted to loose the feeling by polishing the image too far....after all it's just a sketch.

Based on the photoghraps that i took earlier, i was able to make this image that i could use, when sculpting the miniature later.


Very simple photoshop rendering here, nothing special.

Finally i feel that i like to share some thoughts about this project and maybe about designing in general.

Even though i love sculpting, i also love the designing phase very much also.
I feel that this is the point where you create eternal champions of ruin the whole thing from the beginning.
I usually carry this phase quite far, for example i like to design all those little details (weaponry, eguimpment) differently.
but in the end i still like to leave things little bit open , so that i can make the final decisions in the sculpting phase.
With this particular character i want to go with quite minimalistic feeling..not too many details, i want to concentrate what is important. I want to focus on the pose and the facial expression should be very dramatic too.

As some of you already know, i have studied Design in Lahti Institute of Design
(i actually graduated from there too;). I never learned to use all those fancy 3D modelling programs too well (too busy drinking beer and converting miniatures;), but i learned something still...i learned how to skecth with pen and paper.
What i learned from there has helped me a great deal now, when i do miniature designing.
After all...pencil and a sketchbook are VERY effective tools in the hands of a good miniature designer...

Fabulous Five

As I threatened in my last post, here they are, my Emperor's Children so far...

The posse is starting to gain an uniform feeling, don't you think? Every time I add a new Child to this group it looks more and more the way I planned it to. Still need to build the sixth member though...

I was a bit uncertain wether or not to use that beast headed Child in this unit, as I thought that it might pop out a bit too much. But okkiW insisted me to keep him 'cause - in his opinion - the thing was so old schoolishly weird and blatantly mutated that it'd be nice touch to have in the unit. Well, I took his hint and I must say, I'm happy that I did so. The beast headed Chaos Space Marine truly stands out from this gang of brutes with his milky white skin and devilish dark eyes!

I can't wait to get my hands on Azazel as I think I'm going to use the same white skin tone on him too. That should give some contrast for the rest of the darkish army...

While I was painting my Emperor's Children and searching for some music to put me in to right mood, I stumbled on couple of cool groups, one of them being folkish Heavy Metal band known as The Lord Weird Slaugh Feg. Slaugh Feg's 'Traveller' album hit me like a fistful of bolter slugs and their melodic surges really smoothened my brushstrokes. Here's one of their track from the album 'Traveller':

We're not Worthy!!!

Last night I drank my late night sauna beer with a confused grin on my face. I didn't grin because I was drunk or anything like that, but because I felt odly delighted, like if I was floating in the air. It is funny how something like a small gesture from someone whose work you have been admiring for a couple of decades can give you so much positive energy.

"Rat", if you're reading this post, this is the way we, okkiW and I, felt yesterday:

Hope you keep on checking this blog every now and then, hm? ;)

Excuses & Demonic Blades

HELLo!

It has been a long time, since posted here last time. But i have not been wasting my time you know=) Lately i have been hauling lots of new tools to my collections. I recently bought an airbrush and spray booth, i also got some sculpting tools and materials, so i am more than ready to start my Lemminkäinen as soon as i got the sketches drawn=)!!

But back to business:

I managed to skecth down some ideas about the sword of Lemminkäinen.
This is what The Kalevala tells about the sword:

" He took his own sword
snatched his fiery blade
refined among the demons
ground among the gods;
to his side he binds it
thrust it into the scabbard"

So, as The Kalevala describes, the blade seems to be Demonic one.
I wanted to display the demonic nature of the blade by introducing short saw-edge to other side of the blade. I also added some symbolic messages to the fittings of the sword, that refer to the deeds of the Lemminkäinen.

Lost In The Warp

Hiya! It's been a quite while since my last entry for the "Spikey". I've been a bit busy with the Finnish bureaucracy lately, filling up forms and stuff. Yeah, I got sacked from my job and now I'm just spending my precious "free time" looking for a new job... and painting miniatures!

That's right, now that I'm off from the everyday strenuous treadmill I've actually been able to paint a bit more than usually (which still isn't enough). Of course our little snotling is still taking the major piece of my usable free time chart pie, but still it's a refreshing feeling to be actually able to do something creative.

I'm currently working with my Emperor's Children and I'm almost done with the first five of those little sons of Slaanesh bitch. I'll be adding some pics when the fifth is done. I still have to build up the sixth to match the Slaanesh sacred number six in the squad head count.

So here's a short heads up from the Warp! Back to the portable painting station, a'hoy!