Finished Hero & Future Mystery

Little words again... Just wanted to show you the progress.
What's next you may ask?... Many things to do here but Mechanical pet-rat atleast and a little surprise ;)

Hope you enjoy.

'cause it's friday!

Follow the Piper...

Not So Quiet In The Western Front Anymore!

Finally...

I'v been studying Mr. Millers Art a LOT lately... and what a wonderful art that is! so inspiring and so powerful! If there are some people that (for some reason) are not familiar with Ian's work  I strongly suggest to visit here right away.

OK then we are ready to move to the Rat Soldier sculpt itself...

The sculpt is 40mm tall. I chose little larger scale as this will be display piece, hopefully standing on some mantelpiece later=)

I used ProCreate in this sculpt. Wonderful stuff that seems to have all those good qualities that I was looking for and almost no bad ones! I can recommend this stuff for everyone!

As you know, these are WIPs, so not many details yet and some things may change...but I have made pretty good progress here I think.

Lastly I like to send special thanks to Steve! I showed some early WIP's of the Rat to him and he kindly gave me some pretty good points where to go with this sculpt along some pro tips'n tricks. Steve has helped me before, he had acted as my mentor in my earlier project and so on. So I feel that I really like to thank the Man properly now =)

While fixing the errors from the sculpt, I felt that I realized few major things about sculpting. It was a special moment and I truly hope that you will  see some of this progress in my future work, as I upload new stuff  later.

I have said this thing many times already but I like to say it again - When i sculpt these things here, I feel like exploring this strange and wonderful world full of surprises after every corner! It is not always easy,  frustrading at times..but I try to keep up this positive "I'l nail it next time!" attitude...

So for those who struggle with their sculpting - Dont stress it! Im sure you get it right next time ;)

The Fighting Continues!!

okkiW

An Excercise In Watercolors

I had an urgent desire to try my son's watercolors that were lying around our kitchen table. Here's the outcome...

Mutie Kul (watercolors, white acrylic paint and black ink pen)

Servo Skulls (watercolors, white acrylic paint and black ink pen)

The painting process was actually very pleasant, more than I thought. I really enjoyed the free flow that the watercolors gave me. It's been some time since the last time I tried to paint something with these instruments. I guess it was back in the high school. I remember hating them back then, maybe because I felt that I was forced to use them... Well, times change apparently.

- izeColt

Creative Horizon

Creative mind needs to discharge itself for time to time. If it doesn't, it will get anguished and depressed. That's one of the "curses" of being creative.

The way you empty your can of inspiration doesn't really matter, just as long as it's something you really enjoy doing and what motivates you; write, draw, paint, build, discuss, read, improve your skill, live, learn and enjoy.

Discharging your fully loaded creativity can sometimes be really hard in today's pressing society. It's because of the lack of time, or more properly put, lack of courage to make the time - and I'm a bit of a coward in this case, to tell you to truth...

But when you're short of time you start to appreciate it more. I, for instance, have really started focusing on what I want to do with my precious hobbytime. I'd like to have an inspirational working space where I'd enjoy every drop of creativity I have damed in my packed mind, something similar that Migsula is currently working with.

This is something I'd like to call as a creative horizon. When you've reached certain step in your hobby, you start to think how'd it feel like to stay on that spot for a bit longer and widen your point of view a bit more horizontal, look for new ways to take the most out of that stage.

For example, you're enjoying the way you paint and convert your miniatures, but you'd like to get more out of 'em than just paint and finish the work. You start to write background stories about your heroes, tell their tales and give them more than meets the eye. Another way is to create some side projects such as character cards, parchaments for spells and tarot cards that your painted character might use in his/her universe. This can be very fascinating way to add more value for your hobbytime and create more depth for your creative project. Tears of Envy's =][=MVNDA project is kind of something I'm aiming at with this ramble...

For me it's the little things that make my creative horizon more wanderous. I've started widening my perspective and look for new ways to improve the quality time I've in my hands for my hobby. I've thought about starting my own little Inquisitor/Necromunda posse project, building it up from figures that I'd really love to paint, this meaning that I'd have to do some serious conversion and kitbashing work to get to that point. I'd then widen the project by adding some detailed papers, drawings and background stories for 'em, giving life to them in their own universe. That'd be neat.

I'm also currently trying to "decorate" my hobby surroundings with little things that matter to me, images, music, books and such. There's just something when you raise your head from your project for some neck strecthes, your nose catches some pleasant scent from the old booklets full of beautiful images, laid open for some bursts of inspirations while eardrums are bouncing in the beat of the relaxing thrash metal from the late 80's and the early 90's. That makes it for me at the moment, though it's too bad that it's impossible to paint in the light of the candles... *sigh*

My nest of comfy chaos, creative horizon wide and open for wandering.

So, how do you spend your pools of creativity? Do you widen your creative horizon from the point where you're currently staying at and how? The word is free.

- izeColt

Rat Of War

Moving on into the sketching.

Like I revealed earlier, to get started with this, Ian send me this wonderfull 12-page PDF full of amazing characters to choose from! Boy! I felt like a kid in a candy store!!! Browsing through the file I managed to find two favourites (Mr. Millers art is so fantastic that I would have wanted to pick all of them really;)

I chose these following drawings for several reasons.

Firstly there was a rat character. As a proud pack member of the Spiky Rat Pack I felt, that it was great way to bring something that represented me into this project.

Secondly I just love War history and old military eguimpment!

Thirdly these drawings just got my imagination rolling wildly as I saw them.

So we get to the sketching part then...

The character is taking shape here. This is not the final version and the things will get chanched as I move into sculpting phase...

I feel really good about this project...I think that the miniature will be something around 40mm tall. Got pack of ProCreate in the mail at the other day, so this will be good chanche to test that new stuff here.

- okkiW