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!

Hagard & The Færwyrd, WIP I

So the modelling of Hagard and the Færwyrd has commenced. Here's some work in process shots for you to study...

I still need to add bits here and there, and when I'm done with that, it's time for some greenstuffin'. Hagard will get hair on his head (but he'll be bald like in the drawing) and his shoulder guard will get more detailed and less like "out of the box" feel for it. I'm thinking of adding more layers and edge to it.

And then there's the pneumatic arm. It still needs some heavy modding before I'm satisfied by the looks of it. At the moment it stands out like a straight junk with pipes and cables, so I need to add some functional looking bits to it so that it would look more like it could actually be a working piece. Also, the connection between the arm and the gun is still pretty nonexistent and needs to be stressed.

Pherion WIP - The Hunter

"Not even a thousand seals of protection could save a warrior, if he lacks the true faith 

- Inquisitor Pherion of Mars

What a nice project!
Creating the Inquisitor for my warband turned out to be very difficult task.
I knew I needed very strong character with powerful looks, but without to go into too "traditional armoured look. I wanted Pherion to be strong but also fragile at the same time.
There was some discussion that Kari would design the Inquisitor for me, but unfortunately those plans did not work out eventually. It was only after I came up with the story of this really ancient character that would roam the galaxies to hunt down the enemies of the mankind. I was able to visualize Pherion and came out with the original sketch.

Personally I am very satisfied about how the purity seals came out. I was able to do some very cool detailing, like the inquisitional markings  and skulls. It was nice to realize that how much could be done sculpting wise, even when there was so many GW parts involved. I had to go very subtle, to be able to make my additions to match the pro-level GW sculpting.

Why did I ended up using GW parts for my Inquisitor, while the rest of the Warband is completely scratchbuilt? I wanted to try converting again and Kari has come up with such a amazing conversions that I had to give it a go! Also, I wanted to respect Games Workshop by using official parts.. After all, Inquisitor is GW game;)

Hagard & The Færwyrd, Concept Finished

Meet Hagard...

Hagard & The Færwyrd (water colours, acrylics and inks)

Hagard fought his brutal wars on the same savage planet that Mutie Kul did his biddings. Hagard's grotesque and cruel heavy machinegun Færwyrd sows terror amongst his foes, ripping them to pieces with high caliber rounds and fast fire rate.

Once again Inquisitor Cassar has found another deadly tool for his entourage...

Færwyrd, Painting WIP

Just a small WIP post to the Færwyrd project...

Pherion WIP - Posin'

I really liked the Kari's idea of Pherion sensing danger near by.
Instead reaching for the pommel of his sword I wanted to make it look like he is ready to draw his sword (you know, old western movie style!). Also changed the heads direction to create illusion of averseness.

Damn this converting is fast and fun!

Færwyrd

A few days ago I found myself sifting through the last month's White Dwarf and paused for a good moment when John Blanche's always wonderful Blanchitsu popped in to my sight. In his article John introduced some of the finest conversion made out of Games Workshop's infamous chubby Nurgle Chaos Champion.

While I was admiring the fine job others had done with their conversion, the temptation of making one of my own grew bigger and bigger. I simply couldn't resist it anymore. I had to grab my pencils and start sketching the next character for the Punk Moth scenario...

Only add colour...

Sketching chubby.

I visioned that my Chaos Champion conversion would be carrying a huge MG-42 style machinegun, but with a curved side clip instead of a ammochain. The bloke will be wielding the gun with an agile, lightly moving pneumatic arm that is much longer and stronger than a normal limb. The arm is integrated to the gun's barrel. It is like the gun and the arm are one piece. I would love to make a short animation of this piece alone to show you how I imaginated the thing could be moving. Well, like I had time for that...

The drawing will be painted with the same style as the previous ones have been done, using watercolours, inks and acrylics. This time I used much more time on the actual inking, so it will be interesting to see what kind of an effect this will have to the final result.

Yeah, I know. I should be working on with the Caterpillar stage of the Punk Moth, but I think I can let that juice stay for a while and take a little break from the scenery building.

Pherion WIP - Taggin'

Found the parts that will eventually make Pherion... rest will be sculpted.

Or pointing like this?

Im still thinking about that bolter-arm - should I make it pointing out, like in the sketch or use that wizard arm what's in the first pic?