Captain's Close-Ups

As promised, I took couple of close-up photos from Space Pirato Captain Gaga, Spiky Rat Pack's joint-project...

You can clearly see some of the brush strokes and blending colour borders in these shots, but that's part of the fun! I've learned a lot about painting by staring other people's close-up photos of their minis, by studying their brushwork and the way they've achieved certain colour vibrance etc.

The huge gap between my two painting sessions with this model is somehow visible in here. If you look closely, you can see how smoothly blended red stockings and sharp freehands have evolved into dirty (ref. Steve Buddle's Spyglass Asylum blogpost from last year) and strong style used eg. in base and feather. This latter style will most likely be used in my future projects more often, in some transformed form, as it feels both effective and aesthetically satisfying technique. That small perfectionist in me is still rebelling against the idea, but I bet it'll get used to it...

Space Pirato Cpt. Gaga - Finally Finished

So, she finally made it! Took me quite some time to finish the Pirato Captain, but you know how the saying goes, "better late than never". Well, long story short, here she is, The Renegade...

I used only acrylic paints and some washes at the beginning of the painting, but in the final stages ended up using inks and varnishes to add some interesting flavour to the base and some of the other surfaces. I hit the dead end at some point with the painting and couldn't figure out how to finish her. Especially her outfit and base gave me hard time, but apparently some (actually, pretty much) time can help you at some point to figure out how to continue...

Special thanks to Mikko for his patience with me. After all, he skulpted this fantastic model which was a true pleasure to paint! Still I kept him waiting and waiting for the finished piece. Sorry mate.

Never the less, hope you like the outcome of yet another of our joint-project! More will follow...

A Peek Into The Rat Hole

Cpt. Gaga is steadily closing to finish, at last! Almost made the base ready for her. Still need to finish some little details and then, well, I'm ready to do some photoshooting...

Cpt. based

I also started some kit-bashing for my INQ project, 3D sketching Mutie Kul and his familiar, skullhopper. I think I'll take some liberties from the drawn version, otherwise I end up greenstuffing the whole thing from the scratch or hunting the bits for ages.

Mutie Kul and skullhopper...

Spiky Miniatures - Captain Gaga!

Yeah!

The very first resin copies have now arrived!
Only got three copies now, but there will be more, as soon as Miika has more time to cast them...



The copies turn out very good...there were some minor air bubbles here and there, but nothing serious..very clean overal look, wich makes me very happy!

Wow..it's a magical moment when you see your sculpt turned into "real" miniature...

Gaga Rulez!

Hello!

Just found out, that one of our readers zhu bajiee has created this wonderfull set of Rules for the Captain Gaga character! Now you can use our Gaga in your WH 40k:RT!


Also check out rest of the zhu's cool blog here

Captain Gaga, B&W Teasers

Hi-lo!

I've been working with the "big" Captain Gaga for couple of evenings now. I thought to share some black & white "teasers" to proof that this project is far from the dead ;) ...

Still need to fix couple of minor things (feather, corset's freehand etc.). After that, I'm off to start building her base, which might include couple of nice twists and "eye catchers". Maybe I'll ever try the water effect for the first time, who knows!

I hope she'll meet the expectations...

"There Can Be Only One"

I decided, that the Fimir, that i am sculpting at the moment will be only fimir that i will ever sculpt....So sorry guys, there will not be any reproducing in the future=/
I gave it a thought, but it felt silly...to take GW's property and start messing around with it...
Very silly & Very risky....In the end i want to be known by my own original work, rather than someone else's.

+ I think that the Old World will suffer enough with this one beast roaming there, decapitating unaware mercenaries as it goes!

(pst!... izeColt has been sending me these small teaser-images about the almost fully painted big Gaga model!!! stay tuned and prepare to loose you jaws!)

Copygaga

Hello!

Just a little reminder, that things are developing here, thanks Miika!

Future Rodents

"Spikey" has existed about half an year now...So what's next??

The Mini that started this all, Rogan Rygaard, Chaos Dwarf of Tzeentch
has received invitation from CoolMiniOrNot-site, to take part in the CMON Annual '10
That's a great honour naturally...and for that reason, we want to make sure that it also gets picked into pages, when the new Annual is released.
izeColt is coming to Helsinki to take some new, High resolution photographs of the model.

I received word from Miika Bergdahl too. He begins molding The Captain soon...I will send the Mini to him later this week..so let's see what happens=)


What else??
The Fimir project will start soon, i would also like to do some Pin-Up model, then maybe the Lemmikäinen in 32mm who knows...
Also izeColt has hes small Chaos Space Marine Warband getting bigger all the time!
Many interesting projects coming in the future...Spiky Rat Pack is going stronger than ever now!


Thanks to you all for your support! It is a never-ending source of inspiration!!!

-okkiW

The Captain - Finished

Hello!...Whoa! its been a long time since last post!

Time to show some pictures right?

So here she is:


OK there she is....many imperfections, many things that i would like to redo
But this is how far i can push it at the moment..

Wow! i finally finished my first 32mm mini!!!

Next one WILL be so MUCH COOLER!!!!

Going For The Kill - Progress

Good evening everyone!

'been working really hard with this one.
I thought it was time to show some pics, to get feedback again.
Still not satisfied with the face, but you know...its the best i can do at the moment really =)

Going For The Kill! - The Arms

hell'o!

Here's a picture that will hopefully explain where im going with the right arm.
-I had this wicked idea about that laspistol. I wanna make it to look very archaic and ancient. Something like old flintlock pistol mixed with classic laspistol or something like that=)
(the pistol in the picture has nothing to do with that)

And Steve- you are right...i redo the arm when i'm adding the pistol.

Going For The Kill! -The initial phases

I started sculpting the Captain for the second time now. I carefully followed Steve Buddle's instructions about armatures and the initial phases of sculpting.

http://spyglassasylum.blogspot.com/2011/01/sculpting-armatures-my-way.html

Steve kindly agreed to act as my mentor through this project, wich makes me very happy:)

So here she is:


(Im using GW's Daemonette's head and arm to show scale and proportions)

Rough mix of 50/50 Green Stuff/Milliput was used for this.

Wow! the "repetitive" sculpting that i have been forced do lately, has proven to be very effective!
I have gained lots of speed and i dont have to redo things so much anymore=)


Next i'l begin to work with the head part!!!

Stayin' strong...

Like i posted earlier i'v been very busy sculpting the "Captain" lately. As this was my first time, trying to sculpt anything on 32mm scale, i eventually ran into many troubles along the way.

It is no surprise that the face was difficult thing to do, but there were many other areas too... i got pretty far i think, but then i realized, that it was time to stop and really see what i had managed to do... i send some WIP's to izeColt and he gave me some constructive critisism (thanks dude!) I asked him to be honest with me and he really was!!..he gave many good points about the face etc. and it helped alot.

"first attempt: face is awfull and i don't like the studs in the right leg. Also the mini got little bit too tall more like 35mm scale"


I considered the given critisism and finally decided that what i was doing, would not do. I don't aim for perfection, but whatever i do, i must believe in it. I have to be able to say to myself

"I did my very best with this and i am proud of it...at the moment;)"

With this sculpt i had done some mistakes that were not fixed properly (as i hate fixing;) and i had this feeling that i was lying to myself, that i had not did my best with this! So i was moving on a very thin ice!!

In the end. Only thing i could do, was to back to the sculptin' board and start it all over again. First i was shattered because all that intensive work had gone outta' window, but eventually i got lots of new energy.

This time im going to get it right!!!

edit: this post was greatly inspired by the Steve Buddle's fantastic blog entry at Spyglass Asylum
Please check it out: http://spyglassasylum.blogspot.com/2011/03/getting-better.html



Oh! and here something that i like to share with you also. I am a big fan of Joy Division and next weekend i'm going to see Peter Hook (former bass player of the Joy Division) as he is playing the songs from the "Unknown Pleasures" album with his band here in Helsinki!!!

Maybe i can find some comfort for my creative agony from those dark tunes...

The Renegade "Captain Gaga", Painting Stage #2

Captain Gaga's stockings are now almost done, as seen above.

We're planning to paricipate in Model Expo 2011's miniature painting competition with her, but the time is running frighteningly fast and there is still so much to do. There's quite many details that I still need to work out, not to mention all the freehands I've thought to paint here and there.

Creative Agony!!!!!

hi people!

It's been quiet in here for some time now and i felt that it was time to broke the radio silence=)

I have been busy on sculpting new version of the "Captain". Sculpting in "warhammer" scale has proven to be very challencing task! Since this is my first miniature in that scale, i have done lots of mistakes and learned many things the hard way! But hey! i'm still learning new things all the time!

Although...at the moment i'm in this phase with this project where i am about half way there,,, many things has been done but there's still shit loads of things to sculpt!!! I dont know about you guys, but usually with me, when im in the middle of this creative process, i always have this period, where i start to doubt everything i have done so far, then i start to lose my confidence and i really just want to throw the damned work in to the wall!!!

i know this is all just a temporary phase and all i have to do really, is just keep on pushing no matter what...at least it usually helps;)

No pictures yet, just thought to give you this little update....(and whine about at the same time;) But i'l keep fighting! see you next week, when i have something worth showing.....over and out!

-okkiW

The Renegade "Captain Gaga", Painting Stage #1

Here's some first painting WIP shots from the Captain Gaga.

I decided to paint her skin very pale and use dark make-up as a contrasting effect. I'm not sure if the make-up is strong enough, so suggestions are more than welcome. After all, this is the first female character that I'm painting, as far as I can remember.

The skin still needs some work with shadows and small details. I thought to paint some impurities here and there just to break otherwise smooth skin and make it look more humane.

I'm quite satisfied by the way red corset looks so far. It still needs quite a lot of work, for instance I'm planning to decorate the center piece with some nice freehand pattern. But the colour is just what I was looking for...

After good one and a half hour painting session the little snotling decided that it was time for me to have a break from my todays work, by waking up from his day nap, occupying my painting station's seat and threateningly handling wire cutters with a wicked blink in his eye corner. Yeah, it was time to close the table lid and shut down the lights.

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!

Yer Loot, or Yer Life?

Finally it's done! The Renegade "Captain Gaga" is now sculpted and ready for painting.

Sculpting her, was one hell of a emotional rollercoaster really! At first, i had major broblems, in getting the proportions right. I started sculpting the figure four times before getting it anywhere near the right direction. After that, there has been dozens of occasions, when i would have longed to just give up and throw the model outta' nearest window!!

Female figures are probably the hardest ones to get right and i took huge challence when i chose to do Captain Gaga. Eventually, i fought my way trough the hard times and got out as a winner =)

The model is not anywhere near perfect, nor it never tried to be such thing, but looking it now, i must say that i am satisfied with the outcome. I can honestly say, that this was my "babtism of fire" in figure sculpting.

I started with solid idea, i then sketched it properly down before i moved into actual Sculpting of the model. Then i tried to follow that plan and finished the model. When i now compare the original sketch and the newly finished product, i am pretty satisfied with the result.

Anyway, enough with bable, here comes the pictures!!!

Yarr!

Little birds just whispered to me that okkiW's Space Pirato Captain Gaga is ready, at least the sculpt is. I just saw couple of photos from her and I must say, it's just pure amazing! ... Eh, by the way, has anyone seen my jaw? It just fell off! Please let me know if you see it, cheers!