Workspace Walkthrough - okkiW Style

Still remember this?

That was the setup I used two years ago, when i didn't care much about where I was making my toy soldiers. It was OK, because back then I did not spent that much time sitting in front of my desk sculpting away. Over the years I have started to spend more and more time sitting and sculpting, so I have been forced to make some major chances there.

This is my workbench that I using at the moment...

The picture also reveals my latest addition to the setup - The Daylight Company's wonderful triple daylight lamp. That lamp simply rocks! It provides lots of good neutral light that makes working easy. Especially in the wintertime, when natural daylight is very limited luxury here in Finland. It's a little expensive thingy but definitely worth every penny ;)
(While back Steve was talking about that same lamp)


This one shows how my desk is assembled quite high, so that Im able to keep my back straight while sculpting long hours. Im also using a saddle stool for more ergonomic posture.

 Finally, as a source of inspiration, got my original Miller framed. Ian sent it to me while ago as a return gift for Rat with a gun It's Cool as Hell!!!!!!!!!!

Rat With The Gun

Finally finished!

This project was so much fun to do! When I first suggested this project to Mr. Miller I had no idea that what would be the answer. I really was afraid that the answer would be that old classic "thanks but no thanks" but no... The answer was "That sounds like a lot of fun, let's do it!" Ian was also very supportive during the whole process, always reminding me to Not to lose my own style I think it was very important to Ian, that I would make my own interpretation rather than just trying to copy any of his characters straightforwardly. That attitude gave me lot of courage to make my own decissions to where to go.

When it comes to communicating with the artist himself, that is a story of its own. Very often the e-mails that Ian sends me, turn into very surrealistic stories, information is often encrypted inside these stories about fog bells, rabbits, dogs or birds! In fact, the little rabbit in the background came to be because of these little side stories... I felt that the composition lacked something and that rabbit fitted there perfectly.

Painting the piece was interesting challence for me, beacause I don't consider myself as painter at all. especially when i get to see Kari's paintings all the time =) In the end, there's nothing special about the paintjob, lots of Citadel washes over Zenithal basecoat. Result is far from being as good as Kari's paintings but I am still satisfied about it. I did learn so much about painting when doing this.

Mr. Miller is also fantastic writer/ poet, so when I finished this piece, I had to ask, if he could write little poem/ backround storie for this piece and he did! The poem also binds this thing together, now it includes input from both artists: making it true collaboration now ;)

One hell of a journey, thank you Ian!

The rat is also in Cmon now. Please vote for the brave rat in the frontline!

Now how on earth I will pack this for shipping...

Stone Grey Soil

The model is now primed and assembled for photoshoot. I used zenithal  priming for this project. Basicly it means, that I first primed the whole model with black primer, that was then followed by thin white layer from 45 degree angle with airbrush. This technigue is nicely described in Massive Voodoo's blog here.

The scenic base was also inspired from the bases that you can see in that wonderful blog, just please check it out. Lots of good tutorials and nicely painted miniatures there!

If you wonder about that little rabbit out there, it's a thing that got there because I wanted to add something into that combosition and Ian is always sending me these cryptic and funny little poems about dogs and rabbits when we chat through e-mail, so I felt that little rabbit was a perfect thing to add there=) It balances the things nicely now.

I first coloured that wooden blog with some paint but wasn't happy with the result until i figured out to use black shoe polish for colouring! Gives nice deep colour with waxy feel. Perfect! ;)

and little music to go with...

Floating Bedrocks

The Miller-Project has again taken big steps ahead, as the winter grows darker here in the Northlands. Im now 80% finished with the sculpting, so I think I'l be moving into painting phase next week.

I don't want to spoil everything yet, so I just leave you with one WIP shot from the scenic base I just finished.

Here's some really good music to go with this update.

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.

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

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

Talking Dog And Mechanical Rabbits (A Collaboration With Ian Miller)

A few weeks ago I contacted  one of my favourite artist of all time mr. Ian Miller. First I just wanted to tell him, that we have this blog and how its gotten its name from Ratspike and stuff, but then I had this idea to ask if we could do this little project together.

I have always thought, that it would be so cool to transform one of those mystical characters from Ians paintings and drawings into miniature form, but have always dropped the idea, because i don't like the idea to touch someone's art without a permission.

So I just dropped the question "How about if we could do this project together, no money involved just passion. You give me the character, I turn it into a miniature. You get the finished piece, I get COOL blog post. What do you say?"

Ian promised me to talk with the dog and ask from the rabbit about it. In between, we (naturally) talked about fog bells and religious cannon balls.
but the answer came few days after.."Sounds like lot of fun! Let's do it!!!"

I guess this blog was convincing enough then..after all i consider it as my portfolio anyway ;)

We started by choosing the character. Fortunately Ian send me many to choose from! All of the chraracters were brilliant (as anyone who is familiar with his work can surely imagine:) But there was one drawing that really caught my eye. It was a drawing about Rat Soldiers advancing in the streets of crumbled city.

Wow! I get to do a Rat character!!!

Ian told me that the rats were concept studies for some craphic novel, but the rats never made it to the cover of the book. It looked like it was time to give them a new chance to shine!

"I'm happy for you to interpret the chosen character as you see fit" "Have a fun filled free fall adventure"

With these words in my mind I rush forwards! More Will Follow!!!

Shaping the Monster

I am a big fan of izeColt's drawings. He seems to have this weird talent, to make the images appear just if they have been drawn 30 years ago when (in my opinion) fantasy art was at its best! Influences from Blanche, Miller etc. are visible of course, but in very subtle way. The characters in the drawings still appear very original and they are very inspiring stuff!

I could not have been more happier, when izeColt suddenly e-mailed me this wonderfull sketch for this Fimir character! As soon as i saw the drawing i was convinced that this thing would rock! At first, i had some doubts about how to make the Fimir look mean and sinister without looking somehow ridiculous=) But izeColt really nailed this thing and my doubts just vanished immediately!

Inspired by the drawing, i quickly collected my tools and Sculpted this small bust. I tried to make the sculpt to follow the original drawing as closely as possible. The bust is sculpted with Super Sculpey Firm.

The Beginning

So this is it, the very first post on our blog! As some of you might already be aware, Spiky Rat Pack is all about arts, craftsmanship, miniature hobby and scene around it.

Early this year, okkiW and I decided to band together and start doing miniature projects together. okkiW is a visionary sculptor and I'm more or less the guy who paints the stuff. We design and sketch our projects together and even create deep background stories behind our characters, just like in roleplaying games. Our previous project, Chaos Dwarf of Tzeentch, Rogan Rygaard, can be found from here.

It has been very easy to do projects together as we share quite similar visions, what comes to the hobby and how the World of Warhammer appears to us. We consider John Blanche as probably one of the most influencing fantasy artist of our time, among with Ian Miller and John Sibbick, who also have had very much to do with the grim and brutal low fantasy feel of the Old World and Rogue Trader era 40.000 universe.

Like a rock band, we play together and have our gigs. But every now and then we go solo and do our own stuff. okkiW is currently sculpting his Lady Gaga inspired Rogue Trader era Space Pirate. I'm trying to find some time to paint couple of my Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines.

So, there we go. This is the beginning of a story about two friends who thought to share their enthusiasm for the hobby with the rest of the scene. I hope that you'll check our blog every now and then and hopefully find it useful and inspiring source of material. So catch you later!