Nesbet Miniatures

HOBBY TIP: Cleaning your files

2011-04-16T22:03:00.000-03:00

Hi again ladies and gentlemen (is there any lady btw? xD)

Today, a quick hobby tip. How to clean your files (without screwing them up!).

I found this method in a blog wichs name I didn't save. Sorry!

Everyone knows that needle files don’t work very well when they are dirty and caked with debris. If you didn't know, you should! To clean your files, use a small clean jar of choice. All you need to do is fill the jar with lacquer thiner and put your needle files in there!

For the ones who don't know, the lacquer thiner is a mixture of solvents, used to dilute, dissolve and clean up of lacquer products. Typically too caustic for oil paints, lacquer thinner is often used additionally for removing inks on metal, and adhesive residue from a variety of surfaces. Lacquer thinner is very strong and rapidly deteriorates many surfaces and fabrics

Just put your clogged needle filesinto the thinner and close the lid to avoid the fumes. Just be cautious not to submerge the rubber handles of the files. Wait for an hour, remove the file and clean it off with an old thooth brush. Then, your files will be as good as new!

The lacquer thinner can be found on most of your favourite art supplies stores, and also in any hardware store.Whoever sells paints could sell lacquer thinner, among other solvents and thinners!

Well, that's for now, I hope this little tip can help you a bit ;)
Now, back to Real Life -.-

See ya soon!

PS: I've said NEEDLE FILES! Not diamond files. Be aware, some chemicals can screw your diamond file, eating the glue that attachs the diamond particles to the file!

SHOWCASE: FW Open Day 2011 pics!

2011-04-03T18:39:00.002-03:00

Well, these previews are definitely worth seeing.

Check out the incoming Chaos Dwarf Inmortal Guard, Great Taurus, chaotic stuff and even some more miniatures for the Empire!

Fullscreen, then play. Enjoy!

See ya!

TUTORIAL: Getting the Citadel colours

2011-04-02T18:34:00.000-03:00

Hello! Long time without posting.
Last week I failed my goal of "at least one post per week". Yeah, Real Life messing it up again.
Well, now I'm gluing the sand to my Chaos Marauders and still waiting for some paints to arrive from the UK so I'll start primming the dwarves I'm going to paint for Tomas.

So, nothing new to show today. Another bunch of WIP and black coated models doesn't seem as a good idea, specially considering the amount of awesome entries in the blogosphere about Adepticon.

What can I offer you? A pretty old technique to achieve the entire Citadel Colour range, using only 5 colours.

This charts were posted in an old LOTR webpage. I don't even recall the name, but when the page went offline, I tried to save those pics, but couldn't. I used google cache to copy the e-mail from the web-admin and explained I wanted to save this wonderful receipes. He kindly sent them to me and granted permission to post them wherever I would like to. So, after having posted this tutorial 2 years ago in my local forum, I would like to share it with all of you!

All you need to do is having 5 brushes, hopefully, identical and a palette. If you have dropper bottles, even easier and much more precise. If wanted to do with only 1 brush, get "an" amount of the desired paint, clean your brush and get "another" with the same brush, as many times as you need. This is pretty useful when starting painting or when you don't have all the range of paints you would like to. I used this charts when I didn't own any purples, only 2 differents greens and no pink. And it worked wonderfully!

Well, that's for now. Hopefully next week I'll be able to show you something more interesting xD

Anyways, I encourage you to try these charts and achieve all those colours discontinued from the Citadel Colour Range. Specially if you don't have a stock of Golden Yellow, Scaly Green, Tentacle Pink, Terracota, etc! All those preciousssss, removed by the GW suits >.<

See ya next time!

PS: before being called mad by someone ofuscated with the receipe of Kommando Khaki, let me tell you can round up a bit the quantity of paint. This even work to achieve some shadow and highlight colour of the same colour! ;D

SHOWCASE: Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Demonic Mount

2011-03-15T01:23:00.007-03:00

Showcase time again!
Stealing some time from periodontology study-hours to post this! hohohoho

Well, continuing with the insane amount of sorcerers I own, this time I'll show another oldie. I think this was the second mounted sorcerer I built. I converted it using a Storm Steed, from Reaper Miniatures and that old chaos sorcerer that GW still sells nowadays. Just changed the horns of that big skull and added some more ropes and skulls, and some rags to the staff.

I converted the mount just slightly. I repositioned the wings to let the sorcerer to seat (xD), added some fur on the armpits of the mount and played with some GS to make the whole miniature stand higher.

Well, that's for now. I hope you liked this old miniature. Unfortunately, no more time to write about it, Real Life don't forgive neither forgets if I don't study xD

Next time I'll start showing some mounted lords, to change subject; maybe it were just too much sorcerers for now!
Or maybe I'll show some WIP of the dwarves heroes I'll be working in the next weeks. New commision works, yaaay! =D

See you next time! As always, comments, critics and questions are welcomed ;D

SHOWCASE: Chaos Mounted Sorcerer Lord

2011-03-08T13:09:00.005-03:00

Hello again!
No more tutorials now xD (at least, in the near future =P ). Today I'll show you one of the last minis I painted, the limited edition of a chaos sorceror mounted on chaos steed. I had some kind of bad memories about this miniature, because I bought it in ebay, while it was really a limited edition model, and costed quite a lot. And... before I received it, GW decided to sell it just as a normal direct-only model -.-

Well, enough blah blah, now, my Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed!

And this is the pic I sent to a local painting contest.
(EDIT: that I recently won xD This miniature can be seen the whole month in the home page of our local wargammes forum!)

And here some details shots of the unfinished minis, showing the sculpted flames and fixed sleeve. I sculpted that last one because it looked strange for me, like a tube, without border xD

And some closeups to the finished miniature.
I painted the blue fire, after the suggestion of my friend Topo, who remembered me that the oxygen produces some blue/white fire when oxygen gets burned. Green fire was also an alternative, don't remember wich element burned green, but the idea smelled too much to skaven in my mind, so blue was the choice.

This was my first attempt at freehand painting. Not as difficult as I thought it would be. it's not an awesome freehand, but it's ok.
The tentacle scheme was another suggestion of my friend, Thomas said "green! nor, pink! No, better you take a look at real and poisonus octopus!!" So, I searched and found this fella. Replicating octopus colour schemes, what a nice idea Tomas, thank you very much!!

And the base! How much I love to base models! hahaha

Well, hope you liked this mini.
I'll be posting another painted miniatures in the near future, so stay tunned!
See ya soon!

TUTORIAL: Miniature Photography, part 3

2011-03-04T05:53:00.000-03:00

Let's go with the final part of this tutorial! (at least for now, maybe someday I'll post something else about this xD)

Now it's time to talk about photo edition. Let's learn some basics about photoshop, to be able to slightly retouch something like the previous pic of my Chaos Lord with additional hand weapon...

...and finish having something like this:

Well, I tried doing a video of my desktop to explain this, but it was too heavy (60Mb) and it doesn't look good enough pasted in the blog. So, I made a slideshow instead!
As usual, bring the popcorn, take a seat, click the fullscreen button and enjoy.

OK, this is the end of this long tutorial!
I hope you find it helpful and specially I hope you can improve your photography skills a little. Maybe it's a little boring, and too much information, but look, this were my pics:

And nowadays, they look like this:

Tell me. Isn't it worth such little effort? =D

Well, see ya soon, hope you like the final part of my tutorial!
As always, comments and critics are welcomed! If you have any question, please tell me! I'll be glad trying to help you! ;D

TUTORIAL: Miniature Photography, part 2

2011-03-02T02:43:00.007-03:00

Hi again. Let's begin with the second part of this tutorial, this time it will be discused how to take the pics, and common mistakes made by hobby entusiasts.

The idea, is to stop making this thing of pics...

...and begin making this sort of pictures, to be able to edit them and get some awesome images to display.

First, let's understand what's white balance (WB). Hopefully, you'll be lucky enough to have a (~50USD) digital camera with adjustable WB. If you don't, don't worry, you can compensate that with exposure compensation (xD).

So, what's WB? In few words, is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance (AWB) and can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green color casts. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these color casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions.

Blue, purple and grey casts:

Correct and incorrect WB:

Color temperature describes the spectrum of light which is radiated from a "blackbody" with that surface temperature. A blackbody is an object which absorbs all incident light neither reflecting it nor allowing it to pass through. A rough analogue of blackbody radiation in our day to day experience might be in heating a metal or stone: these are said to become "red hot" when they attain one temperature, and then "white hot" for even higher temperatures. Similarly, blackbodies at different temperatures also have varying color temperatures of "white light." Despite its name, light which may appear white does not necessarily contain an even distribution of colors across the visible spectrum.

Note how 5000 K produces roughly neutral light, whereas 3000 K and 9000 K produce light spectrums which shift to contain more orange and blue wavelengths, respectively. As the color temperature rises, the color distribution becomes cooler. This may not seem intuitive, but results from the fact that shorter wavelengths contain light of higher energy.

Why is color temperature a useful description of light for photographers, if they never deal with true blackbodies? Fortunately, light sources such as daylight and tungsten bulbs closely mimic the distribution of light created by blackbodies, although others such as fluorescent and most commercial lighting depart from blackbodies significantly. Since photographers never use the term color temperature to refer to a true blackbody light source, the term is implied to be a "correlated color temperature" with a similarly colored blackbody. The following table is a rule-of-thumb guide to the correlated color temperature of some common light sources.

Color Temperature	Light Source
1000-2000 K	Candlelight
2500-3500 K	Tungsten Bulb (household variety)
3000-4000 K	Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky)
4000-5000 K	Fluorescent Lamps
5000-5500 K	Electronic Flash
5000-6500 K	Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead)
6500-8000 K	Moderately Overcast Sky
9000-10000 K	Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky

Since some light sources do not resemble blackbody radiators, white balance uses a second variable in addition to color temperature: the green-magenta shift. Adjusting the green-magenta shift is often unnecessary under ordinary daylight, however fluorescent and other artificial lighting may require significant green-magenta adjustments to the WB. Fortunately, most digital cameras contain a variety of preset white balances, so you do not have to deal with color temperature and green-magenta shift during the critical shot. These are commonly used symbols for each.

The first three white balances allow for a range of color temperatures. Auto white balance is available in all digital cameras and uses a best guess algorithm within a limited range usually between 3000/4000 K and 7000 K. Custom white balance allows you to take a picture of a known gray reference under the same lighting, and then set that as the white balance for future photos. With "Kelvin" you can set the color temperature over a broad range. If you can, set it manually. Try some shots with different temperatures, select one and then go ahead.

The remaining six white balances are listed in order of increasing color temperature, however many compact cameras do not include a shade white balance. Some cameras also include a "Fluorescent H" setting, which is designed to work in newer daylight-calibrated fluorescents.

The description and symbol for the above white balances are just rough estimates for the actual lighting they work best under. In fact, cloudy could be used in place of daylight depending on the time of day, elevation, or degree of haziness. In general, if your image appears too cool on your LCD screen preview (regardless of the setting), you can quickly increase the color temperature by selecting a symbol further down on the list above. If the image is still too cool (or warm if going the other direction), you can resort to manually entering a temperature in the Kelvin setting. If you are lucky, maybe your camera hasn't these options, but gives you the choice of saving the pics in RAW files. If your camera supports them, you can set up the WB after the pics are taken.

Well, what to do if you only have AWB? (My previous camera was that way!) Then let's play with exposure compensation (EC)! Exposure Compensation is a feature of a camera that allows you to adjust the exposure measured by its light meter. Usually, the range of adjustment goes from +2 to -2 EV in 1/3 steps. This means that you can adjust the exposure measured by the light meter by telling the camera to allow more light in (positive exposure compensation) or to allow less light in (negative exposure compensation). Technically, you could take note of the exposure measured by the light meter, and then switch to Manual mode and adjust it manually yourself.

The best advices I can give (with my limited knowledge) are 1) set the exposure compensation manually before taking the real pics, view them at your PC and then choose the best setting; or 2) turn ON Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB). Many digital cameras now include Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) where the camera will take the three shots with one press of the shutter release button: one at the camera measured exposure, a second at a negative exposure compensation (usually -1/3 EV, though some cameras allow you to specify the amount), and a third at a positive exposure compensation (usually +1/3 EV, though some cameras allow you to specify the amount). The normal 100USD cameras don't bring this option, so, let's go a bit deeper about the first advice.

When having your lightbox ready with your miniature, turn ON the programm exposure mode (designated by letter P). The Exposure Compensation button or menu choice is usually marked by a square containing a plus and a minus symbol. Some cameras, though, just display "0.0" on the LCD screen. Check your camera manual for the specifics.

Turning on the Exposure Compensation button or menu choice displays a sort of "ruler" with zero in the middle and numbers on either side. A marker appears under the zero, which stands for the normal exposure your camera gives the picture. Using the arrow keys or a dial on the back of the camera, you can move this marker to a different position on the ruler.

Moving the marker to the "plus" side of zero makes your picture brighter. Placing the marker under +1 makes the image twice as bright as a normal exposure.Moving the marker to the "minus" side of zero makes your picture darker. Placing the marker under -1 makes the image twice as dark as a normal exposure.

Below you can see how changing the exposure compensation control affects the brightness of my Chaos Warrior with Halberd:
(those are DIFFERENT PICS, using different EC in each)
+2 EV

+1,7 EV

+1,3 EV

+1 EV

+0,7 EV

+0,3 EV

-0,3 EV

-0,7 EV

-1 EV

-1,3 EV

-1,7 EV

-2 EV

With my lightbox and my setup ready, I decided that the best option for me this time is to set up the EC to +1EV. Now I'll take all the pics I need from that model, with the chosen setup (lamps, bulbs, position of the miniature, of the light sources) using EC +1.

Doing this "tedious" process (that only consumes 1 minute, and will help you to make nice pics), you'll avoid the underexposure and overexposure that are SO common in the miniature photgraphy.

Now, to finish this large wall of text and chaotic information, let me give you the last advices I have in mind to improve your photography skills.

Avoid having lines from bended paper, fabric or background. It will ruin your pic almost instantly, because the camera will have "more and different whites" to process. If you see, the upper part of the background shows a kind of white (pretty brownish, but doesn't matter for this example) and the lower part, looks different. Why, if both parts are from a single piece of paper? That's because of the light inciding in different angles and being reflected in different angles too. Try to use curved paper, block or fabric as background.

Avoid cellphone pictures if you are going to publish them. Really, they are not intended for this purpose. And let the tidy backgrounded images JUST for WIP shots. (I even regret having post some cellphone-pics, regarding being WIP shots)

Set up you light sources carefully. I've already suggested my favourites bulbs, but, how to set up them? Easy! The lateral ones should be on the same axis of the miniature. The upper light should be over the miniature (OH RLY? xD) but just between the camera and the object.

Never, ever, use flash to photography your minis. This will cause more shadows (that you should be avoiding!). The light produced by the flash it's just too much for miniature photography. Just give exposure compensation a try and you'll not want to try flashing your minis again. This will be specially useful for photography black, white and greyish miniatures.

And finally, activate the macro mode! I think most of you know what the macro mode is (that's why I forgot to mention this in the first instance xD), but anyways...

Macro and close-up photography can take the viewer to new and seldom seen vantage points. However, macro photography also often demands more careful attention to photographic technique and camera shake. When you magnify a subject, you also magnify movements caused by camera shake. Furthermore, small variations in camera position can also make huge differences in subject composition. It's therefore critical to either experiment with what you're capable of capturing hand-held, or to just always use a camera tripod. I strongly recommend having a small and cheap tripod (mine costed 3USD) and for even better results, try using your camera self-timer mode, or even a remote switch. These pics are fast made examples of the macro mode off and on.

Photos at high magnification have a correspondingly shallow depth of field. Precisely controlling the location of focus is therefore much more important than normal. This requires both artistic decisions about what should be in sharpest focus, but also technical decisions about how to make the most of this sharpness. The first pic illustrates the focus, badly located (focusing the 2nd rank of Chaos Marauders).

In the second, the location of the focus is set to the cloaks and shoulders of the Marauders.

Well, I'm already sorry for having bored you so much. Didn't want to make this part SO long, but I thought some basic concepts should be included. I really hope you can improve your miniature photography a little. If you can improve them just a little bit using some of this information, I would feel already paid and honoured.

As always, comments, critics and questions are welcomed!
See ya soon, with the final part of this tutorial! (I promise it won't be this long xD I hope I can learn to make a little video to explain how to finish and add background to the pics using PS, faster than this epic long entry!)

PS: Please. To the owners of the above shown pics, PLEASE don't feel offended. I just selected some random pics to show some common mistakes. I tried to use every single pic I had, but weren't enough. If you want your pic to be removed, just drop me an e-mail and I'll do it instantly. ;D

EDIT: Added small paragraph about macro. Thanks to N810 for ponting me that I've completely forgot to mention it xD

TUTORIAL: Miniature Photography, part 1

2011-02-27T03:20:00.004-03:00

Well well well, ladies, gentlemen and unicorns... long time without making a tutorial!
I was asked to tell how I make the pics of my minis, because nowadays, they look "fine". For me, they were just OK, they could be better with better lighting and a correct setup. That's why I decided to pay a promise I made to myself (xD) and build a lightbox and portable photography studio for less than 40 USD.

Short story: a friend of my dad went to the USA some weeks ago, and I was about to ask him to bring me a Portable Photo Studio, like the ones sold in Amazon.

In the last minute, I changed my mind and decided to ask for a colour shapers set, then I promised myself that I would make a better portable photo studio using less money. (Now I have the whole colour shapers set, and I'm a happy man! xD)

So, this was the perfect oportunity, to explain how I make the pics, to pay my promise and to make my pics better! Hoping that I haven't bored you too much, lets get building a portable lightbox and photo studio, for less than 40 bucks!

I began with the 6x6mm architecture wood sticks (2 USD for twelve 50cm pieces), cutting 4 in halves. I selected two more pieces, and another one, wich I cut 6mm. And then, using my hobby drill, drilled some holes and pinned them before gluing the wood sticks to form two 25x25cm square frames and one 25x50mm rectangular one.

Then I cut a blister package in four 90° bended pieces an used the bunch of paper clips (8 USD for 40 assorted colour pieces) to hold the frames in place, giving form to the lightbox.

As you can see, the lightbox is quite fragile, but sturdy enough to mantain shape for itself. That's mainly because of the bended pieces of blister package and because of the pinned stick I cut 6mm before. One hole on the side of each squared frame and voilà.

Then I cut two 25x25cm sheets of butter paper and one 25x50cm one and have plenty enough to build like 8 lightbox more (bought 1 square meter for less than 0,5 USD). With the help of the clips, I attached the butter paper to the frames.

Before doing this, I tried diffusing light with several papers: diamond paper, butter paper, normal paper, craft paper, TNT fabric, and the best diffusing light is the butter paper (also, very cheap!). Then I got some big drawing block sheets and attached them with the help of more clips (kinda happy for having bought 40 xD). And I opened the package of my brandless mini-tripod (that i bought for 3 bucks!) to try it.

At this point, the studio looked like this:

But then I added 2 lamps (4 bucks each) with 2 Twister Phillips energy saving 23W cooldaylight bulbs that light like 100W bulbs (wich costed 5.5 USD each). Yeah, bulbs were more expensive than the lamps. That's because lamps don't matter, but bulbs are critical for miniature photography. I suggest energy saving lamps, because they almost don't produce heat and consume less. The twister ones are my favourites and they should light like 100W or more. And the most important part: cooldaylight, or natural daylight. All the other stuff just spoils the pictures. Trust me, propper lighting is crucial.

Summing up, I bought:
- wood sticks 2USD
- paper clips 8USD
- butter paper 0,5USD
- mini tripod 3USD
- 2 lamps 4USD each
- 2 bulbs 5,5USD each
So, mission accomplished! Overall I spent ~32 USD to make my lightbox and photo studio. I forgot to make the final pic, but unassembled, it fits beneath my desk, over the drawers, in a 3cm high space between those 2 surfaces! Of course the 2 side lamps should be kept in their boxes when not needed ;D

Well, that's it for now. I hope you liked it so far, and hopefully, that this enourages you to make a better lightbox, if you haven't got one already!

In the second part of this tutorial, I'll explain a bit about lighting and how to make good pics. And in the third and last part... just guess!

See ya! Soon!

SHOWCASE: Chaos Chariots

2011-02-23T05:15:00.000-03:00

Well! Finally I managed to make some pics of the chariots I finished painting last week. I changed my painting night for a picture/photoshop/uploading/posting night xD
I feel pretty happy to show these, because I painted both model, in the course of A COMPLETE YEAR! :S
Every time I intended to paint the chariots, something happened and couldn't do it. Really strange and akward things, work to do, subjects to study, tests, exams, patients, blah blah blah...

But now, I finally can say that my 2 Chaos Chariots are ready, converted, bit-swapped, fully painted and based, and ready for battle!

Let's begin with the first one.

As you can see, the only parts from the original chariot used were the chariot itself, and the base. I changed the horses for Chaos Steeds and the crew for Chaos Warriors. Used the whip arm to convert the Chaos Warrior, and the lance to make a flaming halberd for the second Chaos Warrior. I sculpted the flames on the halberd, and also in the spearhead from the chariot. Let's see some details!

Now, the second chariot. Of course I didn't use not a single piece that I've used in the previous chariot, being the whip arm the only exception. And well, I bended it to look different =3

With both miniatures I used a different technique for the long grass. Maybe you can't notice, but looks better than the previous shown miniatures with long grass (now looks like the grass is growing just from the earth).

Well, these are the pics from my 2 Chaos Chariots. I hope you have enjoyed them, as much as I (for seeing them finally ready!!! hahaha).

Comments and critics are welcomed, as usual!
See ya soon, expect more minis here in the very near future! =D
(and some other crazy DIY projects!)

SHOWCASE: Friday Gaming Night!

2011-02-19T00:49:00.002-03:00

Hi again!
Couldn't post earlier. Have been working (real work, you know) and have done tinny advances with my miniatures and projects. I could only manage to finish my 2 Chaos Chariots (yaaaaaaaaay! I began those like a year ago xD) and bought the materials for 2 differents projects I want to build in the remaining days of summer. Ah! And I began painting another Chaos Sorcerer, this time, mounted!

In the meantime, let me show you these pics, from last Friday. I titled the post SHOWCASE, because of the scenery that is shown in the slideshow. All these beautiful pieces were made by my friend Fingo, who designed and converted every single one, from scratch. Sometimes using cardboard, PVA, sand, toilet paper, untangled rope and RTV ceramic. As I said, I think these pieces are beautiful!

Now, click play and the fullscreen button!

The match was between Lemon's dwarves and Jose's High Elves. Of course I didn't make it to arrive in time, so I spent from 6pm pouring the remaining colours into the new pots, while Fingo assembled some skavens and made some custom rules for the central terrain (those creepy catacombs-like-things in the middle of the board). My friends watched the WH40K movie while I haven't arrived yet, resisted a 5° tremor (hell yeah, another one) in Lemon's appartment (6th floor xD) and then we began playing and having a great time.

Well, I'll make the pics of some minis next week, so, stay tunned!

See ya!

EDIT: Now, Fingo has his own blog!
Check it out, HERE to see lots of pics, and explanations on how he models those scenery pieces!!

SHOWCASE: Desktop and Paint Racks with new Paint Pots!

2011-02-13T03:56:00.001-03:00

Hi again! Finally I could make some time to post this:

Yeap! I have finished building my desktop, and my paint racks!
The truth to be said, I've finished some weeks ago, but couldn't post earlier and... I haven't finished putting my paints in my new paint pots until this friday! That was an epic and tedious work, I'll explain that later.
Now, lets look the building of the desktop (or the finishing part of it):

Just to reinforce, I screwed those metallic plates (no idea how to call them in english, neither in spanish xD) to the wood planks, just between them. There you can see how I attached the desk legs. A piece of wood and screwed to the leg. Then, the remainings of the piece of wood, attached to the desk. Then, added metal brackets to mantain (in the future) the 90 degrees between the legs and the desk. To finish it, I glued felt pads to the legs, in order to keep my laminated flooring in good shape.

The finished desktop, ready to receive all my hobby and learning gear!
Well, for now, only my laptop counts toward the learning things xD
But in some weeks, there will be sure some files, printed powerpoint documents, papers, publications... >.<

Coming back to the bright side, let me explain how did I put my paint into the Plysu pots.
I was able to do that (without becoming crazy or dying while waiting) with a custom spatula I made.

For the spatula, I used:
- an old dental tool, in bad shape (no longer useful, but still saved to "become something", "someday...")
- a dental silicone (better use the things you know, that's why I used that. Any RTV silicone or rubber should work aswell)
- a sheet of clear plastic

I just bended the end of the tool, to make it a bit more retentive. Mixed the silicone with the activator and formed it in the handle. Quickly, I press the silicone with the already-folded plastic sheet, to make the spatula triangular (and with a more regular surface; way better than cutting it after curing). When cured, I cut the excess with a knife and measured the spatula, to be sure that it wouls fit the citadel pots.

With the spatula in hand, I begin the almost endless task of moving the paints to their new home =3
(Is there a verb in english form moving a liquid to another container? I don't know any word for that, and recently I discovered that the word I use for this in spanish, doesn't legally exists xD)
The thing was, that I made the spatula thinking in the OOP screw cap hexagonal pots and that I didn't fit the new pots T.T
So, I had to improvise and use a leftover from the spatula making process to speed things a little. I made some sort of tripods using my pliers and clippers to hold 2 pots while I was removing the last drops of paint with the silicone leftover.

This was the most tedious part of this titanic task, so, I realized it in the first place. Then, I used the spatula and felt like a caveman with a wheel! It went easier, faster and lost almost no paint!

Well, in the meantime, I made the labels, like a caveman: using word and test-printing them until it fit the autoadhesive label-sheet I had avaliable (yeah, you can imagine me, printing and looking through the sheet if it fit the labels xD). When printed, I painted a spot on the labels with each color.
I also searched for my marble balls and made sure they fit correctly in the Plysu pots. I washed enough with boiling water and let them rest to cool down. The marble balls now became agitator agents for my paints. This is specially handy for those paints that come with their body almost lost, like some foundation paints, and the citadel metallic range.

3 second shaking with the ball inside, and voilà! Seriously, agitators reduce dramatically the shaking time needed.

After all this work, I ended with this:

In the last minute, I decided to add pot holders in the 2nd, 4rth and 6th ranks, to fill the gaps between racks.
You could also see the font I used for the labels ;) And also, you can see that I followed PapaJJ's advice and left the upper rank without holders, to have some inspirational and WIP miniatures there.

Well, I forgot to make more pics, but I hanged my whiteboard near the desktop and bought an articulated lamp, with an awesome energy-saving daylight bulb, and also, I upholstered the chair. Yeah, that blue chair is 13 years old, but it doesn't look like that now =3
Appart from everything that I said, I have been also working as painter, cashier and waiter (in events), upholsterer (my mothers idea after renewing the chair: upholster all the dinning table chairs!) and quite other things that I don't recall yet xD That's why I couldn't post earlier: it took my 3 nights to finish moving the paints to the pots (damn, I need that word!) and I wanted to finished that before posting.

But, I have still almost a month to paint. I began trying to finish a pair of miniatures I tried to finish like a year ago. Those are now almost ready, and they will be for sure the first ones finished in my new desktop, and with my new racks!

PS: but... I still have some other projects to develop in the last month of vacations I have!

WIP: Paint Racks (2) and desktop!

2011-01-26T02:39:00.002-03:00

Hi! WIP-time again!

Today I managed to finish (maybe not, not 100% sure yet) the paint racks I began building some time ago.

In the end, I followed my friend's advice (thank you Tomas!) and mixed the paint rack with the devices I was gonna build to hold my brushes and modelling files.

The idea for the brushes and files holders was more or less the same that you can see here, only appart, and with a base.

Part of the design I made for these racks, was the gradient in the paint pot holders, to easier the search of the colours (easier to see the colour names). The other thing I had in mind, was to make the racks able to hide some things, to have some space to keep some tools beneath. Lastly, the other thing I thought was that the rack shouldn't have walls in the sides, to facilite their transport (you can grab the entire rack introducing your hands in the sides of the rack!).

I said I'm not really sure if I've finished my racks or not. That's because I was going to build the same device from the first rack (for the brushes and files) on the second one, but then I realized that 43 spots was enough for both all my brushes and modelling files, and also for some new brushes in the near future. So, I have the last rank of the second rack, ready to get more pot holders. Eight more holders, making a total of 128 paint pots spots (being 16 octets wide sounds better, doesn't it? xD). I don't really know if I should put the additional 8 holders or not. Maybe I can figure out something better in the future. Or read about a better idea to use that space. What do you think, more holders, nothing, something else?

As you can see over there, those are empty paint pots. Yep, I finally bought 120 Plysu paint pots, to transfer all my paint to these marvelous pots. I've explained why these pots are absolutely superior to the GW ones, and better than the empty dropper bottles, a while ago. I managed to buy them in the british store that wouldn't send me the pots to my country, thanks to my Austausch-Schwester Susanne, who bought them in Germany, received them and sent them to me. I was able to make this move also with the help of my friend Claudio, who borrowed me his paypal account in order to pay Susi for the pots and the shipping costs!
Short story, I was finishing working on the racks today, when the mail truck arrived with the package. Another amazing delivery from the Deutsche Post. It took them less than 9 days to deliver my package to me.
Yep, LOTS of empty paint pots and their tops! =3

Finally, another WIP. This would hopefully be my desktop. I sanded the deck today and I plan to vitrify it tomorrow. And that's one of my dogs, a wire-hair-terrier called Hermo, just passing over my work. xD

I still have to get rid of these wood parts nailed underneath the deck.
The legs are already finished, and have 2 coats of polyurethane. I'll finish vitrifying them tomorrow.

Hopefully, I'll be showing the finished desktop soon.

That's for now, please don't forget to tell me what you think about the second paint rack!
See ya!

SHOWCASE: Chaos Shadows Sorcerer

2011-01-18T19:04:00.000-03:00

Hi again.
Time to show another oldie. Another sorcerer, this time a shadows sorcerer.

The sorcerer it's produced by Reaper, and the familiar it's another MK figurine. The snake was painted following the scheme of a real venomous snake. Don't remember the name, but back in the day I researched a bit to paint it. xD

Well, I think I may repaint this model. Maybe no entirely, but back in those days, the smaller brush i had was a 00, so the chaotic script looks something... BIG. Who knows, maybe someday I'll repaint it.

By the way, I've finished today my 2 paint racks! Well, almost. I'm thinking about using the upper lane to stock my brushes and files.

See ya soon! Only one more sorcerer to go, then hopefully the racks and then new miniatures!

SHOWCASE: Chaos Death Sorcerer

2011-01-12T14:10:00.005-03:00

Hello again.
Time to show some old miniatures!
Seriously, Real Life ™ is messing up with my painting plans, so, I took some pics of my sorcerers and some other miniatures, to show in the meantime.

This guy was my very first chaos sorcerer. I converted him using an old MK figurine, greenstuff for the cloak and hood, changed the staff for a skull that came in the Chaos Warriors box and that's it. Ah, Swapped the head too, for one that also came with the Chaos Warriors box (I think in that time, all I've got was a box of CW a mounted lord and a chariot xD).

The paintjob is pretty... simple? hahaha
This miniature was one of my very first, among with the other sorceres I painted back in those days.

After painting this one, I decided to have a sorcerer for each lore that the sorcerers could get. And a great sorcerer for each too, but I didn't go so far -yet-. Well, I forgot to mention that each would also need an appropiate familiar!
Reaperminis made this fantastic model, and I bought it inmediatly when choosing a familiar for my Death Sorcerer.

Ah! Almost forgot to mention, what do you think about the faded background?
I've tried to improve my photography skills, but it's quite dificult. That's why I experimented with these pics, adding the faded background (it's tedious and boring, but quite easier than taking the pics with a printed faded background, seriously!). I don't know if applying this faded background to every miniature, maybe should I select some other colour? Or another background?

Well, until next time! Await some more sorcerers in the near future!
(and hopefully, more new miniatures too!)

UPDATE: Some testing....

SHOWCASE: Blog Redesigning!

2011-01-09T23:46:00.003-03:00

Hi again.
Today I'll show you a template redisigning I've made for a friend's blog.

He was using a common blogger template. Quite OK, but not fancy enough!
I was telling him I wouuld make soon a new banner for my blog, when he asked me to make one for him aswell.
I ended doing his banner first, and also changing his background and also adding a favicon.

Abhorash, my friend, is currently suffering from a Warmachine/Menoth-fever, so I decided to go heavy when making the 3 designs. The banner looks so:

For the overall look of the redesigned blog, please go to Abhorash's Blog!
There you could see lots of Menoth miniatures, among other kinds of minis, WHFB, WH40K, terrain projects, etc. He owns like 300 armys. Kidding, only 10 or 11 xD
Anyways, he was the owner of our FLOS (friendly local online store!) and has a lot of armys to show , and lots of things to display, quite often.

Hope you like his new blog appearance. Tell me -and him- what you think about it!
Well, until next time.
See ya!

UPDATE: I've done some modifications to my blog aswell!! New background and updated banner ;D
Old and new one:

WIP: PapaJJ Rubble Bases!

2010-12-30T22:45:00.000-03:00

Hi again.
This time I would like to thank PapaJJ for the shout out on his blog. He was kind enough to show a lot of pics of some terrain rubble bases I made for him some months ago.

Everything begun with him letting everybody know he would ruin all his remaining bits from the modular movement trays he used for the Sector7G. I hit the ceiling and told him I would like to buy all those bits. The GW modular movement trays have enough corner pieces to put 2 per tray. I always liked how the MMT looked with 4 corners, but couldn't find anyone to sell me the bits I needed. I was going to cut some straight pieces in 45° to make some corners. That was when PapaJJ said he will make some rubble bases using those bits. The thing is, after knowing my idea for the pieces, he offered me all his bits, for free. I was going to buy them, and he was so kind that offered them to me for free!! I said at least I should have paid the shipping and handling but he refused. Then was when I came out with the idea of the exchange. I would make rubble bases for him and he'll give me the bits I wanted so much. That's how I ended making this:

You can see some beautiful pics of these terrain with the Haverbrook 212th Grenadiers from PapaJJ, on his latest entry. All the instructions I received from PapaJJ for his terrain, were the measures of the pieces: "2x3 or 3x5 would work well, and somewhere in the range of 1 to 3 inches tall". So, I had almost no restrictions and let my imagination fly away! xD

Let me explain how easy is to make this sort of scenery using plaster. First is to buy some plaster. For this project I used som rock hard gypsum. In dentistry we normally use plaster of paris, the white and common gypsum. There is also some harder plaster, that we call stone plaster. No idea how it's called in the US od another countries, but in any dental store you'll be able to buy thise and another kinds of plaster. Something better, even harder it's the artificial stone plaster (I think americans call it that way). Any of the alternatives will be good enough. I selected the stone hard plaster, because the terrain needed to fly to the US.

To make this you need some plastic sheet, or anything plastic and plain. You'll also need some rests of previous preparation of plaster.

Please take a look at the plaster "rocks" from the above picture. That clump of plaster came from the reminings of previous plaster preparations. For the metal bars I used leftovers from the sprues, clipped and filled to look plain. Painted with metallics paint could look like metal bars, bended and/or rusted.

When you prepair the plaster, while still humid and soft, you can put some pieces to look like half burrowed. That's what I did with the tubes, power cables, bars and rocks. I used some different types of rocks, using plaster pieces as I said, some cork pieces and some pumic stone.

To add texture, I have thrown some dry plaster to the terrain piece, while still humid. The plaster will make some clumps and will add some nice texture to the terrain piece. You can add also some types of sand to add even more texture.

For those electric installations I used the caps from printer cartdridges. Those orange bits, yeah, cartridges caps xD I used the holes that those had, to make some cables appear to the outside.

For the electric poles I glued some leftover sprues and drilled some holes to pass the cables.

I hope that soon PapaJJ will be able to paint his terrain pieces to see some pics of his incredibly Sector 7G with the rubble bases on it.

Well, until next time. I hope you understand a little about how to handle this plaster pieces. It's really easy to make some cool rubble bases using plaster. Unfortunately I didn't make pics of the process, but I will more than happy to answer all the questions you could have abot plaster handling!

SHOWCASE: Chaos Exalted Hero

2010-12-26T23:10:00.000-03:00

Hi again. This time I'll show you some pics of another GZ miniature, a full-of-charachter exalted hero with additional hand weapon.

I tend not to paint blood on my CW miniatures, principally because I don't know how to paint it as good as I would like to. Anyways, the axe from this miniature it's just so cool I felt the necessity to paint some onto it.

Ah! Forgotten to say that it is a charging exalted hero. Was it necessary? Hahaha!
I really love how dynamic this miniature is.

Until next time, comments and critics are welcomed ;D
See ya!

SHOWCASE: Chaos Knights

2010-12-14T02:48:00.000-03:00

Well, finally, more minis to show!

It was more than enough about tutorials, tips, WIPs and specially, about contests (¬¬U).
Finally some finished miniatures to show! This unit of Chaos Knights was manufactured by a spanish company called Gamezone Miniatures. They were like 100 times better than the old citadel Chaos Knights, and they were released before the new plastic citadel Chaos Knights. That's the mean reason why I spent like 8£ for each, to build a 6-men unit. Yeah pretty expensive, but in those times, they were the latest kick-ass-chaos-knights avaliable. I finished painting them in the summer, like 8 months ago, but it wasn't until last month when I retouched them, painted the bases rims with Graveyard earth and considered them really 100% finished. Enough blah-blah, let's see some pics! Click the pics for the larger versions (as usual!)

Let's begin with the unit shot:
As you can see, this miniatures come with an insane level of detail. They are metallic, an they weren't (and aren't!) comparable with the 5th or 6th Ed. Chaos Knights. And... I converted them. All of them.

I sculpted flames in every weapon they carry, changed the head from the SB and modified the helmets from the 2nd, and 6th knights. The banner? Also converted. The original one was beautiful, but it quite wasn't "enough" for an important standard like the one carried for the "Swords of Chaos". Yeah, Chosen Chaos Knights. Back in the day, that was the idea I had for this unit. I added the horizontal pole, the ropes and severed heads from an orc, dwarf, some humans and elves, among a pair of skulls. I also converted the weapons from the SB and musician. Ah! And I also replaced the shields, for the shield from Archaon.

This is the original unit painted by someone for GZ.

Well, going for some details...

First Chaos Knight. Modified steed pose, sculpted flames and shield swap.

Second Chaos Knight. Modified steed and knight poses and sculpted flames. Shield swap and converted helmet.

Standard Bearer. Changed weapon for a pole arm flaming one (converted, of course), sculpted flames, head swap (I love that Chaos Warrior Head!) and heavily converted standard. Details can be seen here. (fullscreen button and enjoy!)

Chaos Knight Champion. I've shown this before. Anyways, the only thing I've done to this marvelous model is sculpting the flames on the axe. Please look at the original standards-made cloak and the resting sword on the left hand. And the severed head hanging over there. Everything, just straight from the box!
Ah! And also my first attempts at weathering! Not quite good, but when I did that, I don't even had any pigments! (now I have 2, not a great difference! lol)

Chaos Knight Musician. Modified steed and knight poses, sculpted the cloak (it's the only model without a cloak, unbelievable IMHO) and fur and replaced the weapons for modified ones, that were made using Chaos Warriors maces and some spikes. That awesome severed head, it's original from the miniature.

Sixth Chaos Knight. Modified steed and knight poses (to look like jumping), sculpted flames. Shield swap and converted helmet. The idea was to make unnoticeable the fact that this and the second knight were the same miniature. For the second I added a hair knot from the Chaos Warriors box, and for this I used metallic horns from a mtd. Chaos Sorcerer. I also swapped the weapon from one of these, for another from a knight with a coverted weapon and a remaining one. Modifying the pose had helped a bit, hadn't it?

Lastly, please take a look at the bases. Every one connects with the base from both sides. It's like a little diorama. Bloody sudoku? Obviously!

Well, I think there are enough pics now. =)
Please feel free to ask whatever you want about these minis, as usual. Critics and comments would be welcomed.

PS: DAMNIT!! I completely forgot to put the unit on its movement tray! Well, it's not such a big thing, but it looks nice on a modular built tray, with four-sided-Graveyard Earth painted-rims! (Thank you PapaJJ!)

BANNER CONTEST FINAL ENTRY!

2010-12-11T23:52:00.000-03:00

Woa! As you could have already read, I was selected as one of the 3 finalist of the banner competition held at Dark Future Games. We were asked to modify some little things to our entries and the 3 finals banners can be looked out HERE.

My final entry and modified banner is this:

I worked to "pop" the title a little. Corrected the grammar in the description (missing final point) and even a typo from the previous banner (millennium)! For the title, please don't think I reversed the colours! xD
It's a little bigger, thicker and it's not pure white and black (you can copy and paste in paint, zoom it and you'll notice!). The other thing I corrected was the description, no more italic characters. It does pop out more just as it is, and while changing the description back to normal, I made it a little bigger.

The other things I corrected were the exposition, shadows, highlights blah blah blah
As I said to OST, I won't bore you with such technichal-blah blah! But I hope that the pic speaks for itself!

Well, please take a look to the other entries and express your opinion in the comments section!
Thanks in advice for your support!

See ya soon. I have lots of new miniatures to show!

BANNER CONTEST ENTRY!

2010-11-29T15:31:00.001-03:00

Hello again.

Not any new miniatures pics. Sorry. But now I can show you (because yesterday , I couldn't) my entry to the banner contest that's running by Dark Future Games, a cool and well-known blog I've been following for a while.

The rules of the contest can be read HERE, and the entries, RIGHT HERE.
Mine is the 6th entry, the one with the Dark Inquisitor, as said by Old School Terminator.

I also made 2 variants for my entry: the same banner but using their classic description, and also without any description (thinking about when DFG decides to change it somewhen in the future).

And last but not least, I added 2 variants for a favicon. I found favicon quite fancy, and DFG didn't have one yet. Quite simple, but nice looking, aren't they?

Well, I think Old School Terminator and his budies are the ones who will decide who wins, but I will appreciate some support in the comments sections =3
What do you think? Who should win? Say it in the entries anouncement post, in DFG!

HOBBY TIP: Glue Applicator

2010-11-14T22:57:00.001-03:00

Hi again.
This time I've decided not to post "another" WIP. I was the kind of hobbyst who worked endlessly until the project was finished before starting another. Now I realized that I've got:
- a bunch of unfinished marauders (waiting for green and grey stuff to arrive to scultp some things)
- partly assembled 15-man Chaos Chosen unit (waiting... to have time?)
- 2 unfinished Chaos Chariots (that I haven't finished because... the last time I tried, my room was 5ºC and the paint took forever to dry, then I went to sleep)
- a 15-man Chaos Warriors unit (unfinished, because of the standard icon that I haven't painted, yet)
- another 15-man Chaos Warriors unit (finished, but using old paint scheme, now waiting to repaint the cloaks)

This is unacceptable. Or was.
At least, so I considered until the beginning of this year xD
Well, too much depressing blah blah. Let me show you how to make a quick glue applicator:

To make one of this useful -and barely known- tool you will need:
- seweing needle (a big one will be better)
- pliers
- handle (optional, but useful)

Well, all you need is to cut the first third of the needle head with your pliers, to achieve something like this:

As you can imagine, the idea is to catch very small amounts of glue there, right in that "U" in the top of the needle. If you have a dead pen, a wood stick, or any other thing that would work as handle, go ahead!
I used this handle, wich belonged to a chisel I used when I was 12 years old xD

With this tool, you'll be able to use your glue in those areas where you need very small amounts. There are a lot of bits that shouldn't be glued with too much glue (as you should know, not always more glue it's the best solution when gluing).

That's it! The repaired model, the champion of the Chaos Warriors unit I told before, that were waiting for repainted cloaks. Now, with his additional sword in place, as well as his spiked knee.
Until next time, hopefully, with something finished!

WIP: Building my paint rack(s)!

2010-11-08T23:41:00.001-03:00

Yup. Another WIP, I know.

I'm quite busy those days, trying to close the academic year and passing all my subjects xD

Well, in the meantime (hoping to have a little more time to paint/play/convert/finish all those WIPs), let me show you the device that will hold all my paints (hopefully, soon) wich I had begin building last week:

To build this one (that's unfinished, BTW) I used a single 1x2" wood stick, a box of 1 1/2" screws and a silly amount of plastic tube clamps. If you click in the image, you'll see that the grey things that hold the pots are just those clamps used to attach tubes on the roofs/walls. =D

How did I get to these idea? Quite curious.
Wasting my time on the internet, I found the amazing Miniature Scenery racks. Yeah, they are freaking AMAZING. You have just to glue them and voilà! The thing is I don't have 250+ USD to buy such an amazing combo of racks, neither the space to field it. After realizing that, one day walking on the street, I passed near an Rexel Electra shop. I saw the glass cabinet trhough the window and discovered those things. No idea how to call them in english. I bought one (yeah, one! think in the face of the seller) to measure and run some tests. Short story: size A was to small for the citadel pots and size B was much too big and it would be a waste of space.

So, I thought about changing all those awkward pots for dropper bottles. I use to dilute a bit my paints, and I like mixing them. And I hate wasting things. Don't get me wrong, it is not about being Scrooge, it is about control, and not wasting insane amounts of paint, letting it dry in those horrible pots!
I found cheap empty dropper bottles here in Chile (in another city, BTW) and buy some to try them.

They fitted pretty OK in the clamps, but I didn't liked how it turned out with the paint. As you can see, the paint tend to stay in the inner walls of the bottles, just like in the citadel pots, promoting the paint to dry faster. And I also didn't like the size of the drops; it was just too much paint for one drop.

Well, I always hated the screw tops paint pots and loved the old old OLD citadel paint pots, back from the years of the 2nd or 3rd editions of WHFB. After some research, I confirmed that nowadays, Coat d'Amrs, Privateer Press and Wargammes Foundry still use those amazing paint pots.

Quite... THE SAME!!

So, I decided to discard the idea of the dropper bottles and try to get the pots I always loved xD

I started searching for anyone selling the pots, empty with a price more affordable than the ones from CdA (5 pounds for 10 pots +30% for shipping O.o!). A very nice user from Warseer, Verm1s, told me (in a thread I started in WS) about an oline shop that sell the pots for only 0,21 pounds each (if buying more than 100, that is my case).

The thing is, that *@#€&! store don't want to sell me, the 120 pots I want, because they only send to Europe and the US. ¬¬U
I'm now thinking what to do in order to be able to buy these freaking pots!! I don't have any relatives over there and after begging the chick from the store to let me buy the pots, all I got was:

I'm afraid we only post these pots to Europe.

Sorry,

Linda

Well, in the meantime, while figuring it out, I'll be able to complete the rack and build its sister!
I intend to add 2 or 3 more ranks, to make the rack hold 51 or 60 pots. I haven't decided yet, but I think I will make two 60-pots racks, in order to have all my paints there and enough room for the next 20 colours I would like to buy in the near future.

What do you think about it? Have you ever build a rack for your paints? What do you think about mine?
Any idea on what should I do to buy the pots? 51, 60 or 68 pots per rack?

See ya next time!!

WIP: Chaos Marauders (2)

2010-10-30T18:53:00.003-03:00

As I promissed to Rabidchild, here are some pics of my latest bunch of Chaos Marauders. Like him, I really dislike the "vedetto-look" the GW marauders have. Living in the tundra, and wearing no more than leather strips doesn't make any sense to me. This is what I understand when I talk about marauders:

Brutal. Iron skin. Cloaks. Lots of fur. Heavy weapons.

And bloodthirst!

No matter what, I don't think all this match with these:

That's why I'm making my own marauders, with loads of conversions, bits from other boxes and I'm planning to follow the first concept art picture and I'm going to sculpt cloaks for them, and fur for some shoulders (and adding marauders and CSM shoulder pads for some others).

Please click the fullscreen button, and enjoy :D

Yeah, I know most of you don't care about the GW marauders, most of the people think they are OK. I don't. GW has some wonderful concept art for their marauders, but nowadays they still have those old and shemale-looking marauders on their stores! (homosexuals, no offense!)

For these first 18 marauders I've used bits from:
- Chaos Marauders
- Chaos Warriors
- Beast Herd (the old one, with Ungors and Gors bits)
- Chaos Marauder Horsemen
The legs are the 4 halfs of the torsos from the Chaos warriors, modified, adapted and the mould-casted for this puopose (that's why the white look). The torsos came from the Marauder and Marauder Horsemen sprues; the firsts filled a bit and the horsemen torsos cut from the legs. For the heads I used CW, CM, CMH and converted CW heads. For the arms I used CM, CMH shields, CM, CMH, Ungors and Gors weapons and CMH javelins. The great weapons? They were made using CM and CMH flails, cutting the chains and balls, then adding some CW weapon part (last marauder hammer), parts (8th marauder, with their hammer comming from 2 pieces of the same CW hammer) and the champion's axe from the CMH (5th marauder).

If you look close enough, you'll be able too see that there is NO same head in the unit, also, not the same weapons, or configurations. Talking about configurations, every rank has a marauder with:
- flail
- second hand weapon
- hand weapon and shield
- javelin and hand weapon
- great weapon
- javelin and shield
Yeah, I know, some of this configurations are not legal. What can I say? I don't care! My goal it's to have a nice looking army, not a bunch of tourney-legal-3-colour units xD
Ah! If you keep looking, there is no single configuration that repeats in the same row, neither in the same rank ;)
(there's when my freinds begin calling me "sudoku")
I know the marauders asses look quite funny, that's because I haven't filled them yet, and also the cloak will hide this "disproportion".

I'm thinking about doing 6 or 12 marauders more for this unit. I haven't played a single WHFB game since the 8th edition came out (Real-Life™ sucks!). Lie, almost none, I've played maybe 2 times ¬¬U
So, I don't have any idea if I should make 18, 24 or 30 men units of marauders. Anyways, I'm thinking more about the weapons and heads I'll need to convert, to make more than 6 marauders (not same bit, obviously), than their effect on the game. What do you think? Game-wise, what's better? 15, 18, 20, 21, 24, 28 or 30 marauders unit?

I want to hear your opinion, what dou you think about the GW models, my conversions and sizes for this unit? Let me know your opinion!!

WIP: Chosen Chaos Warriors

2010-10-19T00:03:00.001-03:00

Once again, looong time without posting. I think it's not worth to explain why the real life is sometimes such a bitch! It's better to use that time showing you some pics of my recently built Chosen Warriors!

I finally received the 2 boxes I needed for assembling this unit (I already had one); and, a couple of months ago, PapaJJ sent me a box of Chaos Knights with another miniatures. I had no trolls before, neither the Nurgle sorcerer he sent me, but I already had enough knights, still in box. When I first received that box of knights I thought: "FINALLY A BOX OF KNIGHTS, JUST TO USE THEM FOR CONVERSIONS!". That's right, I built my 15 men unit using lots of bits from the Chaos Knights sprues and also some Possessed Space Marines bits!

Enough, too much words, let the pics talk for themselves:
(please click in the fullscreen button!)

It's still a very early WIP, but at least I selected all the bits I wanted and pinned every arm and head, and glued the modified bits. Believe me, that's a hughe step for me; my friends say I "play sudoku" when thinking about building units, because I like them too look very chaotic, but at the same time, martial. The poses can be similar, but I hate to use the same bit twice. When I can't avoid it, I figure it out to use the bit only one time in a rank and also one time only in that column. A litle obsessive, maybe. Chaotic enough, almost never. =P
Also, making all the Chosen fit in that tiny bases, was almost an engineer work. The Chosen are freaking big! And sometimes mine look bigger because of the possitioning of their weapons and shields I gave them. The idea was to achieve a little more movement for such static models. They are big, cool, badass and chaotic, but assembled all with 2HW and in the same position it's kinda... boring!

Ok, that's for now. I hope next time I could post earlier.
What do you think about the conversions? Do the Possessed SM bits and Chaos Knights fit with the Chosen?

And what about the slideshow? It's better for sharing lots of pics, without filling pages and pages with the same images, don't you think? I changed the slideshow service, because of the fullscreen button, I think it's pretty cool and overall, simplier than the previous one used.

Well, see ya next time!
And again, THANK YOU PAPAJJ! That Chaos knights box it's being SO useful! I have lots of projects for all the remaining bits!!

GD UK 2010 - Warhammer Forge picture report!

2010-09-27T00:52:00.000-03:00

Woa! Long time without posting (again).

I was preparing a short post explaining how to make your own wet palette for less than 5USD, then I saw that the GD UK was today! I was so excited looking to the pics of the Warhammer Forge miniatures that are coming, that I couldn't believed no one else hasn't make a pic report about it yet! So, I searched the best pics and made a slideshow! I will not cover the 4WH40K releases; I enjoyed looking the new DE, but there are a lot of blogs and sites where you can watch those news.

I must say I just loved that Chaos Ogre. And also the Chaos Dwarfs Machines. It's a shame that Warhammer Forge will begin focusing in Nurgle. I would like it to be chaos undivided first, but hell, 4 books, minis, 4 IA-like narrative campaigns dedicated for chaos it's more than excellent enough!! I find pretty cool to have great campaign/background book (series of books) with minis to match; they will be resin casted, just as FW ones. Mark Bedford amd Rick Priestly have a lot to do with this huge project.

The first book will be called Thamurkhan: Throne of Chaos and will tell the incursions of Thamurkhan, a Nurgle-devoted champion. Initially this guy who spreads west through the lands of the Chaos Dwarves and the Ogre Kingdoms. Finally pitching up in the Empire. This is not written as an unbroken narrative but rather as a selection of scenes or encounters, parts of the story which give the background for the battles. Spread over more than 40 chapters he will follow the fortunes of the key characters. He follows the fortunes of TamurKhan for a bit then leaves him hanging whilst following the fortunes of one of his lieutenants for example or spotlighting events elsewhere in the warhammer world which have a bearing on the tale, before returning to the main characters again. All sumptiously illustrated with fine artworks and wonderful maps showing the routes followed by the main protagonists so we can place the events in the warhammer world as the story unfolds.

My understanding is that the first book features the expansion of Nurgle into the West. This will be followed by the expansion of Tzeentch into the south, Slaanesh into the East and Khorne into the North. I think we can only begin to imagine what happens when all four points of the Chaos star are in place. Hopefully, something better than the Storm of Chaos. (LOL)

Nurgle only gets all the love initially ... with the first book.
They get something similar to an IA book but a series of books are planned. All centered around Chaos. *INSERT "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY" SOUND HERE*
The first book will be released in about six months time and then I guess the rest over the coming few years (much like they have rolled out the AI books).

Well, quite enough excitement for today. That's quite a summary from all the info over the Bols Lounge, Warseer forums and some blogs. I've selected the best pics I could find, to represent this colossal expansion of my hobby. What do you think about the Warhammer Forge? About it's project? What about the new minis?
From my part, I will begin sparing some money in order to not be forced to sell one of my kidneys, a part of my liver or both of my corneas to get some of these models. For now, I'm just drooling with that Chaos Ogre and thinking about the other that will be released (at least 2 differents more) and probably in the future, some Dragon Ogres. Damn!! This whole thing it's almost too cool to live with! xD

See ya!

WANNA FREE STUFF?

2010-08-19T01:17:00.002-03:00

Uf! Long time without posting!
Short story: as you should know, I won in the contest that the nice PapaJJ held in diceRolla, with the help of another nice man who runs Sons of Taurus. I've already received my prize, but I also won a SUPER BLOG CHAIN GIVE AWAY, held by Mattarias at Ex Incendia et Flamma. Before knowing I will won the SBCGA, I was planning to do my own to give someone some gifts, in order to celebrate the prize I won at at diceRolla. The thing is, now I have at least 2 give-aways planned and this will be the first.

You don't know what is the super blog chain giveaway?
Shortly, it's like a contest, where the host gives away some prize and the winner then makes another give-away and so on. This cool idea has begun by Jhon at Santa Cruz Warhammer and then it has spread in the entire world.

Now, it's my turn to give something away for one blogger.
What will be this time?

As you see, the prize will be a hobby tools set, consisting in:
- Hobby knife + 3 blades
- Set of 4 diferent tweezers
- Set of 6 metal files
- Set of 5 diamond files
To begin I've thought, something for beginners (or maybe for some of you how don't have these tools), because I would have loved to receive any of these when I was starting playing WHFB and preparing my first miniatures. Nowadays I use such tools every time I work with my miniatures, but in those years the only things I had were the minis, glue and a brush with 9 paints. That's why I've choosed to give away these tools, to help someone to begin with the hobby, or give someone some tools he/she don't own yet.

Are you wondering, what to do to win these stuff? The rules:

1. You must have a blog.

2. You must have something worthwhile to offer up to give away for free.

3. If you win, you must hold your own blogsite give away

4. You must contact Santa Cruz Warhammer with a link to your give away so they can send bloggers to your site.

5. You may only enter once per give away.

To enter you must:

- Being a follower of Nesbet Miniatures.

- Leave a comment here, with your blog name and url, before the deadline: 9th September

- Tell me what are you going to give away if you win.

The winner will be choosed at random , but I'll give more chances to the ones who offer better prizes for their own give-away. The winner will be anounced the 09-11-10.

That's it. Now, who wants free stuff?

PS: I've planned to give more things away, but the mail service of my country didn't allow me to post lots of things they consider "dangerous". What's SO dangerous in a bottle of cyanoacrilate-glue? Don't know, but I'll think in more things I can add to the prize in the weeks before the deadline! Stay tunned!

PS2: Are you wondering where I'm from? Shipping costs? Doesn't matter! I'll pay the shipping, regardless where the winner is from!

I WAS A WINNER!!!

2010-08-03T01:11:00.007-03:00

Yay! For the first time (not 100% true, but almost) I won a contest!
I haven't even won the bingo from the long-bus-trips that were made when I was a child, where EVERYONE got at least a free ticket or a mug.

It was so cool to see this package coming last Wednesday!

I think you don't know, but the good fella from diceRolla had a contest to win tons of chaos warriors miniatures. I wasn't lucky enough to enter the contest before the deadline, and just knew that when the winner was announced. I just said "bad luck" and congratulations for the winners. Winners, that's it, lots of them, because the good-hearted Jason not only give away hundreds of chaos warriors to the winner, he also make everyone who participated win some stuff, depending on the army or game they played! Yes, unbelievable or not, some nice guys still do exist!

Ok, but, what did the pic over there and the story have to do with me? The winner (of the first prize) was another very nice person, who runs another blog I follow: Sons of taurus. He was lucky enough to win the big prize. The thing is, when I replyed Jason in diceRolla, he answered me that James (from Sons of Taurus) already had contacted him to give me a part of HIS prize!!

I was really amazed for such nice gestures of kindness. First PapaJJ then Jim... Wow!!
Now, what did I win?

- Chaos Knight box
- Chaos Trolls x 3
- Nurgle Sorcerer
- Chaos Sorcerer

Just to make sure you understand how magnanimous and nice some people are, PapaJJ don't ever let me pay the shipping costs!

I'm sorry I couldn't post earlier, but I got the package just before I left town to travel to Santiago. I attended a dentistry convention there, to present a poster:

Now I've already planned my give-away. I just need to make the pics in order to post the info. So, stay tunned if you want to grab some free stuff!! Of course I'll pay the shipping costs, it's the least I can do after being gifted by such awesome persons like PapaJJ and Jim!

See ya next time!

PS: Before that, I need to thank Abhorash and the other guys from Santiago, who offered me nice games and hospitality. Waiting for the pics to post!

INCOMING: The Island of Blood

2010-06-22T23:16:00.002-03:00

What a funny name, isn't it? It has been talked a lot in WH forums about the name of the brand new boxed set. I think it's a bit lame, I can imagine the sort of conversation between a kid and his mother: "Mom! I really want THE ISLAND OF BLOOD!" "The island of what? STFU & GTFU!"

Anyways, I'm not a kid, my mother (or dad) never bought me anything hobby-related (MTG, PTCG, MK, WHFB) and the suckers from GW really know how to drain the money from all of us, regardless their stupid decisions, price uprises, new politics, etc, so, I don't care.

What I do care about, is what will be happening with WHFB with the new edition. Many wargammers said that the 8th edition starter set would contain DE vs HE, DE vs DoC, DE vs VC and some other nonsense. The thing is, a nice user from BoLS (thank you Gonewild) sent me 2 days ago, the newsletter talking about The Island of Blood, that confirmed DE vs HE. I don't know why I haven't received that newsletter yet, not in english, neither in spanish. Maybe because I'm not american? Who knows!

Anyways, the e-mail says the following:

Incoming! The Island of Blood

The Warhammer world; it is a place riven by battle, where mighty armies clash for glory, honour or the entertainment of Dark Gods. Darkened skies, tortured by cataclysmic magics tear open and rain blood upon the ceaseless combatants and the landscape is wracked by the carnage around it. Trees writhe in mutated agony, lashing out with limb and branch and rivers flow thick with the corpses of the slain. All upon the land are consumed by the unending battle, an age of war in which victory and defeat hang in the balance.
Cast against this macabre tableau fight mighty armies -warriors by their million raise banners of defiance or icons of dismay, taking up arms in the clash for survival. Beleaguered and surrounded, the forces of Order fight desperately to stem the tide of the armies of Destruction. Delighting in the carnage and ruination, the Dark Gods look on.
The Island of Blood is but one battleground upon the face of the Warhammer world, a mystical and dangerous place that has been twisted and mutated by the warping power of Chaos. In ages past the Island of Blood was a battleground upon which armies have bled and died in the ageless battle for supremacy... and they will do so again. Soon.

The Island of Blood is the new boxed game for Warhammer and is released this September. Packed full of stunning plastic Citadel miniatures and containing all the rules, dice and templates you'll need to play, it's the essential purchase for fans of the Warhammer hobby.
Meanwhile, if you like the Battle for Skull Pass boxed game (and who wouldn't with all those Goblins and Dwarfs) then it only seems fair to point out that once the last few remaining copies are gone they're gone, and they're never coming back! Pick one up while stocks last.
In August we'll feature more information about The Island of Blood on games-workshop.com and the full details will be released in September's White Dwarf.
If you can't wait until September to get your hands on the new rules then don't forget that the new Warhammer Rulebook and complete range of accessories are available to advance order by clicking on the image below.

I'll be waiting the 8th Ed. rulebook. I can't wait to see if GW fails or acomplishes the goal of balancing the entire game without re-releasing all the books during 4-5 years. It's said that this edition comes with the biggest changes to a GW game in a decade. Let's hope the balance comes back to the metagame, and also that no other army becomes the new VC or DoC of 8th edition. When the book would be avaliable, I really hope to see the changes balance the game. If that fails, we still have the promised host of Army Book FAQ's to come. After that, nothing. I would like to say a friend "YOU WERE WRONG! This edition is not as bad as you said it will be!!" Hopefully I will be able to say that, otherway he'll be repeating "EDICION MALA!"

The time to test the rules, try new units, diferent formations, diferent units, amounts of miniatures, etc etc is about to come, so, be ready to forget everything you knew about WHFB and play lots of games in order to learn and have fun!

What do you think? How will the 8th. edition affect your army? Isn't it too soon to be happy/sad for the changes for your army?

SHOWCASE: Ogres conversions!

2010-06-12T13:49:00.003-03:00

Wow, an update!!
And what an update!

The following pictures are really nice ogres conversion-work. They were made by Tobias Tebring, a zone representative of GW Spain. He was kind enough to send me more pics of his ogres, wich were made with the new minotaurs sprues, ogre bulls and ogre ironguts.

Pretty cool, aren't they?
After looking at those bad-ass conversions, I'm seriously thinking doing something alike for my chaos ogres.
I'll buy a minotaurs box, one ironguts box and 3 minotaurs torsos in Hoard o' Bits. Filling the fur and maybe adding some GS in between the muscles of the bodies, to make them look a little less muscular xD
I'm thinking about sculpting trousers, some chainmail, armour plates, swapping the gut-plates for chaos marauder horsemen shields, using the ogre bulls weapons, ogre ironguts 2HW and minotaurs weapons too, and then they should look more than OK, you think?

Thanks again Tobias, for the pics and all the explanations.

See ya!

PS: Tobias, I'll be looking for your new blog!!

TUTORIAL: Plaster Walls

2010-05-29T00:33:00.001-03:00

Hi! I have not yet make some photos from my latest paintjobs. To not let pass another month without posting, I'll show you how to make cool, heavy and good looking walls made from plaster, with some LEGO and some masking tape using Bobby's method.

First of all, make some rectangular and empty structures. Those will serve us like a mold. Then, use some masking tape to seal the gaps between the LEGO blocks.

Then you must prepare the plaster. There is a mathematical formula to mix it properly, a weigth-volume relation. 18ml of water to 100gr of plaster. But I think none of you have something to weigth such measures, so keep in mind a part of water to 5 parts of plaster.

Mix properly for a minute, and then pour the plaster quickly in the "mold". In dentistry, you must avoid at all cost the bubbles, with the vibration of a machine, or simply hiting the mold at the desk. For this purpose, the bubbles will be just fine. At least the little ones.

Just try to pour enough plaster to fill the mold, hit it softly at the desk, and if you notice the level of plaster goes dramatically down, add more plaster. If not, just hit until the surface is flat and a little more.

The piece of plaster will get hotter, then cooler, it will evaporate some water and then it will heat again to become cooler slowly. Just wait half an hour to undo the mold.

Voilà!!
Now you have a decent piece of plaster that looks good from 3 meters away. You can't leave it that way, can you?

As I said, in dentistry you must make the casts bubble-free. But for wargaming pieces of terrain, the little bubbles in the walls will look just fine!

With the help of a tip, a needle, a clip, a nail or anything pointy, make sure you "sculpt" the gaps between the blocks following the molding lines.

Add some more holes and little imperfections to the wall.

It should look like more or less like this:

With the help of a modelling file, make the surface flat. With a modelling knife, sculpt the gap details from the upper blocks.

Now, to texturize the surface of the blocks you can use a wire brush or some pomice powder. Any oh these will look fine. You can ever mix both.

You can get pumice at any drugstore, or in any dental shop, to pay less than if buying at a modelling shop.

Finally, here they are. The one from the left was finished with pumice, and the one in the right, with the brush.

In a near future, I pretend to explain how to make modular walls to build some bigger structures, like castles, towers and houses. I hope you liked the tutorial.

As a final word i would like to say, if you like the idea and want to make eternal pieces of terrain this way, use another plaster. There ARE another types of plaster. Ask in a dental shop for die stones and resin die stones. Those costs maybe 2 or 3 times more than normal plaster, but their strength is 10x the stregth of the plaster. In my country the prices for those 3 kinds of plaster per Kg. are 2, 6 and 10 bucks. Sure you can get it much cheaper, specially if you buy more than just a kilo!

See ya later!

WIP: Chaos Marauders

2010-05-15T01:48:00.000-03:00

Whoa!! 2 months without posting :S
I should really make more time in order to post regularly. But Real Life™ sucks. It really "drains" life sometimes.

Now I'll show you, some prototypes of my Chaos Marauders-to-be. Those were made with hobby-tac just to take some pics. Crappy pics by the way, but I forgot my cam and took these with a cellphone.

The legs are from chaos warriors, converted to fit the marauder torso bit, also converted. The legs were cloned in polyurethane resin. I'll be using chaos marauders, chaos beastmen and chaos marauder horsemen bits for the arms, shields and other bits also. I'm thinking about sculpting cloaks to all of them. Will look pretty cool, but it's a lot of effort and I would spend lots of time. I haven't post for more than 2 months; will I be able to sculpt 60+ cloaks? I'll definitively think abou it.

Now, the important part: the pics!

Well, that's for now...

I'm also preparing a tutorial, about painting fire (physical fire, not plane flames!). But first I'll post some pics of my last chaos warriors unit I finished over 2 months ago.

See ya!

RESOURCE: Paints Equivalence Charts

2010-02-26T18:08:00.000-03:00

Now I'm home, and my not-finished chaos warriors are not. So, just to help The Trading Post with an article, I'm going to post these charts. You don't know what TTP is? Go there and join the fun!

These charts will help you if you want to have equivalent (more or less) colours with different brands. Personally, I love having not only Citadel paints, I use aslo the Foundation gamma, some vallejo and a lot of Coat d' Arms pots.
Sometimes it's useful to have a nearly (but not totally) identical colour to make a smooth hightlight, or you can have almost the same discontinued colour you loved, but from another brand. Vampire Red, Regal Blue, Leprous Brown, Tentacle Pink, anyone?

You can search here for the colours you want!

First chart equivalences: Coat d' Arms - Vallejo Model Color - Vallejo Game Color - Citadel

Citadel - Rackham - Reaper - Vallejo Game Color:

A lot more:

That's it! I hope it helps people finding their loved discontinued colours, or just encourages them trying another brands!

See ya!

WIP: Chaos Warriors with Halberds

2010-02-25T01:51:00.002-03:00

Uf! Long time without a new entry. I should learn how to optimize my time in order to paint faster and post faster too. Just a quick update, my nearly finished warriors of chaos unit, with halberds.

That is how they will look like, more or less.

While uploading the pics I painted the final shadows on the metals, a bunch of details, the shields and highlights. The things I still have to paint are some highlights here and there, a wash on the weapons and then basing! But before basing, I will paint the flames! The principal object of this post was to have a record of the flames I sculpted, before painting! How do they look like yet? Soon will come the final pics.

See ya.

PS: Wondering how did I manage to paint all that stuff while uploading? I'm a very slow painter, but the mobile boradband modem I'm using here is way slower than me.

TUTORIAL: Paint Medium (or... How to resurrect your paints!)

2010-01-22T01:33:00.003-03:00

Hello. This time I'll blog about mediums. Specially, about matt medium, in order to know how to raise your colours back from the dead! (like this utterly separated-and-almost-dryed Fortress Grey)

Some time ago, I had a stupidness-lapsus, when I decided to add water to all my 100+ paint pots. The thing is, you should add water when painting, but you shouldn't add too much! And adding water straight to the pots it's an even worse idea. Yeah, I've done it to all my colours. Then, I shaked the pots like hell, only to see that the procedure was allright. As you read, allright, everything OK. The paint was OK and everything fine; that was when I thought about the paint and the long term effects of adding water to the paints.

The paint is a solution that consists in a solute (the pigments) and the solvent (acrylic solvent, in this case). When you add water indiscriminately you can "break" the solution, causing more trouble than you already had. That means the paint will separate even more than usual. As you should know, some paints tend to separate more than anothers. This is the case of colours like Bleached Bone, Blood Red, Sunburst Yellow, etc. That's normal, because the solvent slowly evaporates from the paint; but with the use (and the help of the crappy paint pots that GW uses to sell their paint) that happens faster and to every single colour.

After this long introduction, let me explain the bright side of this post. The thing is that you can revert this adverse effect with the help of a medium.
What's a paint medium? A paint medium has at least 3 meanings:
- synonymous to solvent
- category of painting or simply a type of paint, such as oil painting, acrylics, or watercolors.
- an auxiliary product to change the consistency/fluidity/brightness/etcof your paint
The third meaning is what I'll explain now.
After a little research and talking in the Warseer Forums Piotrov recommended me using a Liquitex Matt Medium in order to fix my paints. I've searched in my country and nobody sells Liquitex products, so, I decided to use a local brand (for just 2 bucks!).

I just added 0,5ml of the matt medium with a syringe.

At this step was when I thought "OMG OMG OMG I have totally ruined my paint!"

Mix vigorously.

Voilà!

The idea using matt medium (other than repair your paint) is to get completely matte, dull and flat effects and a non-reflecting finish. That's why Piotrov suggested me the matt medium and not any other (like glaze medium, gloss medium, ultra-matte medium, etc). When mixed with acrylic paint, it extends color, increases transparency, matte and film integrity, eases paint flow, and adds to the flexibility and adhesion of paint film. It is opaque when wet and translucent when dry.

Your paints will look like if you had recently shaken them, without doing a single wrist movement! And, they will look like a good paint, and act like a very good one, with a nice fluidity and normal transparency in the long therm, on the contrary when adding water to the pot. It won't alter the normal transparency of the colour; not as the "too-much-watered-down" paints!
Look at this pot of Bleached Bone. It looks even better than when it was new!

I hope this helps more people. Thanks to Piotrov and to every member of the WS comunity that colaborated with experiences and suggestions.

PS: Piotrov, I didn't forgot about trying with metallics!
Now I love Citadel Metallic Range even more than before! Seriously, metallic paints with medium rocks!
I'm seriously thinking about buying some other paints from brands I don't like (like Vallejo) because of it's consistency. With the medium, that problem should be fixed and my gamma of colours will grow even more!

In the other hand, I forgot the initial picture of the Burnished Gold pot, but I'm sure mine looked as bad as yours. Completely separated, with 2mm of solvent in the surface and lot of paint in the lid.
Now, I have even resurrected some paint from the pot lid!!!

Yeah! You're seeing it right! Absolutely raised from beyond! Even from the pot lid!

Quarter Recurrent Painting Contest!

2010-01-08T02:17:00.003-03:00

Abhorash announced on RO that he'll be running quarters recurrent painting contest!
The idea is to paint a group of miniatures every 3 months to get a 10% discount.
The group should be 30 points or more. Miniatures on foot are 1 point each, cavalry 3 points, big ones 5 points and so on.

My chosen for this quarter are:

Chaos Lord on Demonic Steed
Chaos Charriot (x2)
Chaos Warrior (15)

Here's the initial picture of the group:

And here it's a quick WIP of the bases for the warriors:

See ya!

EDIT:

In order to not being disqualified in March, here's the official initial picture (with the Lord unboxed, for Christ's sake!):

SHOWCASE: Dwarf Warriors Unit 1

2010-01-06T03:29:00.001-03:00

Here they are! I've finished and delivered these "little tanks" to his owner while ago, but I haven't make the pics, until today. Topo let me their dwarfs I painted so I could make the forgotten "finished" pictures, and also, correct some microscopic mistakes.

This unit is 99% ready. The 1% remaining is the movement tray. The modular movement tray that Topo bought is still travelling home, so I pasted the magnetic sheets on every base and attached the dwarfs to the magnetic sheet that will be in the movement tray. Anyways here are the pics!

C&C are welcomed.
See ya soon!

WIP: Dwarf Warriors Unit 1

2009-12-27T16:34:00.001-03:00

As I said, I'm still working in this comission work.
I said the owner I was finally 100% ready with the paintjob. Sadly, that's was not true. I forgot completely the conversion work I must do. Now I'm working with the forgotten shoulderpads.

Next time I'll be showing the final pics. Maybe not 100% ready, because of the modular movement trays that hasn't arrived yet. Anyways, see ya!

(December's) Contest Entry: Chaos Knight Champion

2009-12-25T23:19:00.001-03:00

Hi!

This is decembers entry for the recurrent painting contest in RO.

It's a chaos knight champion. The theme of this month was "unit champions", that's why I've chosen this one. It's manufactured by Gamezone; a spanish fantasy miniature company.

Now I'm working in the comission work from last month (actually, from October). I feel really ashamed because of this. I would really like to have more time to finish this project earlier.

See ya soon. Next time (hopefully!) with pics of those dwarf warriors!

TUTORIAL: Mould Making, part 2

2009-12-21T02:48:00.001-03:00

Now it's time to show part 2 of this tutorial.

OK, we were waiting the silicone to cure. Now, 24 (or more) hours later, it's done, so, you must remove the plasticine and wash with water.Then, I've turned the hemi-molds upside down and built the LEGO boxes.

Before finishing the boxes, use the vaseline or lubricant and apply a thin layer over your bit and mold. This is made to avoid the uncured silicone to stick to the cured silicone.

Then I prepared the mix and repeated the process.

Then again, wait another 24 hours. And voilà!

Now it was time to arrange and fix the molds. Cut the flashs, cut every bit own mold, and the most important, cut holes to pour the resin.

Before anything else, measure how much resin you will use, with water. With another syringe pour water to know exactly how much resin you need. Always add half a ml. Anyways, if you add less than the amount you need, you can add resin later, after cured. That's a very useful property (and I'll explain later what you can do with this!)

It's very important to let dry this mould (the one you used to measute with water) before casting. The resin is not very friendly with water. Actually, the water it's the unfriendly. With the help of a hairdryer and a towel, make sure your mold is completely dry. Now, it's setup time. With the help of more LEGO or rubber bands, set up all your molds and materials before continuing.

Label your syringes and things to avoid confusion. Also, if you extract resin with the wrong syring, then you can say good bye to all you bottle of resin!

It's also important to have a watch. You will have only 30 seconds to do the mix, and 90 to pour it in all your molds!

Carefully but at high speed, mix the part A with part B and pour it through the holes of the molds! Be sure no to make more resin than you need. In this case, I needed 1,5ml per mold. So, I should used 3ml for 2 casts and 6ml for the four molds. But I've added 2 ml just in case (0,25ml more per mold). After casting I've learned that if you measure 1,5 ml, then you should use 1,51ml.

Then, you have plenty of time to drink a cold soda, or watch something stupid in youtube, or to write something in a blog.

It's important to write what time it is when finishing the pouring. Then, you must wait 15-20 minutes before opening the molds. Before opening them, clean off the resin from your vessel. This will tell you if your casts are finished or if they are nearly finishing the curing process.

Open your molds.

Clean the flash and d voilà!

Finally! They are ready! These are the first 4 pair of legs for my chaos marauders units. Now I only need 84 more! HAHAHA!

See ya! Next time (I hope) with the finished pics of my latest comission work and/or with the third part of this tutorial!

TUTORIAL: Mould Making, part 1

2009-12-08T22:58:00.001-03:00

Yes. I've previously stated I would be posting my entry for the recurrent painting contest. I know. But... at the end, it was such a FAIL, that I decided to wait until I can get some better pics. My pictures were such crap, that my mate Lemon (the owner of the dwarf I converted/painted) tried to make better ones. They were better than mine, but not as good as other pics from the 13 other entries! I scored 0 votes, LOL! Anyways, this month were better entries than last one, and at least the one who won din't by default.

So... after this explanation, will I show you some kind of tutorial about mould making and resin casting.
In this part, I'll show how to make a "hemi-mould", or the half of a mould.
I think that the pics speak for themselves, but I'll add some words anyways.

Let's begin.
First, what do you need:
- LEGO pieces
- Silicone and activator
- Resin and activator
- Vaselin
- Plasticine
- A stick or something to add the vaseline
- Big syringe and little one too
- Plastic container, glass or something where to mix the silicone and activator

Begin making a place with the LEGO cubes for the piece or bit you want to replicate.

Then, add plasticine in to the "box". I use Play-Doh because it's cheap, you can let it dry and remove it easily. If you want, you can try other alcohol-soluble plasticines.

Put your mini/bit in there. Be careful to follow the original moulding lines. And try to clean them before. Get it?

The, cover the plasticine with some kind of lubricant. Vaseline works fine. Melted vaseline works better. Liquid Vaseline works even better. And if you can get some professional desmoldant, it's even better.

With a syringe (the big one) substract the amount of silicone you need and add it to yor container.

Let the silicone resting for about five minutes, to let the bubbles go out. If you can acces to a gypsum vibrator machine or something that vibrates (no, those things didn't work this time xD) you can get rid of the bubbles easier. If you don't, just wait a little.

Then, with the little syringe substract the amount you need of activator. Mix vigorously.

Pour your mix into the LEGO boxes. Before, you should add some LEGO cubes to the border of the boxes, in order to contain the mix and cover completely the bit or miniature.

That's it! Then you should wait 24 hours to let the silicone cure.

In this tutorial, I've avoided topics such as the silicone mixing and other hints and tips. This is only the first part, so, consider it "mould making 101"!

I'm also working now in another comission work. Once again, Dwarfs!
This time my job is to paint 25 Dwarf Clan Warriors with HW and shield for another friend.

Hopefully I'll be posting some WIP pics of those, now I'm finally "almost" done with their paintjob. Actually... I'm not, but that's what I said Topo about his dwarfs. I still must some things, and the magnetize their bases!

See ya soon.

SHOWCASE: Chaos Lord with additional Hand Weapon

2009-11-25T01:36:00.002-03:00

Hi again!
Here it is an Avatars of War Chaos Lord that I've painted last month for a recurrent painting contest, from Reino de los Olvidados. I managed to paint it quickly (before the deadline, by a couple of minutes!) , to participate in this painting contest. As I said, it's a recurrent painting contest, with 5% disccount on the store for the winner each month as prize. The idea is, -more than the prize- to run this contest every month, to incentivate others players in my country to try painting a bit better than tabletop (o 3-colors-for-tourneys xD).

Ok, here is my entry from October!!

Well, in the end I really liked how I painted this one. But... in the contest...
I was vilely disqualified! LOL
The official photos must contain a surprise item (one different each month) and I took a pair of pictures of this Chaos Lord with the 10 CLP coin on the mini (not all the miniature was available to see in these pics), and then I took several ones (the pics above) without the stupid coin! The pics I took "to fulfill the requirements" weren't good to be the "official" ones. Same happened to another user of the forums. So, another user win the October contest by default!

Anyways, on the brightside:
- I liked how well this miniature turned out.
- The sculptor of this beauty liked my paintjob.
- At least I won the users choice!

This month, I converted and painted another AoW miniature. This time it's not for my beloved army; it was a comission work. I converted and painted an AoW Chaos Dwarf to a Dwarf Lord on Oathstone!
Now I must try to fix a bit the photos and send them for the contest. This month will be at least 7 participants, surely it will be more challenging! And NO, I haven't forgot this-month's-stupid-surprise-item!!
I've tried to make better pictures, but my efforts weren't rewarded yet. The owner of this commission took better pics, and that's what I would post in my next entry!

See ya soon!

Welcome to my Blog!

2009-11-13T00:30:00.005-03:00

Well, how to start...
I've started with WHFB around 3 years ago, maybe 4, I don´t remeber it so clearly. Anyways, I've started last year, reading lots of WH-related blogs and thought I would like to have one to.
Time passed and I'd never enough time to start blogging.
Then, yesterday, a friend, online-store and forum owner and old hobbyst/gamer asked me if I would like to have a blog, attached to their website (www.reinodelosolvidados.cl) like him. I said I would, but then I couldn't afford to manage the WordPress blog format. Much more complicated for someone who hasn't ever had a blog before, lol.

So, here I am, starting a blog about Warhammer and things related.
I'll use it primary as showcase for my chaos army, but sadly, I'm a very slow painter. It's clear I'll post other thing too, because of the lack of info about my army!

Well... lets get started!
This one is a Tzeentch Lord on Disc I've painted almost 1-2 years ago.
Those days I had less than a third of the colours I own now, and less than a half of the practice I have nowadays. Also, the photos are crap, sorry. Maybe when I have re-painted it, I'll try to make better pictures, but now, that's it:

As I said, sorry for the crappy pics. I promise I'll learn how to take better ones!

See ya! (I hope, soon!)