It's always important to have one, else what do you have to strive towards?
With that in mind I've set myself a goal with regards to my painting skills. My favourite miniature painter is a Russian lady by the name of Natalya Melnik, who goes by the handle of Alexi Z online. She has many figures listed on Cool Mini Or Not (and many more that are just as impressive on her homepage). Her highest rated figure is a lofty 9.8 out of 10. My highest rated figure is a palty 4.4 by comparison.
It would be an utterly insane and impossible challenge to equal her best by years end, so instead I'm setting myself the target to equal her worst score which is a 6.7. She got this score incidentally for the first figure she ever painted! Whether the figure in question deserves a 6.7 rating is doubtful to my thinking, I'd rate it a 5.5 myself, but that is it's score and so that is my challenge.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Stocking Up
Since I got back into painting a couple months back, I've been slowly but surely updating my set up for it. I used to paint on a fold-up dining table which was a bit wobbly and hardly ideal. That is now down in the lounge and I've replaced it with a rather more sturdy wooden table that I bought at the British Heart Foundation's furniture shop, and then enlisted Tony's help to carry it the short distance back to the house. That was the easy part really compared to the far larger task of sorting out my paints & tools.
I use paints by Games Workshop as they are the most readily availiable to me (Krackers Games Store that sell them is only a 3 min walk from my house after all). They are not the best paints, and most of the best painters whose work I admire, use other ranges such as those by Vallejo or Reaper instead. Maybe someday I'll consider such a change myself, but for the time being at least GW's range suits me fine.
Back when I began painting at the tender age of 12, GW used to sell their paints in themed box sets. Each box had 9 different paints in and the boxes were named for the figures they were best designed for (Colour being the basic set and then from there, there were others like Monster, Creature, Space Marine, Metallics etc etc). They were good paints, and each time I'd lose interest in painting I'd pack them away and keep them safe until whenever my interest returned and I'd unpack them and they'd be used again. As time went by though, they got thicker and thicker and one by one they turned solid and became useless.
This time when I set about unpacking them again, I stopped and instead made myself go through every box, testing each and every paint in them and I finally binned all the useless ones, destroying the old boxes as each was emptied. I was able to keep a fairly impressive number of paints, many of which are long since unavaliable such as the metallic blue, green and purple paints I have, and the shocking pink. But my collection is left with some pretty massive gaps in it too and so each pay day I've been getting a few more paints to fill out the range. Today I added Bronze, a dark shade of Gold, a dark Flesh and a black wash to my growing collection to plug gaps that I've noticed over the past couple weeks whilst painting the figures I'm currently working on.
I've also had to take a look at the tools I use. I know now that I need a new set of paintbrushes as the ones I have are cheap and don't hold a good point (the tip always curves into a claw, which while sometimes useful is annoying too). My modelling knife needs replacing and if I don't want my table top getting scored up I need a decent cutting mat too. The biggest issue that I've found I need to resolve though is lighting, and for that I'm going to need to go hunt for a good angle-poise light, as the light from my rooms central bulb is simply not sufficient, and I refuse to allow my painting times to be dictated to me by the hours of daylight.
I've also bought a supply of materials to decorate the bases of my figures, namely a couple types of sand, small pebbles and clumps of fake grass. I'm a long way from being able to craft some of truly stunning bases I've seen made for miniatures on Cool Mini Or Not, but even these basic materials will be a great leap forward from simply coating the base with green paint and dipping it in flock as I've always done in the past.
I use paints by Games Workshop as they are the most readily availiable to me (Krackers Games Store that sell them is only a 3 min walk from my house after all). They are not the best paints, and most of the best painters whose work I admire, use other ranges such as those by Vallejo or Reaper instead. Maybe someday I'll consider such a change myself, but for the time being at least GW's range suits me fine.
Back when I began painting at the tender age of 12, GW used to sell their paints in themed box sets. Each box had 9 different paints in and the boxes were named for the figures they were best designed for (Colour being the basic set and then from there, there were others like Monster, Creature, Space Marine, Metallics etc etc). They were good paints, and each time I'd lose interest in painting I'd pack them away and keep them safe until whenever my interest returned and I'd unpack them and they'd be used again. As time went by though, they got thicker and thicker and one by one they turned solid and became useless.
This time when I set about unpacking them again, I stopped and instead made myself go through every box, testing each and every paint in them and I finally binned all the useless ones, destroying the old boxes as each was emptied. I was able to keep a fairly impressive number of paints, many of which are long since unavaliable such as the metallic blue, green and purple paints I have, and the shocking pink. But my collection is left with some pretty massive gaps in it too and so each pay day I've been getting a few more paints to fill out the range. Today I added Bronze, a dark shade of Gold, a dark Flesh and a black wash to my growing collection to plug gaps that I've noticed over the past couple weeks whilst painting the figures I'm currently working on.
I've also had to take a look at the tools I use. I know now that I need a new set of paintbrushes as the ones I have are cheap and don't hold a good point (the tip always curves into a claw, which while sometimes useful is annoying too). My modelling knife needs replacing and if I don't want my table top getting scored up I need a decent cutting mat too. The biggest issue that I've found I need to resolve though is lighting, and for that I'm going to need to go hunt for a good angle-poise light, as the light from my rooms central bulb is simply not sufficient, and I refuse to allow my painting times to be dictated to me by the hours of daylight.
I've also bought a supply of materials to decorate the bases of my figures, namely a couple types of sand, small pebbles and clumps of fake grass. I'm a long way from being able to craft some of truly stunning bases I've seen made for miniatures on Cool Mini Or Not, but even these basic materials will be a great leap forward from simply coating the base with green paint and dipping it in flock as I've always done in the past.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sticking My Neck Out
Anyone who knows me well will know that I'm not one for drawing attention to myself. I'm a definate introvert and am usually the guy sat in a corner being quiet at parties etc. At work I like to just be able to get on with it and not have to answer questions about what I'm doing and why (which is why I adore my co-worker Becky as she's brilliant at handling all of that sort of thing, leaving me to just get on and make cakes in peace). But there is this teeny tiny bit of me that craves a bit of praise. Not much. I'm not greedy, a "Well done" once in a while goes a very long way with me.
So with that in mind I've taken the step of posting pictures of some of the miniatures I've painted in the past, and will post more of the ones I'm working on now once I have them done. I have posted these up on Facebook for my friends to see, and also on a new account I've made on Cool Mini Or Not for everyone in the world to take a look at them, rate them and comment on them. I am looking forward to their criticism and comments, as I want to improve at this hobby and part of that development is taking on board ideas and techniques from my peers.
If you wish to have a look at my work and rate it, then have a look here. My username there is Mr.Flibble. I'd ask you to be kind in whatever you choose to write/rate them as, but thats not really what I'm aiming for by doing this, so instead I'll ask you to be honest. Flattery won't help me to get better after all.
So with that in mind I've taken the step of posting pictures of some of the miniatures I've painted in the past, and will post more of the ones I'm working on now once I have them done. I have posted these up on Facebook for my friends to see, and also on a new account I've made on Cool Mini Or Not for everyone in the world to take a look at them, rate them and comment on them. I am looking forward to their criticism and comments, as I want to improve at this hobby and part of that development is taking on board ideas and techniques from my peers.
If you wish to have a look at my work and rate it, then have a look here. My username there is Mr.Flibble. I'd ask you to be kind in whatever you choose to write/rate them as, but thats not really what I'm aiming for by doing this, so instead I'll ask you to be honest. Flattery won't help me to get better after all.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Phew... Done At Last
Tagging every post I've written in the past 6 years or thereabouts that I've been writing this blog on and off took a lot longer than I thought it would. Still, all done now, so you can now look through the blog archive much easier than before. Bedtime for me now as I have work in about 6 hours time.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
A Whole New Look
So I thought that since I was gonna have a go at this blogging lark again, it was about time I gave this place a bit of a spruce up, as after 6 years it was looking kinda dated. So I picked out this rather nifty looking template from the selection that blogger offer, customised it a bit by adding in my links, and moving things about and this is what I've ended up with thus far.
I'll likely tweak it a bit more until I'm happy with it. I'd like to put the nice header pic I had on the old blog on this one, might get it tarted up a bit first though, maybe add a decorative edge to it or something. I am pleased to be able to have the section of Tags though, which will make navigating around this blogs archive a lot easier... or at least it will once I've finished tagging all the posts in the archive anyway!
I'll likely tweak it a bit more until I'm happy with it. I'd like to put the nice header pic I had on the old blog on this one, might get it tarted up a bit first though, maybe add a decorative edge to it or something. I am pleased to be able to have the section of Tags though, which will make navigating around this blogs archive a lot easier... or at least it will once I've finished tagging all the posts in the archive anyway!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Painting
So... what to write about... I'll start I guess with what has consumed much of my time of late and that's painting. Painting minature figures that is, not painting on canvas or any such related forms of art for which I entirely lack the skillsets required. I've painted before, a fair few times now in fact, only to eventually lose interest or have something come up and it all get packed away again and not see daylight then for months or even years afterwards.
I started painting figures back when I was about 12 years old and a friend of mine called Ashley introduced me to a board game called Blood Bowl. He also intrioduced me to Dungeons & Dragons too, so he has quite a lot to answer for considering the geek I turned out to be! Getting back to the subject at hand, Blood Bowl is a fantasy version of american football with a lot more violence (it ain't called Blood Bowl for nothing!), played with teams of figures. As the rulebooks showed nicely painted up versions of these figures, I was soon buying a set of paints, a couple brushes and having a go myself.
I was also interested in a another board game called Advanced Heroquest, which too featured miniature figures and so they too went under the brush for some added colour. This led to my interest in the tabletop wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB), where instead of a few figures, you assembled and painted whole armies of them! I can remember collecting a sizeable army of Dwarf's and then later a smaller force of Undead. For another such game (Epic 40,000) I collected a huge Chaos force complete with Titan's (massive towering war machines). I later either sold (Dwarfs & Undead) or lost (Epic Chaos) these armies and my interest waned and eventually died off. I never lost interest in the games exactly, just in the painting side of it.
Fast forward a few years and a new edition of Blood Bowl came out and a league was started at the local Games Club and so I got back into it, painting up my beloved Chaos All Star team (which I still own). I also started on a Chaos army for WFB but never got that far on it, and most of the figures remain unpainted to this day in their boxes atop my bookcases. Over the next few years I'd regain interest for a months or two and then it would fade away. I painted up numerous character models for D&D in this time, and started work on a massive project to build a Tarrasque for D&D (which was never finished and eventually binned). Then a few years back I packed it all up and put it away. I was tempted now and then to take it up again over the years but never did so, until recently.
See a couple of my friends mentioned that they were getting in to Warhammer 40,000, a sci-fi version of WFB and a game I'd long wanted to try but had always shied away from for various reasons. But I was tempted to try again, so I took the plunge. I bought myself a decent desk this time to paint at (an old wooden kitchen table, a steal for just £40), some new paints and brushes, sorted through all the old paints I still had and binned any that were no longer useable, keeping those that were (a surprisingly large number including some awesome paints such as metallic blue, green & purple and also truly shocking shade of pink).
I also decided on an army and forked out for a fair number of figures and sets (getting double the number due to a fortunate mix up in the mail!) for a Space Marine army. I've settled on the Imperial Fists as my chapter as they both look good in their yellow and red armor and their backstory and such rocks. When I have photos of finished models I'll post them on the blog.
In addition to them I've gone through my stock of unpainted figures and dragged a few out into the light of day to have a go at, as I enjoy painting characters and individuals far more than units of troops.
I started painting figures back when I was about 12 years old and a friend of mine called Ashley introduced me to a board game called Blood Bowl. He also intrioduced me to Dungeons & Dragons too, so he has quite a lot to answer for considering the geek I turned out to be! Getting back to the subject at hand, Blood Bowl is a fantasy version of american football with a lot more violence (it ain't called Blood Bowl for nothing!), played with teams of figures. As the rulebooks showed nicely painted up versions of these figures, I was soon buying a set of paints, a couple brushes and having a go myself.
I was also interested in a another board game called Advanced Heroquest, which too featured miniature figures and so they too went under the brush for some added colour. This led to my interest in the tabletop wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB), where instead of a few figures, you assembled and painted whole armies of them! I can remember collecting a sizeable army of Dwarf's and then later a smaller force of Undead. For another such game (Epic 40,000) I collected a huge Chaos force complete with Titan's (massive towering war machines). I later either sold (Dwarfs & Undead) or lost (Epic Chaos) these armies and my interest waned and eventually died off. I never lost interest in the games exactly, just in the painting side of it.
Fast forward a few years and a new edition of Blood Bowl came out and a league was started at the local Games Club and so I got back into it, painting up my beloved Chaos All Star team (which I still own). I also started on a Chaos army for WFB but never got that far on it, and most of the figures remain unpainted to this day in their boxes atop my bookcases. Over the next few years I'd regain interest for a months or two and then it would fade away. I painted up numerous character models for D&D in this time, and started work on a massive project to build a Tarrasque for D&D (which was never finished and eventually binned). Then a few years back I packed it all up and put it away. I was tempted now and then to take it up again over the years but never did so, until recently.
See a couple of my friends mentioned that they were getting in to Warhammer 40,000, a sci-fi version of WFB and a game I'd long wanted to try but had always shied away from for various reasons. But I was tempted to try again, so I took the plunge. I bought myself a decent desk this time to paint at (an old wooden kitchen table, a steal for just £40), some new paints and brushes, sorted through all the old paints I still had and binned any that were no longer useable, keeping those that were (a surprisingly large number including some awesome paints such as metallic blue, green & purple and also truly shocking shade of pink).
I also decided on an army and forked out for a fair number of figures and sets (getting double the number due to a fortunate mix up in the mail!) for a Space Marine army. I've settled on the Imperial Fists as my chapter as they both look good in their yellow and red armor and their backstory and such rocks. When I have photos of finished models I'll post them on the blog.
In addition to them I've gone through my stock of unpainted figures and dragged a few out into the light of day to have a go at, as I enjoy painting characters and individuals far more than units of troops.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Tweaking
As a start I've updated the list of links on the sidebar, many of which were horribly out of date. They should all work now and are once again relevant to my current interests.
Hmmm...
Been a while since I posted anything on here and for the life of me I can't think why I lost interest in this site. Not sure what I'll post here but I'd rather not leave this field fallow any longer.
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