Tuesday 30 November 2010

10000 eyes

...or rather pairs of eyes. Or rather pageviews. At least since I added the counter. Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity to thank everyone who follows Independent Painters. 45 followers and many other visitors, some really nice comments. Thank you guys, we (me and Haldir) really appreciate that. And keep those comments coming :)

Here's big cheers to all of you (and a cool song by TooL - one of my personal favourites).

Monday 29 November 2010

Winter Wonderland

Finally some time to post something up. Due to massive load of "time wasters" such as University etc. I'm not currently working on anything new. Nonetheless I'll post some pics that are 3 months old right now. It was supposed to be my entry for O-R Awards and as such it was held in dark corners of my archives not to spoil initial "wow effect", but since Awards are postponed indefinitely I'll work on something new ;)

Here's a compilation of pictures of Two Towers version of Haldir a.k.a the Helm's Deep Haldir.


And here's a link to that piece on CMON so you could leave your rating there ;)

http://www.coolminiornot.com/265110

As for traditional music finish. Since Viruk took my all time favourite in his previous entry, I'll use second best for what's going out there ;)

Sunday 28 November 2010

Let it snow

That's right, snow has finally fallen and it seems like winter has arrived. Right now it looks pretty cool and with the low temperatures the snow is holding nicely.
I've taken some time during the weekend to finally finish off the Khandish Cavalry. They took me a while, mainly due to the fact that I've been pretty busy recently. I went for the same color scheme I'd used for the infantry so there are no surprises here.

Next minis in line are the chariots (a regular one + one with the king). Lots of details on these so it looks like I'll be busy painting away during the next few days. However, since I've felt that I needed a break from Lotr minis I've decided to finish my Bane Knights unit (4 grunts and Tartarus). Different style, slightly different scale and different approach to miniatures - can't wait to lay my brush on them ;)
I won't be going crazy with these ones as I simply want them looking decent for gaming. I'll probably pay a little more attention to Tartarus as I want him to stand out among the crowd (as if his height wasn't enough...). Anyway, the stage is set and here they are at the moment, all black...

And in case you were wondering what happened to the Pick of the week... It will be back, soon. I just thought that since I've been a slacker and haven't updated the blog with any content since the previous one I decided to wait a little longer. It may become a regular practice but I'm still going to stick to the "Pick of the week" ("Pick of the fortnight" wouldn't sound well, would it?).
To finish off this post, here the epitome of cool himself with a very suitable song:

Sunday 21 November 2010

Pick of the Week

Since work has been obliterating my free time recently and I haven't done any significant progress on my current commission I thought I'd start a new series of entries at Independent Painters.
Each week on Sunday I'll be posting a link to a tutorial/picture/video related (or vaguely related) to the hobby. These will be mostly things that will be particularly useful for me, so you can expect links connected with Privateer Press, Cryx, and painting in general. I will simply be stuffing things that I've either already found useful or other that I want to have a crack at in the future.
So, to make a long story short, here's something that has struck me as simple yet very effective. An excellent guide on painting dead flesh found at BOLS.



I will definitely give it a go as I love the effect of veins showing through the skin.

Sunday 14 November 2010

Goodbye Horses


Haven't had too much time for painting lately but here's a quick update on the Khandish Cavalry I'm currently working on. These minis are also part of the big Lotr commission. The horses are basically finished and I won't be doing anything more with them. Now only the warriors and I will be closer to completing the whole commission. I'm particularly looking forward to working with the chariots - excellent details and very cool minis, especially the Khandish King. I should be ready with these by the end of next week and I will move on to work on the chariots. In the meanwhile I'll try to get the rest of my Bane Knights finished, but that's a different story.
The pics aren't great but it's already dark and I haven't had time to take pictures during the day. That's all for now and I'll leave you with a song from the title (anyone who's seen "Clerks 2" will probably crack a smile ;).



Wednesday 10 November 2010

Tempted

The Privateer Press holiday wishlist has arrived and I have to admit - it's quite interesting. Nice army bundles for each faction (together with plastic templates and tokens). Nice selection there, definitely a great way to get into WM/Hordes or to expand your army.


The whole P3 color range.


Still, what I find even more interesting is the Formula P3 Paint Set. I have quite a few paints from various producers. I paint a lot, which means that I have to replenish my resources from time to time. I've been recently thinking about buying a complete paint set. It would make painting much faster and more efficient (more colors=less mixing). P3 paints seem to be the perfect choice here as they combine quantity of paint (18 ml compared with 17 ml - Vallejo, 12 ml - Citadel) with excellent quality. There's a lot of pigment in the paint so you don't need to put too many layers to get a solid color and the paint stays in perfect consistency even after a long time (I've had some P3 paints for a few years now and they're good as new). Of course, I've had experience in using different paints. I was also considering Reaper paints (nice bottles, perfect consistency, good quality) but the bottles are bit smaller and they tend to clog after a while.
So, it seems like P3 paints may be a good choice, especially taking into account that I will be painting a lot of PP minis (I'm working on my Cryx army and in the future I will possibly start a Hordes army - I'm thinking Trollbloods). The only thing I don't like much about them is the lid design. The plastic tab is hard to open and after using it for a while it's easy to get some paint on your fingers while opening it. Still, the advantage is that the paint stays good for a longer time.

Now, what do you get in the P3 Paint Set? Basically, that's the whole range of paints, all of the colors + some bonuses. These include three paints and a DVD about Core Techniques. Together with shipping it makes about 240$ This is tempting...
Has anyone bought any of these holiday bundles? If yes, did you have to wait long for the parcel? (I know this was put on PP page yesterday but I guess some people might read this post after a while).

UPDATE:


I've just noticed that there are no metallics among the paints in the set offered by PP. However, I came across an interesting online store in the USA, theworstore.com. Their offer is even better. You get all the paints for 165$ (only the metallics are not there but they are replaced by Vallejo Game Color paints - Polished Gold, Glorious Gold, Bright Bronze and Brassy Brass). Nice offer indeed. The only thing that bothers me is that it's in the USA, which means that if I wanted to buy it, I'd have to pay much more in fact (taxes suck). It's not that bad though, as there are ways to skip this nasty part of the deal (and the guys at thewarstore write about it explicitly in their FAQ).
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