Sunday 30 December 2018

Guild Ball: The Blacksmith's Guild

Another big project finished in 2018. Some Guild Ball minis I painted for a buddy. I was free to choose color scheme so I decided to play with Green Stuff World colorshift paints a little. Cold blue armor was meant to bring more contrast to fiery elements.

As for the minis, I have mixed feelings. The scale doesn't hold at all as pretty much each model in a box is scaled differently. The quality is rather good for preassembled models and I didn't need to use a lot of Green stuff but I just don't really care for the kind of soft plastic that is used here. It makes removing mold lines a chore. 

Anyway, it felt nice to paint something non-Malifaux for a change and I did get a nice exercise in using metallics too.






Baby's on Fire

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These are the last Malifaux minis for 2018. Fire is the main theme here as Kaeris is a master who uses this element to her crew's advantage (and to cause trouble to her enemies).




Here are some pics of the process. I started by priming everything light grey and adding some white to plan highlights better.


After that I did initial sketches of fire with an airbrush. I used only yellow and red here.



This was followed by some brushwork as I worked with both the brightest and the darkest parts. Vallejo fluo yellow was really useful here.



I will work on some more Arcanists in the foreseeable future so stay tuned :)


#18/2018 Always Look on the Bright Side of Life


I grew up watching the show and Eric Idle has always been my favorite Python. When I learnt that he had a "sortabiography" out, I knew that sooner or later I'd get it. 
The audiobook is red (or I should rather write performed) by the author himself. It gives an interesting background to his story. As a child he was growing in the WW2 aftermath era, going through the period of despair and then welfare. Life wasn't easy as Eric's father died in a car accident as he was returning home from the war. Yet despite his harsh upbringing he managed to make humor his way of life. Learning about his early career and getting unique insights into his celebrity life with his relations to other famous musicians/actors is what this book is really about. If you're a Python fan, I don't even have to recommend it. And..


#17/2018 Fear: Trump in the White House


This book may just as well be titled CHAOS instead of FEAR. Bob Woodward accumulated knowledge from hundreds of interviews to present Trump's working style and the way he makes the most important decisions. In a way this book felt scarier than any horror novel I've read since it talks about a real person who (sadly) can potentially influence major events worldwide. Now I need to find a book that actually praises him so that I can have two extreme opinions to work with. 

Sunday 2 December 2018

Smart space

I've had my Detolf glass cabinet from IKEA ever since I moved into my new flat. This was one of my priorities - get a nice, functional cabinet to showcase my works. And it worked... for a while.

My "man cave", or rather a room in which I work and paint is not a large one. As such, the cabinet fits right between a bookshelf and a desk. There a 4 shelves (if you count the bottom one) and plenty of space inside. The trouble is, after a while it got to the point when I simply added more finished models to the upper shelves, while keeping the unpainted ones on the lower ones.


As a result, it turned into a colorful mass of models without any coherence. Simply put, one tall column of chaos. Definitely not the way I wanted to present my works. 



Fortunately, I was able to find an easy way to fix the problem; A-Space. A perfect solution from a company that successfully launched their A-Case campaign a while ago (I reviewed that one on my blog). It's so simple, you basically get 4 custom made transparent shelves with 16 pieces to fix them in place inside your Detolf. The difference is huge. I was able to organize my minis thematically without losing any aesthetic value.


The installation was simple and straightforward. Putting the first extra shelf in place took me about 5 minutes, and I needed less time for next ones. One thing worth mentioning is that the extra shelves keep the whole thing more stable. I have two small kids (as evidenced by the mess on the bookshelf which is often their playground area), and the whole thing used to shake when they ran pasy it. That's no longer an issue as extra connections points made the cabinet more stable.
Wrapping things up - if you have Detolf glass cabinet at home, it means you have a great hobby and want to proudly showcase your collection. And if you're a collector you're bound to run out of space at some point. Don't wait for that moment, grab your set at Kickstarter now.

Before          vs.          after A-Space


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/armycase/a-space-get-more-space/description



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