Brush Cleaner

I've read many positive comments about this product before and now I can finally start using it. Taking good care of your brushes (especially if you use brushes with natural hair) is essential if you plan to have them for a longer period of time. 

I've already tried this cleaner and I'm very impressed with the effects. I can highly recommend it. If you want to see how it's supposed to be used, check out tutorials on youtube, such as the one below.

Czytałem dużo dobrego o tym produkcie i w końcu mogę zacząć go używać. Dbanie o pędzle (zwłaszcza o te z naturalnym włosiem) to podstawa jeśli chce się korzystać z nich dłużej.

Przetestowałem już ten środek do czyszczenia i jestem pod dużym wrażeniem, zdecydowanie polecam. Jeśli chcecie zobaczyć jak to działa, polecam tutoriale na youtube, takie jak np. poniższy.

Foldio!

This offering pleases me, human

I've been struggling with taking decent pictures of my miniatures for quite a while. It boiled down to two things - perfect set up and excellent light were both essential. Without either of them, pictures were never good enough and colors looked unnatural. 

That was the case until I learnt about Foldio. I missed the original Kickstarter campaign that launched it but read many enthusiastic reviews. I also learnt that it is widely used by miniature painters. I didn't hesitate for long and soon after ordered mine.

So what is Foldio exactly? It is a portable photography studio. It's designed to work with mobile phones but standard cameras will work just as well. Packed in the box it takes up very little space. You may say that any lightbox will be equally good. However, Foldio is made of solid plastic with magnets inserted inside permanently. It is only a matter of seconds to set it up and attach two batteries to light up two LED strips. Regardless of time of day or night you immediately get perfect lighting conditions for shooting pictures. The only downside is its price. It's not cheap (I got mine for $70+ with shipping on ebay), but if you ant to be able to take good pictures at any time, it's definitely worth it.

Foldio comes with three backgrounds - white, black, and grey. They are nice and made of material that will last for long, but I still stick to my standard backdrop (one that I downloaded from Massive Voodoo).  

I've already used it a few times and I'm very pleased with the effects. The colors look really nice, and the quality of pictures is excellent. 

I use it with my mobile most of the time (SONY Xperia M). While its built-in camera has rather basic parameters (5 MP, 2592 х 1944 pixels), it works really well (as you can see in the pictures below). I was finally able to take pictures of miniatures that are painted using red (for some reason this color would always look unnatural in my pictures) Besides, using phone, which always seems to be lying around is much faster and more convenient that taking pictures with digital camera and plugging it in to transfer all the pictures to PC's hard drive.  I'm too lazy for that too I guess.

 And speaking of pictures, here are three more ladies for the Seamus crew I'm currently working on. I've used vibrant colors on purpose. Firstly, it was requested. Secondly, these ladies want to first attract unaware customers, only to kill them once they get close enough. So bright colors make sense here. I'll be working on Seamus and his totem next. I can't make up my mind which one I like more, the classic metal model or the avatar one. I should be able to tell once I've painted them both.

Lighting things up

I've recently come across a very interesting article on one of my favorite hobby-related blogs, Colored Dust. It it basically a review of a desk working lamp. A very good read and judging from the comments below it, a very good product too. After thinking it over for a while, I decided to order the lamp for my workspace. Below you can see two pictures that compare lighting in my previous setup to one with the VTLAMP6.

That was the previous setup. As you can see, the light is a bit more yellowish (even though special daylight light bulbs were used). It worked pretty well but the main downside for me was that only limited area on the desk was lit well. Moreover, the lamps heated up after a while. Small thing, but it was particularly irritating on hot summer evenings.

As you can see in the pics above (showing the effect of VTLAMP6), the light has more white in it and spreads over a larger surface. It is shed from a higher point so the larger size of lamp doesn't feel overwhelming. And one more thing - it doesn't block the view to the screen of my PC, which means that I don't have to sit directly in front of it now.

I'm quite happy with my purchase right now. I'll have to spend a few longer painting sessions in the new setup to for a final opinion but I think it's definitely an improvement and I can recommend the lamp to all of you night owls.
I left various random things on the desk to show you how different objects and colors look in both versions. I didn't ask the cat to pose for the pics. He just decided he wants to be there. Cats don't ask for permission, they just do what they feel like doing.

One more thing - it's Black Friday in the US, which means that there are many good deals in the hobbyland. Wyrd Games has organized a sale and offered interesting deals. I'm a sucker for limited minis, especially when it comes to the Guild so I picked the Torch and the Blade alond with the pre-order of the Latigo Posse. I've also ordered the new Mini Rulebook, Foil Fate Deck, Governor's proxy (should be more useful in game than Scales of Justice with his healing ability) along with two limited minis - the Carver and War Rooster. I'm also going to get the new alternate Perdita miniature, which is a sweet model. If you're interested - go ahead and check out the deals that are still there.

Slow progress

The last two weeks have been hectic at work so I haven't really touched the brush. I made up for it during the weekend. It felt really nice to be able to devote some time to the hobby. I made some progress on White Council and starting work on Radagast on sleigh. This one was a huuuge pain to put together. The finecast elements needed a lot of work to fit together and there was more GS work than I would have liked.  I also have two sets of trees from Woodlands scenics to add to the base but that will be done in the final stage.
As you can see in the pic, I had some "help". After a while, my helper got bored and decided to lay in the middle of my workplace. Fortunately for me, no minis were harmed.

Today I finally got my Gencon order. It actually arrived two days faster than last year so that's an improvement After a quick glance at the sprues I'm quite impressed with the level of detail but was a bit disappointed that the wooden planks from DM's coffins don't have wooden texture. Not a big deal as that won't be to hard to achieve with a few brushstrokes but it would definitely make life easier, especially for beginners. I'll start putting these together once I've finished the Hobbit stuff.

New workspace #4

I think it's ready, at least for the time being I'm not planning any changes. All the paints and hobby stuff are arranged and today I've finally started painting again.

 The room in which I've set up my workspace isn't spacious so arranging everything well was essential. I like to have everything that I need close so all the shelves are within a hand's reach. Other than shelves for paints, everything was bought. I made the shelves about three years ago. I thought that they need a fresh look too so I painted them with wood stain.

The portable painting station from Hobby Zone is a great solution. It gives me the much needed flexibility. I can have all the current projects and paints that I'm using at the moment set up on it and easily put it aside if I need my desk for work. I also plan to use it for working on the balcony - more sun and fresh air. I just need to prepare that area...

Today I also added the bookshelves and filled some of the space there in them.

Some of the materials (bits, bases, primers) are kept in the desk as I don't use them that often and quick access to them isn't really that important.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how my little hobby corner turned out. It's spacious enough to work comfortably, well lit during the day and at night (see pics below).

I use an energy-efficient bulb for the lamp hanging from the ceiling and two daylight light bulbs for the lamps that are attached to the desk. I don't think they are produced anymore but as they're not that energy-efficient and don't go in line with the EU regulations. I've been using them for several years and got used to this type of light to the point where I find it hard to focus with different types of light bulbs. A couple of months ago I spotted a big sale of my favorite type of light bulbs online and bought a larger batch to make sure I have enough to keep me going at least for the next few years. 

 Well, now that the workspace is ready I can finally start working on new projects. I'll write more about these soon. And just to finish this post, here are pics of my previous workspaces:

2005-2010

2010-2013

2010-2013

New workspace #3

Not really my workspace, rather a part of it. I bought this portable paint station from Hobby Zone. I came in less than 48 hours after placing the order and immediately aroused curiosity of my cats.

The station Cames unassembled. It is very well packed with all the elements nicely arranged and taped temporarily so that they don't bounce in the parcel.

The assembly is pretty straightforward. You only need some PVA/wood glue and a little patience. It took me about thirty minutes to put it together.

There's plenty of space for paints (you can choose between 35 and 25 mm or have them mixed), water pots (I've found that the most basic plastic disposable cups work just fine) and brushes. You can also attach handles on the sides to make carrying it easier or to place something on them but I chose not to use them as I like it the way it is without them, more compact.
My new workspace is pretty much finished and I think I'll actually start working on a new project tomorrow. I'm also going to take some pics to show how everything is arranged now.

New workspace #2

Getting there...

New workspace #1

I'm currently in the process of moving in to my new flat. Much as I'd like to do it in one go, there's just too much stuff to be transported and not enough time. So I use whatever free time I have now to add a thing or two. Today I started preparing my new workplace. I began by putting together a new table I've bought recently. It's quite wide (160 cm) and very solid (it weighs about 50 kg). It also features double table top. I plan to put monitor and speakers on it to free much of the space.

I've also bought two new lamps. One of the two I'm using has already pretty much fallen to pieces so I  wanted to make sure the new ones will be more solid and won't bend easily. Now I just need to transport and put together the rest of my stuff. I've also ordered a brand new glass cabinet to showcase my works. Can't wait to put it all together!

And one more thing. Most of you have probably already seen it but here it is anyway: