SuperJ

You can still get this mini on ebay - this seller has is in his offer.  It's a very noble cause and I do encourage you to take part in it. The mini costs just $10 and the shipping's free. It's fun to paint and I had a blast working on it. Here are the effects:

And a true Superhero shot:

Farewell to arms

The first snow has fallen, which means that you should

Winter doesn't bother me, in fact I like this season of the year. The only problem with it connected with the hobby is that I rarely have good lighting for taking pictures of my works. I decided to try taking pics in artificial lighting. Here's a quick pic of the setup I used:

Nothing really complicated as I simply used two white sheets of paper as diffusers on lamps pointed directly towards the mini. There's still room for improvement but the effects are encouraging (none of the pics in this post have been touched up) so I guess I'll stick to this method for the next few months.

I've finally finished working on the Gondor army. I have to admit I was a bit fed up with painting armors and barely visible faces. The Trebuchet was particularly tedious and after preparing it for painting I was actually put off painting for a few days. It's such a shame that GW keeps on producing mediocre products and at the same time assuring us that they deliver a product of the highest standard... Anyway, after lots of bending. repositioning, tons of GS and painting this is how it turned out:

I prepared a small scenic base (I made something like it a while ago for the King's Champion). I think that it adds some kind of action element to this rather static set.

Next up are the Guards of the Fountain Cours. Probably the most royal looking infantry unit in the entire Gondor force. I used a nmm golden trim on the edges of their cloaks and a yellow trim with a pattern to tie them to other units I'd painted earlier.

Last but not least are the Men at Arms. I've painted them before and always left the ornaments on their helmets silver. This time I wanted to follow the codex color scheme more closely and painted them white. I think it worked pretty well as it made them look more special than regular WoMT.

 Now I am going to start working on a Moria army. I'll begin with the biggest beast that it has - the Balrog.

Salvaging ruins

That is, working with GW's finecast... After putting together the Trebuchet, I prepared a small scenic base for the war machine and its crew. Something to add more dynamism and draw attention away from model's imperfections. That's how it looks like at this stage.

After spending a few long evenings preparing the model, I can honestly say that I hate it. Still, I'll try to make it come to life with some paints...

A break. And a Drake.

I need to take a break from Malifaux and focus on painting some LotR minis again. I painted a Cave Drake a while ago.

While I generally like the mini, it still seems too ordinary to me. Just another classic fantasy dragon. Nothing that would really set this one apart from many other (better) miniatures of these beasts. Well, there are those weird thingies protruding from its head but I'd risk saying that removing them might actually be an improvement.

Now I'll focus on the rest of Gondor force (see the pic below):

The Trebuchet is one of the  new finecast releases (it used to be available in metal). It's... hopelessly terrible. 

At first I thought that it might actually work well. The metal one is very heavy, which makes transporting it quite inconvenient. Unfortunately, I was bitterly disappointed. Check out some examples of parts from this set:

 Not only some of the details are missing but also some parts are twisted in a way that makes putting them together impossible. I needed to put the whole thing in hot water and bend it back into proper shape. After that. it was just a matter of adding some green stuff to the areas that needed it (a WIP pic of this stage can be seen below).

Honestly, I can't even begin to comprehend how a company like GW can let such terrible things enter the market. It's just dishonest and shows a complete lack of respect to the customer. I'm lost for words so I'll let someone else summarize my feelings.

Miss Terious

Took some quick pictures of Miss Terious this morning. A really nice mini and I'm glad it's a part of my Guild force now. I'm a big fan of Death Marshals (I dig their fluff and like using them in game) so I knew I was going to get her once I saw the first artwork.
I wanted to paint her in a similar way to the rest of my Death Marshals, meaning that instead of the western look from the artwork, I would be going for an almost-undead one.
This mini is actually made of 11 parts. I was surprised that I needed no GS at all while putting her together as each part fits very well. I only needed to remove a few mold lines but that's nothing unusual while working with plastics.
I've got two of them since I placed two separate orders during Gencon. I'll probably put one of them on ebay, it would be interesting to see how much people would be willing to pay for it. Anyway, here are the pictures:

And here's Miss T among other professionals.

And a shot of me taking these pictures ;)

Hanging Around

I haven't seen the plastic trees painted before so I figured I's start working with my Gencon orders from these. As I've written before, the sculpts are really nice with some minor things that could have been better (more texture on bark/faces). 

The biggest problem was rope on which Eric hangs as it's way too thin to support the miniature and it's extremely hard not to break it even when painting it. So I started by removing it completely and replacing it with a wire. The faces are pretty well cast but for some reason they seemed a bit too lively to me. In order to remove that impression, I painted them using a "zombie" skin tone with very pale skin that looks like it's starting to rot. 

As you can see, I also added some skulls to the base (I simply glued the tree to a CD as it seemed it needed something solid to stay on).

And here are the effects, C&C are welcome.

 I also painted both of the Hanged, nothing more to add here as they were painted in pretty much the same way.

And just to lighten the mood of this heavy entry, here's a nice little song:

28mm "Super J" Superhero FARA Charity Miniature

This is just a proof that this hobby can bring more than just a way od passing your free time. Sometimes it gives you a chance to actually do something good while having fun. Check out the description of this charity auction and... go ahead and order the mini! It's only $10 and the shipping's free.

This gaming mini was made in the image of our son Jason and his best pal, Snakie. Jason was born with a rare genetic disease called Friedreich's Ataxia. This is a degenerative disease that attacks many areas of the body, including the brain, spinal cord and heart. There is currently no treatment for Friedreich's Ataxia and it is a life-shortening illness, so we're trying to raise money for the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA). This organization is our only hope for a cure.

Jason has a quickly advancing case and is losing his ability to walk, see and speak clearly. He also suffers from heart disease and skeletal problems. Since there is currently no treatment for Friedreich's Ataxia, raising money for FARA is really our only recourse. Jason is a happy boy enjoying a great childhood and we want him in our lives as long as possible! As many of you know that I use to run What The?! Miniatures and it was with my son's diagnosis that led me to sell it off so that I could better make him more comfortable. Since he loves minis we though his own mini would be awesome! We are selling Super J minis on eBay, where all proceeds will be automatically donated to FARA through MissionFish.

Aaron Brown of Black Crab Sculpting Studio was kind enough to donate his time and skills to sculpt it and Forrest Harris of Knuckleduster Miniatures generously cast Super J for us, free of charge. We are very grateful for their help!

The Super J mini comes unpainted and is in the 28mm range (actually 18mm in height since his just a little kid after all) on a round 20mm slot base. The one pictured here was painted by Simon of Stone Cold Lead.

For $10, with free shipping, you can get a great miniature for a great cause!

The Auctionhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/28mm-Super-J-Superhero-FARA-Charity-Miniature-/221129969232?pt=Games_US&hash=item337c5f8e50

Thank you,
The Cottrells

PS
Feel free to use the pics to plug the mini on your own blogs or other forums that you might think would be interested. Every bit of exposure will help my little boy.

The guys who made it all possible!
The Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance: http://www.curefa.org/Black Crab Sculpting Studio: http://www.blackcrabsculpting.com/
Knuckleduster Miniatures: http://www.knuckleduster.com/
Stone Cold Lead: http://stonecoldlead.webs.com/

The real Super Jason

Needless to say, I've already ordered mine and look forward to receiving it.