Lootpile brushes review

 Hi!

Some time ago I had a chance to try out new brushes by Lootpile.eu (check out their facebook page >>here<<).

There are two lines of brushes on Lootpile.eu . Synthetic (with orange marker) and natural sable (green marker). There are a lot of different sizes, starting from 000 ending on 8. Also there are flat shaped brushes, which I found really good.

First I grabbed a natural sable brush.

Tried some glazing here on a sheet of paper and then on some miniature. Unfortunately for me they were too soft and the peak of the brush didn't last long enough.

The brush after few glazes:

Then I went for synthetic brushes. I don't normally paint with this kind of sable but I had to check it out anyway:) As it turned out they are really good! The pick is nice, sharp after many glazes. If you are looking for synthetic brushes (for example for painting with alcohol based paints) then check out Lootpile.eu. I recommend.

Also, as I mentioned earlier there are also flat shaped brushes. Before I've tested them I thought they would be unpractical and I didn't really care about the outcome. But after I tested I changed my mind. Good product, great for painting large surfaces. When you are painting large areas with no airbrush you often want to use some big brush. The problem with big brushes is that they soak a lot of paint into them, much more than you might want to use. But here, the problem is solved, because you get a really wide brush which in the same time thin, so it takes normal portion of paint and does the work of a bigger brush very well.

The contact with the owner is really good, you can talk to him, he will reply. The online shop is in few languages and you can pay in different currencies.

To sum up. Lootpile.eu offers you a wide variety of brushes (and other products like paints and organisers). I didn't like natural brushes but the synthetic came out really nice. The prices aren't high, so you can test them yourself and see if you like them.

cheers!
loler

Firestorm armada- first look on Sorylian starterbox

Hi,
today I'll show you some pics showing contents of starter box for Sorylian collective. This is one of basic races in "Firestorm Armada"- a spaceship wargame by British company Spartan Games.
First of all, short introduction into game mechanics. All systems created by Spartan Games are very similar and easy to learn. They rely on number of six-sided dice. Weapons, shields and ship crew characteristics show how many dice you have to throw during the test. In most cases result of 4+ means success. Some effects can influence your throws, for example shooting through gas clouds gives -1 penalty to throws (instead of 4+ you need a 5+), shooting through bigger meteor fields halves the number of your dices, etc.
Players activate their squadrons in alternate order, meaning that the first player moves, fires and takes whatever actions with his one squadron, then the second player does so, and so on until all squadrons were activated- after that another turn starts.
For more detailed information about game rules feel free to read .pdf rulebook available on the PRODUCERS WEBSITE.
Ok, now to the mentioned starter- Sorylians are giant space lizards! (how awesome is that?). They are higher than men, muscled and wear scales! Although from natural behavior they're very cautious and peaceful, their ships are very fast and maneuverable. Thanks to highs speed ships, and big bodies of their warriors, they make very good boardings of enemy vessels. Most of their weapons are very deadly at close ranges.

In the box, you will find 10 ships- one big battleship (14 cm length), 3 cruisers (9.2 cm each) and 6 frigates (5.8 cm), some paper tokens, assembly guide and ship characteristics.

Tokens and characteristics were printed on good, thick shiny paper. There's not much to tell about them, they look nice and won't get damaged easily.

Flight pegs for ships are made of transparent plastic. It looks quite nice, but unfortunately sticks weren't made with sufficient precise- their diameters vary a bit from each other and from holes in the bottom of ships. I had some problems with putting them in bases and in models. Drilling bigger holes won't make anything better, because you will have big clearance and model won't be stable. As I talked with friends who bought other races, they all had the same problem in their boxes.

Finally the main part of the starter- models.
Hull of each ship was made from good quality resin and engines from well known metal. Cast is very nice and all, even finest, details were carefully shown on the models. Most of things fit together well. Below you can see comparison of all ships with GW high elf.

Unfortunately I got wry battleship and one frigate. All models, except those 2, were straight and without any flaws. Those faulty models were highly curved (I can't show you how did they look, because I took pictures after I repaired them). I had to put them in boiling water and carefully straighten them- it took some time, but it repaid.

More models:

 

Despite few downsides I'm contented I bought that box. The game is fun, models after some work look really nice and lets be honest... space lizards rock!!

Hope I helped someone with this short "review" and thanks for reading,

Czys

Luz New York - Review

Hi,

Some time ago I bought a new model from Nocturna models. It is a new line of models based on artworks from Luis and Romulo Royo. Im a big fan of their artworks and when I saw this model I could not resist buying it :D

First of all this is a 1/12 - 70 mm resin model kit representing a character named Luz. The kit I sealed in a metal box with is very nice and consists of 7 resin pieces (including base) and a certificate.

The casting quality is very good and the details are very subtle and there ware almost no mold lines. This is my second contact with resin and the first was GW's failcast but here the resin is very good and there are no air bobbles so a big plus for that. The parts fit overlay good but not ideal. I know that I must use some green stuff to mask the links between parts but the cape and the head will be a different story, lucky nothing a cant handle. 

Here you can see some photos of the assembled model using bluetac.

I think this is a grate model and I'm positively surprised with the quality of this model. I will keep an eye on future Nocturna models because I can say their models are very good.

I think this model will be a true test for my painting skills and It wont be easy to paint. I hope to paint her this year maybe on a polish painting competition but time will tel. Now my son is a priority in my life and I have small amounts of time to paint but lets hope this will change :D.

RED

Andrea Miniatures Mila Kusanagi - Review

Hi,

As a brake from painting my Dark Eldar army I have bought a model that I wanted to paint from the day it was released. I always wanted to paint a larger scale model because I think it must be fun and ant should be very challenging for a miniature painter and my choice was a Mila Kusanagi model from Adrea miniatures Dark Nova range.

Here you can see the inside of this box.

As you can see the model is built of 5 parts and a base. The parts fit well together and the model has a very good cast and it had very small mold lines and sometimes I had problems with finding them.

The model has 65mm (1:32) and its big to paint so it will be quite a challenge for me but I have some ideas what to make with so much lat surfaces. Here you can see a size comparison with my fire Dragon Exarch model. 

 

I was surprised how much nice detail and had the face and many the whole model as you can see on the next photo. 

So overall in my opinion the kit is grate and I want to paint this model very much but for now I'm working on 3 Venoms for my Dark Eldar army and this lady must wait in line. And I can add that I will buy more Andrea models in future because this one is very nice.

RED

Contempor Dreadnought review

Hi,

Last week I've received Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought from Forge World. First of all I'm very satisfied with the resin quality. After some bad experience with former models this model have only few small form displaccements. I must admit that he's a big cookie. I've ordered two models, first will go to ebay soon after Urien. Second one will be painted for my BA army. With the last one for me I'll change storm bolter for melta and maybe work on Blood Talons from current Furioso Dreadnought kit.

What is the best about this model beside fancy look? It's great to have opportunity to give legs new pose!

Regards,
Gimiak

Lugft Huron from Astral Claws - review

Hi there.

Me again. ;) Few days ago I've put a small review of one of the products from Forge World. Today I would like to continue my review looking deeply at Lugft Huron from Astral Claws. It looks very nice on FW website, but does it look that good in real life?



Standard FW transparent bag.


Complete kit


... and what do we get here? A "small" 1mm deep mold line...


I find that quality of this kit is very low. Elements on banner are... flat. This horrible mold line scares me a lot. I'll paint him next year, but before I could do it I've to prepare this model and I'm sure that cleaning part will take a lot of time.

Yesterday I manage a little amount of my time to paint my poor assault squads. Tomorrow I'll finally finish three of them. I've to paint backpacks and shoulder pads. The rest is painted. Ok, thats all of now.

Regards,
Gimiak