Status Update!

  My family and I moved to a new house and are still in the process of getting the place situated. My prior posts about GenCon were about the last regular access and hobby time I had. We've got everything completely moved and while my painting and hobby supplies take up about a quarter of the basement floor, it's not much resembling a "painting" area at the moment.

 That said, I'll be posting some stuff upcoming: better pictures of the Malifaux Ice Golem, the base I'm starting work on, the rest of the Malifaux Children of December crew, some quality supplies I picked up from Secret Weapon Miniatures while away at GenCon, and a few other odds and ends. I'm thinking I might do some actual product reviews (now that I have various odds and ends I could review) and I really want to get back into the posting of work-in-progress updates.

A lot of stuff in the works, and not enough hours in the day!

Gen Con MHE Painting Competition Rules are up!

So the rules are up for the Gen Con MHE Painting Competition over at http://www.genconminipainting.com/

  After some deliberation, I think I'm going to put anything I finish into Open and let the cards fall where they may. I entered a few things in last year - a Reaper figure I painted up specifically for the comp turned out less well-done than I would've liked, whereas the GW Chaos Lord that I've been using for my 40K (wannabe) Chaos army and put in just for the hell of it - near as I can tell it made it to the final cut.

  I realized I was in way over my head in terms of the sheer quality of stuff put in, but at least this time I have an understanding of GenCon's apparent "painting style" and competition format. All I've entered previously was Games Workshop's Golden Demon competitions a few times (granted, winning a few trophies, but still... apples and oranges standards-wise from what I can tell).

  Now I just need to finish some stuff between here and early August!

Tsathogga, Part 1

 Since shortly after GenCon, I've been working on a limited release casting of Tsathogga, the Frog God, from Center Stage Miniatures. This has got be one of the largest figures I've had the pleasure of painting, and definitely the largest resin casting I've ever worked on. Roughly a foot in length and molded from light grey resin, the detail on this figure is amazing - assembled from multiple parts, it surprisingly has minimal mold line issues and no bubbles in the copy I received. In all honestly, the trickiest part about assembly was pinning the arm and resculpting the gap where it meets flush with the body - other issues with the casting were fairly minor; I had to fill a few small cracks in the base near the body where the resin seems to have separated as it set, similar rough cracks in some of the deeper folds in his skin, and I had to dig out what I assume was solidified mold release agent in some of the deeper crevices on the body.

 I've made some progress in painting since this initial pre-primer pic and hope to post that shortly, but essentially I'm currently working on the figure in sections and trying to take as much advantage of the fine details already sculpted onto it as possible. I'm envisioning the underbelly as pale and sickly-looking, with blackened extremities on the upper body, pale, dead eyes, and a bright colored tongue to offset the rest of the more muted palette.

 If anyone has suggestions or tips on working with larger size figures versus the usual 1" tall scale that I'm mostly used to, by all means comment or post links. I'm trying to do this big guy as much justice as I can, since it is truly an awesome figure.

Back From the Dead! (Again!)

 It's been over a year since I last posted anything on this blog and, well, suffice it to say I wasn't exactly in the painting mood any more for a long, long while for a number of reasons. Recently, though, I've been spending time with a good group of friends who convinced me to go to GenCon with them. I found out there was a painting competition and although I had missed event registration by a long shot (I think it was July at this point) and I've been working a job that occupies roughly 6-7 days of my time on most weeks, I figgered I'd make the best of it and even see if I could crank out an entry to put in!

 In no particular order, I'd like to throw out a few "thank you's" from GenCon (albeit belatedly): to my wife, Jennifer, for lots of support and well-wishes; friends Jason, James, Will, Charlie, Paul (and Wendy!); Lyn Stahl - you rock!; Meg Maples (of Arcane Paintworks and Privateer Press fame); Drew Williams, sculptor extraordinaire; Izzy (I'm horrible with names, but you were very kind and an awesome artist!); Justin McCoy, aka 'misterjustin' of Secret Weapon Miniatures - it was great to finally meet you in person after all these years; the folks from Reaper Miniatures (Shannon Stiltz, Jen Kaufman, Martin Jones, and several more I'm sure but I suck at remembering names); and the awesome gentleman painter at the Privateer Press booth who critiqued some of my figures. If I've forgotten anyone from that crazy week, there's no offense intended - I feel I was in amongst a lot of great company; a little fish in a very large pond, as it were.

 And yes, I did finish a single figure entry, a Reaper Miniatures Wraith Harvester... mostly in the 3 days leading up to the painting competition deadline, where I got to sit at the GenCon demo tables upstairs and hobnob with greatness. My entry didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but it made it past several of the initial cuts so there's that - I also got some good feedback on it and I'm fairly sure I know why it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped (and more importantly, how to improve on that in future). And then there's the "old school" converted Games Workshop Chaos Lord of Slaanesh that I painted several years ago and put in just for the hell of it as a second entry - oddly enough it ended up on the shelf right below the single figures that placed, which I'm to understand means in the selection process that the figure I painted up specifically for the competition was rather underwhelming compared to one I just put in as an "afterthought."

 With any luck I'll post some pictures soonish here and make this "hello again" wall of text worthwhile, but not tonight - It's late and I've got work in the morning.