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

New MAS bases, first impressions

The original Kickstarter campaign, launched jointly by Micro Art Studio and Coolminiornot, was launched in September 2014 and February 2015 was the estimated shipping date. Well, as often happens with crowdfunding, it was delayed. I'd almost completely forgotten about it so I was a bit surprised when I got my set of bases yesterday.

Oryginalna Kickstarterowa kampania rozpoczęta wspólnie przez Micro Art Studio i Coolminiornot zaczęła się we wrześniu 2014 i luty 2015 był przewidywanym terminem dostarczenia gotowego produktu. Cóż, jak to często bywa z crowdfundingiem, pojawiły się opóźnienia. Zdążyłem już prawie o niej zapomnieć więc tym większe było moje zaskoczenie kiedy wczoraj dostałem przesyłkę z podstawkami.

The bases have an innovative system as they come in two pieces - a base insert and a black base with a recessed center to hold the first part. These two fit together perfectly. The insert is molded in plastic, which means that you no longer need to pin the minis (at least teh plastic ones) to bases.
I chose the planking set as I thought it might be useful both for my Guild and Neverborn crews. I've used a resin version of these before and I really liked the dilapidated look. The new bases seem to be identical to the old ones (at least at first glance). The set consists of 1x50mm, 6x40mm, 10x30mm bases along with their inserts
Podstawki mają innowacyjny system ponieważ składają się z dwóch części - wkładki i czarnej podstawki z miejscem na nią. Obie części są idealnie spasowane. Wkładka jest odlana w plastiku, co oznacza że pinowanie figurek (a przynajmniej tych plastikowych) nie będzie już konieczne.
Wybrałem wersję z deskami. Doszedłem do wniosku, że będzie pasowała zarówno do mojej Gildii jak i do moich Neverborn. Poza tym, bardzo podoba mi się ich zniszczony wygląd. Nowe wersje podstawek wyglądają identycznie jak stare żywiczne odlewy (przynajmniej na pierwszy rzut oka). Zestaw składa się z podstawek i wkładek 1x50mm, 6x40mm, 10x30mm.

So how do the new bases look like in comparison to the classic resin versions? First of all, that's definitely not a big improvement in general quality. While there are no traces of air bubbles (which were sometimes present in the resin ones), the details seem a bit less crisp. What's more, there are some mold lines that would require cleaning up prior to painting.

I do like the idea that you can paint the inserts first and glue them to the bases later on to ensure a clear black finish on the rim. It should makes things easier.

Well, I can't really say much more at this point. I'll need to paint at least a few before I can give a more definite opinion.

A więc jak wypadają te podstawki w porównaniu z poprzednią wersją? Przede wszystkim, ciężko mówić o znacznej poprawie jakości. Co prawda nie ma na nich bąbelków powietrza (które czasami można było znaleźć na żywicznych wersjach), detale wydają się być trochę mniej wyraźne. Co więcej, pojawiają się też linie po odlewie, które trzeba będzie  usunąć przed malowaniem.

Podoba mi się idea malowania wstawek przed przyklejeniem ich do podstawek. Dzięki temu mamy pewność idealnej czerni na krawędzi. To powinno ułatwić pracę.

Cóż, ciężko mi teraz więcej napisać. Jak już pomaluję kilka, będę mógł napisać bardziej obszerną recenzję.

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.

Great quality and affordable bases on KS

CoolMiniOrNot is running yet another interesting KS campaign. This time they've joined forces with Micro Art Studio - a Polish company that has been in the business for over a decade. MAS is particularly well known for producing top-notch resin bases. Now they've created something new - some awesome base inserts that are actually cast in... plastic. It makes them much easier to work with as your plastic miniatures are going to hold tight without the need to pin them in place.

The campaign is already a success. At the moment there are five styles of bases to choose from. For the price of $22 (plus the shipping cost) you're getting 34 (!!!!) bases. That's 34 standard lipped bases with 34 plastic inserts. A really great deal, well worth considering if you're using this type of bases. Check out the campaign page here.

Papa Loco

My work on the Latigo Posse continues with the latest addition of Papa Loco. He is the oldest men in the family and despite his mental problems (that straitjacket is not here by chance) he still commands respect. This is reflected with his "Hold this" ability, which gives +to damage flips for one turn to a friendly model. It's a very useful boost and sharpshooters like Perdita can greatly benefit from it. Still, using Papa Loco in game is tricky as he is quite unpredictable with triggers that can damage everyone around him and the fact that he blows up when killed.

The miniature is very nicely designed. Partly torn straitjacket, a few randomly attached sticks of dynamite, and a gun he's holding to his temple complete the crazy old geezer look. The details are superb, which always impresses me on plastic minis in this scale. However, some elements are so tiny that getting paint on them was a challenge. I'm talking about his eyes and teeth in particular. I had to use the tip of my 0 Kolinsky brush to get them right.

One more thing - a very interesting KS campaign has recently been started by Games & Gears Ichiban Studios. You can get some excellent brushes there for a reasonable price. Check it out here. The campaign is best summarized by one of the best painters in the business, Les Bursley.

I'm definitely going to back this one. My detail brushes need new replacements and this seems like the best choice in terms of price-quality ratio of the product.

Wrath of Kings Kickstarter

It looks like crowdfunding can be a good platform for launching new war games. After successful campaigns of games like Kingdom Death: Monster, Warzone Ressurection and some others, there's another one that's bound for money. Coolminiornot has already funded a few interesting projects via Kickstarter (Rivet Wars, Kaosball, Zombicide), it came back with Wrath of Kings.

It's a fantasy war game set in an interesting universe. Very nice miniatures, some great artwork and a gaming system that looks good too. I'm not going to back this one (I already have too many irons in the fire) but if you're interested, you can check it out here.

Evil Babies painted

These three were a lot of fun to work with. I think Wyrd did a great job designing them as they capture the spirit of Evil Babies from their card game. Their oversized heads with exaggerated features together with disproportionate bodies make them look over the top (in a good way)..

Painting them was a good exercise. The minis are very small but they also have some larger, flat surfaces (heads in particular). Placing highlights there was a bit challenging.

As far as color scheme is concerned, I followed the original artwork as I really like the vivid shades used there. I tend to paint using rather dark paints so it felt refreshing to paint something more lively for a change. I added the chest, cask and streetlight as I thought that these minis alone would look less interesting.

EBO bonus minis - a quick review

Thought I'd share with you some pics of the bonus minis from the Evil Baby Orphanage Kickstarter extras. I really like them as they are designed  in a style that matches artwork from the card game, i.e. small bodies and large heads with exaggerated features. Think Stewie Griffin and you can easily understand what I mean. The street lamp (Wyrd accessories kit), resin cask and chest are not part of the box - I just added them to bring out the character from the minis.
They all come with transparent bases (three color versions). I don't really care for them much so I used the regular black ones. I may use the transparent ones for objective markers later on.

Jack the Ripper has to be my favorite from this set. His facial expression does make him look like an evil baby. I added cobbled street texture to the base along with the street lamp as I thought it would go well with the gruesome story of a man who killed female prostitutes in the slums of London in the late 19th century. This mini can be used as Copycat Killer or Baby Kade in a game of Malifaux.

Lizzie Borden is another evil baby that portrays a twisted individual from the dark past. The real Lizzie became infamous for killing her father and stepmother with an axe. There's even a folklore rhyme about her:

Lizzie Borden took an axe 

And gave her mother forty whacks. 

When she saw what she had done 

She gave her father forty-one.

The mini will be a bit of a challenge to paint. Her oversized head lacks any texture. It's basically one large flat surface that will require plenty of layers of thinned down paint to get it right. I placed her on a cask and plan to add some gore effects to the axe with blood trickling down the cask onto the cobblestones. In Malifaux she can be used as Candy or Student of Conflict.

Eric the Red is the last miniature presenting an evil baby included in the box. This medieval explorer (and a killer of course) is portrayed with a miniature that is all smiles. It can be used as a Desperate Mercenary in game. While I like the mini, I have to admit it would look more complete with some kind of a weapon.

And here are the new minis with some older ones to show the scale.

Figure Art from MASSIVE VOODOO

What a great week. First I picked up the EBO bonuses on Monday and then the long awaited artbook from an Indiegogo campaign came in the post yesterday.

The artbook looks great and the quality of print is top-notch. The pictures look fantastic too. What I really like about it though are the descriptions written by Roman and Raffa. Very personal thoughts as well as unique insights into the creative process behind these works are what elements that make this artbook truly unique.  

The documentary book is very nice too as it gives even more information on the process of creating these fantastic works. The other bonuses (stickers and bookmark) are a nice touch too. As you can see in the picture, they've already found a proper place in my workspace.

Once again, congratulations to guys from MASSIVE VOODOO team. They've created something truly unique and it was definitely worth all the wait.

EBO Kickstarter extras

I picked up the bonuses for Kickstarter Evil Baby Orphanage today from my local PO. I was actually surprised that they reached me so quickly. The first impressions are very positive. New cards are in the same aesthetics and look like a lot of extra fun for the game. Other things are pretty cool too. The plushie looks... somehow cheap and I don't really care for it much but then it was a bonus so  can't complain. What I'm really happy about are the three plastic minis. I'll write more about them once they're put together and at least basecoated.