Arrr! Me hearties! We're back!

Hello! The long silence is broken, we are mostly back in business! To open our dealings I present a model that I've been wanting to share for a while but have been prevented from doing so by competition rules:

This is a Black Scorpion Diamond Joe that I'm going to use as a Captain for a pirate warband that I am building as and when I find a figure that inspires me. I also entered him in the Golden Chef competition that Black Scorpion run. Whilst I didn't win anything I am chuffed to be on the "mentions" page. Sadly it's been so long since I painted him that I cannot remember a darned thing that I did!

The time lag however gives rise to an interesting comparison, take a look at the face above, now compare with:

This was taken just one month later after I had refined some of the new tricks that I was using to paint skin (some of which were developed for the pirate captain) and compare that with:

Older work again. Now each of these shots represents the very best I could do at that time and I was (and am, be fair Jeff) proud of all of these miniatures when I painted them but it just goes to show how much can change in such a limited time with constant practice. "But hold on," you cry, "you do this for a living Jeff, I just don't have the time to..." and at that point I would interrupt. One of the things I hear most often is "I don't have the time to..." to this I say rubbish. You probably do not have eight hours a day to lavish on your hobby but I bet, I just bet that you could find half an hour, or even a full hour. Think about times in the day when you are just sitting, watching TV for instance. Get a lap tray, a folding table, a comfortable cushion for the coffee table and get some paint on a model while watching Big Who Wants to be a Weakest Link Get Me Out Of Here or whatever. It is amazing how many shows do not need you to use your eyes at all. Adding an hour a day to your painting will add the equivilent of 45 of my working days to your painting time.

Think about that. What if we were all to paint a model a week? That's 52 models a year, enough for a small 40k army, a decent sized Warmachine host, a couple of gangs for Malifaux or one of the Specialist games. The list goes on and with batch painting you can probably do 5 models in the time taken to paint 2. That is more like 130 models a year. Most importantly of all, you would keep a paintbrush in your hand and keep the muscle memory going. Painting is no different to playing a musical instrument. Practice is essential and the ONLY way to improve. Also, use it or loose it, If I have a sparse painting month due to holidays or RealLife^TM  getting in the way then when I return I feel "rusty", tight, cramped. Takes a few sessions to get back in the groove.

Anyhow, hope that has made you think! I should be back to normal service very shortly (just waiting on a serial key for Photoshop CS3) and have lots to share.

TTFN

Ogres, more like onions than cakes apparently...

In a bit of a gear shift from all the 40k of late I thought I'd dig out my Pirate Ogres and share with the group. These are one of those armies that I'm hoping will see a lot more table time under the new rules than they used to (gods they sucked!). But the imagery is nice. First off, the leaders of the host: The Bruiser and the Butcher.

The Pirate Captain Maneater I use as a Bruiser, the whole army concept is a pirate vessel taken over and crewed by Ogres. The Tattoo on the stomach is a combination of the Chaos Star, the compass rose and the Ogre Maw. My favourite part of this figure is the gnoblar on his shoulder dressed as a parrot, complete with tie-on beak and sulking.

The Butcher I wanted to look very unhealthy. The model is one of those that people hesitate before picking up and that is exactly the effect I was going for! The unhealthy, flushed, sweaty pallor of the skin is from repeated red and purple glazes of very thin paint (this is before the days of snackey washes). The blood is a mix of red and chestnut inks (3:1 ratio) with a little gloss varnish. The knife (detail view below) is blooded with the same mix but snow flock was mixed in to give clotted gore and nasty bits (stay tuned for more when the Berserkers are finished!).

Now onto the rank and file. All of the skin on these lads was painted in the same way: Tallarn Flesh base coat, (These days I would insert an Ogryn Flesh wash), highlights were blended up in a streaky fashion to give texture to the corded muscles (the skin is very smooth on the miniatures) using bleached bone mixed into the tallarn flesh. I wanted a very desaturated pallet to the colours so used foundation paints extensively for the cloth. The banners are actual pirate ship flags printed out at the right size and attached to the banner poles.

I had to have the leadbelchers in the army, I love the idea of these guys being in the gun decks of the ship and blasting away at the opposition. Next we move to the rare elements of the army. The Maneaters and the Slave Giant:

These are some of my favourite Ogre models, each just oozes character and are damn hard in the army too.

The Slavegiant continues a theme for me, none of my Giants seem to lead terribly happy lives, this one is chained up (forgeworld modelling chain with thin superglue run along the links to stiffen it) and dragging a millstone with gnoblars jabbing at his heels and calves to make him run at the enemy. Ah, bless. A close up of the gnoblars below:

Wierdly, while I hate the Gnoblars as a unit in the Ogre Kingdoms army they lend a lot of character to it as supporting members of units.

There you go! This is quite an old project (some three or four years now) and it is gratifying to see how my painting has moved on, I remain, however, quite proud of this army and look forward to it doing better on the tabletop!

TTFN