My blog

A Third Tribute to bill horan

Mon, 7 May 2012 17:35:02 -0700

Massimo sent me a third tribute to Bill Horan. Here are some of the photos. Remember, these are 1/72 scale fascimiles of works originally sculpted by Mr. Horan.

Great job, Massimo!

Massimo won a silver medal at the SCAHMS show this year for his reproduction of Bill’s “Road to Metammeh” pictured below.

Stephane Guerry’s Scottish Piper

Mon, 7 May 2012 17:23:45 -0700

I posted this figure sculpted by Stephane Guerry in January of this year. I just received a notice that it has been mass produced for painters. You can obtain from Stephane at http://store.figurines-tv.com/

The figure is 1/72 scale.

Patrick Masson, Sculptor

Mon, 7 May 2012 16:45:22 -0700

I am always scanning the internet for good mini sites. Recently, while visiting planetfigure.com I ran across the work of Patrick Masson, in France. I was immediately taken with the precise sculpting of his figures. I was also taken with the comic/cartoon subjects. One, in particular, caught my eye and I immediately purchased it.

In the process of ordering the figure, Patrick graciously allowed me to engage him in a brief discussion about his work as a sculptor. I asked him to tell me little about himself and his work as a sculptor. He writes,

I'm 36 year old and although I am sculpting since a long time (about 18 years) I am doing this as a professional free lance sculptor only since 1 year. Indeed, before I was working as a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry so very different ;)

I was sculpting for pleasure only as a hobby and was doing 1 to 2 pieces per year as gifts for family or friend essentially.
I was mainly doing miniatures (about 60 to 150mm height) from comic book.

Very disappointed with my work in the industry, I have decided to try my chance as a sculptor and now I am sculpting smaller scales miniatures mainly around 30 to 50mm for miniature game industry (like Darkage, CMoN, SmartMax, etc...).

I am also trying to find some time to do some personal creations and sell them on my side (through my company ARTIK TOYS) for my pleasure (www.artiktoys.com).

I am mainly sculpting in polymer clay as Fimo or Sculpey but using green stuff on the wire base for a better attachment. I am also using magic sculpt for mechanical parts or weapon as it is easier to sand and get very smooth surfaces.

I have learned by myself, I am a fully autodidact sculptor. But now this is very easy to find tutorials about sculpting on forums. This link http://tutofig.com/ can be a good help as the guys are regrouping a lot of tutorials from different places.

Some advises I can give you are:

- don't be in hurry, take your time to sculpt
- do masses and general shape first, don't start detailing before to have a good bases, that's the most important point. If you start detailing to early, you may loose the results even with very good details if the base is not good
- learn anatomy (through books, photos et anything else), that's very important to get a good result even if you are doing a monster, having good knowledge of anatomy will make him looks real
- make a good structure (strong enough to sustain the weight of your sculpt and don't move too much when you are sculpting. but on this point feelings of every sculptors are different, some prefer very rigid armature but some prefer softer
- if you are using polymer clay as fimo you may wait the more you can before cooking the piece, it will allow you to make modification until the latest point. but the advantage of this material is even if you cook it you can always add fresh material to it
- if you prefer material like magic sculpt, then you have to work a bit faster but the advantage is that you can take the piece in hand without damaging at each step of the sculpt, this is a matter of sculptor's preference.

Here are some of the figures he sculpted.

For those of you who visit the coolminiornot site, often, a new figure with the CMON label is a Patrick Masson creation. It is a Steampunk Abigale.

The figure I purchased is called Santos.

A check this one out!

This is amazing! And there is more, point your browser to http://the-small.daportfolio.com

If you are interested in purchasing any of these gems, you can purchase the Steampunk Abigale at CMON. The others you can arrange to obtain through Patrick at www.artiktoys.com

Thanks Patrick!

Przemyslaw Szymczyk

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:23:19 -0700

The photo heading this entry is by Przemyslaw. I happened to find it on his website (http://www.steel-demons.blogspot.com/) jumping from one website to another. He includes several poses of the GW Harlequin. Among them is this one:

I paint primarily with Vallejo acrylics, and wondered why he used the Vallejo Ink as bookends for his Harlequin. So, I wrote to him asking why. He graciously responded:

I'm using vallejo inks like normal paints (or mix them with standard vallejo game or model color)- with bright base color (white mostly) they have great 1-2 pass coverage and saturated effect. With diluted ink you can also slightly change color of painted elements on figure or add saturation to color used before. Hope this helps :)

Here are a few more pics of this figure.

Where’s my Vallejo Ink?

Thanks Przemyslaw!

Greg DiFranco's Flats

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:56:18 -0700

Some readers of the site may not be familiar with “flats.” Like anything else, they really need to be seen with your own eyes and not through the medium of a photo to be appreciated, but for the sake of introducing them on my web site, photos will have to do.

The first time I was made aware of “flats” was at a show, a SCAHMS Show a couple of years ago. At first, it was difficult to make out what I was looking at. First, I assumed it was a three dimensional figure like everything else at the show, but the closer I got to the figure the more I realized it had no sides. It was a flat image painted so well, it looked three dimensional (3D).

This year’s presentation of flats at the SCAHMS Show was by some of the very finest painters of flats: Chuck Smith and Penny Meyer. I was so provoked by the beauty of their presentations, as in previous years, that I went back to reread some of the articles that appeared in the now defunct magazine, Historical Miniatures. Two significant articles were written by Peter Ferk and Greg DiFranco. These are two more significant names where painters of flats is concerned.

I happened to find Greg DiFranco on Facebook, requested friendship with him and have exchanged e-mail over the past couple of days. He was gracious enough to send me a couple of photos of his work.

There are a few things I want you to notice in the photo of Napoleon (above). First of all, remember, this is a flat figure. Notice how he painted the illusion of light on this figure. And notice how he creates the illusion of dimension by painting shadows of the reins on the horse. I don’t know about you, but this is a stunning example of how to paint, but then again Greg is a Master at this. This is not his first piece. (Is it your first piece, Greg? Please say no.)

30mm flats, engraved by Ludwig Frank

90mm Quadra Concept Flat

I have never seen, or at least rarely have I seen a photograph that did justice to the original piece. But when a photo looks as great as these few pieces of Greg’s, I can only imagine how beautiful these pieces might be to see with your own eyes.

Thanks for the photos, Greg.

Painting Flesh

Fri, 9 Mar 2012 14:52:21 -0800

Damien Pedley has been painting for 3-4 years, but in the last 2-3 years he has really begun pushing himself to paint and enter competitions. He loves to paint. A day without painting is like a day without sunshine. His inspirations are artists like Roman Lappat, Raffaele Picca, Jen Hailey, Bogusz Stupnick, to name a few. (That is some line up of inspirations.)

I struggle with painting flesh, and when I saw Damien’s figure on CMON, I asked him how he accomplished such a beautiful effect. He wrote:

For this guy I used the following colours

Reaper Master Series (RMS) - Dark Highlight, Tanned Shadow, Tanned Flesh, Tanned Highlight, Fair Skin

Vallejo Game Colour (VGC) - Dark Fleshtone

Its fairly simple, basecoat with midtone, RMS Tanned Flesh.

I make 9 mixes of the paints for glazes/juices, so for example starting from the darkest colour the first three colours would be Dark Highlight, Dark Highlight/Tanned Shadow, Tanned Shadow and so on. I make sure that they are all of a glaze consistency. I also make a glaze of VGC Dark Fleshtone as this has a red/brown hue to it but this is not used for the base skin painting (that will become clear why in a min)

Then it is a matter of working up the highlights and shadows on the skin with the 9 glazes. Very much thin layers and keep adding more and more until happy.

throughout painting I also use the occasional glaze of the dark fleshtone to the entire skin to give a slight sunburn/tan.

Thanks, Damien.

"Grisaille" Technique

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:12:21 -0800

We have explored the technique known by its French name, “Grisaille,” in previous posts. In the most recent issue of “Figure International Magazine” published by Andrea Press, there is an article by Penny Myers, the one who introduced me to the method. I commend the article to you. It breaks the entire process down into practical steps.

On a slightly different note, I have a friend who is a professional painter. Joe and I went to junior high school together. We kept in touch through high school, and sadly, only kept in touch on rare occasion. I have had occasion to visit with Joe and to renew our acquaintance.

Joe Yakovetic has had decades of experience in a variety of artistic venues, but over the past several years, Joe paints scenes from Disney animated movies and Disney Studios sells reproductions of his work through their art galleries in their various parks.

He has not restricted his work to scenes from Disney movies. He has also painted incredible scenes from The Wizard of Oz and God with the Wind.

I asked Joe if he had ever heard of the Grisaille method of painting. (I found out that was like asking a preacher if he had ever heard of the Bible. Joe said that is precisely the method he uses to create his paintings and sent me some examples. Here’s what Joe writes:

Try painting in a brown scale (I think this adds more life to the painting), using Burnt Sienna or Burnt Umber, like a sepia tone photo
Then glaze in order:
blue
green
red
yellow
highlights.
Use burnt umber, prussian blue and alizarin crimson to mix black, you can use more of any one color to change the tone. It is very rich and will keep your piece more vibrant and alive.
I use liquin with my oil paints to glaze with. It dries very quickly. There are glazes for acrylics but I haven't used any in years. I'm not a big fan of acrylics for painting. Although for small things they are great.

Check out more of Joe’s work at www.yakovetic.com. And check out his work below:

2Paintminiatures.com

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:36:02 -0800

Some websites are designed to display the work of their owner. Others contain tutorials. And still others recommend products and books on the subject. This one does it all. If you want to learn more about the miniature world, this is a great site to bookmark. It’s owner, Sharif Ishnin, is a student of the hobby. He practices what he learns and is willing to display it and to share the techniques he learns with the rest of us. Videos included.

I wrote to Sharif commending him for his site, and asked him to tell me a little about himself and to explain the purpose he has in mind for his site. He write:

My name is Sharif Ishnin and I'm 38 years old. I am living in Singapore, a tropical urban jungle. I restarted my miniature modelling hobby back in 2006.

I was exposed to 1/72 scale soldiers by my late dad when I was about 6 years old. He enjoyed painting and creating military dioramas. My two elder brothers and myself shared a large collection of 1/72 scale plastic soldiers from Airfix and Matchbox when we were young. By the time we became teenagers and moved to a new home, all our toys were kept in a metal chest for 30 years. A few years after my dad passed on, I got back into painting 1/35 scale and 28mm Lord of the Rings miniatures. I never imagined I would ever get back into 1/72 scale miniatures until I reopened the metal chest that we kept at the back of the house. Well, the rest is history.

I also enjoy converting my miniatures and doing some sculpting. My first modeling magazine I bought in 1991 was White Dwarf . I always wanted to order those miniatures featured in the magazine but never got enough money to buy any. Sculpting became a necessity for me since I could not find any Spacemarine miniatures in my country back then. My first complete sculpt was a Spacemarine I made out of paper clay. I think it turned out quite okay because my brother seemed to be impressed by it.:) Of course, today everything can be purchased online. I only sculpt something when I cannot find it in the pose I like.

About my website.
My website 2Paintminiatures.com, is an information based site. I decided to share as much information that I have learned over the years to help those who had just started or restarted the hobby again. I always enjoyed military history and that was another factor that got me inspired to start a blog to feature my latest miniature projects. I also like to add videos of my miniature projects on my blog - something that I picked up from design school.

I believe there are still plenty of things to learn in the hobby and still room for me to improve on. That's why I shall continue getting connected with the online miniature modeling community for many years to come.

I am honored to be on your website Steve. Thanks so much. I hope this helps.

Sharif Ishnin.

Thank you, Sharif.
2paintminiatures.com

News from Pegasus Hobbies

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:33:02 -0800

Because of my proximity to Pegasus Hobbies and my fascination with their 1/72 scale figures, I have tried to keep track of new projects. I am not an employee, and I am not an undercover reporter. I respect their business and their timing, meaning I know more than I report.

They have a number of exciting new projects that will not be completed for some time to come, but one new project they have been working on is a new Russian Army set to supplement what they already have available. This set looks great!

Erik Solie, pictured above, works at Pegasus Hobbies on a host of Pegasus projects, but in particular, the 1/72 scale figures. He has painted the figures for the box art for a number of the 1/72 scale figures they manufacture. He has also been a great help to me in learning to paint and keeping me informed on new products.

The photos of this blog entry were taking with Erik holding the set and me holding an iPhone. It did not make for the sharpest photos, but they are better than nothing. For fun, we can pretend I smuggled the photos out of the shop for your benefit:) No word yet on when they will be available, but when I find out, I will let you know.

A word on Erik. He is a talented painter and incredibly knowledgable on colors of uniforms and of history in general. I never cease to be amazed at his detailed knowledge of so many things historical. He is an invaluable resource.

The photos below do not do justice to how good these figures look!

Thanks Erik.

Benjamin Wang's Gallery

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:00:15 -0800

One of the interviews I conducted for this site, some time ago, was with Benjamin Wang. Recently, Ben posted some 1/72 scale figures he painted from Caesar Miniatures (WWII German Panzer Crew, box HB03). He posted them at one of the best sites in the world for 1/72 scale hobbyists: Bennos Figures Forum. Page after page of commendations and “Wows” and congratulations were posted as each of us complimented Ben for the incredible job he did on these figures.

After contacting him, Ben sent me a file of a host of photos of these figures and has graciously allowed me to create a gallery of them on this site. Believe me, they are worth just looking at to study for the detail and clarity of the paint job performed on these little figures. I posted the one above for two reasons. I hope it will provoke you to check out his gallery (here), and because every time I see this particular photo, it looks like it is hovering above the water cap a quarter of an inch or so. The two black marks at the center of the cap and the figure fixed to the cap at the far edge gives the appearance of it actually hovering above the cap. I just couldn’t let that optical phenomenon pass without commenting on it.

Thanks again, Ben.

(To Ben’s Gallery)