Deathwing Terminator bust WIP II

Work continues on the Deathwing test mini... right now the red areas and the lenses are done. I've also basecoated the Crux Terminatus (the symbol on the left shoulderpad) in black green, I'll highlight this up to a medium green later on. Actually I've painted it in a traditional grey first, but that really didn't suit the beige armor at all.

I might also give the red areas a wash of dark red to shade everything a bit more.

Deathwing Terminator bust WIP I

After reading September's White Dwarf magazine I was full of inspiration to paint a Blood Angels terminator. At the same time I got this crazy idea to create a 28mm bust simply by cutting up a miniature.

So it was decided that an Assault on Black Reach would be sacrificed for this experiment. I used my Dremel to cut everything right above the waist line and assembled the mini. After that I've put the figure aside and continued to work on other projects. Maybe 28mm busts weren't the best idea :)

But I picked this figure back up for the Bolter & Chainsword painting competition, known as the 'Golden Bolters'. I decided to paint up a unit of Deathwing Terminators as an entry, but I needed a figure to test the paint scheme on which I had in mind. So my Terminator bust was great for this purpose!

It also allowed me to try to attach some of the green stuff moldings I've created earlier. Works great in my opinion.

For the painting I'm going for a gritty, dirty look. I'm going to achieve this through a 'streaky' way of painting. I got a lot of inspiration from Tim Davis at The Vanus Temple, although my approach is different and I'm going for a slightly higher quality.

Back from Crisis 2009

Short post to inform you guys about the result of the painting competition. Well as expected I didn't win anything :) My Infinity figure came quite close to a bronze medal I heard afterwards from the judges, but lost a lot of points on the base apparently. Anyway, we all agreed that judging was a bit awkward this year, especially in the single SF category where there were only a few prizes.

I spent a bit of money on some Black Scorpion undead pirates, paints and other accessories. More on this later.

Another thing you can expect here soon is a picture report, similar to what I did for Spiel 2009.

Michael Holzapfel already has a report on his blog, including a load of pictures from the painting competition.

Preparing for the Crisis 2009 painting competition

Tomorrow I will visit the Crisis event in Antwerp. And just like every year I will participate in the painting competition there. My two entries will be the Red Karnagh Drune from Rackham and the Haqqislam Naffatum from Corvus Belli.


I joined the competition for the first time in 2004 and managed to bring back home a bronze trophee. More prizes followed in 2005 and 2006 including gold and silver in several categories. Then I was unable to visit the event in 2007 since I was abroad for my job. Last year, 2008, I managed to bring home another trophee with my Hell Dorado undead unit.

So will I continue to keep winning trophies there? I don't know for 2009... I don't expect anything to be honest. Simply because I just didn't put much time in showcase work this year and on top of that the single mini categories are always the ones with the most competition at Crisis. But I have two eye-catching minis which are completely different sculpts and painted in two completely different styles, so who knows what will happen?

Testing out green stuff press molds

People who follow me on Twitter will have noticed I've been experimenting with green stuff press molds for the last couple of days. I also blogged about this technique some time ago.

Well I finally got round trying it out for myself and I'm very pleased with the results! I decided to test the mold making with some very small bits (from the Space Marine commander sprue), and a larger one (from the Space Marine drop pod sprue). I used some round Warhammer 40K bases to make the molds.

Finished: Infinity Haqqislam Naffatûn

Another figure which has been sitting on my desk for the past couple of months and which is finally finished. I've written about this figure before in a work in progress post. As mentioned in that post I didn't really go for a super smooth paintjob on the figure, but rather used it as an experiment for a high-contrast style of painting, together with a zenithal lighting approach.

I think it turned out very well. Actually the effect is nicer on a picture than in real life. I definitely want to try out this new technique on more miniatures.

If you care to vote: http://coolminiornot.com/235657 thanks ;)

Spiel 2009 event coverage

Last Sunday I visited Spiel in Essen, Germany for the first time. And it was a lot bigger than I expected! The event takes 4 days and attracts more than 150.000 people. Several large halls were filled with companies presenting their games, stores selling stuff at amazing prizes and a large number of clubs and organizations.

About 70% of the games were boardgames. The rest was made up out of puzzles, toys, roleplaying, comics and the usual mix of cardgames. There were only a few miniature companies there, and with Games Workshop not being at the show a big player was missing.

I took a bunch of pictures, but tried to focus on everything miniature-related, which was quite easy. So here's a quick tour.

First up was Dungeon Twister Prison. Actually this is the second edition of the game by Asmodée Editions with refurbished rules, new characters and even rules to play the game without an opponent. Now the interesting part for us miniature enthusiasts is this: all the miniatures you need are contained in the box. This means 5 figures for each player. The original Dungeon Twister (of which I happen to own a copy) didn't have miniatures: the characters were represented by cardboard . Now there was the option to buy a box of the figures (the first edition had 8 characters) seperately, manufactured by Fenryll, but this was rather expensive and then both players had the same miniatures. Looks like these figures were very popular so Asmodée decided to box them up together with the full game. The original also had confusing rules, so I hope they cleared them up also. There was a tiny display of the studio painted characters at their booth, and they looked totally sweet!




Next was the surpsingly large booth of Ziterdes, the German terrain maker. They had two big displays, one displaying a castle, the other featuring their Dunkelstadt (Dark City) terrain set which basically allows you to create a huge dungeon system for your games. There were also terrain making workshops.











Most of you probably remember Rackham, right? For those who don't: this French miniature manufacturer decided to swap their range of masterfully sculpted metal figures for pre painted plastic rubbish. I exactly found one store selling the old Rackham stuff: some old blisters in a discount bin, right next to a huge pile of Cadwallon rulebooks which were offered at (get ready) .... 1 euro! A bit further another shop was selling AT-43 and also giving demos, but it seems the public has lost its interest in Rackham...



Also present at Spiel: Arcane Legions. I don't know much about this game and to be honest I'm not really interested in it. But here are some pictures from their booth.




The booth which amazed me the most was probably the one of Micro Art Studios. For some reason I always thought this company was just made up out of some guys casting resin bases in their garage and selling them online to finance the hobby. Maybe they started that way, but right now they're a big miniature manufacturer, still best known for their beautifully sculpted bases of course. Besides the bases they have a bunch of miniatures, including the Discworld line. Their booth was big and bright, with large plexi-glass displays. Great stuff!


















I also met fellow miniature painter Dirk Stiller. He was sitting at the Alkemy booth, painting some of their figures.




Alkemy themselves were giving demos right next to the display cabinets which featured their awesome studio miniatures.






After painting their Elves, I was really looking forward to seeing the Mantic Games booth. They had a nice big army on display, as well as some painted three-ups. One of those big figures was a skeleton, probably one of their upcoming army: undead. I wanted to have a chat with Ronnie Renton, but he was busy, too bad. The booth was shared with the sister companies Army painter and Warlord Games.






Last up: Freebooter. At smaller events they're always the eye-catcher, but on an event the scale of Spiel their booth is too simple and it got lost between the bigger manufacturers. Painter Stefanie Arndt was also there, so I had a short chat with her too.


Well that's it for this report. If you want more be sure to follow my blog because Crisis in Antwerp is due in less than two weeks! I hope to meet some of you there, and if you can't make it then maybe Spiel 2010? :)