I did two short painting sessions this week, finally :) I decided to continue where I left off: Rackham's Bregan-Apostate of Darkness. Before my break I already painted his cloak, now I'm doing the armor bit by bit, until I get to the skin. I know there are a bunch of errors on the figure, which is normal when picking up a brush again after a 10 week break I think, but there's still a lot of brush control and confidence.

Here's what I have so far:

Hello everyone!

Wow, that was a long time away from the hobby! About two months and a half I think... after finishing Han Solo some pretty busy times showed up: lots of work at the office (deadlines!) and around the house (redoing my entire garden). Basically I felt too tired and stressed in the evening to even think about painting. And for me no painting means no blogging, not posting on forums, not even reading other blogs or looking at CMON.

But three weeks ago I went on holiday to France... it came just in time. The holiday itself was very inspiring, we went to the Loire region, well known for its castles. When I got back home my batteries were somewhat recharged again. Too bad a lot of work in my garden was still waiting for me. But the good news is that at the moment I'm writing this the last tiles of my new terrace and renewed driveway are laid down, so that's a big project which is finished already!

The last couple of days I find myself browsing miniature-related websites and blogs again, and returning to my regular forum. Hey I'm even writing on my blog! So I bet a return to the painting table is not far away. Not sure what I will do yet, just before my hiatus I started working on a Rackham figure (Apostate of Darkness). It's a big and rather complex figure, so I guess I will search my abandoned projects drawer for something easy to casually paint up to get back into the mood. So hopefully I will be able to show you some work in progress pictures very soon.

In the meantime here are some inspiring pictures from my holiday.

Remember the secret project I mentioned a while ago? Well I'm happy to reveal it to you. It's a Knight Models 30mm Han Solo. The reason for it being secret was quite simple: it's a birthday present for a friend.

I really enjoyed painting the figure, the sculpt is very very good. The exaggerated folds in the pants and the boots were a pleasure to paint. It also consists of one part, so no assembly was required, and all areas were very well reachable with the brush. Minor flaws include the nose (too big in my opinion) and the fingers on the right hand which are very poorly sculpted.

It is mounted on a display plinth by Plinth Country.
Vote here.

Got some awesome news last week: one of my painted miniatures from 2009 made it to the new CoolMiniOrNot Annual! It's the first time one of my works will appear in a publication so I'm very excited about it. I would also like to congratulate all fellow painters who are in it.

The figure that made it is my Drune Red Karnagh. It will appear on the top right of page 73. I spotted the figure in the preview video, but I can't wait to see it in real life. I just ordered a copy of the book by the way. Of course you can expect a review similar to the 2008 one. Too bad I didn't paint anything decent in 2010, but it would be lovely to make it to the book again in 2011 :)

Despite the silence on this blog I'm very busy working on a miniature. But I can't tell you what I'm working on... it's a secret project. I will be able to reveal the identity of this miniature and the reason I have to keep it secret in a week or two. But I can already say it's one of my finest works so far...

I decided that this figure has been sitting on my desk for way too long so in a spare hour on Sunday afternoon I decided to finish it. I always thing there's still a lot to do on a figure when it's nearly done, but then I'm surprised as how quickly it's done after all.

vote on CMON

I want to let you know about a blog which really deserves your attention. It's the personal website of fellow countryman Jan 'tuxit' Van Sweevelt. He's a very technical painter, drawing a lot of techniques from material like the miniature painting dvd by Jeremie Bonamant. Another source of inspiration for him are historical miniatures. He once told me the fantasy scene lags behind technique-wise, I can completely agree with him. But it's also true that only a few of us study the art of historical miniature painting to learn new techniques. Jan is one of those few.

Enjoy the blog and Jan, keep those updates coming, and maybe a tutorial sooner or later? :)

Blog address: http://tuxitsminiatures.blogspot.com/