I'm currently enjoying my last days of vacation. I took a Cryx starter set with me to do some casual painting. My expectation was to have finished most of the lot by now, but only three of them are halfway done.

Too bad they are plagued by a bad primer job, it ended up very grainy. But this is totally my fault, since the spray can I'm currently using has a clogged up spray nozzle, and I'm too lazy to get a new one :) Well maybe it's time for a new one now, before I really ruin a rare or expensive mini.

Here's a picture, I went for a streaked look for the armor. The green bits were also fun to paint. Most of the areas which are left now will be done in metallics.

Another project I'm working is a new design for this blog. I never really liked the current design, but it was a quick solution for my needs when I started it and never felt like putting too much time in it. So a while ago I found a template which I really liked and started tweaking it to suit my taste. Along with the new design I will also introduce a couple of dedicated pages such as a gallery. There's no ETA for the new template, but don't be surprised when the look of this blog suddenly changes :)

Some of the best basing materials can be found outdoors, even in your own garden. A nice touch to any base is a tree stump, a branch, a dead tree. Unless your sculpting skills are far more superior than mine, the easiest way to achieve a realistic effect for these is to use natural materials.

Small twigs are nice to simulate tree stumps or fallen trunks, as used on my Red Karnagh Drune's base.

But to be used as a small tree, they are usually not suited. The best solution can be found underground: plant roots often have the gnarled, twisted shape one needs for a fantasy-themed base.

A good example can be seen in this WIP (Rackham's Souffre Toile from earlier this year, a project which I have abandoned for now).

Last weekend I was removing some rose bushes from my garden. I admit some of them look a bit crude since the bushes were quite big and old, but I decided to add them to my collection nonetheless.

Well, not a lot of painting happened since my last blog post... I've been very occupied with work around the house. In fact I did quite a lot of painting, but 1:1 scale :) There's still a lot to do, but I expect to have painting time increase from zero now to at least a couple of hours each week by the end of next month.

Currently I'm preparing for a relaxing holiday at the seaside, and as usual I'm taking some painting gear with me. A while ago I bought a Warmachine Cryx starter box because I wanted to check out their plastics (which are excellent by the way). Last week I assembled the figures and primed them, so I can go right ahead and start painting them. I'm not going for a very high standard with them, just some casual painting :)

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the German Games Day this year (you can find my report on last year's edition here). Anyway congratulations to Matt Cexwish for winning the Sword, he really takes miniature painting to the next level. Here's a cool video on his winning entry:

The next event I am most probably attending will be DuZi, held on 8 and 9 October. It will be the first time I go there, and I will likely enter the painting competition with one or more entries. Nothing new I'm afraid, I'll probably take Han Solo... oh we'll see, it's still a long time until October.

The biggest bit of community news from the past month is the relaunch of the Chest Of Colors website. It received a completely new design and technical overhaul, now being more able to host galleries and articles. The plan is to write some articles for them myself, since I'm now part

of their team. I've been on the Chest Of Colors forum since the beginning, but still it means a great deal to me to now be officially part of the crew. I'm there right next to Ana (painting mum blog), Demi Morgana (plinth country), and others, all of them important figures in the miniature painting community. Check the member page here: http://chestofcolors.com/about-us/about-chest-of-colors/.

I hope to see you very soon in the next blog post!

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 :)