FFotW: Jennifer Haley gallery

Friday Finding of the Week brings you today a Jen Haley tribute.
She is a very cool artist and I can only hope that I someday achieve only a tenth of her painting skills :) On her page she has some nice articles to her painting style and most important she has a tremendous gallery there. Be sure to check it out and stand in awe while looking at these miniatures.

How fitting that I am at this moment preparing a review of her painting DVD set :) Hopefully I am able to finish it this weekend.

So long,
Paradox0n

Picking up the gauntlet

Finally! The next battle(s) between my Dark Elves and the Empire Army from Labschi looms on the horizon. Today we will have a smaller battle (maybe two) of 1250 points. We had the thing planned to be a massive game with the ETC comp but decided to play a smaller game (maybe two) for updating our rule knowledge and doing some testing with our armies. So we decided to use a german comp called "Kleiner Horus" (follow the link to german comp) which is made for games of 1250 points. The only thing we left out is the allowance for special character models.

Monday Morning Music - Cherish Life

For a good start in your week... Cherish Live by Ash Griffin.

And something I just noticed: If you follow my blog and I yours and you do not appear in my Blogosphere, please tell me so. I would like to push your blog with the relinks (and if its only for SEO) and would naturally be happy if you would do that also (but if not that is fine for me).
I just added some more blogs and hope I haven't forgotten anyone (and some of you already have me in their blogrolls, which I am very thankful).


So long,
Paradox0n

DVD Review - Painting Secrets with Natalya

Lucky me had the chance to get my hands on some painting DVDs for this weekend and spend some hours watching and enduring some of the stuff I saw there :)  I will start with the "Painting Secrets with Natalya" DVD set from CMON. The set was published 2011 contains of 4 DVDs and says about itself that it contains over 13-15 hours of instruction depending if you believe the printed cover or the product description. You can divide the set into roughly 5 chapters where Natalya tells you how she paints her miniatures. If you wonder who she is, maybe you know her from her artists name Alexi-Z or go visit her page now. Since Natalya speaks russian, the DVD is either in russian or in english (with voice over on the portrait parts). The painting footage is dubbed with music.

I like her work and after seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious how this set would turn out.

Friday Finding of the Week - Epic battle report

Battle of Hel Fenn from Hoodling

This week just passed by in flight and therefore its time for another Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW). This time I have found some really epic battle reports I want to share with you. Ever wondered how the Battle of Hel Fenn, where Mannfred Von Carstein was cornered by an alliance of men of the Empire and Dwarfs could have looked on the battlefield? Then jump over to Hoodling's Hole and read this epic and unbelievable insane battlereport with 20.000 points (each side) of warhammer madness.

But if this wouldn't be enough, he also has some very nice summarization of the different magic lores, some tournament battlereports, insights into his Warhammer thinking and even more epic battlereports. I think I lost some hours there with only reading these fantastic narrated battles. Big thanks for putting this much effort into this!

And since Hoodling also joined the journey a hearty: Welcome aboard!


So long,
Paradox0n

WIP - Base for the Cauldron of Blood

And another WIP for my Cauldron of Blood today. At the moment I am trying to build me a base for the Cauldron. Since it should be a bit more scenic I thought of a small "hill" where the cauldron stands, two witches behind it and the standard bearer in front of it.
Since I have lots of bark in my box I used some of it to get a rough layout (which will be painted like rock). Too bad my Fimo dried out, so I couldn't finish the other parts of the hill. Any suggestions how I could do it without Greenstuff or Fimo? aybe just sanding the whole thing could work too...
For a better understanding how this should look like in the end, I placed some models on the base (sneaky skaven-ratlings are everywhere!).

What do you think of it?

So long,
Paradox0n

Sunday Afternoon WIP - Dark Elves: Witch Elves

2K primed Witch Elves

A day off, a delicious asparagus menu and a painting afternoon with a friend, what a wonderful and quite ending of a long weekend. And since I really managed to paint something I can show you some WIP shots of my Witch Elves for my Cauldron of Blood.

First I did a two component priming for a better definition of the lighting of the miniatures. You don't believe how tricky this is when it is a stormy weather like today. But after seeing of some pictures from Mr. Lee I know now that I can achieve this with my airbrush too. Therefore as soon as my aerosol cans are empty I will buy me a black primer from Vallejo since I am really pleased with their primers.

Saturday Night WIP - Dark Elves: Cauldron of Blood

After a rather restless night, I can show you some WIP shots for my version of the Cauldron of Blood for the Dark Elves.
The Cauldron is not the one from Games Workshop it is the Spawning Vessel from the Legion of Everblight. The acolythes will be used later as beastmasters for my hydra :)
Since I am a rather classical RPG player the thought of a statue carried by three wicked witches was not really appealing to me. It is too heavy, too clumsy and doesn't fit to my imagination of the Cauldron. And I was not willing to pay ~40€ for a modell I don't like and where I had to cut off half of it... The old model (more a chariot than anything else) is also not the best one (but fitted to the old rules) and only buyable via the Bay or similar places. So I bought myself a witch commando, the spawn vessel and a battle standard (more of her in a future article) and started thinking.

Friday Finding of the Week - Wargaming rooms

H.G. Wells playing a wargame

Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW) will be my new weekly column where I will show you some of the stuff I stumbled upon while browsing the web. This can be miniatures, videos, tutorials or other stuff all around our cool hobby.
Even H.G. Wells was playing wargames so I thought of starting with a small collection of fascinating wargaming rooms I found while browsing for ideas for my own gaming table and stumbled upon whole rooms of which most of us gamers can only dream of.

Hobby Magazines - Portal Magazine Issue #31

The new Issue of Portal Magazine has arrived:

Portal Magazine Issue #31

This issue contains following stuff:

• Guide To Painting the Stonehorn with We7
• Grular Invader,Alkemy and Reaper reviews
• Golden Thrall Report
• Painting Avatars of War Orc Shaman
• News, new releases and gallery

Inspirational music: Space Oddity

The classical single "Space Oddity" from David Bowie in a completely new interpretation from Chris Hadfield. The video was shot on the ISS and is pretty awesome (and going viral like hell).

Enjoy!

So long,
Paradox0n

Hitting a new blog record

Hey crazy wargamers! Yesterday my blog achieved a personal record: Over 110 views on one day which means more views in one day than normally in a week so far! I know for most of you this are peanuts, but I am really happy that this happened.
As the views raise and I get more followers (A warm welcome aboard new travelers!) I started to refactor the sections of the blog a bit and will reconsolidate some other parts (especially the blogroll).

In Germany we have a saying: "Alles neu macht der Mai" (which is in english "April showers bring May flowers" I think). This year this is true for my blog. At the amount of posts you can already see that I try to fill it up with content and I hope I can also refactor some parts of the blog itself.
Another thing I really think of is putting every blog I follow into my blogroll (Maybe split them but we'll see). I have them all in my reader, but making them more public would favor the smaller ones (even if I don't have hundreds of followers but for SEO this is a nice bonus). Perhaps this can also motivate to put me into the roll.

Review: Vallejo Surface Primer

Since priming is an absolute necessity when its about painting miniatures (oh these old sins when painting with Revell emaille paints didn't need that) I thought of trying out some primers myself. I have spray cans of Games Workshop (black and white for doing a 2k priming), a brown primer from Army Painter (too many Skavens to work with) and shortly after I bought myself an airbrush I also bought the Vallejo Surface Primer in grey. This is a waterbased Poliurethane Primer which can be directly sprayed from your airbrush or if you want painted on with a brush. It comes in three sizes: 17ml, 60ml and 200ml. At my hobbystore of trust the big one costs around 12€ which is pretty much the costs of the GW primer. The bottle is designed to let you pour the primer directly into the paintpot of your airbrush which is pretty neat since that is exactly what I have bought this stuff for.

Necromunda Cawdor WIP and Mastermini Giveaways

Necromunda Cawdor WIP

As promised, I used the time Father's Day gave me to finally paint a bit. Gosh this was a long time without swinging the brush. I almost forgot how to use them... But after a short time reactivating my wet palette and my paints I spent some time with basecoating the rest of my Cawdor gang. I had them spraypainted with white but that gave me some trouble (old miniatures with lots of "empty" space) so I decided to reprime them with a heavy black wash. Then I painted the reds and blues and the rest of the flesh were given. Painting red always drives me nuts, but after 4 or 5 thin coats it slowly seems to work... Next step will be doing the rest of the colors and then the weapons and masks. With the Chainsword I want to test something if it works I may have another article to post :)

Hobby Magazines - Skavenblight Gazette #14

Skavenblight Gazette #14

Since a few days Issue No. 14 of Skavenblight Gazette is published, therefore time to have a look at the sneaky-plaguish Skaven magazine.

This issue pretty much is under the sign of the plague. It has some pretty pictures of Skaven miniatures a article how diseases spread and a HowTo "fire your Plageclaw Catapult" which shows you how you can make the model "fire" (by adding some springs). Pretty geeky :)

The most interesting article this time is for beginning Skaven players: Building an army. It contains the thoughts behind an army project and how the author plans to build up his host. He also explains some of the units and how he sees their usefullness.
Not sure if I as Skaven player myself would agree with him in every point but it is a nice start nonetheless.

Pretty short issue this time. But since this stuff is completely fanmade I will surely not moan but thank the guys for writing this issue.

So long,
Paradox0n

Happy Father's Day!

A really nice Bollerwagen

Just wanted to wish all guys a Happy Father'S Day! Don't know if this tradition exists everywhere (I know from USA and some countries in Europe). For me this is a day where real fathers should have a relaxed day (like Mother's Day) but most of the guys here just use it as a day to make party with their best friends (and wander around with their "Bollerwagen").

Hope you have a nice day, I hopefully can use it to finally paint some stuff. Don't know if I know how to handle a brush any longer :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby Magazines - Ironwatch Magazine

On my journeys through the web I found another Fanzine which immediately caught my attention, namely the Ironwatch Magazine. This is a magazine made by Mantic fans with the support of Mantic itself. Not long ago Issue No. 9 was published. Time to have a closer look at it!

Sneak preview - Something with bite

Just a short sneak preview of something that has arrived in the last days and now lingers on my table. At the moment I am experimenting a bit with the base, the positioning of all the stuff and how much I still have to re-model at this thing. Will be also my first try at a more "dioramic" base. So cross your fingers that I won't break the miniature or cut myself a finger :D

Perhaps the one or other may already know what it is?  Have a guess in the comments I will "unravel the mystery" soon.

So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby tips - Cleaning your airbrush

As some tutorials in the web I read tried to tell me told how difficult the cleaning process of my airbrush should be and how it really isn't I thought a short article to sum up my experiences would be the best.

First of all: Cleaning your airbrush is neither complicated nor will it cost you much time. On the opposite! It should be part of your painting routine because it really makes the painting process much more comfortable.
If you ever opened your mouse to clean it.. Tadaaaa you can clean your airbrush too.

One year of blogging

Nearly unnoticed my blog had its birthday. At the 11th of April last year, I welcomed you aboard this blog with my Howto build a swamp. Since then many things have happened:
- I started my tower project which is still waiting for its base
- I build a modular gaming table with the help of a friend
- I bought myself an airbrush which I still have to master (which makes loads of fun)
- I made some reviews and started my Hobby Basics series (for which some more articles are already in preproduction)

At the end of last year I had a very big motivation leak so posts become rare but I hope this time has gone and I can deliver some more stuff in the future.

And now it is your chance to give me some feedback (ok you have always the chance but now I am asking): Is there something you wish for me to do in the future. Or some stuff I shouldn't? Maybe I can fulfill something of your wishes.


So long,
Paradox0n