DVD Review - Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley

Finally I had the time and the muse to write my next painting DVD review. As promised I will have a look at the "Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley" from CMON. The set contains of 2 DVDs and says it contains about 6 hours of instructions in roughly 8 chapters.
By now you should already know who Jennifer Haley is, I did a tribute to her work a while ago.
The DVDs are in english and the painting footage is dubbed with music.
After seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious. If you missed it you can watch it directly here in all its beauty:

MMM - Tesla vs. Edison

Another MMM, this week a video from Epic Rap Battles of History - Tesla vs. Edison.

If you don't know ERP you should watch the rest of their videos. They are pretty funny even if you normally don't like rap music (like me) ;)

Have a good start into your week!

So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: My pre-produced articles will cost me some more work. I somewhat lost my pictures of two articles (one for my Basics-series) and are a bit pi**ed because I don't know what happend to my SD card. Hopefully I can return to posting some more crafting/painting stuff soon.

FFotW - Don't feed the Troll

What makes an Internet troll tick? In a word – disinhibition.

Created by AcademicEarth.org

So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - To the Apocalypse in Daddy's sidecar

If I ever get a daughter I want her to say exactly this! Cloe (Captain Roberts daughter) did this. Pretty cool don't you think?
If you like Steampunk like I do and don't know Abney Park you definitely have missed something. Shu go watch them!

In general watch them, I think you won't regret it. Have a good start into your week!

So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - No life on Mars

... but 70 seconds of stunning timelaps action: 9 months of Curiosity Rover work on MArs in 70 seconds. Really cool but sadly no aliens to see :D

Enjoy and I will be going back to posting in the next days when working days aren't as stressful as the last few days.


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Becoming a Legend

Monday Morning Music, for a good start into your week. This time "Becoming a Legend" from John Dreamer:

Have a good start into your week.

So long,
Paradox0n

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.

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

Camcorder and stuff - My setup for testing

Camcorder and accessories

As promised I shot some pictures of the camera and stuff I received yesterday. The camcorder is a Sony HDR-CX220E and is, although very tiny and not very expensive, able to record the things in full hd. The tripod is also a rather cheap one from a special from Aldi (a discounter here in germany). And I had to get myself a smartcard, because the cam was delivered without one. And last I had to get myself a pocket to safely store the camera. You can't believe what our cats are capable of in matters of destruction. All necessary cables (HDMI and USB) where part of the camera so I can start testing with a setup so that's it.

When pictures start moving

The horse in motion - First "movie" ever

Today a special package arrived and I feel myself like one of the pioneers of the early days when they started with zoetropes and the first moving pictures showed up in the early 19th century. And oh boy I am excited!

I got myself a small camcorder, a small tripod and all the necessary stuff needed to connect this stuff to my computer. I just have to find a decent, free video editing tool (not movie maker or something like that) because my Adobe Premiere license is suspended.

A long time ago I worked in school with semiproffesional equipment and a complete video editing studio, perhaps I can now work some magic again and present you some moving pictures in the futures. No promises will be done, but I will see what I can do. What I can promise is that I will do a short presentation and review of the camera as soon as I have worked out how everything gets together (camera, editing, youtube)

Stay tuned!

So long,
Paradox0n

Chaos Dwarfs Battle Report from MiniWargaming

Since I know that some of you are Chaos Dwarf fans (like me) I thought I should post this battle report from MiniWargaming in case you missed it:

Cya,
Paradox0n

Inspirational Stuff (again)

Hey there, as so often in the last time I just have some inspirational stuff to post. My health and my working life (or the balance I still or again have to find between them) just keep me away from painting or the hobby itseld. But as I browsed through the web, I found some great stuff I think you should know about :)

Ever heard of Julio Cabos? Me not until I found an old PDF and a video on Youtube which were a real mind opener to some stuff I was thinking about.

The PDF is called "Painting with Julio Cabos" but it seems it is taken down by Andrea Miniatures (or my browser just refuses to open the link Google spits out). Archive.org is a nice helper there, so perhaps you can try your luck there!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


So long,
Paradox0n

Weathering techniques - Videos from Mac McCalla

I found some nice videos for wheathering techniques by Mac McCalla and collected them into a playlist. Some very useful tips there, hope you enjoy them as much as I did:

So long,
Paradox0n

Video tutorial from Massive Voodoo about weathering techniques

Just a short post in between. I think weathering could be very interesting for everyone of us, so I have to post this really good video tutorial from Massive Voodoo. Sadly the MV channel on Youtube has no playlist for all the videos from the series, so I put one together (hope they don't mind). The video is in german, but on their blog, they also have an english text version about weathering.



So long,
Paradox0n

Inspirational music

Again something I listen to while painting/building. With this score I can close my eyes and drift to other realms, imagine kingdoms far away and get some inspiration from my own visions. Screwed up, isn't it?

Review: Harder & Steenbeck Airbrush Workshop

So I got my new (and first) airbrush system and with the set also arrived a dvd called "Harder & Steenbeck Airbrush Workshop". I ordered this dvd because I thought some advice on how to work with an airbrush could not be bad. Therefore I thought of doing a small review on my first thoughts about this dvd from the view of an absolute beginner in airbrushing who only watched Youtube tutorials.

Harder & Steenbeck Airbrush Workshop

Airbrush finally arrived

Finally my airbrush set arrived yesterday so I set up my workspace (which you can see here) with my new equipment and started some basic experiments. But after the first minutes I noticed that the trigger and the needle are sluggish. So I disassembled the whole pistol and cleaned and checked everything. After that everything seems to be working fine.

Thanks to the great bunch of tutorials for airbrushing! One of the series I relally like is the beginner seriers from Chung:



My first victims will be some of the miniatures of the very old game Starquest (in english its Space Crusade). I hope I can show you some of the achievements in the near future.


Perhaps I will make a post about my setup when I know what I'm doing ;)


So long,
Paradox0n

Youtube-Channels you should know

Since I am waiting and waiting for my airbrush and am not motivated to paint at the moment I thought of listing some of the great Youtube-Channels I found and watch on a regular base.

Airbrush Miniature Painting

AwesomePaintJob - Les has a great way of doing things with his airbrush
Buypainted - Also one great airbrush artist, if not one of the best at the moment

General Miniature Painting

Girlpainting - Alexandra has some great tutorials of her style to paint miniatures
MrWatchingpaintdry - Great step by step tutorials including choice for colors

Terrainmaking

Terranscapes - Really great stuff for terrain makers

 The list is far from complete and I think I will add some more in the future.

Hope you enjoy it
Paradox0n

Emotional commercial

Some time ago I saw a really emotional and surprising commercial in tv. A few minutes ago I saw it again on Youtube and again I am just flashed by it. So it seems to be obvious that I should share it to you.
Since it is in german, let the emotions do the work. I think the message is understandable for everybody.

Enjoy your day and be open for anyone.