Starquest Miniatures - Marines WIP

Another peak on my working table. Today I show you some pictures of the GSG from Starquest. They are stongly WIP I've only done the basic shading with my airbrush. First thing I learned to love in preshading with the airbrush is the soft color transitions you get. Especially in this easy way, with a normal brush I could never achieve this. Again my camera blurred some of the transitions :( I must look to get some better photo equipment.

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

Starquest Miniatures - Androids

As promised I started painting some of the Starquest miniatures. Since I am really out of painting and never used a airbrush I thought of using this miniatures for some experiments.The first miniatures I chose are the androids (very similiar to the Necrons of Warhammer 40k).

Androids of Starquest

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

Basing experiments

Today is the "Tag der Arbeit" (roughly translated as "Labor Day") and while I am still waiting for my airbrush and my wife has to write for university, I tried some different basing stuff:

1. Using cork as basing material
2.  Using pigments for the first time

Both materials I never used before and since everyone is talking about how neat this pigment stuff is, I asked my wife if I can use some of her pastels to rub of powder for pigmenting my new corkbases. I will not do a tutorial for this, because I am myself just a beginner and trying out different things, but the first results are very promising. Sadly to say, the lighting swallowed most of the brown and green pigments I used:

Corkbases with pigments

Overall I am very pleased with the outcome but need to experiment a little more. At the moment I can only say that pigments seem to give a more natural look than just washing the base.

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

Terrain from spare parts - Part 2: Stack of wood

Seems terrain from spare parts really gets a series on my blog. Part 2 contains another terrain piece made completly out of stuff I had on my workingtable and from junk I would have thrown away otherwise . Its nothing fancy or even big, but it fits nicely to my growing village ;) A small stack of wood:

Stack of wood

Peeking on my working table

Alright, spring is in full progress. The weather is typical for april: 5 minutes sun, 10 minutes rain and in the morning there was a snow and ice warning in the radio... Really, I'm not joking.

What could be more obvious than taking time to dust off my workbench and make place for my new projects. Since I also want to buy an airbrush and compressor I really needed to shift some things on my table and boards around me. Et voilà: 

This is were the magic happens...

Papercut models - Cheap way for wargaming buildings

Another way to achieve quick and not too bad looking terrain pieces are papercut models. After a quick research I found some free blueprints for a house and a cottage. Since I only wanted to test how papercuts work and will look on the table, I tried the smallest blueprint I had.

The process is really easy, you just need a sheet of paper with heavy grain, a cutter and scissor, some glue and a piece of cardboard to glue the base on:

From the front

From a different angle

Not too bad for a free modell and only 30 minutes of work. To improve the overal look of the modell I painted the edges in appropriate colors after I took the photos.

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.

Terrain made of aquarium decoration

Because we have two cats, we are pretty often in pet shops in our area. And since I re-started with the wargaming hobby, I always looked out for stuff to build cheap and easy terrain pieces with. Not long ago I found some big trees in the fish department and I took a closer look and instantly bought the piece.
I don't remeber the manufacturer or the store where I bought it, but it was around 4-5€ and is really tall (measures 10 cm in width and 11cm in height).

I just glued it on an old CD, sanded the base, drybrushed everything and gave a quick painting shot for the glowing warpstone. Et voilà, a warped tree is finished:

Shot to see the warpstone

Shot to see the broken bark
and the glowing warpstone

Inspirational music

Perhaps you know the film "Ghost in the Shell" which is based on the mangas from Masamune Shirow. If not: Its definitly worth looking if you are interested in SciFi and/or animes. But whats really outstanding is the soundtrack of the movies and the series. So just pump up the volume and enjoy the musical landscape Kenji Kawai is producing:

So long,
Paradox0n

Lucky strike - Sites you find by chance

Today I stumbled across a page that i didn't expect in the search result of my preferred search engine. I researched some pictures for a terrain project of mine and Surprise! see what I found here (be warned the page is in german). The guys there (whoever they are) show some nice terrain pieces for fantasy wargaming on their page and even have some minor advices how they build them.

So long,
Paradox0n

Inspirational basing tutorials

By chance I found on Youtube the channel of Buypainted. As it seems they run a painting commision studio, but I found interesting that they have a whole bunch of great tutorial videos hosted on Youtube.
Apart from the standard "how do I paint model XYZ" I really liked the "how do I make themed bases" series. So I thought: "Why not share with everyone?". And here it is:



I hope you like them as I do.

Stay tuned and enjoy your time.

Terrain from spare parts - Part 1.1: Even more fences

In the last part I showed how i made a easy fence out of spare sprues. On my workbench I have even more sprues (really! :) ) so I tried to make another fence. This time I used a bit of styrodur (polystyrol foam) to get a different look.


The steps a very similar as described in the first part. The only difference is that I cut out some blocks from the styrodur and carved in some brickwork.

Music to start the day

Another video of a really great Skyrim cover played by a violin:

Terrain from spare parts - Part 1: Fences

Every wargamer has lots of it: Sprues from your miniatures. Most of the time they are just thrown away but i thought of trying to use them to make some cheap terrain. A quick search on google just gave me some inspiration and I tried to make something out of the material lying arround:

Needed material:

• some spare sprues (obviously)
• MDF or thick cardboard
• sand
• white glue
• paint
• static gras
• a cutter and some brushes

Skaven warhost - sneak peak

Here is a quick peak on my skaven warhost. Just three shelves in my display cabinet. The rest of the army is in deep slumber in my Feldherr XL miniature case (sharing it with big parts of my dark elf army).

Most of the army in its display case

Inspirational music

Some great music to listen to while painting:

One voice and one violin. Great cover from the game Skyrim.

HowTo: Building a swamp

Creating a swamp for your gaming table

In this small tutorial I want to show a short howto for building a swamp for your gaming table. Most of the stuff needed must not be bought every painter or terrain crafter should have the things at home.

Needed material:

• old and/or broken CD
• old newspaper
• modelling putty like Fimo, Greenstuff etc.
• dry plant parts
• sand
• white glue
• UHU (transparent glue)
• paint

Some of the needed material

Welcome aboard!

Paradox0ns Wargamin Blog opens its doors!

After some time of thinking and fighting with myself if I should really open up my own blog, I couldn't resist to do so. Many great painters and crafters inspire me every day and even if i'm far from beeing as good as them, I still want to try to give some of this enthusiasm and joy back to the community. And if I can give some helpful hints and tips I am more than happy to do so.

So I welcome you on my blog and hope I can fill it with live in the future. I also hope that my english is not too bad since I am not a native speaker ;)

Enjoy painting and crafting wherever you are and "Happy Painting" as the guys from Massive Voodoo always say.