Creative block and a few random thoughts

Well, I've painted a couple things, and now I'm having creative block; anyone have any suggestions of what they would like to see next on the blog? Another figure painted? Specific genre of figure to be painted? Small piece of terrain? Sculpey project?

I do have another mini I need to paint: Tobias Winterthorn, half-elf druid (from Reaper.) I'll post it when it's finished, of course, I'm just looking for something else.

In other areas of the hobby, I ust finished a session of D&D; had fun, My goliath barbarian did a rage strike armed only with a broom handle - and rolled a crit. So it was a good start for my new mini :)
I also will be using that mini for playing Red Sand, Blue Sky by Two Hour Wargames, my favorite gladiator game. I enjoy Two Hour Wargame's games because you can play them solo. Sometimes, friends are just busy, or it's the middle of the week, and I need to make some puppets dance! On the THW Yahoo group, they've announced a free version of some basic swordplay rules will be released next week. I urge everyone to try the rules out!

For my (40mm) Old West fans, I'd like to direct you to Knuckleduster's new blog at knuckleduster40mm.blogspot.com/. Forrest shows off some of his sculpts there and offers thoughts about his work. Good stuff.

I've seen some EXCELLENT dinosaur greens over at the Dazed Miniatures Yahoo Group. You'll have to join to see them ( I think.) Bob over at RLBPS has something special with Dazed Minatures. I think this will become the premier range of 28mm prehistoric and modern animals (at least after HLBS sells off the rest of its fantastic animals- I hope all those sculpts get bought up by others; HLBS's animals deserve better in the future than just another image at Stuff of Legends.) But go take a look at what Dazed has already done over at RLBPS. And maybe HLBS has some animals left over yet. If not, check out their 40mm catalogue of fun!

And finally, for those of you looking for something new to paint, try Copplestone's Glory of the Sun range. I can't imagine what I would need an army of these for, but I'd certainly enjoy painting one or two of these; As I've mentioned early in this blog, Copplestone sculpts are some of the most painter-friendly I've ever painted.

And no, none of these folks sponsor me; I'm not shilling for them on purpose. These are just companies, blogs and games I like, personally. So, until I can get something new on this blog, go check these others out for the time being.

Nothing you haven't seen already

Just a quick post for linking to other forums I frequent for showing off :) Carry on.

Goliaths (Boris Mk 2s by Heresy)

Here's them Goliaths all finished up! They look all right, I reckon'. I wasn't looking for a great paint job; I did these more for the practice with conversion work as well as for new characters in our D&D game. For you D&Ders, the figure to the right is to be a Goliath warden; and the figure to the left (my character) is a Goliath Barbarian (and former gladiator, hence the hodge podge of armor ((and only one greave)).)
I should have set a 28mm mini next to these for comaprison: These figures stand 40mm tall -- perfect as goliaths at 28mm scale.

Painting Goliaths: First sitting

I finally started painting the goliaths. I'm content with the painting. The goliath to the right in the final picture is covered in tally marks. You'll see the rest of the marks all over his body when I post final pics.
The photography isn't up to par, mostly because I took the shots sitting at the work table. The glossiness of the Foundry paints didn't help either. Maybe this is why I stopped doing other step-by-steps? I may just take pics of these goliaths when they are finished rather than more step-by-steps.
Would folks still prefer step-by-step photos, or would you prefer what I've been doing: Pics of the finished product with a post-mortem description of what I've done? I would prefer the latter; most of the techniques I use are well-known already; I'm not showing anything new (with the painting anyway; I'm still proud of my greenstuff and sculpey conversions and creations.)

It's not all about minis

I was sick this weekend, so I didn't get to any of the painting I had planned. Today, I still didn't have the bug, but I still needed to get my art on. So I went to the horse farms over at Iowa State University and did some sketches. My supplies were a brush, a pen, some water and about an hour of time. This is three pages of stuff; I had one more page of "notes," really rough gestural sketches and such.
I think miniature painters -- or any artist -- should have one or two other media to partake in. It helps to rest the mind, I think. It doesn't have to be painting or drawing; it could be music or writing. Even reading is an excellent way to relax the brain.

Goliaths assembled

Not my best effort, but it will do. The one to the left is the gladiator version. The shoulder armor has some engraving, but it came out a little too deep and "brain"-ish looking (at least in the photo.) I've since filed and sanded that engraving down; it's still there, but not as obvious.
I also added a leg greave, but it flares out a little in the middle. I should have fixed it when I could; I'll just say this poor fellow got defective/warped armor.
The belts/straps are first-tries; I'll definitely have another go at those when the next project calls for'em.
About the only thing that turned out exactly as I planned was the axe, a double bladed axe cut down into a bearded axe.
I'll try to get painting started this weekend.

UPDATE: I've torn the greave off; I'm gonna have another go at it. Luckily I didn't get too far- just gotta re-prime a little bit.

Goliath barbarian: Photoshop doodling

This is NOT my painting; this is my photoshopping of a Heresy figure (Big Boris Mk2), that I will be using as a D&D character (goliath barbarian).
This pic represents what I would like the final figure to look like, but I doubt I can sculpt the manica (leather arm armor) very well. I can do the shoulder armor easily, but it really needs the manica to work in my opinion. The character's background will be that of a freed gladiator (hence the manica.) I also may try to sculpt a greave for the left leg. First thing's first, I have yet to see the figure in my hand: I just ordered it a couple days ago.
Last piece of conversion: The double-bladed axe will be cut down to a bearded axe. Though, I'm still on the fence whether to take the axe or a sword.

Friday Night Fighters

Here's the bunch of bare knuckles I painted up for playing Friday Night Fights. Nothing much else to say about'em. I hope you enjoy!

Sailor conversion from Copplestone Gangster Street Tough

I've been enjoying Friday Night Fights by Two Hour Wargames, so much so, that I'm busy painting up some bare knuckle fighters and other assorted toughs to use in the game.
Since I've set my fights in a 1930s pulp setting, I just had to have a sailor, but I couldn't find any that would match up well with Copplestone's figures. The problem was solved by converting one of Copplestone's own figures. The original figure is the bat-wielding figure from GN13 Street Toughs in the Gangster range.
I began the conversion by (1) clipping away the slot tab (since I'd be pinning the figure to a homemade urban base) and the bat (since the game is about fighting with fists, not cheating with weapons.)
(2) The next step was important: With the bat cut away, the arm was in an akward pose. I needed to rotate it into a more believeable position. This was accomplised by wrapping the arm with a thin piece of heavy paper (so that my pliers would not ruin the surface of the mini) and carefully rotating the arm with a pair of needle nose pliers. MUCH better; now my sailor looks like he's puffing his chest out and clinching his fist, challenging other fighters to come forward and get their blocks knocked off!
(3) Not many sailors wear suspenders (or old sports caps), so these were simply filed off. The suspenders on the baclk of the mini were more diffulcult to remove because the mini's back is concave where my files could not reach. I solved this problem by filing as much as I could, and covering up the remainder with greenstuff. At this point, I also made the sailor's hat. Surprisingly, this was a difficult shape to make for as simple as it looks. Plus, I had to make sure it was the right size.
I did not saw off the mini's orginal hat (4), because even a razor saw will remove extra material, and I needed as much head and hair on the mini as possible to make the sailor hat look good (and look correct.) So I filed the hat down to the ears and at an angle. When I reached the ears, I used needle files to clean up any excess metal. The sailor hat was glued on, and that was it!! Painting was easy, though, I'm a little out of practice; I've been teaching myself to sculpt and convert and build. It's time I get back to painting with patience.
Still, the sailor came out better than I thought it would, and he will make a nice addition to my collection of fighters.

Shandy Gaff

Named after the drink, this is a Reaper halfling ranger painted for Joe for use in D&D. Cute figure, but I had a devil of a time with some of the detail.

Necro Solo

A leaping fighter from Reaper's Warlord range. I believe it is a Necro solo. Painted for my friend Charlie for his D&D games. Nothing special done here; the only conversion made was to remove the metal slot piece and a support bar attached to the cape, and then drilling and pinning the figure to the base. The connection is quite solid, backed up with a little epoxy resin poured into the bottom of the base to "grab" onto the pin underneath.

Between-projects update/ Book on polymer clay techniques

Howdy all! Sorry there's nothing new to post right now. I do have some random miniatures I'll be painting over the next couple weeks, so there may be a few pics now and again. I also have some Copplestone Castings street toughs (No. GN13 found here) on the way. I'll be painting those up for use in the game, Friday Night Fights by Two Hour Wargames.

Also- one of my aunts (Aunt Sandy) sent me a book on sculpting with polymer clay (Encyclopedia of Polymer Clay Techniques). This book is great! It illustrates a lot of fundamental techniques using polymer clay (Sculpey, Fimo etc), as well as offers tips on baking, conditioning and care for the clay. I haven't had a chance to look through the whole thing, yet (I just got the book 1/2 hour ago,) but it's going into the little library next to my workbench. I'll try to get some more Sculpey projects posted to the blog. One thing I want to try is a mosaic of gladiators such as these. Sculpey can be flattened, scored, baked and broken into your mosaic "stones" fairly easily; it's one of the techniques covered in the book. When I do the mosaic project, I will use pre-colored blocks of clay. I could paint the colorless sculpey, but I think the precolored stuff will look more authentic for this project.
And everyone thank my Aunt Sandy!