Nothing at all to do with mini's

I get a lot of grief for being a fan of JT, but this spot on Fallon is EPIC

A History of Rap: Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake & The Roots


EPIC!!!

SUPER DUNGEON EXPLORE - DWARF HERO

Hey hey...so today, I'm excited to post up my finished Dwarf Hero for Super Dungeon Explore - I'm currently working on getting a set painted up for Demo purposes, so please bear in mind that this is not competition quality but not table top either.  He has been layered with multiple coats of sealant to help preserve him from the abuse of the almighty demo table.

With this piece I wanted to experiment a bit with a major color that doesn't normally reside in my standard color palette, but I still wanted him to feel like a dwarf, and fit in with the other characters, so I kept to a metallic look with a lighter blue to give him a bit of a regal feel while still retaining that dwarven ruggedness.

This little guy was great fun to paint and I am really excited to see what the community at large and fan base does once these guys hit the shelves!  

I must apologize for the poor photos as I'm still learning that trick. :D

And to close this post out a little something special for the fans of SDE from Soda Pop Creative Director John Cadice.

This is a Demo Card only.  Does not represent finished game product from Soda Pop miniatures, but is an element of a game in production.

Keep your paint thinned and your brushes clean!

Oz

Masterclass I � Mathieu Fontaine – Miniatures painter

Mathieu Fontaine is coming to BC.

If you don't know who he is, you should. His work is amazing and he has a feature class on miniature mentor for a fantastically painted dreadnought.

From his blog:

You always wanted to take one of my class at Adepticon or GENCON but you never had the means to make it to one of these conventions, well now you can have it in your region.

If you would like to organise a Masterclass in your region send me an email (milice_de_klune@yahoo.ca) and we will start working on the process. But in the meantime, what is a Masterclass:

A Masterclass is an intensive class on painting figurines over 2 days. Every techniques and theoretical concepts are covered from the undercoat to perfect blending passing by zenithal lighting.

The imposed figurine will allow every student to have plenty of time to explore the principal areas of painting: clothing, skin, the face and metallics. In term of theory, zenithal lighting, composition, color theory and base conception will be explored giving every students a complete understanding of the theoretical concepts to maximise the impact of his or her miniature.

The class is over 2 intensive days, saturday and sunday. Saturday starts at 9 am and last until 9 pm and sunday goes from 9am to 6 pm.

The class is open to every level of painters. Whether you are holding a brush for the first time or you have painted hundreds of models for your armies everyone will benefit from this class. Each students will receive the same technical and theoretical information but the follow up is totally personalised and 1 on 1. Every student will be pushed to the maximum of his or her abilities in order to make sure that everyone get the maximum out of this experience. So whether you are an army painter that want to know how to have better results on its favorite model or you are the painter that dream about a Golden Demon this class is for you.

Masterclass I � Mathieu Fontaine – Miniatures painter

Take some time to look around his blog and dig into his work. You'll be impressed!

Mannikin Studios

A friend of mine decided to get all crazy and start his own miniature line - so far I think by the first two pieces he's got, he'll do just fine. I'm happy to introduce you all to Mannikin Studios!!!

Mannikin Studios is a creative boutique devoted to producing miniatures of the highest quality for painters, hobbyist, and general enthusiasts. Our flagship line is titled Arthur Rackham’s World, and will feature a wide range or characters and creatures based on the artwork of the English illustrator Arthur Rackham. We also have a range of traditional fantasy characters and other products currently in development.

Our first releases should be available in December and in time for the holidays. Currently we have scheduled for release three characters from Rip Van Winkle, and one special seasonal model. Featured here are photos of the nearly completed sculpts of Rip Van Winkle and one of the “glennlings” he encounters in the forest (click on the pictures for larger images). Both were sculpted by the very talented David AYRAL (Anakron). These are “heroic” 32mm models, and will be produced initially in resin. The first print-run of each character will be limited to about 60 castings, but we will make more based on demand. Prices have not been determined, and package deals are being considered.

Mannikin Studios

Looking forward to seeing what else is in store and getting my hands on that dwarf!!!

Til next time, thin your paint and keep your brushes clean!!!

Oz

BeDerken Dwergs

Discovered this amazing little 'project' the other day. Being a huge dwarf fan and loving the old Citadel Chaos Dwarfs, I can say I'm really excited to see where this goes!!!

http://bederken.blogspot.com/

This is the official blog for Bederken Miniatures- sculpted by Dave King, a range of old school quirky collectors miniatures. I will be posting work in progress images here, as well as announcing new figures, releases and assembly tips, independant game statistics and other goodness.

Forgecraft Games Resin Bases

Well for my first 'official' post I figure I'll review the bases I picked up the other day from Forgecraft Games - www.forgecraftgames.com

So the week after PAX I found myself in need of a fairly large number of dungeon bases for my demo set of Super Dungeon Explore minis. So I had two options, pick up some resins (which I generally don't do much of) or go search around for some plasticard that would be suitable for the job.

Option B is the plan I left the house with and stopped at one of my LGS's to see what they had for plasticard.  Looking around a good sized hobby section they had absolutely nothing...zip, ziltch, zero, nadda, not anything remotely close.  They did however have a spinning rack on one of the counter tops with plastic bags FULL of bases. 25 per in the size I was looking for to be exact.  Nice I thought...what's that gonna run me?  40-50 bones I bet. I was wrong, they weren't $50, not anywhere close to $40, not even $30...hell they didn't even break $20.

One bag, 25 bases cost a whopping $15.75!!!  WHAT?  No way...'hey Jamie, are these priced right?'  'Yup'.  Holy hell that's amazing...well the quality is gonna be shit, but I was gonna spend that on a few sheets of good plasticard anyhow and it saves me an ass load of time.  I grabbed those and a couple other things and was on my way.

When I got home and opened up said little baggy of expected disappointment, I was overly surprised.  I was expecting bubbles, overcasts, mold lines, and 3 or 4 variations of bases.  Once again I was wrong.

So as I lay the bases it, I was planning on pairing them up and dropping them into little sorting bins for keeping (yes I know I'm overly OCD about that type of thing...hell I have to hang my clothes on hangers that match the color of said clothing...drives my wife nutz).  As I laid them out I was having a hard time finding any two that were the same...that's right, 25 UNIQUE bases in this mofo!!!  HOLY HELL!!!

I've tinted the only 4 bases that come close to being repeats but even they have different cracking/splits in the patterns.

The casting is superb, with very little in the way of mold lines or over casting, and absolutely ZERO bubbles...holy hell once again!

Here's a quick shot of what I found...and this was only on a few of the bases:

I circled it here for you:

As you can see it's nothing a quick swipe with a file won't handle (and I do mean quick).

So just like any other resin base (or mini or well any damn resin product frankly), there's a little prep work to be done - mainly just flattening out the bottoms:

25 bases, two hands and piece of sandpaper???  HELL NO! I got little amounts of free time as it is...time to speed up the process and get mid evil on these bases!

as always though...gotta bust out the gear

and remember SAFETY FIRST!!!!  This is resin we're talking about, not good for the lungs or the eyes.

So after a quick series of light circles on my little hand sander each base is flat and ready to roll!  Took me all of 3 or 4 minutes to get em all done.  Since I finished my first SDE fig a couple days before I bought these, I had one ready to go so I took a couple of minutes and quickly painted up a base.

I think I spent more time sanding them than I did painting this one, they've got such a great amount of contrast and detail that there really is no need to go overboard with the paint.  Throw on a base coat and a couple of stark highlights, (you could even drybrush these on) and a couple of off setting contrasting colors, I chose the two colors that are used as lighting elements in our SDE demo boards and voila!!!  A base fit for a dwarf!!!

I haven't taken any shots of the mounted dwarf yet, so you'll just have to wait till I get that done to see what it looks like under him.

Overall I will say that I am overly impressed with this product from Forgecraft Games - http://www.forgecraftgames.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23  The quality is impressive, the variety is second to none...did I tell you that I got 25 UNIQUE bases in a bag of 25?  I'm gonna give you a second to let that sink in..............25 UNIQUE BASES PEOPLE!!!  That in and of itself is amazing to me having bought a number of resins from other companies in the past and having gotten repeats in a bag of 5.

One final thing to say, the value for your dollar on this product is downright outstanding and the final verdict from Oz is 2 thumbs waaaay up and an easy 10 outta 10!

If you're looking for resin bases I urge you to take a look at these guys, and if something fits, pick it up!

Til next time, keep your paint thin and your brushes clean!

Oz

Welcome and First Post

Alrighty!!!

Hello there everyone and welcome to the Throne of Angels blog!  My name is Derek Osborne and in the last couple of years my focus in the hobby of miniature gaming has changed from gamer/hobbyist to hobbyist/gamer and the creation of this blog is my own personal jaunt into making steps to become a better painter and modeler.

So a quick bit about me, I've been involved in the miniature gaming hobby since I was 13, when I bought the Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Hardcover rule book the month it was released here in the US (those in the know should be able to figure out how old I am).  :D  I painted my first figure, a space marine with crazy hair with Testors enamel model paints as I was at that time into building model car and plane kits.  Since that time, I've painted hundreds if not thousands of models, won a few awards here and there and have taught the various class from time to time.

My biggest personal accomplishment to date was being blessed by The Grandfather of Miniature painting Mike McVey with a 'joint' project.  I was blessed (or cursed) with Mike picking up a partially converted warjack (see Privateer Press for more info) that I was converting and painting for a friend and him spending a few hours painting about half of it to completion.  Mike and his lovely wife Ali would come down to one of the local game stores once a year for a fairly good sized Privateer Press promo type party/game day and this time down as Mike was looking at some of my stuff decided he wanted to paint for the day.  When it came time to leave, he handed me a half completed warjack and said...'ok you can do the rest'.  The project came out very well and the recipient had a tough time telling which parts were done by me and which were done by Mike.  Granted he only put in a few hours and I put in easily 4 times what he did...I was still able to match what he did fairly well.  Oh the pride.  :D

So the overall aim of this blog is to share my own personal progress as I attempt to become a better painter, modeler and artist, possibly reviewing new or new to me products and sharing things about the hobby that I find interesting, amazing, stupid, funny, outrageous or just downright silly (cause there are some really silly things in the land of metal toys).

Hopefully those of you who visit will find something interesting and or entertaining here as I do my best to keep this thing updated!

Till next time, keep your paint thin and your brushed clean!

Oz