Holy end of the year blitz!

OK - I'll be honest, my life at the end of the year is rather over whelming...between birthdays (my 10yr old just tuned 10 on the 16th of Nov, and my 13yr old just turned 13 on the 3rd of Dec), finishing up the term (I teach an animation class once a week), family holiday events...can we say more than one Thanksgiving???  let's not even think about Christmas dinners yet.  Shopping for said Christmas, working on a demo reel to put out to all those fantastic companies out there that need to have an overly energetic super excited animator like me on their creative team and the random 1100 other things to get done by the end of the year...I um...slack on the blog thing.

So this episode we'll hit on a couple of things and start in on a topic that's started to circulate on some of the other pages I try to read when I get a free 32 seconds.

First - Jody over at Imbrian Arts has completed the Goblin set that I'm sooooo looking forward to getting my mitz on.  Lets take a look at some final shots, the last piece and then the group overall shall we...why yes, we shall...since I'm the one writing this thing here.

An early WIP shot of the last fig - the ogre/troll mage!

A little farther along.

The axe complete with familiar.

A few shots of the final!

And the final group shot!!!  WOOOOO!!!

All I gotta say is Jody you ROCK!!!  I'm super thrilled to be able to get my hands on this set, for some reason, I really love goblins, and this set is no exception, but what's really odd is that I'm a huge dwarf fan as well...natural enemy of the goblin.  C'est la vie right???

Next up is a new fig from Cipher for Anima Tactics - 

Raziel Archetypum, Undead Construct

My local play group is working on me to play some AT, but the one time I did play, I didn't feel the pull, but the few games of Hell Dorado we did play last weekend, have me ready to get rolling with that game again!!!  

So myself personally, I've been working on improving my own personal painting skills as I'd like to start competing on the national level and placing in high end comps - so I do my reading on techniques, check the big sites, look over reference and all that fun stuffs, but I stumbled upon a topic that really hits home for me.

Lack of difference in the top tier paint work.

So what exactly does this mean?  Lack of difference in top tier paint work?  Well the one thing I've started to notice, while the top tier work is exceptionally amazing and technically astounding, it is all starting to kind of blend together.  The colors and hues are all heading in one direction, dark and gritty.  Now while for the most part, dark and gritty is pretty damn kule, there are sooooo many other options, that are pretty damn kule as well.

I first fell onto a post by Dave G (don't ask me how I got there I have no clue) - but you can read his opinion on it here:

http://nplusplus.blogspot.com/2010/11/bringing-new-style-to-hobby.html

After reading through that I really felt he hit one of the things I was feeling on the head and continued on to a series of four articles written by Lauby/Laubersheimer - you can start here:

http://lauby.blogspot.com/2010/10/je-ne-sais-quoi.html

He's also got a pretty similar and decent perspective on the topic.

Now while I will never take away from the skill and absolute beauty of the work that the current stable of winners are producing, I can whole heartedly agree that there is just something missing, and it's tough to put a finger on, but I'll go back to my 'dirty/gritty' comment earlier.  I think that the 'Grim Darkness of the Future' is really being taken to heart when it comes to the current popular painting style.

BUT!!!

Yes I do have but or I also have another opinion.  The current painting style also has certain techniques that with a number of the really popular colors tends to mute and drop the hue of the color all while increasing the saturation or hue of the color as more and more successively water thinned layers of color are draped over the surface.

Color choice I think is another contributing factor, earth tones right now are very prevalent, and when the realm of primary color is used, there are a lot of soft earth tones used to surround said primaries or even used to shade and or highlight them.

So I ask you this as I'm sure I'll continue on with musings on this topic for a while...what do you think?  Is the current trend all due to style and the attempt to just out do the last champion or does it all come with the current techniques and color choices?

Overall I'm always excited to see amazing paint jobs and unique pieces...but I'm going to start pushing the boundaries of what is being done with something that might just break the mold...what that is...I don't know yet, but when I find it, I'll share it here!!!