Was there something moving, there?

Jacob thrust his torch forward into the darkness ahead and squinted his eyes. The smoke that stung his eyes also played tricks with his vision - sometimes Jacob saw things that were not there, and felt foolish for every time that a shadow made him jump. He has been a guard in the castle of his king for nearly half his life now, and he had always hoped that it would get easier. That he wouldn't start so easily at shadows.

But he knew that sometimes the shadows contained thieves. No matter how good a king was to his people, sometimes there were those who would prefer to come and to take the riches of the king rather than let the king's divine right dictate how the gold should be spent. And that was why there were guards like Jacob needed in the first place.

Even if they were sometimes too easily startled in the dark.

But this time he was almost certain that he had seen something - and heard something, even? Something like the soft passage of metal against stone - barely audible, but in the night sometimes sounds carried further. Jacob thought for a moment that he might call out to another guard to see if they had heard anything or seen anything tonight when -

The blow against his temple was so swift that he registered only a blur, and then the stone rushed up to cradle him.

She watched idly as the torch rolled away from the guard's hand, for a moment illuminating her, but only for a moment. And then she was again only a shadow.

Writing credit to the Tyrant, as well as helping me flesh out the idea and theme for her.

New Trollbloods

Somehow My interest in Hordes and Warmachine has been rising to the top again. Last Sunday I decided to try and break some painting funk by laying out a Fell Caller, pretty happy with the way he turned out. But he did take longer than I would have preferred

Firts look: Westerners

Apparnetly I can only dump photos in big batches. But the Tyrant should be happy as this will be his first peek at his very own Westerners.

Francisco Vargas
























Two of his Lemurs with my first real attempt at Object Source Lighting





And one of his Dopplesoldiers

Is this thing on?

Long time and no updates on here, but this is where I intend to drop all my photos. Just finished up for the last round of the Reaper min exchange. Arnise Half Elven Sergent fromt he Warlord line 14018.

My Trusty Steed - Nazir ibn Hamid ibn Hajad

Well, I managed to paint a mini for every round of the Iron Painter competition. This is the final mini - I am now moving on to the Femme Fatale comp at Wyrd.

Here's a copy of my writeup from their site:

Mini: Nazir ibn Hamid ibn Hajad
Line: Helldorado Sarrasins
Manufacturer: Asmodee

Paints used:
Non-metallic colors: Privateer Press' P3 line
Metals: Vallejo Model Colors

When this theme came out, this was the first mini I thought of. Since I was released from my prohibition on buying new minis (I didn't buy anything between Gencon and the new year), I decided the Sarrasin Starter box from Helldorado would be my first purchase.

The minis are all very cleanly cast and this mini in particular was very fun to paint.

The game's setting is Hell, so I went with a fairly chaotically-colored base - what I'd imagine the wastes of Hell would be like. The color choice for the minis was derived from a desert scheme with an Arabian Nights theme.



Aaron

A brief update - No pics

I've been keeping my main focus on updating of the Circle to close off that deal.

A big task was getting the sand and some rocks down on all the bases so I can start getting that painted and cleaned up. Mostly for this I'm doing the 60/40 water/glue mix and then a day later I give it another coat of the glue. That tends to keep it on the base. So right now the whole Circle force has at least the basing materials on and ready for painting.

When I start painting the sand for a grassy look I'll go with the Iosan Green as the base. Then I mix up a little darker green as a wash. Dry brushing up varies on what I want to to do with the base

I pulled out Kruger and 6 blood trackers to clean up. Big changes with Kruger. I dropped the brown cloak and put the green on. I started with the thornwood green I think and then used the green ink thinned down for a glaze to shade the cloak.

I also lightened the skin to get a good contrast. I started this on all the "human" skin on the bloodtrackers and Kruger. It gets a good contrast with the darker greens and darker browns I am using on the Circle.

Picture dumpster

I'm still working out my new photo set up. All of these shots were taken in Manual photography mode with an F-Stop of 8 and shutter speed of 1/4. ISO setting at 100. After photographing at some truly ungodly resolutions I put them in photoshop to adjust color levels and and shrink them to a more reasonable size. I recognize you freaks don't care about those specifics, however I'm recording my photo set up progress here.

Unfortunately while adjusting the color levels I think I may have washed the photos out a bit. In photoshop I went to the Image tab, selected adjustments and then levels. Then I dragged the "white" portion of the graph down to drown out the yellow backdrop and get more light on the figures themselves. Still working the fine details here.

Critiques and suggestions are welcome, particularly regarding the photography.


First up are a few Hordes Shots. Including Hexeris and Makeda





Now some Confrontation lovin with an Inquisitor Family Shot, Mira the Reckless and a Templar Family Shot





A little Blast from the past with a shot of Pi from I-Kore's Syntha line


And finally a little Reaper Lovin with Bha'ta-Fase the nymph

Been a long time coming

http://www.coolminiornot.com/178136

So it appears Blogger violates a few corporate IT use policies. So my workday ramblings are officially over. However I have been working with a new photography set up, including a new camera, and it seems to be working fairly well. I doubt I'll spend alot of time re-photographing old figures for comparison, but so far I'm liking the results.

Unfortunately this is really showing off some of my faults. Below is a fig my wife asked me to paint up for her, back in March and I just finished it last week, I guess I need to improve on my turn around time huh?