Missed one

And I had a good picture of the Suicide Queen that I missed posting with the rest of the Relic Knights minis. Here she is:

Relic Knights Studio Minis (Gencon Display)

Well, I've been excited about Relic Knights for a good long while now.  We've just seen the production miniatures on the Kickstarter, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that we'll not be seeing these minis soon.

By the way, I've painted the resin version of Sebastian Cross, and I honestly can't see any differences in the picture that they have.  I might be able to find some slight roundness if I scrutinize them closely in person, but I can't tell for sure.  It looks like they're doing good work with this.

Of course, I've been anxious to get my hands on these since well before the Kickstarter's delivery date.  I suppose that's the trouble with Kickstarters in general- we end up seeing all of the set backs on the production end.  Before, we'd just find out when the product is actually being released and that'd be it.  We wouldn't know that they were late, or that they had planned on having more minis at the release and such.

I'm pretty sure that the Wrath of Kings Kickstarter held back on adding loads of new minis to their range simply because new minis adds a lot of time to the production.  I wonder if I'll get my awesome pig sculpts on time.

Anyway, at Gencon, they had quite a few new minis that we haven't seen before- including the one they had unassembled in their update:

Wrath of Kings- pics from Gencon

If you're like me, then you probably follow a lot of miniatures Kickstarters- sometimes just to see how well they do (or don't do).  I'm always excited to see new projects that look good- especially if the minis look really wonderful and original.

One of the brighter ones I've had my eye on is Wrath of Kings. I was told that the developers are a bunch of old boys from Rackam- and I think it shows in the style of the minis- very much like the best of Confrontation.

It is nice to see such a nice miniatures line starting up.  The Kickstarter seems to be going quite well for them, and they're now entering the last stretch.

Here are some photos I took at Gencon.  I'm particularly fond of the crazy gnome riding a berzerker pig man.  I'm excited to see this setting get fleshed out with more minis.

Frog Champion from Gencon

Here's one of the other minis I took to the Gencon competition this year. He was the one I was most pleased with, but the Dark Sword competition this year was really strong, and he didn't come home with one of their nice trophies.

So I got a few more Dark Sword minis to do it again next year.

 Here are some pictures:

 

Weighted Companion Cake Topper

Sometimes I feel like I'm not nearly as creative as some of my clients on these cake toppers. And it is times like these that I'm reminded how much I like working with the people I do.

 Here's one of the geek cake toppers that I finished recently, and it involved this lovely cube:

 

See? These guys come up with great ideas for me to make.

Santana Ortega

For this year's painting competition at Gencon, I decided to paint up a Santana Ortega (that I got as a sort of stealth prize from Wyrd last year).

 The competition this year was pretty stellar, so I was proud when she took first place in Wyrd single miniature (I placed ahead of one of my favorite painters even).

 Here are the photos:
 

New Super Dungeon artwork revealed

I stopped by the Soda Pop booth at Gencon and got to take a look at what they had coming up for Super Dungeon. Due to some mail issues, they didn't have any of the prototype minis to show off, so right now we're just going with the artwork.  Of course, I'm excited from there, because... well, just look at this artwork:

 

 The three at the bottom are the heroes: The Centaur is going to be the first large based hero (other than shapeshifters). In the center is Princess Emerald, one of Ruby's sisters. On the end is a questing knight who can throw his lance (ala Ghosts and Goblins).

 They also had a new hero on sale. Unlike the Princess Ruby they released last year, this hero is totally unique and not a part of the expansion above. Coolmini eventually had to create a separate line for people who were buying her.

 

  Next to Nyan Nyan is the limited sculpt for Candy and Cola.  They didn't have any of her when the con started, or most of the time after that.  Really, they only had a few copies of her show up on Saturday, so very few people got one. When I asked about it, the Sodapop people told me they'd make her available online soon- and that their webstore would be back online very soon.  Let's hope.   Since we're here with the Relic Knights, here are photos of the painted minis from that line.  I'm pretty sure that these are mostly prototypes that they've had cast in resin and painted up, since the finished minis won't be around for a little while. They said that they're totally on track for November still.  Yeah, I'd really like to have my Relic Knights already too, but have a look at these for now.

Wyrd shows off their Gencon releases

So, Wyrd Miniatures is set to pre-release their new Malifaux 2nd Edition at Gencon this year. Along with it, they have a slew of plastic box sets: A female version of the Steamborg Executioner

A Nightmare edition of a new master: Karina the Herald of Obliteration

In addition to these,, they've showing off a slew of old master box sets updated with new plastic sculpts- the new Ice Golem is especially neat:

And that's not even mentioning all of the new stuff that isn't miniatures related.  They'll be busy this Gencon- and since they'll let you buy all of these online too, they'll be busy shipping as well.

I really like the new look of those death marshals

I only wish we had a chance to see the new Gremlins along with all of these.  Maybe next time.

Well Armed Zombie Cake Toppers

Well, we figure in the next five to seven years, they're going to make it happen. The weaponry we've always wanted, that we've always seen in our favorite trilogy (and those three prequels) will finally be something we can use. 

Shortly, this will be followed by the zombie apocalypse, but that way we'll all be well armed, right? Anyway, here are some cake toppers:


 



 


And in case you thought that this groom clearly took the best weapon and left his bride without arms, here's another picture so you can see her magic wand:

 

See?  he's not discourteous at all.

Top Hats vs. Zombie Cake Toppers

This couple wanted a Victorian theme for their cake topper. I loved making the old clothing, and firearms.

And the hat just tops it all off:

 

 

And some Victorian Zombies to go with. Or against, as it were.

 

These two were a little more modern (with the Uzi and assault rifle) but the top hat remains one of the greatest of all possible hats.

 

Halo Spartan Cake topper

Here are some recent cake toppers that are quite a bit different from the usual bunch that I make. These two actually started life as official Halo Reach action figures, and I altered the faces and weaponry to look more like my clients (and got rid of the signs of action figures on them (like screws and gaps where the joints are). 

Oh, and I repainted them too. Here they are:
 
 

Bookending with the Color Wheel

Ok, so it has been a little while that I've been looking into all of the wonderful things to do with color theory, and I've come out with a few things to share. 

The first one is a technique that I've come to call Bookending. First off, let's have a look at the color wheel.

 

 This is one of the simpler versions, but that's what we're looking for here. Colors that are on opposite ends are complimentary. Essentially, that means that they have nothing in common (if you mix them together, you'll get brown and grey).

 In elementary school, my teachers always told me that complimentary colors just look good together. I never totally believed them, and they never had any other uses for the color wheel, so I ignored them.

 Until recently, when I decided to see what happens when you use them both on the same color of a mini. The jacket on this mini is painted green and shaded in red.

 

Since the two colors mix together on this mini, the tone of the color becomes more neutral. Even still, shading in complimentary colors creates a more dynamic look for the shading or highlighting.

 But what else can you do? Well, I decided to try shading in one color and highlighting in the shade color's compliment- both of which have nothing to do with the base color of the area. This way, both colors are present on the miniature, but they are never directly mixing together (ie- they don't turn brown). The results are the opposite of what I got before:

 

 This guys was the first bookended mini I did. I actually painted him using the same base colors as this mini:

 

But the difference is stark. The bookended mini is a great deal brighter than the one that is not. That is the same blue I used on both of them, but the purple shading and yellow highlighting really makes it brighter. Even the brown has become a fairly saturated color. From there I decided that bookending would define the aesthetic of my own Super Dungeon Explore force.

 

And later, I started thinking about using these methods to really define the way that light alters the colors on minis.

This last one is an example of taking the entire mini and shading it with the same purple and highlighting to the same yellow. I tried to make him considerably more neutral (most of the paints I was using were very de-saturated). Here's the result of that.

 

Atlantic Coast Charity Cup minis

The Atlantic Coast Charity Cup is an NAF sanctioned Blood Bowl tournament to be held on the 13th of July at Virginia Beach (Virginia). 

I suppose it doesn't always show up on here, but I'm a huge Blood Bowl fan. While the tourny is a little too far for me to travel, I did get the opportunity to paint up a few minis for them.

 One of them is the tournament mini they had commissioned (this is the 'studio' paint scheme for him). I really loved painting him, he's got such character.

 

 And the second is an Ogre star player from Willy Miniatures.