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wow! i really love what you did with those models, i especialy love the one holding the flag, it makes me think of some old dark scavenger of some sort

Hey Neil!

This is starting to get to another level...I'm going to put it out there that I think you should seriously start thinking about entering comps...i.e. GD the models you are producing are really immense.......

Have you tried doing a model from Scratch...i.e. scuplting?

The Great and All Powerful Manok

Hey folks just a little heads up , to say i am nearly done with the dio , just a a few little bits and bobs , i have to learn how to paint lenses never really done that before properly wish me luck , hopefully i can have it done and dusted by tomorrow. Thanks for all the congrats on achieving a year at dakka

i have being researching again , mainly 40k arbites and there is a reference sheet under PDH's answer if your interested , but also Ralph Mohr http://rolfmohr.com/GamesWorkshop.html The legendary British sci fi artist, I hadn't realised that Ralph Mohr had penciled THE eponymous necomunda hive drawing top right in this pic


he also penned some ship designs for the prototype battlefield gothic game space fleet, http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5465/space-fleet i never owned this but i did like the designs for some of the ships , this style died off i think with BFG









NOT MY WORK
gothic battleship
ironclad battleship
firestorm cruiser
http://www.solegends.com/citsfleet/index.htm
SPACE CRUSADE RULEBOOK

I have been fancying creating a 40k space/naval themed retinue for a while now with some void suited exlporatus as well as the usaul navy types and grunts , i did this reference art a while back , and i am in the process of creating another naval themed one , now i type it the idea seems pretty good so i think i will commit myself to it now
void suits

@ scarper Hi mate , hope your enjoying the weather down under , its turning pretty awful over here. Thank you for the congrats I am glad you like the Ash waste stuff , i think i was pretty inspired by your 40k civilians quite a lot too , Its cool to know that i am not the only one out there who likes the more obscure 40k elements. The paint job on the Nomad is disappointing though , i like where the banner went kinda i was inspired by the seal folk tribe in the film the eagle. but the rest of his out fit was let down by messy and rushed paintwork , still struggling, but with every miniature i paint i feel one step closer to what i want to convey. I Think i will really try and focus on my painting instead of modeling for a while , i have too many techniques that i need to try out


@Vik Hi mate , off course your right i mistreat my brushes somewhat terrible and thanks for the heads up on the hair too I am pretty sure i have seen your RPG guys sun glasses , I thought you did a glow effect of sorts on them i remember thinking very nice , i wish i could do that and off course this blog wouldn't be the same without a good deal of monkeys and trolls And i am glad the dio feels to you like dark crystal , that's a pretty cool movie ,, a Ridley scott if i am not mistaken , we just need the huge horny devil now GDCK is still on hold due to this taking over my life , but as soon as i am done and i have some spare daylight


@PDH Hey Pete, thanks mate, Getting there , only a few things left now i finished up work pretty much on the cart and the bike i have been researching arbites for funky colour schemes , and i made a nice reference sheet to play with. Weeties comment has made me want to create some more sound art . Hope you didn't mind me referencing your work here


@Manoknok Hey mate , Thank you for the compliments matey I think i still have a quite a way to go before i could consider entering any comps , my style of painting is so loose and undefined i really doubt it would hold up against , the great stuff i see out there , having said that , i am trying to tighten up somewhat , and maybe one day in a few more years time i might get there. For me the John Blanche painting style is the epitome of miniature painting , its not about looking too clean or too dirty, it also is fantastical and somewhat brighter than i produce stuff with a lot more depth. I really respect the clean cut look and even some airbrushed stuff that can be produced by people but I doubt i would ever go down this route , its far too precise for my limited patience and not real enough .. on the other hand the uber real ww2 model brigade is a little too far in the other direction , i need to find a happy medium where i can produce somewhat realistic looking models with the hint of bright fantasy. Cm Dante and Migsula and PDH do this the best i think

I would be more than happy to be able to paint like these. NOT MY WORK
PDH

CM Dante


John Blanche

Migsula


But as of yet i am no where near this ability , i hope that one day it will come we'll see. As for sculpting i think i could get the basics down , but i would be lying if i said i don't struggle with the scale of miniatures , i really think my strengths lay in terrain/ architecture . I think i have turned a corner in my understanding of how to paint miniatures, if i look back at the start of the blog , i can see a pretty big improvement over the year. But i am still miles away with the application of paint and the brush control.


@rogue Glad you like mate, In the beginning this guy was going to be a genestrealer hybrid , smuggling a baby purestarine out of the hive , his third clawed arm hidden beneath the multiple layers of his clothing, i left it so you could imagine his 2nd right hand still holding the lasgun under his shawl.

seeya later folks

Word of advice when looking at the quality of your work compare it to your own a while back rather than other peoples its far less dispiriting as I realise comparing my own to yours!

oo that is a great collection of pictures there, sounds interesting. and between PDH, Migs, and CMDante it is a tough choice and I dont think you can say who is the best, although me personaly CMDante is my mini painting hero because of his awsome sculpts and the way he paints his skin, which i hope to acheive somewhat before i die

mate... i don´t want to derail your thread here... but i recently understoood for the first time the need of thinning paints and using the right tools... both of such nacks i think you have done so quite longer than me^^ i even now am speculationg to try out some blending for the first time ever... so no sense in humilating your work mate... like llamahead said... try to compare your stuff to your earlier work... and see the progress as instead of raising the stackes too high...better see the next step in front of your work... and mate... do you really know what is your best skill here? tell you what... from what i have seen here you are the by far best researcher before planning a project. seriously... you are searching for so many different nouces of the project before and you know where to look and how to combine the finds and then make your own design based on these finds...i find that a terrific virtue!

by the way... thanks for showing my mini as a reference of lenses^^ i am quite blushing right now^^ i like that mini...but after my most recent work i see the need to rework on that miniman too^^ what is driving me most of the time nuts with this hobby is the damn time you need to get a decent job done...rushed things look so ugly... but if you kill the hours with just one mini...then you get the reward...i only recently learned my lesson...hope i can hold on to that...

so i look forward of more of your excellent stuff!

bloddy hell^^... by the way... i am now thinking of repainting your lieutenant of the praetorians you provided me with.... i think i can do him now more justice...and he will be a good leader for my scotts^^ ironic isn´t it^^

Hey folks , still haven't finished the dio , i got press ganged into decorating the front room and Bj's bedroom for Christmas. all done now though ;-) hopefully will slap the final touches on in a minute , but i think i will probably have to wait until tomorrow to photo :-( The Naval theme is deffinately cogitating in my nogging and i have been scouring the net fro ship based references ,
http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/76/164/
http://www.johnbage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/John%20Readhead%20Shipyard%20Page%2024.htm
http://www.sydnassloot.com/caulking.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_nautical_terms




I am thinking of doing a small repel boarders themed squad , with a master shipwright, bosun /boatswain, void suited deck head , and several assistants ship wrights pneumatic caulker/plasma arc welder, riveter? ( thanks vik ) driller, and basically the runts of the ship sent to patch up the holes after they are attacked will probably do the ship too just a BFG vesrion though and then maybe a small section of the ship as a dio.

i havent made a refernece art board yet , but i guess these three images sum up the feel of what i want , along with some servitors probably.








@lamahead i know your right mate , i guess , i was showing as much where i want to be heading with regarding the style of painting in future, rather than complaining that i cant paint like that now. There are lots of great painters out there with so many different styles its sometimes hard to know where you want to be , but i know with these painters i can relate to , the style more than any other. I dont really find there work dispiriting i find it evocative tbh . its cool to know what we can achieve if we put in the effort and hours . and learn the techniques . at the start of this blog i wasn't very interested in painting at all as i didn't think i could do it very well , but i know , now that ,it just takes patience, knowledge of the techniques . I feel i know a hell of a lot more than when i started this blog , but knowing is only half the Battle isn't it.

@rogue , CM dante skill with a brush and sculpting tool is mind boggling . i guess we all have our strenghs , PDH's ability to find the exact pieces for a perfect kitbash is in my opinion only matched by his ability to conjure up the most interesting miniature designs i have seen . Baiyuan's ability to add seemingly impossible amounts of precise detail , is matched by scarpers ability to add so much story and passion into his works of art . I love that within dakka and the wider community there are so many talented people with exciting original designs to draw inspiration from . I thought i might get tired of 40k after so much intensive research , but the community itself is always throwing up new ways to interact with the universe. and of course john blanches designs have so much room for interpretation ;-)

Hey vik , I hope that earlier post didn't seem like i am ungrateful for my own talents , because i am not. ;-) I just wanted to show where i would like to be in the future , not specifically painting exactly like the aforementioned painters , but rather learning the techniques that i see they have mastered themselves. I see this hobby now as much about learning as anything , and not to be the best painter out there , just to know you tried to be the best you can be . with the hand you have been dealt . there are some painters i know i will never be able to paint like , Hits the spot comes to mind or even Major Tom , both of who's work is so amazing , but also very tight in design , and execution , i know my self i could never having the patience to compete anything to such a precise end. But that's not to say i don't take inspiration from their work , just its somewhere i know i couldn't or rather don't want to end up . the artists i mentioned earlier have something i want that's why i posted their pics , they are where i would like to be at some point . its not that i think my work is rubbish and there's is amazing , its that i can learn something from them that will enable me to better my own work . I realise that we all have our individual aspects of the hobby ,like you say i like to research rather thoroughly . of this i am quite proud , and i enjoy it immensely. That is not to say i shouldn't look to others to learn what i don't know .

Hi Mate

No problem at all....it is nice to see the ugly brute and to read your kind words. I think the most important thing is to enjoy what you are building/painting and be (reasonably) happy with the result at the end.

Love the Arbite montage. The void suit one made me laugh though...rogue traders minions in full void suits and the rogue trader in a swanky cotton jacket!

I wasn't planning on stopping by today but I saw this and thought you'd like it:

A door made from recycled oil drums marks the entrance to a mud compound at the village of Kunkak in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, February 23, 2011. Village doors in Helmand are made from a variety of scavenged material -- oil drums, shipping containers, bits of cloth, rice sacks or tins -- and are often the only splash of individuality and colour in a drab, beige landscape where one compound looks almost identical to the next. (Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly)

@ pdh , lovely photo the rusty bright paint work against the textured wall are quite evocative.cheers

One of the sketches reminds me of one of the greatest projects I've seen recently. Does anyone by chance know Cerebralerebus' AdMech stuff from Warseer?

That's pretty damn wicked ! cheers matey, nearly the exact way i was going to go ( i had planned elysians for the body but the price and the fact i would love to kitbash more thoroughly like the JB and Jes images , i have since decided to start from scratch/ and greenstuff with the only bits have in my box , well except for the servitors


and of course an honorable mention must go to dakka's very own Hits the spot for his wonderful interpretation








and this thread and pics by Little brother on Ammo Bunker sported these lovelies
http://s3.zetaboards.com/The_Ammobunker/topic/7356625/1/


Finally finished the inspiration board

Nice inspiration board makes the ones I use look really small lol.

The Black Volta female image towards the middle would make an excellent model, looks very imperial my eye was drawn straight to her.

question there neil: do you print those out and hang them to your wall? to have them before your eye when working on the projects or are you just sharing your thoughts with us through the inspiration board? the naval themed guardsmen just scream captain nemo to me! so now i am waiting to see the ashwastes dio finished and then what you can throw at us with that nice idea of yours now!

@ Giraffex, Cheers , Yep that pic would make for a rather nice mini. kinda reminds me of the cygnar range from warmachine , probably could manage a kit-bash with one of their models.

@Vik , guess its a bit of both tbh, i always print out a few images , but lately these big inspiration boards ,i look at through the tv via the ps3 home network, whilst converting , i like to be surrounded by images but the printing is too costly to print everything i see so i make do with a few gems from each board, normally i make smaller , boards for print outs with between 4 and 8 pics , but i always print out the JB stuff as high res as i can afford. , will be putting all these in a frame eventually if i don't keep ruining them

So managed to complete the Ash waste dio took a bit longer than i thought, so now i am shattered, pretty pleased with most of it , especially the chipping , and the lenses, even though the varnish bubbled and imploded a bit i used this tutorial on the lenses , i found it very straight forward and easy to follow.


wasn't so pleased with the merchant or the arbite himself , but there you go , photographing was fun and tricky at the same time. thought i would return back to my roots with the story board presentation instead of a big combined pic graphic

Love it!

I am getting a Judge Dread feeling... and I am happy.


Well done buddy

I like this immensely. Is the guy on the jet bike a blood bowl player with a head swap? looks familiar. More detailed photos would be great (I'm finding it very hard to get bright photos myself with the winter darkness) .

Nice sense of story whats the base for the trader model by the way?

Just send me a pm regarding the shipping cost and then quick to the post office...please?

Wow, thats some awesome photos and models, love it.... when is the film coming out? haha.

thats awsome man!

That's really cool I love it, the weathering is superb.

I keep scrolling back and seeing more bits I didn't notice first, second or third time lol

Just so good

Neal I insist you start thinking about a diorama for GD entry.
Also, should be making swooshing noises whilst listening to beastie boys chcheck it out whilst looking at the jet bike!

Really epic stuff! Just immense!

Wow, thats some awesome photos and models, love it.... when is the film coming out? haha.

my thoughts exactly...

best poic is the dog chasing the jetbike...i love the way you make photos... that is the awsomest skill yet of yours... you ARE THE storyteller! the whole feel of that dio is simply... well...words can´t express what this makes me feel...does baiyuan really get that gem? wow^^ i am pretty envious... :(

i think this is one of the best dios you did... but that still has to make us think of all the other great works of yours here you presented...way to much to find easily in your vast gallery...
the pratorian chiller or the inq tower or the one model tank^^ there is so much of your work thats bloddy brilliant!

deep many thanks for sharing this work with us mate...

Not really, Vik. I'm just trying to persuade him to give it to me.
Is it working yet, Neil?

i have recently talked to him here or via pm and he would like to sell his stuff he did for smallish fees really... so there might be an option... he stated he really has no storage room for all these dios he does...

OMG, badass!

Hey folks guess who has a big head this morning Cheers peeps, glad you like, makes the effort worthwhile

@ Mad marty Excellent mate , i read the comic where he retired and had to take the long walk as a kid , but they let him keep his bike. I had this in mind throughout.

http://www.cinemasharks.net/2011/07/empires-dredd-preview-offers-more.html

@Weety well you inspired it Yep winter is a bitch for photography , i keep meaning to order a daylight bulb but always run out of cash before i do The rider is the plastic SM biker' arms and the metal 2nd gen arbite legs and torso top, with a green stuff abdomen and jacket , his shoulder pad is a plastic beastman abdomen plate. will take more shots asap

@Llamahead , the trader base is a vostroyan , i had him in the inquisitors war band a few pages back , but he was perfect for this, with a Space wolf head swap.

@ Baiyuan , dont tempt me mate, i have no space at all to keep it , and all the other dios i have made have become broken chipped and generally rubbish because i keep shifting them around the house, Unfortunately my eldest did say he liked the Arbite though , so i reckon you would have to fight him for it shouldn't be a problem though you being a professional Ninja and all that

@Totured robot, ha ha , i wish ( he might get some fluff ), although i was also inspired a little by the movie Priest , the scene where the priest leaves the city on his cycle.



@Rogue wolves cheers matey

@GiraffeX thanks man, i did try and learn the chipped metal technique dappling with a sponge , i learned quite a lot of new stuff actually during the whole thing.

@Manoknok qoute " Neal I insist you start thinking about a diorama for GD entry" how about this Dog doing a poop!

Funny you should mention sound , i was really going to add a classical piece to be played whilst looking at the pics , but thought better of it

@Vik Thanks Mate, I am glad i stuck it out , unlike the rogue trader one. i took 170 pics to get 30 good ones , then spent 4 hours arranging them into a workable sequence , then Amber came in and said why is the dog doing a poop and i had to start again , to ensure that the sense of the dog chasing the bike was obvious, where would we be without our partners eh! as for the dio being for sale , well you know i prefer to give away my stuff , so you never know , , buts its not like you have space for it either
It was pretty cool presenting like this again , i think i should do it more often. Thanks for the too kind words

@Dst ,

its not like you have space for it either

true story bro^^

and boy are we both blessed and burdened by our wifes^^

Don't they sell daylight bulbs in every single store in the UK like in the US?

dsteingass wrote:Don't they sell daylight bulbs in every single store in the UK like in the US?

Na I've found they are quite hard to get hold of over hear apart from ebay of course.