Rainbow Bird! More Lizard favorites

This Cockatrice was painted for my Lizard army for the Storm of Magic expansion.

The base was done in the same style as all my other Lizardman bases.  You can get a glimpse of the symbol in the picture above.

I did many searches for images of the Cockatrice for color ideas.  There were three designs I chose from in the end.  I chose to go for the kaleidoscope of colors, which would go very well with all my colorful skinks!

At some point, I want to get some more of these, and put a small howdah on the back filled with skinks tossing rocks on hapless enemies!

Plus, I had all sorts of fun doing the color transitions!

This was one of the pieces that really cemented the 'shaded basecoat' technique in my mind.  I worked quickly, with the bigger brushes, and that we essential an getting these transitions.

The glazing and tinting was very fun as well.  I could make one area more purple or more teal in a heartbeat.  A treat!

So, I will continue with the Lizard review, as the 1st Birthday of the Blog is just days away!

Also, there are now only 7 days left to enter the Painting Pyramid!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/891905985/discover-the-painting-pyramid-with-james-wappel

Back to the future! New pics of Tette-Ekko

As the One year anniversary of the blog approaches, I am thinking a lot about the army that launched it all... the Lizardmen!!

So, I will be trying to take a few new pictures of some of my favorite Lizardman figures, as well as the Temple of Blood.

To start things off, here is a real favorite of mine, Tette-Ekko.  He was a killer in the game, with the ability to redeploy units in before the game started, but bombard units from 'space' with comets!!

He was also very fun to create and paint.  As you know, I love painting my spacescapes, and the Lizardmen were fantastic for that subject.  If you have seen my scratch sculpted Engines of the Gods, you know what I am talking about!

I used baked sculpey and green stuff to create the palanquin.  Fortunately, there is not a single drawing or miniatures to represent him, which gave me full freedom to do as I pleased!

I added a few other bits, and then a modified old edition skink as the 'Baby Mage Priest'

I loved creating the star map on the floor of the palanquin!

And some images before painting:

Here's a video that was shot years ago at a tournament.  It was brought to my attention again by the folks at Parti de Protection Des Hommes Lezards:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKAmr3gNJ0A&feature=relmfu

A How To video for Rivet Wars

As the Rivet Wars Kickstarter draws to a close, I wanted to create one more 'how to' video for the last big frenzy!  I'm sure it will be a crazy 48 hours!

Just like the video of the Ally Rivet, this was designed to be around an hour long, with not a lot of frills.  There are no chapter breaks, and no inserted text or images.  It was all about showing what was possible in that limited time frame.

Here is the setup.  Since it was very dark and cloudy, it affected how I did my lighting.  In an ideal world, I am filming these during the day, with lots of sunlight streaming in.  With time  an issue, I had to just push through.

This is one of the reasons why I tried to give myself as much of the spring to work on the videos, since we will be getting more and more of that precious sunlight ;-)

Once I had all the various segments shot, it was time to import it all and start editing!

This was made a lot easier by the 'template' created for the first video.  

I was able to copy and paste the opening credits, and the other effects from the Ally video.

This will be crucial to making the Painting Pyramid videos!

I was getting a little more used to controlling the fades this time around.  Zooming in and out is still tricky on this tiny screen.  One of the pieces to the puzzle we need to secure when the funds come in is that second large monitor.

This will lead to far fewer 'accidental' button clicks, and less swearing by me.

Fortunately, I was able to leave a nice long blank segment on every piece of video, which made all my transitions so much easier.

You can see a little glimpse of those transitions in the lower left hand corner.  You can do some very interesting manipulations of the curves for both the video and the sound.

It gets even more interesting with each 'layer' you add.  For the credits, there are 4 layers you are trying to control.  Extending the fades, getting just the right curve, is all very interesting!

Well, I hope that was not too boring!

It's all just another step in the Pyramid!!

Less than 9 days left now...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/891905985/discover-the-painting-pyramid-with-james-wappel

Kryn the Red from Stonehaven Miniatures

Here's another great miniature from the Stonehaven Dwarf line.  She's Kryn the Red, Dwarf Mage.

Kryn prefers to be in charge of any given situation.  She expects others to acknowledge her superior judgement, and is put off when others have differing opinions.

Kryn prefers to solve problems through magical means, then secondarily through reason...

I had some fun making the base!  I did a blog post on how I created that a few days ago.  Go check that out!

Less than 10 days to go on the Painting Pyramid Kickstarter!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/891905985/discover-the-painting-pyramid-with-james-wappel

And if you have not seen this how to video I shot... check it out.  It is a scaled back version of how the painting videos will work:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars/posts/394385?ref=activity

Look what just arrived! More Raging Heroes!

Look at the bounty that just arrived from Raging Heroes!  Yes!  A new supply of figures for the miniature painting kickstarter.  

There's a new supply of Blood Vestals, as well as some new Orc Warboss figures for the shaded basecoat video!

The figure in the lower right is Khan- Urkhan.

This picture gives you a better look at Syl-Iriah, Spirit of the Wood.  Both the Heroic and Legendary versions, with all these extra options!  Lance, Harp, magical staff, bow, and long swords.

A truly amazing miniature!!

And Cyberwolves.  Very nice stuff, which could make a very fun tutorial on fur, don't you think?

These are the most recent additions to the Raging Heroes line.  Meet the Kurganova Sisters and Charlie!

Kommander Malinka, Kaptain Ivanka, and Admiral Olga, along with all sorts of extras and options!!

And then we have the Von Konigsmark Sisters (Hildegard, Gretchen, and Brunhilde) along with Walter!

Once again, lots of options and extras!!

Of course, each one with spectacular detail, and excellent casting quality.  I can't wait to start prepping these for the videos!!

The rest of the Imperial Fist terminators!

Here we go!  The rest of the terminators!!

Lighting a candle for you...

Here's something fun for you.  It's a little exercise in making candles for your base.

I started out with a typical cork and sculpey base, but I wanted to make some candles to snazz it up.  I took some polystyrene tubing, and glued that to the sculpey.  An even thinner tube was placed on the tips for wicks.

To create the effect of melted wax, I used some liquid green stuff.  You could also use flex paste or even wood glue as a substitute.

I added a flame with a bit of regular green stuff...

Time to paint!  The image on the right shows the Vallejo Fluorescents in action.

This stage shows the marble tiles being painted, and some more shading on the candles.

The base is just about ready for some darker glazes!

Once the darker shading was complete, I added some orange highlights.  Now it's all ready for a miniature!!

Here's a video that I created for the Rivet Wars kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars/posts

Individual shots of the Imperial Fists terminators

As promised, some of the individual terminator shots.  There was definitely a wide variety of wargear!

The group shots showed how I was trying to make each one unique via freehand designs, such as the storm shields and the icons / numerals.

The bases were provided by DragonForge Designs.  They are outstanding, with perfect quality every time!

The teal glow on various pieces of wargear was fun to paint, and also provided a nice contrast with all the warm colors!

This was my favorite storm shield design.  If you have seen the Imperial Fist Storm Raven, you will recognize that design!!

The rest will be shown tomorrow!  Stay tuned...

Here's something fun!  Rivet Wars just posted the quick video I did for them.  This is very scaled back from the ones I am making for the kickstarter (those are 40 minutes longer, with text, etc.), but it does give you a bit of a taste:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars/posts/394385?ref=activity