A noisy christmas

I've been learning the guitar for a while now and I'm starting to be able to make a reasonable noise with it. So I've decided to get an electric guitar as well. What I really wanted was a Gibson SG and Marshall stack but as I'd quite like to stay married I went for the more reasonable (in volume, size and cost) encore E69 and 10W practice amp. 

It makes a wonderful racket and with enough practice I should be able to get some recognisable tunes.

We also got our eldest son his first guitar, a clasical to toughen up his fingers and learn some chords on. He's got his eye on my new guitar and was wondering if I could run his through the amp.

We are starting to get a lot of instruments for a small flat with no sound proofing.

Golden snitch Christmas tree ornament

Karina has been looking through pintrest and finding loads of cool things to make, we particularly liked this one- A golden snitch Christmas tree ornament from tiny apartment crafts. 

Please go and have a look at how Gabrielle made hers.

http://tinyapartmentcrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/golden-snitch-ornament-tutorial.html

I've adapted it a little because of the materials I had lying around.

here's a shot of the wing form made from guitar G string bent into shape and soldered 

then glued into the tissue paper.

 I was using a plastic bauble rather than the glass one that Gabrielle used so I could use a GW hobby drill to put a couple of tiny holes in and post the ends of the guitar string into the bauble

Here is the finished snitch on our tree looking all glittery

Rocking out for a painting competition

Here is the finished model for the Purbrook models competition on facebook. 

The work in progress pictures are here

I like how the pose has come out and I'll keep you updated as to how I do.

Edit: I won! There were only two other entries which were both really well painted. I'm still waiting for them to get in touch about the prize.

Centurion's helmet or "Things we do for our children."

A few days ago we got a letter home from school telling us Adam is going to be a Roman soldier in the school christmas play and please can we provide a costume. I had been browsing through papermau and they had a link to a roman legionarys helmet. 16 sheets of 160gsm and 8 hours of cutting and sticking later. 1 roman helmet.

I've now got to build a set of Lorica segmentata. Photos when I've got my head round it

purbrook models competition

Found a competition on facebook where Purbrook models send you a free miniature and you do what you can with it in a month, I received my mantic corporation marine and I think I got a mismatched pair of arms. when I put it together it looked as if he was playing a guitar solo on his rifle so an hour or so later he is. I'll get him under-coated later and painted this evening.

 the competition

A happy place

This video always makes me smile. 

German Industrial Dancing set to Dutch Polka

Finished K'daai Fireborn with big hats

I've finally got this unit finished. They've been lurking in the queue for far too long but I've not been doing a lot of painting or sculpting recently.

I may add more to the unit once I've tried them out on the field of battle, they are labour intensive to make.

I need to get a game using my chaos dwarves, they are as yet untested even though I've been working on them since January.

A gift for Blue in VT

In my post A gift from Bolg I mentioned that I was taking part in a miniature exchange on Chaos Dwarfs Online and here is the miniature I sculpted and painted for Blue in VT. Check out his work here Blue's Marauding Miniatures. He collects the old MM90's chaos dwarfs so I tried to sculpt something that would fit in with his collection. I started with a Battle for skull pass dwarf as a base then hacked off the arms, shield and head. My initial plan was to arm him with a great weapon but I changed my mind while sculpting to do a banner bearer as it would give me a greater chance for painting. The banner is Blue's Avatar on CDO. I've been waiting ages to show this miniature off but I didn't want to spoil the surprise.  

Rogue Guard

Here are some of the rogue guard I've been working on recently. I've got another 20 ready for undercoat today plus some more waiting for bases.

Painting K'daai Fireborn with big hats

This is my first real go at painting a lava effect. I started with an undercoat of Army Painter Desert Yellow Spray then a heavy dry brush with Macharius Solar Orange then I filled in the interior of the scales with thinned Dark Flesh and finally Charadon Granite to finish off. I did try adding a further coat of  chaos black but it didn't work so I went back to Charadon Granite.

Undercoat

Nearly finished

K'daai Fireborn with big hats

While Warhammer Forge make great K'daai Fireborn, I don't have £36.00 for 3 models. I do however have lots of hobby time to fill, grey stuff and troll molds which look like this when mixed together.

 Once I'd got the face so I was happy with it, I decided to save some effort with a spot of Instant Mold I've not tryed Instant Mold with Grey stuff which is why I've used Green stuff. I've not quite finished the one on the left, I'd left the grey stuff a little too long to get the flames to work last night so I stripped it off to try again later. 

40k bases with something to stand on them

Here are the Warhammer 40,000 bases I cast recently with models stood on them. I've got molds with heads and arms in production but I've run out of RTV silicone so I need to pop down to Brentford for some more. until I've got some more this project is in a bit of a holding pattern.

A gift from Bolg

I am taking part in a miniature exchange on Chaos Dwarfs Online and this arrived in the post yesterday morning from Bolg. I love taking part in these things because you never know what you are going to get and I really enjoy painting for other people.

 Also included in the package were some stickers from Bolg's web comic Bunbuns which is very cool and you should have a look at.

Warhammer 40,000 bases

First casts of my new 40k bases fresh from the mold. They need a little clean up work but I'm pleased with them. The scruffy background is my cutting mat. It saves me trying to get all the overspray, dripped glue and resin off the table. I should get these painted this evening and some figures on them soon.

2100 page views and 40k base greens

I was just about to post photos of the 40k bases I was working on a couple of nights ago when I noticed this blog had received 2100 views. I never thought there would be so much interest in my work when I started writing this in may 2011. I'm quite pleased with this. Anyway, on to more interesting things.

With the release of the new Warhammer 40,000 box set I have been inspired to dig out an old project that had ground to a halt. A chaos cultist guard army. As the army is quite varied in style, I wanted to tie them together with matched bases. I made these as a muddy deployment field with tire and tank tracks everywhere. I've just finished making a mold for them and I'll get the first casts later today.

Tzeentch Lord of Change

I received this model as a trade and I was trying to think how I could improve the 1998 sculpts. I went with changing the pose and using both heads. 

The tree was left over from the heresy dragon and I thought it would make a nice perch for the old bird.

Its a nice model but the pictures on the box and GW's website do it no favours. Hopefully I can do a good job on it. 

It was a swine to put together. I started at about 8 and finished three and a half hours later with much drilling, pinning and super gluing fingers together.