Author: fetsmilner

As promised, I return from Euro Miniature Expo with a host of pictures. A few thoughts, too, but most people just want to see the pretty toys (and hopefully WordPress’s extra image compression won’t cause too many problems). First up, naturally, is the Best of Show, which is a brilliant diorama by Mike Blank. An extremely worthy winner:

Mike gave a talk about colour and harmonies, too, which ended up covering his thoughts about composition and his ridiculous palettes (a block of wood with some masking tape on it – I don’t think anyone was expecting that).

The rest of the entries were of a really high calibre, as you’d hope from the newest incarnation of Euro. A small selection:

I should add that there were lots more models I wanted to get pictures of, but the show hall has a long glass wall on one side, which made getting pictures difficult because the sun was right there, staring you in the face (as you can probably see from some of the shots above). That’s not really something you can blame the show for so much as nature itself.

For my part, I got highly commended in both fantasy and historical, which I’m pleased with, as well as the Elan13 prize for the ECW halberdier, which I’m very pleased about.

Overall, I’d say the new Euro has done a good job of solving some of the problems that plagued the old Euro: the judging was very consistent, the traders certainly seemed much happier and the space felt like it was being used more effectively. All of this, of course, meant that the competitors were generally in good spirits, which makes everything a bit nicer.

There were also some teething problems, of course: the system for entering your models needs to be streamlined (which Adrian has promised), some categories were pretty sparse (but that’s to be expected for the first show, really) and it was still in Folkestone (which has seen better days, but I did see that there’s been a bit of improvement around the town, and I’m sure the range of restaurants has increased significantly even since last year). Pretty much all of these can be pinned down to the fact that the whole show was put together in a matter of months, which is really an impressive achievement more than anything else. This means that there may not have been as many changes as the show perhaps needs, but there’s now a whole 12 months to start getting those tweaks in place so there’s plenty of space for the show to grow into something more than just a replacement for Euro Militaire.

For me, Euro is a really important show to maintain. When I was at uni in New Zealand back in the late 90s/early 2000s, I’d occasionally see pictures from the show in magazines – all these fascinating models from manufacturers I’d never heard of, massive dioramas, colour and creativity abounding – and so Euro had been on my list of shows I had to go to if I ever made it to this part of the world. In New Zealand, the hobby was really basic at the time – I only knew a small number of other people who were really into painting for the sake of painting, and most of the time you’d have to suffice with playing wargames as an excuse to paint models and have them judged at tournaments, so the idea of a massive painting competition, filled some of the best works in the world was pretty intoxicating.

With age, my perspective has changed a bit, but so has the hobby and the number of competitions in different parts of the world with different styles and so on, so, while Euro might not be as essential for the hobby as it might have been twenty or thirty years ago, it still has an important role to play in the hobby as it stands in Britain because it’s still almost certainly the largest and most prestigious British competition outside Golden Demon.

Assuming no hiccups, I’ll be back next year, and probably any number of years thereafter.

As you may recall, last time I was talking about experimenting with mud, and I’d say it was a reasonable success. The final result meant I could finish off the halberdier, to whom I also gave some ducks, as you can see here:

These are the same make of duck I’ve used a few times – Industria Mechanika – a set of waterfowl that comes with a few ducks, a couple of geese and, as you can see, some ducklings. A word to the wise: the ducklings are only a couple of millimetres long, so you need to be prepared to paint something tiny. On the plus side, they’re also pretty low on detail, so they’re pretty straight forward if you can get your brush on your side. They also come with etched brass feet, although I can’t imagine trying to get the ducklings’ feet on given the scale.

Anyway, the final model came out really well, in my opinion; you can see the full photo op over on Putty and Paint, but here he is, full frontal, as it were:

And on, now, to discuss mud. As you’ll recall, I was interested in using talcum powder as a ballast for the mud, so I mixed up a few different thicknesses with some PVA and paint, and then tested out the highlighting method. Lots of stippling and wet mixing, really. It was just a quick bash at it, of course, because mud should be messy. Naturally.

It was while I was waiting for it to dry that I remembered that I also have a Mig pigments set designed for mud that comes with a sort of resin medium that I thought might be more workable than PVA. So, I dug up the set and had a go with that, too (again, using talcum to bulk out the resin). The results:

The column on the right is PVA, talcum powder and paint (VMC German Black Brown and Air Tank Brown, with deck tan added for highlight) in varying thicknesses, while the left is (from the top): PVA, talcum powder and VMC smoke; PVA, talcum powder and GW brown ink; and Mig resin, talcum powder and pigments. In both columns, I painted the right hand side with some gloss varnish to see what difference it makes. It’s all a bit, well, fecal.

Still, I came to the conclusion that I liked how sculptable the Mig resin was, and the talcum powder did work as a pretty decent ballast. A lot of control because it’s very fine. I also really liked the way the brown ink dried in the PVA – there’s some nice tonal variations – but that’s something for another occasion, I think.

Anyway, in the end I remembered that mud has a lot more to it than just dirt, so for the model I added some extra chunks: slate flakes from an old GW basing kit, dried grass fibres from some Italian diorama supplier, small chunks of plaster for rocks, and so on. I’ve since decided that the mud could do with more texture, so I’ll probably use more in later projects.

So, I’m feeling pretty productive at the moment given that I’ve finished three pieces in as many weeks, so it’s good that Euro approaches. Next update should have tonnes and tonnes of photos, assuming the turn-out is good. If you’re there, do feel free to buy me a beer or a gin.

While the English Civil War dragged on for a few years, this model isn’t terribly huge and is almost finished after about a month. If only all conflicts could be so simple.

The halberdier is himself basically done – just need to add some dirt and the like, but I’ll do that after the base is finished as that will really dictate what the mess looks like, how it spreads, etc. I’m thinking of quite a muddy base, so there’s the risk that it’ll spread too far, but I’ll try to keep it restrained. While it’s likely that a soldier in this particular war got horrendously muddy in the sort of conditions I’m thinking of, that wouldn’t make for much of a model. Well, maybe some models, but not this one.

Anyway, here’s the progress:

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He’s quite different from my usual stuff, mostly because he’s mostly colourful and not terribly weird. If you look over my works on Putty and Paint, you’ll see a constant return to blacks and greys, and muted tones. I do try to break out from that habit quite a lot, but I also find that I’m happiest with my works when that’s how they come out. The Preacher, for instance, is a piece I really like – it’s very simple and it tells a good story.

For the base, I’ll be trying out using talcum powder for bulking the mud. I’ve used lots of different materials for mud in the past – tea leaves, flock, resin dirt products, sand, actual dirt and even my own skin – but they’ve all had flaws. My friend Martin, meanwhile, went to a talk by Mike Blank at Euro last year, in which he talked about how he mixes talcum powder with paint and PVA to build up mud, and highlights and shades using the mud itself. This sounded pretty interesting, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’ll probably take pictures of the various experiments to show off here.

In other news, Frank is done and you can see him over on Putty and Paint.

This is a piece I’m really happy with, so he’ll be dragged along to shows for the next year or so.

As several of you have probably seen, I finished up the Autopsy this week. There are pics over on Putty and Paint here. If you can’t be bothered going over there, here’s a picture of the finished piece:

I’m not totally happy with the plaque because my freehand is barely tolerable, but it frames the bust nicely, I think.

In other news, I was really productive and worked on two other pieces: Frank and the halberdier.

Frank is now extremely close to being finished and really just needs a bit of extra detritus and some dirt, which is a matter of an hour or two. The head of Abe got a bit of battering and a quick paintjob to fit in. He doesn’t need to be perfectly blended because a) he’s a bit of stone, and b) he’s the base.

As people who know me will attest, I have strong opinions on basing. I’m not the best at it, but I know a good base when I see one, and I have two key rules for my own basing, which boil down to narrative and composition.

1. Narrative
   The base should provide the context for the model. You don’t need a lot, as you can see with Frank: just some steps and a head. Given the model already clearly belongs in a specific historical context, all you really need in this instance is something to provide geography. Because it’s WWII(ish), the story builds itself from there: he’s some sort of Nazi monster, and he’s in Washington DC. Things are bad for the Allies.
   You should never need to write the narrative down to explain it. It should be self-evident. (Hopefully, I didn’t actually need to write this explanation for Frank.)
2. Composition
   There’s a lot that can be said about composition – definitely more than I can be bothered writing about now. For a really good, visual demonstration, go read Jarhead’s fantastic introduction to composition. The main thing I keep telling people about is a tip I picked up from (if memory serves) Conrad/Prawnpower and Seb Archer: ‘break the square’.
   In brief, it’s very easy to build a base that’s quite contrived. If you put tiles on the base, for instance, it’s tempting to have them line up with the edges of the base. A wall might sit perfectly aligned with one of the sides. That sort of thing – it’s obviously more of an issue with architectural bases than organic ones, but the principle remains.
   Anyway, the problem with this is two-fold: it looks contrived, and any error in lining things up will be incredibly obvious. The contrivance problem is really the biggest one because it makes the model look like it’s posed rather than being a snapshot of a scene. The easiest solution is, of course, to just turn everything a few degrees. You get a more natural scene, and small mistakes aren’t as obvious.

That’s a pretty brief description of my thoughts when I’m basing. You should be able to see how I broke the square on Frank’s base by simply not lining the steps up with the squareness of the plinth.

So here’s Frank, in all his glory, standing over the defeated remains of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. He’s truly a badass.

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I also sorted out the sleeves on the halberdier, which are now a much better colour and texture. As I mentioned last time, one of the problems I had was that I wasn’t painting the material. You should see here that there’s a much softer general finish more fitting of a fabric. It still has some sharp edge highlights, of course, because you need those to provide definition, but the key is to make sure the combination of shade and highlight, along with the way they’re blended, work together to create a good facsimile of the actual material.

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So, not too much longer for this chap, either – as long as I don’t cock everything else up.

It occurs to me that I didn’t really explain that King Charles was also a bit of a dick. The two main players really weren’t upstanding people. While Cromwell was a dick who ended up a dictator, the Civil War is really Charles’s fault.

Under the law at the time, Parliament only needed to be called under a few conditions – the most important of these being in order to raise taxes, which was effectively a measure to stop the Crown from starting wars without parliamentary approval. Wars are expensive, so it’s hard to pay for them without taxation. Charles, however, really hated parliament. He was the sort of king who wished the whole Magna Carta thing hadn’t happened (he got this idea from his dad).

Anyway, Charles so hated the idea of needing approval meant that he spent as much time as possible avoiding having to call Parliament, resulting in ten years or so of effectively absolute authority. Not that he actually achieved anything in this time, of course.

Anyway, that’s a brief history of why Charles is a dick, too. Back to paint.

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Apologies for the graininess on the pics – it turns out WordPress is adding extra compression to my images, and this has a notable effect on this guy for some reason…

Anyway, I repainted his face, which now features some rather fetching facial hair, polished up the red a little more (still needs more work), painted his boots and royally cocked up his sleeves.

The sleeves are a good example of two problems in painting:

1. Painting the colour rather than the material.
   Materials reflect light in different ways, which you can see on this figure in the metal gorget thingummy and the boots: very different materials, very different highlighting and shading. The sleeves don’t have any real character and the paint isn’t showing a realistic interplay with the light. This is a pretty common problem for people who started out painting gaming figures.
2. Starting from the wrong base colour.
   I’ve started with a base that’s too dark, which means the shading ends up muddy and indistinct, and the highlights have to be thick to cover the base colour, which makes them lumpy and clumsy.

So the sleeves need to be repainted, but otherwise he’s coming along nicely.