ONLINE SHOP NOW OPEN!!!

Decided to open the ONLINE SHOP on my Dad's Birthday! Should be memorable that way. I have been tweaking the shop for a few days now. Usually late nights when the WiFi is extra fast and I am a bit tired from sketching and drawing the whole day.

The ONLINE SHOP should be working fine by now. Product options, checkouts and pricing have all been set already. Customers should be able to create accounts and purchase already. Do check out the shop and the initial prints available. Will expand the print choices as I create more illustrations. Thanks as always for dropping by! LINK to the ONLINE SHOP below...

Don Suratos Online Shop

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Appreciation for Traditional ART is very Good these Days!

I am currently working on a handful of commissioned ART at the moment. A few Warmachine Warlocks and a couple of Warhammers. So much ART to do in the next few weeks or months. I also just got commissioned to do 6 more Warmachine Warlocks ( check PrivateerPress.com ), so stay tuned guys!

Although I am a digital artist / visual effects artist at my day job, I do like the trend that the appreciation for traditional ART is pretty good. Both Traditional and Digital ART takes skills, talent and time to do, but a few people tend to dismiss Digital Art as mass produced art, done by computer operators. I obviously beg to disagree, but I would need another post for that.

Anyways, I am really enjoying producing these ARTworks for my clients. Albeit I do ride my "Artist Mood" whenever I do one. Thus It could take me a day to a few days to produce each ART. I hope this trend of Traditional ART appreciation continues, as I am looking forward to producing a ton more in years to come.

The hardest part of producing Traditional ART is shipping them to clients tho. Sometimes, much like anything that you spent hours in producing, ART is difficult to let go! LOL

Anyways, will share more ARTworks to you very soon! Hope you like this post and the photos of Father Lucant in progress. Should finish this piece soon! Thanks as always for dropping by! Until next post guys! CIAO!

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Tyranids Tyrannofex painted by DECAY

I have yet to finish my Tyranid commission work but this magnificent work by DECAY makes me want to work on it as soon as I can. I am a bit too preoccupied with real life stuffs these days though, but these Tyranids by Decay sure are very inspiring stuffs!

Decay has a very unique color scheme for his Tyranids which brings out the very venom like nature of these fictional creatures. His miniature painting is topnotch and his basing is very neat.

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Space Marines painted by TEMBER

Just woke up today from a very tiring almost sleepless latter part of the week. I feel good though and should be painting my minis after a couple of posts. I got new Game Color paints and some Kolinsky brushes... meaning more fun very very soon! Man the Vallejo Game Color Bloody RED is just WOW! It is the reddest paint I've seen. I used to use Vallejo Model Color Vermillion.

Anyways, I thought of getting more Game Colors than Model Colors as I got inspired from Tember's post at Facebook, when he got a whole huge set of Vallejo Game Colors. Game Colors has less pigment than Model Colors but has more medium. More medium means a stronger paint and it flows smoother than Model Color. Game Color is a bit thinner than Game Colors though.

Anyways all this Game Color buzz is from good friend Russel Hutchison aka TEMBER who painted these cool Warhammer 40K Space Marines.

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painted my miniatures with my airbrush

I am soooooo busy at work for the past few days. In fact I have only spent around 15 hours ( including sleep ) at home since Thursday ( it's Sunday today ). My miniature painting backlog is growing steadily and I have only a few hours to spend on my hobby. SO I decided to cheat!

I just bought a Trollbloods Dire Troll Mauler and a Khador Kommander Strakhov yesterday which adds to my painting backlogs. And I am about to leave for my office again today so I decided to pick up my airbrush and blast my backlogs with paint. Airbrushing is a ton faster than hand painting these models, but I feel like I am cheating.

What I love most about miniature painting is the hand painting, however my busy work schedule these days just would not allow me to hand paint my minis. I managed to base coat my Kommander Strakhov, my Shocktroopers ( 5 ), Juggernaut, Destroyer, Dire Troll Mauler, Dire Troll Blitzer and my Warhammer 40K Space Marines unit ( 9 ). Thats a lot of models I painted in just a couple of hours. Excited to hand paint the details once I get back home... that could be tomorrow or even a couple of days from now.

I painted these miniatures with Vallejo Grey Primer and Vallejo Model Air. Great stuff! Puts other acrylics for airbrush to shame ( specially the crappy Tamiya acylics ). Anyways here are some photos of what I managed to paint before work today...

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Warhammer 40K Tyrannofex by DECAY

One of the most talented modeler and painter I know. DECAY joggles Mecha / Gundam modeling and miniature painting like both are very much the same hobby.

I am learning miniature painting as of now and I could attest that is is very different from how you used to paint your plastic robots or even how you paint you scale figures. Totally different techniques and styles and decay just switches modes any time he likes. He is very very good at both discipline / hobbies to say the least. And I present you with decay's lastest Warhammer 40k masterpiece... the Tyrannofex.

What can I say... just simply great stuff as always.

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WIP - Space Marines diorama - assembly

I wanted to try my hand on some Warhammer 40k stuff as I have never owned some, much more painted some before.

Just wanted to see all the fuzz with the bitz and modifications and the whole shebang.

I liked working with the plastic models but I have NO intentions of building up an army for table top gaming ( as I cannot afford it ). So while I build up my Warmachine ( Khador ) and Hordes ( Trollbloods ) armies for table top gaming, I could do occassional vignettes and dioramas of some models from Wathammer and Warhammer 40k.

Beside they are really popular and some models are really nice specially the Tyranids. I cannot afford to put my Trollbloods on a vignette though, as I'd rather see them painted and in action on table top games soon. So I am super excited to try my hand on doing a Space Marines diorama as there are not much around in the internet and diorama building has always been so fun for me.

I will have to conceptualize a diorama for my new Space Marines tactical squad and I have a picture frame as base already. I could do a mountain with grass and trees and place those Space Marines and call it a diorama, but I'd rather not. I have raw ideas already but would need a bit more models for it. Do check out this space as I work fast when excited.

Now here are a few more photos of the unboxing and the models...

The guy below is ready to be my test subject. He is so ready for hand painting...

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WIP - Tyranid Trygon Mawloc has just arrived!

 

The Warhammer 40k Tyranid Trygon Mawloc commission work has just arrived!

The client gave me the model almost fully assembled and was painted with Behemoth color scheme ( Red and Black ) already. This is painted with lacquer paints using an airbrush. He basicaly combined the huge arms of the Trygon and the nice head of the Mawloc. If I am not mistaken, this is the biggest Tyranid model in stores.

I just need to base this and paint. The base should arrive tomorrow and could start basing this monstrosity by then. After basing I could then paint the dang thing with my usual Vallejo recipe. No prep work! I just need to do faux painting, washes, highlights and detail painting and this should be done soon!

Great huge miniature model from Games Workshop. Easily my most impressive miniature to date. Lots of detail painting and faux painting ahead and my brushes are so excited after I finished dry fitting all the parts. I do not deserve to paint such a beautiful Tyranid and I hope I give this model some justice.

Anyways here are some photos of this impressive model towering over my lighter...

Lurking not far behind is a box of Space Marines Tactical Squad... stay tuned guys!

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The Last Stand of the Crimson Fists by Volomir

I was googling about Space Marines diorama for a few hours now as I have with me a new box of Space Marines Tactical Squad. I have here a breathtaking Space Marines diorama by Volomir. Here is the link to more photos in his blog...

The Last Stand of the Crimson Fists by Volomir

After seeing this masterpiece from Volomir, I wanted to do a sort of miniature diorama but cannot do one with my Trollbloods. I cannot put my Trollbloods in a diorama as I plan to eventually field them. Anyways I will be doing my first Space Marines diorama as I have lots of pla plates ( from my old hobby ) and diorama materials lying around.

No plans of building an army of Space Marines or any Wathammer 40k faction as I simply cannot afford to collect both Warmachine / Hordes and Warhammer 40k for gaming. So get used to it guys... I will build up an army of Warmachine / Hordes but will do Warhammer 40k dioramas whenever I fancy. Excited to work on my Tyranid Trygone / Morgon commission work and assemble my Space Marine Tactical Squad when I get home today.

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Warhammer 40k Tyranid Trygon Mawloc commission soon!

Can't help but share with you my very first miniature painting commission coming up soon!

I have only painted a handful of Privateer Press Trollbloods miniatures to date but I managed to convince a friend from my old hobby ( Gunpla ) that I am good enough already to do miniature painting commissions. This should also be my first Tyranid kit and my first GW Warhammer 40k kit.

Lots of first from an old painter / hobbyist and this commission work should be fun!

I have a very courageous client / friend as he will trust me to work on this 96 dollar plastic model kit. I do hope I give justice to this model as there seems to be a lot of details to paint. I also need to pickup a couple of " reds " from the Vallejo Game color or Vallejo Model color range as I will be painting a lot of reds with this one.

My client wants me to paint this Tyranid Trygon / Mowloc with Tyranid Behemoth's red and black color scheme. The color scheme is kinda exciting to tackle as both black and red are difficult colors to effectively highlight and paint. Any experienced painter might agree.

Anyways will keep you posted once I get my hand on this beautiful plastic Tyranid Trygon / Mowloc kit. Here are some photos guys...

The photo below shows a custom made Tyranid modeled by ISLANDS with the Behemoth color scheme. I got the photos at Island's thread at The Tyranis Hive forums.

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