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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Warhammer Skaven Queek painted by JUNEX

One of our best miniature painter in our young ( barely a week old ) community website has just shared another masterpiece.

This Warhammer Skaven Queek model was painted by no other than JUNEX. Junex pretty much shows how to highlight reds without making it look so pink. The earth tones on both the groundwork and the flag gave a nice balance and contrast to the very loud red armor. The skin tone of the model is also nice and subtle.

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GoodBye Gunpla... Hello Miniatures!

The photo above is a Deathwing squad from Games Worshop Warhammer 40k, modeled and painted by Ron of FromTheWarp.blogspot.com. I spent a large part of my day yesterday reading on the how to's of miniature painting. Learned a lot from FromTheWarp so much thus I bought my first minis yesterday too!

So many informative tutorials all over the net, but I got hooked to Ron's well explained tips and tutorials the most. Ron also has so many inspiring finished projects. However I am not into Warhammer ( as of now ), so I bought a box of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings " Mordor Orcs " yesterday instead. I will post some updates later today if I have the time.

Should I be renaming this site from DC23mecharts to DC23miniarts or plastic arts? Maybe once I get to finish more minis eventually or maybe when my domain expires. One thing is for sure... my display cabinet will take ages to fill up with these mini plastic figures ( lol ).

I am not leaving Gunpla or Gundam plastic modeling yet ( or at least as of this writing ), but I am super excited on painting my first minis. As most of you know, I only like the hobby part of Gundam / Gunpla and have very little knowledge of the Gundam lore, Anime or Manga. Heck I do not watch the anime / cartoons at all to be honest.

However as I've said a few times before, I am a super geeky fan of the Lord of the Rings and anything Tolkien. I love the books ( even the ones edited by Christopher Tolkien ), I have the action figures, I have trading cards and I have watched the movies at least 4 times already... including the director's extended cut.

Thus it was an easy decision for me to choose between the boxes of Warhammer stuffs versus the boxes of Lord of the Rings minis yesterday. And unlike painting and modeling Gundam kits, painting and modeling Lord of the Rings minis is far much more exciting for me.

I cleaned my minis yeaterday and glued them on their small round plastic bases... and as I scrub each figure, flashes of images of the movies and excerpts from the books played in my mind ( lol ). Besides, painting miniatures would not cost me much unlike Gunpla. And I get to do super small bases which I loved the most, I could even do Minis Tirith and Helm's Deep ( castle ) dioramas if I like.

Great miniature stuff ahead guys!

I also added some great Warhammer and miniature blogs on my sidebar. Most of the sites I got from my best friend Kriz of KreativeMinds. Here are the list of the new blogsites in my sidebar...

• http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/
• http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/
• http://www.belloflostsouls.net/
• http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/
• http://smellslikewargaming.blogspot.com/
• http://warpstoneflux.blogspot.com/
• http://www.how-to-paint-miniatures.com/

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mini WAR GAMING table WIP - desert base color

Just bought a few supplies this past weekend thus I was able to work on my WarMachine Gaming table commission. I bought some epoxy putty, some gel type super glues and some acrylic paints.

Pardon the inactivity here in my website though. My modeling mojo is not down at all, I am just focusing on my real work these days as I am aiming for something I want. Maybe once I get what I want at work, will have the peace of mind to do more Gunpla on weekends at the very least. Wish me luck guys!

Anyways, my objective for these modular pieces is to make them as playable, durable and eye catching as possible. So unlike super realistic groundwork ( real sand glued over the base which easily flakes off ), I made sure that the sand is well mixed with the glue and not sprinkled. The technique gives it a hard sand coating but is not as realistic looking. However this technique gives you a nice texture that does not flake off during game play. The painting of the pieces will also be more high contrasting and with bolder colors. Less realistic looking but will be more eye catching.

I used the Epoxy Putty to create the rock pavement across the two " HILL " pieces. I created a pattern out of scrap pla plates and pressed them over the wet putty. Looks okay after the base painting but I hope they look better after I add pigments and a few acrylic washes.

I also bought my biggest Acrylic paint ever! It's a ONE liter Chromacryl by Chroma. It's a yellow oxide which is the base color of all the modular pieces. I regret not getting the Vallejo half liter counterpart though, as I needed 3 thick coatings to achieve a solid base color. Unlike the Vallejos which only needs a coat for creating solid colors. However Chromacryl is half the price of Vallejos! A liter of Chromacryl costs ( 700 Php ) the same as half ( 500 ml ) liter of Vallejo.


Chromacryl was great though as it is slightly better than the cheaper Reeves and Liquitex acrylics.

I also managed to start work on the two " WATCH TOWER " pieces. I used old satay sticks to reduce cost. Should look like quickly put up wooden watch towers with metal sheets at the bottom for protection. Looking forward to showing you more updates soon.

The pieces below are not yet finish. I have yet to add a few details, some dry brushing and more painting on all the pieces. Hope my client likes them so far...

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