Author Archives: tony

Fantasy Miniatures, photos

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So I spent the evening going through my collection of miniatures, re-photographing them and uploading those pictures to Picasa.

A disclaimer before you go look (if you were thinking of looking).  Yes, there are far too many half-naked nubile unfeasibly dressed female miniatures, so sue me.  Yes, I suck at painting eyes.  In fact, yes, in general, the painting sucks.  These things are designed to look ok from about 3 feet away and are 1-2 inches high usually, so when you photograph them from 7 inches away and blow them up, they look pretty cruddy (well, mine do).

First up, a collection of my oldest miniatures.

Next, some of my more recent butcher paint jobs.

And finally, a bunch of stuff I’ve not started yet.

Click the images to link to the Picasa albums.  I’ll sort out some photo’s and post some stuff I’m half way done on at some stage.

Edit: In-progress album now up.

Smaller pictures

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Looks like just keeping the images smaller helps, they look more like they would if you were holding them or looking at them on a table.

One of those (left) is a macro shot from earlier, and the other is just a regular shot from distance.

Therapeutic

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So it turns out painting is pretty therapeutic, and I’m still pleased with what I’m able to achieve.  So, good news about the paints, and I don’t seem to have backtracked too far since I last picked up a brush.  I’ve started on some cannon-fodder zombies so that I don’t have to worry too much about the fine detail, the whole point is they’re supposed to be gore splattered and broad-stroked.

Here’s the one I just did.

Click on the images for the full size shots.  One of the major problems I have with macro mode on digital cameras is that they really do bring out the worst in the painting 🙂 I need to get a good shot, with good lighting at range, so the figures look more like that do when you’re holding them in your hands.  I’ll play with that I guess.

Turns out

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that the paints are in pretty good condition.  A few jars of solid colour that need throwing away, a few jars of sludge that will need a lot of stiring and re-hydrating, lots of jars of perfectly ok paint and a couple that just need a good shake.

I thought I’d play with the camera and see how it works on macro shots, since I’ve not tried any since we got the DMC-FZ8.  The only ones I have of miniatures are taking with the old digital, this one should be a lot better but it’s going to take a long time to get lighting, positioning and zoom right.

Anyway, in summary, I’m going to try painting tonight.

Update: camera looks pretty good, need to work on lighting and get something better to stand the figures on, but here are a few shots.

Painting

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I have an increasing urge to break out the miniatures, paints and associated paraphernalia and see what’s worth keeping and what needs to be chucked / replaced, and then maybe trying some painting and seeing how much skill I’ve lost in the last 8 years since EQ took over my life.

I’ve ‘restarted’ painting a few times over the years, each time it’s expensive (replacing a lot of paint and brushes) and each time it takes longer to get back to a point I’m happy with my skill.

I certainly have more time for it these days I think, now that my MMORPG habits are seriously curtailed.  I’m not even sure what the market for miniatures is like, I guess Warhammer / Games Workshop has pretty much cornered the miniatures market in the UK.  I see that 4th Edition D&D has some plastic pre-painted miniatures for use with the game.

Clerks

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Clerks arrived and we started our Kevin Smitheron by watching it this evening.  It plays a little more like an extended sketch show than a movie, with varying parts of the day as individual sketches linked through some overall theme.

It’s certainly entertaining, and amusing, but it wasn’t belly laughing funny.  There are clear moments where the actor’s either forget their lines, or stumble over their lines or just plainly adlib which give the movie a real ‘college project’ feel, but then considering the cost and the background it’s not surprising.  There are real moments of pure quality cinema as well, with two-character sparring dialog that reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in a lot of ways (both 1994).

In general, I enjoyed it.  I’m not sure it’s going to be a cult classic in this house, and we enjoyed Clerks II more (and that despite having never seen the first one), but maybe if we watch it a few more times we’ll get more into the swing and enjoy what’s going on around the image.