Hey,

It’s time to start innovating.  Here I present an alter which covers the text box, and has the text re-overlaid afterwards.

A more controversial one for those card art purists out there, let me know what you think.  Is this just a cheap tactic, or a genuinely cool thing?  Either way, keep reading!

James

Hey all!

If you click here you will find a gallery with all my work on the Sisay project to date such as the Mox above, finished or otherwise.  Enjoy!

James

Hey all,

Another article is up, and this time it’s slightly different.  With the release of the new set Mirrodin Besieged (woo hoo!), it’s time to take a look at the cards that make up the best of the set from the point of view of Commander/EDH.

The article is here

and…

The second part is here.

Let me know what you think!

James

Hey,

Having tackled the basics, I’ve had a go at a more complex alter.  I have a step by step tutorial here, click through and let me know what you think!

James

Hey all,

My latest article for the Sisay project, an article designed to help those of us who make a bunch of mistakes, or have cards that just haven’t come out right.  It explores some of the solution to these frustrating cards, and shows some more of the cards that the project is coming on with.

The article is here … Click the link and have a read, and then if you like it, well, err… like it! awesome.  ‘Til next time,

James

Hey all,

So, if I’m to take this challenge on, then I’m going to need a deck.  Sisay is the general, and below you can see what I included, and why.  You’ll also catch another alter or two.

You can see the article here

James

So I’ve been getting right into a whole fest of painting, in the form of altering Magic: The Gathering cards.  Yeah, that’s a magic card above.  I’m lucky enough for Manaleak.com to have picked me up for a column on the subject, and as such I’ll be writing over there and linking back here for those of you who follow my blog.  Here is the first column, where i introduce the whole crazy crazy project.  Basically, I’ve agreed to take on the challenge to paint a one hundred card deck between now and May.  Phew! That’s going to be a real challenge.  You should be able to check back weekly for updates.  Enjoy!

Click here for the article, and leave me a comment, you never know, if it gets some attention they may actually give me the column regular like!

James

Hey,

For this week’s showcase I thought I’d show off one of my favourite minis.  He’s a bloodletter of Khorne from Games Workshop.  He’s also my highest scoring CMON mini, although if I’m honest I have some that I could have entered if I was inclined that I think could give it a run for its money.  meh.  Anyway, he’s converted from the basic plastic kit, most noteably he doesn’t have a cone head anymore, I sculpted his dorsal spikes to follow all the way over his head.  His skin is painted in a distinctive textured ‘striated’ way, and his tail was sculpted to balance out his reaching arm.

I hope you like him, he was a pleasure to work on,

James

Valkia the bloody, consort of khorne appeared in the latest incarnation of games workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle Chaos Warriors army book. I was flicking through this book around the time of its release, and I spotted Valkia’s entry and the rather lovely art work that goes with it. It immediately piqued my interest, and I went away and started to sketch. I knew that I was interested in doing something large, after all she is the consort of the Chaos God himself, she has to stand out from the crowd right? So with that in mind I had a chat with the then manager of games workshop Cheltenham, and he very kindly allowed me to have the two inquisitor death cult assassin models that he happened to have lying around. They were about the right size for a 28 mm version of valkia, and I was very happy to base my model on them. Sadly, as often happens with my projects, I didn’t end up using a single component from either of those kits, however I hope you will agree that the thing I have come up with is rather more unique as a result. This is a poignant time to me, given that this project, completed almost a year ago today, marks the beginning of my interest in sculpting proper. There is a story here if you will bear with me.

Over the Christmas period, I had gone home to spend time with my family and had just returned to my caravan in Gloucester.  I was beginning to get settled in again, the fire was on, it was approximately 11:45 PM, and I was just winding down and getting ready to go to bed (I’m a night owl).  I put down my ill-fated conversion, in order to go and dig out my sculpting tools, and I heard a strange wooshing sound. I stopped for a minute and the world and, and listen hard. It’s not a sound I have heard in my caravan before. There are a cacophony of noises which encroach on my privacy in my little van, but nothing that sounded even remotely like this. Then it hits me. In sheer panic I ran through the kitchen and my worst fears were confirmed. I found myself in a rapidly rising pool of water. To cut a long story short, my pipes had frozen over the Christmas break (even my hot water tank had frozen solid), and they had warmed up when I had come home and turned the heating back on, which had caused them to expand and shear off. Now there was mains pressure water spurting from underneath my sink onto the floor of the caravan. Oh no! I had no idea what to do, I was just in blind panic. I tried to block the flow of water with towels, which was about as effective as trying to sculpt with boxing gloves. This could be a long story, and I will keep it short, the gist was, I ran out into the snow and got hold of an elderly neighbour (bless him) who came over and helped me to rig up a makeshift solution using my bath shower head adapters and a piece of hosepipe leading to the bath. My landlord wasn’t available until the following morning, and neither was a plumber, so I was left with the situation where I had to sit and watch water running from the broken pipe into the bath for at least the next 10 hours until my landlord or a plumber was able to join me and fix the situation. All the heating was off, and a thick layer of snow coated the ground outside, so you will understand that it was rather cold. Also, I had no electricity, I’m not much of a DIY expert, but I’m pretty sure that electricity and water don’t mix very well. A lot of my worldly possessions were rather damp at this point, as was I, so the only thing left to do was to wrap myself in a few dry blankets and shiver my way through the night. I had to keep myself awake though, and sculpting was at the least something that was waterproof, so I grabbed some wire and built my first armature. It then just snowballed from there, I was really learning as I went. As I said before, this is my first full sculpt, and I’m not exactly confident, and I wanted this to be an entry from Golden Demon, rather than just a test piece. You can see the final results here. She took an absolute age to finish, and there were many parts of her that I re-sculpt it and repainted a good few times. There is no doubt that she was the most ambitious project I had ever taken on at that point, and rather than give a convoluted account all of each of those things, I would point you to a forthcoming White dwarf article. Suffice to say, that this was my first full sculpt, my first attempt at using magic sculpt, my first time building and armature, my first time working with fimo, my first time working with scenic water, my first time working with pigment powders, my first time painting sheer cloth, my first time using an airbrush, one of my earliest attempts at using nonmetallic metals, the first time I had ever tried to scratch build a weapon, and the first time I had used the acetate printing method of making plaques. Whew! Okay, I know she isn’t perfect, and I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t win anything at Golden Demon, however because of all those things she remains one of the projects and about which I am most proud. I haven’t ever submitted her to cool mini or not in her painted state, partly because the sculpted version scored so poorly, and partly because it takes me an age to use photo shop to edit the image file upload. Anyway, I hope you like her, I would love to know what you think.

All the best,

James

It was a week before GD a dew months ago, and I decided I wanted to do a 40k squad and spend some more time with my airbrush.  Thus, the Tau Stealth Suits were decided on.  I wanted to do a monochrome piece, and decided to do so with just their lights and other flashy bits in colour.  I assembled the minis, and spent an age filling every last gap with putty, then I undercoated black.  I took black and white W&N inks and airbrushed them acros the models, black from underneath, white from above, and various shades of grey from the sides.  Then I got some dark blue underneath, touched up various parts with a small paintbrush, and shot them with a coat of satin varnish to seal the inks in.  I then re-undercoated all the shiny bits, the lights, dials, sensor arrays and so forth in black, and painted them all like gems, going from black to white.  What? Still no colour?  well now there is – I took the appropriately coloured ink and layered it over the gem to give it it’s distinctive rich colour.  Except for the orange lights, for them i used a tamiya paint, simply because it gave a better colour finish.  I got the airbrush out again at this point, lined all the minis up on their base and then sprayed the correct colour ink from where the light shined by removing that particular mini.  This helped tie the squad together.  This whole process had taken about 20 hours over the course of the week.  Now, nearing the deadline, I got the white oil paint out and started on the line highlights and the bright spots, blending any rough airbrushing, and mixing it with inks to highlight the reflected light from the sensor arrays and gun ports.  Apart from some quick basing, the minis were at this point complete, and I could take the trip to GDUK2009, ready to get a finalist pin, but not a trophy this year.  Doh!  aah well, bring on next year!  As ever, I’d love to know what you think, any feedback most appreciated before re-embarking on my quest for the slayer sword this year.

All the best,

James

ps.  I just can’t seem to satisfactorily photograph the colour reflecting from the armour, but if you click on the images it blows up into some (very) large ones to see the detail on.

pps.  Here is the CMON voting link if that’s something you care about

The official GW picture on CMON for voting too. Isn’t it interesting how much difference the photography makes!  One day I’ll take a satisfactory picture of one of the members of the team and upload that with a good background…One day…