Oz Painters

hello everyone, finally I have some photos to post of my GD entries from this year haha - it took ages to get the photos all ready!

THe GD was a great weekend, really good to see lots of the painters from here in australia and new zealand, because we rarely all meet - such a big place, it's too far to travel unless it's for a special occasion! It was great to see my friends I met last year again, and meet some new people.

This year I had 3 entries: an ork nob for the 40k single mini category, aragorn for LOTR single category, and a dark elf for fantasy single. THe triple single mini haha I tried to use a different painting style for each miniature, to test out some different ways of painting and see how successful each was in the competition:


The ork was strongly inspired by allan c's orks, with the bionics on the arm, the yellow armour plates and the metallics - I love allan's orks so I wanted to do one of my own! But I also tried to go in my own directions with much of the painting and colours, especially the skin. I tried to make a more unusual colour for the skin, rather than the usual bright green - I used a lot of blue and purple colours in the shadows, and some pinks/beige colours for highlights...I think the skin still has an overall green aspect (I hope!), but to me this colour seems more natural for a creature - a more real skin tone that such a beast might have haha

For aragorn, I wanted to be as faithful to the movie colours as possible, so I tried to match the painting colours to the movie as well as I could. This means the mini is very drab and dark haha - but I think this is how aragorn is in the movies, especially as 'strider' in the fellowship of the ring. I also tried to use a more natural painting style, with less exaggerated highlights and lower contrast, to try to capture some more realism.

With the dark elf, I wanted to try to create a very cold, frozen watseland atmosphere with the painting, to try to locate the mini in the frozen dark elf lands of naggaroth. So I tried to work on the relation between colours, and kept a quite low contrast between different colours on the mini - I think the drabness and low intensity of colours reflects the cold, low-light environment of the frozen lands. This overall darkness is meant to reflects the dark elves' cruel nature as well - something I also tried to emphasise with the sharp jagged angles of the designs on the cloak, shield and armour.

Well the results haha: I was fortunate enough to receive the gold for the ork and for aragorn. The dark elf was a finalist, but did not get a place - the judges told me that the lack of contrast between colours on the mini made it too dull and not eye-catching enough - which is a fair point. THe judges were looking for brighter colours this year, and you'll see that rob sakaluk's mini that won the fantasy single category is bright and eye-catching! COngratulations on that rob

Well, here are the pics!

There are lots more pics, with bigger pics with better quality, and more views etc., on my site, here: http://guildofharmony.com/gallery.php


if you would like to vote for them, here are the CMON links:

ork: http://www.coolminiornot.com/139786

aragorn: http://www.coolminiornot.com/139783

dark elf: http://www.coolminiornot.com/139785


thank you everyone, I hope you enjoy the minis!!

-sebastian

Extremely nice. My favourite is the dark elf however I love the oil on the bionics of the orc. Great work Seb, truly inspirational, and congratulations on your golds!

Very, very, very nice! I love the dark elf.
I also think the street sign on the ork is a ripper idea - love it!
You are certainly one talented so-and-so

I would love to see a WIP of that Dark elf!

Fantastic work seb, you put me to shame... I really need to have a few sessions with you to improve my skills!!!

These were fantastic models from the moment I saw them!

I can't really find fault in any of them! Though it's a shame you couldn't mount the Ork on a 40mm round base!

I agree with GMD, any WIP shots?

yeah I know, a 40mm base would have been so much better, there is so much more room to actually create a scene on them....and with th elf too, it was quite a challenge trying to fit anything at all onto a 20mm base - man they are tiny! I had to go up rather than out haha, with the ork too.

well WIP pics - as it happens, I do have some...although I'm afraid they are quite far advanced in the process, if they will show what you wanted! I did heaps more work on both after this stage though - but mainly quite small things. WIth the elf, after these pics were taken I made the patterns on his armour much thinner, added more colour to the armour - juices of purple and green on different setions, spent ages trying to make the blends on the armour as smooth as possible, added a little more colour to his face, some turquoise glazes on the bottom parts of the cloak, more mud on the robes, more blood and better blood shapes, and of course more snow - as well as some other things! But you get the idea!

ANd for the ork, after these pics were taken I added the road sign obviously, and also the same sorts of things as the elf - more juices of colour on various sections such as the skin, clothing etc - blues and purples mainly, lots more work on the metallics to make smoother transitions, stuff like that! ANd also at victoria's suggestion his pants became much more dirty haha - I didn't want to do it at first coz I had spent ages trying to make them as smooth as possible, but they needed it! ANd also victoria suggested the scratches and dents on the armour plates - they are all trompe l'oeil, as you can see from these earlier pics where there is nothing there haha. Oh yeah and the yellow wire on his bionic arm suggested by numbat, to cover up a dodgy bit! And the oil on the piston suggested by a few people - weisern was first so he gets the credit haha.

Yep - it's a shame you have to go up rather than out to create a scene for the ork's base - I think the overall look and balance of the piece would have worked really well on a flatter base - oh well it won anyway, so it's really a moot point!

One question for the Elf's base - is that just cork for most of the mound he is on? Like cork from a cork mat or something? Not that you could see it under all that snow!

But my next model I think will be a Valhallan Rocket Launcher team on a 60mm base, and I want to snow it up and am trying to think of ways to make the base a bit more interesting. Guess I'll have to get some coconut hair as well!

yeah the coconut hair is awesome for grass, I'm telling you!!!! haha plus you get to eat the nice part - it's a win-win situation!

and yeah it's jsut a cork - from a bottle of wine haha - same deal as the coconut, win-win! haha

FOr your snow, I would recommend getting some of weisern's stuff - I tried to do my elf with the bi-card soda but it was a little disastrous...but I used weisern's product over the top to improve matters. It's called 'jo sonja's texture paste', it;s like a white paste that you just paint on, which dries semi-translucent. SO thin areas look icy, and it builds up to a more solid white with thick layers. It's really good stuff! I wasn't sure at first, it sounded weird - but now that I've used it I agree with weisern that it is great! ANd it takes away that element of unpredictability and the potential for disaster associated with the bi-carb haha.

Ohh I'll look out for that! I also have the woodland scenics snow which is really fine white powder (much like bi-carb, but probably something else).

~~~~*(^%#$&*^*

Maybe I should try to get a gig judging next year instead of entering... They obviously need some help in that department... That Ork Nob would have won the sword at just about every other GD this year (apart from maybe a couple in Europe (we'll just say the UK's part of Europe for the sake of this reply)) And as for the Dark Elf - you're being far too generous... That argument is a load of crap... That said I do think that Robert's pirate girl looks excellent so I'm not necessarily saying that the DE should have won gold...

They really do need a more experienced painter judging finalists - not someone who has a ridiculous preconceived notion of what type of miniature should win prior to judging...

I'll finish up by saying this - if the people in charge here want a progressive GD that's taken seriously across the world then they really need to stop doing things like this...

Oh yeah I forgot - Great miniatures Sebastian, truly some of the best work I've seen from anyone anywhere this year.

~Russell.

thanks very much for the support russell....it means a lot to me, especially coming from you!

You really have to come to one of the painting events soon, whether it is GD next year or something else - I'd really love to meet you and see some of your minis for real! Or maybe you can come on the grand trip to one of the european GDs which I am hoping will happen soon! You would be an excellent addition to an australian team for an assault on one of the big GDs haha, I think we would be certain of some success with you on board!

Well said. Aus is taking much more inspiration from other countries these days (cough cough Spain cough cough UK..). This I think is all new to the judges, they need to open their minds a bit more to new, foreign painting styles and let go of the traditional Aus/GW painting expectations.

Anyways, back on topic, what colours (/inks/varnish?) did you use for the blood, on the elf in particular if you don't mind me asking..

Sounds odd saying this but your dark elf looks better in the photo then it does in person.

It’s a credit to your ability though that one of your models needs to be magnified about for times to see all the detail.

oh, you reckon? You should have stuck around for sunday to have a look at it properly...I think it didn't show up well at all in the cabinets, they are pretty shadowy - the darkness of the mini made it very difficult to see in the cabinets I think. But maybe you're right, I dunno! I tried to make it look as close as possible to real life in the photos - I do that with all of my pics. But sometimes it can be tricky haha.