Sunday Pick of the Week

I thought it might be an interesting thing to do a pick of the week from the top ten minis in the gallery from the Cool Mini Or Not website. Every sunday I'll post up a picture of my personal favourite from the chart. It will be hard as there are so many amazing models to choose from, but I will endeavour to pick something and post it. You can also check out my favourites list on the blog for a very comprehensive list of some of the best minis from the Cool Mini Or Not galleries.

I thought long and hard about my choice this week and I will give this weeks top pick to Tagamoga's Eldar War Walker. The things that strike me about it is the fantastic lighting effects and the sheer detail of the patterned lights on it. The base sets the model off nicely. So here it is.......

Please stop by and drop Tagamoga a vote and if you are a registered cmon member a comment, it's always appreciated! http://www.coolminiornot.com/263528

dfb

The Original Hells Kitchen

Okay, forget randomness, I have found some sculptural delights for you. The photo is unfortunately old and poor, but it was the general idea that warmed me to this effort, it is a shame the photo is not more detailed and I have no idea if this establishment still exists today, but enjoy the photo and story below anyway. Image and text from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/flashback/0308/index.html

"A hot spot called Hell’s Café lured 19th-century Parisians to the city’s Montmartre neighborhood—like the Marais—on the Right Bank of the Seine. With plaster lost souls writhing on its walls and a bug-eyed devil’s head for a front door, le Café de l’Enfer may have been one of the world’s first theme restaurants. According to one 1899 visitor, the café’s doorman—in a Satan suit—welcomed diners with the greeting, “Enter and be damned!” Hell’s waiters also dressed as devils. An order for three black coffees spiked with cognac was shrieked back to the kitchen as: “Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!”

Any Parisians who know whether or not this place still exists please post a comment, it is somewhere I might like to visit on my next trip to fabulous Paris!

dfb

Random Shenannigans.....

Okay more randomness. Here we have the legendary "Star Wars Kid" (bows) demonstrating why Jedi Masters are hardcore and kick ass. Many of you will have seen it, but this is the special effects edited version, which you may not have seen...

Nothing to do with art, but as the title says......

In this mornings post I received the latest edition of ImagineFX magazine. Luckily it was a Dungeons & Dragons special, as the old red box beginners set is being re-released by Wizards of the Coast and it showed off some nice art from the super talented Ralph Horsely whose variation on the fabled "Ancient Red" box and cover art of TSR's original release by Larry Elmore (bows again) was featured inside. The painting pays homage to the original art (which is featured on the outer box) in its composition but freshens it up with a modern more detailed edge. I still have my red beginners set of D&D books, along with the Expert set and the green rule books (alas the final master set is disappeared into some mystical portal). Many fond memories of playing D&D at school, ahhh.......

Edit: I appear to have accidently edited out the final bit of this post so here it goes again...

The cover you see in the picture above is responsible for my interest in Fantasy Art and is unquestionably iconic to me. Larry Elmore and Jeff Easly were my first two artists that I really wanted to emulate at school but alas, my talent was lacking. I am rebooting it and attempting to make a valiant second attempt and that effort remains to be seen. I did have the opportunity to thank Larry Elmore over Facebook as his name cropped up on a friends Friend List. Didn't really expect it to be THE Larry Elmore but it was and so I wrote a quick thank you for the inspiration message and he was even kind enough to reply back. I guess the message here is never stop trying. I wasted about 16 years with no art. Maybe if I kept at it I would be further down the road than I am now. But I know now to, as the saying goes (Mr Bob Ross (bows)),  "Keep on happy painting...."

You can head over to Wizards of the Coast website to find out more here.....

Wizards of the Coast D&D

Inspiration Aplenty

I thought I'd share a personal source of inspiration for of late, two magazines that have now replaced my Games Workshops White Dwarf subscription. To be honest, White Dwarf is long past it's sell by date now. I remember the good old days when it was a proper gaming magazine and the best to boot. Then it turned into an inhouse product catalogue. I have noticed a few improvements with painter/sculptor profile articles, but on the whole the content is very limited and I am not really getting anything out of it at all. Subscription cancelled!!! I replaced it with the fantasy art magazine ImagineFX and have never looked back. ImagineFX is an excellent mix of content, lots of artist profiles, including many amateurs and people plucked from deviantart's website as well as professionals and legendary artists (Larry Elmore is featured in next months edition). It doesn't feature sculpture however, but there is a great deal of concept art, artists sketchbooks, workshops and reviews of products (books, films,software,hardware etc). An all around excellent magazine which is a good source of inspiration for the miniatures hobby. It is a monthly magazine and comes  with the obligatory DVD stuffed full of demos, brushes, 3D models, textures, video workshops and the like. Plenty of useful stuff on it.

www.imaginefx.com

The other magazine is a miniatures one called GamesForce, published in Spainish and recently published in English and available from Cool Mini Or Not in the USA and El Greco Miniatures in the UK (I am not sure about European suppliers). The magazine is absolutely choc full of fullpage close up photography allowing you to really appreciate the detail and skill of the paintjobs within. There is always a good range of miniatures covered - from terrain, to busts, large scale figures and 54mm, 30mm minis. Pretty much everything. The text is fairly limited but enough to explain what is going on, sharing paint recipes, processes and tips and tricks. I would highly recommend this magazine, even though it does take a while for it to come out, it is supposed to be bi-monthly but it frequently takes longer to appear in the UK. Subscriptions are available from EL Greco Miniatures now however. Don't be fooled by the issue number below. The English edition is only on number 18 at the moment, quite a bit behind......

http://www.gameforces.net/

Today's Randomness

Just wanted to post a bit of random stuff really. First off is that Terry at www.daemonscape.co.uk is getting ready to release the Cyborg Daemon, contact here Email: info@daemonscape.com - I think he is taking pre-orders or just pre-booking with anyone who is interested.

I received a couple of goodies in the post recently, an art book and a couple of space marine captains I am going to attempt to paint for ebay. Probably Ultramarines and an as yet undecided chapter, Imperial Fists or Dark Angels maybe. I like yellow though.... The book is by an artist called Glen Fabry who has done a lot of great work and also written a few other books I believe and I will be writing a review for it and posting up in the Arcanium section after I have looked through it more carefully.

Another blog I follow by sculptor and fine artist Alfred Paredes has recently been updated with another interview, video games concept artist Greg Baldwin. These interviews are interesting and always worth a read. Check out the previous interviews he has done as well, these interviews are with some very skilled sculptors and I must say enjoyable to read to someone like myself who is trying to improve my artistic skills. Alfred is a very talented sculptor himself and recently had his work featured on the Ellen DeGeneres Halloween show, carving pumpkins of Vanessa Williams, Steve Spengler and others on the show. The blog is here:

http://apsculpturestudio.squarespace.com/blog/

Also wanted to add that you will soon be able to purchase my busts from a supplier in the USA, more on that when it is all finalised in a few weeks.

All for now....

dfb

Da Da Da Da Da Da DAA BATMAN!!!!

Here are some amazing pieces of work by sculptor Anthony Watkins from the Batman Arkham Asylum game. All villains......

KILLER CROC

 ZSASZ

SCARECROW 

I don't have a blog or website link for Anthony, I'll contact him and see if there is some way to see more of his work.

dfb