First mini of 2014 - The Northfjorder by Ax Faction

So, its the end of January already... wow! I am not entirely sure where that went, but I have been busy painting, and back on the Ax Faction wagon with number two in their range of interchangeable hunters and mounts.

This is the Northfjorder, a "russet-bearded, axe-wielding demon of a warrior" riding a huge brown bear.

Sometimes you get models which are an absolute joy to paint, and this was one of those. Even on the tricky bits it seemed to come together relatively quickly which I think helped me really get in to the painting. I also used my airbrush for the first time in anger on an important commission, and I think the effect on the bear's fur has really been enhanced by using it. The NMM, however, was all hand painted using a hairy stick, so all those blends were brush painted.

You can also find him on Putty & Paint if you fancy voting: http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/3998

The bear:

The big man himself:

And the winner is....

So the votes for Wamp awards have been counted and varified, and the winners have been announced. The category I was nominated for was as follows

Best Painted Steampunk

Winner:Kitty Reimer - Morsi
2nd:Time - Fesechko
3rd: Einstein - Peter Bell

Well done to Morsi and Fesechko - lovely miniatures and very different to eachother but both really very good (variety is the spice of life). I was really surprised to see my name in that list, and I thank everyone who voted for me. 2013 was quite a year on that front, and I am pleased that some of my miniatures seem to be going down quite well with you lot ;)

The rest of the winners can be found at the following Wamp Thread: http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/showthread.php?t=16593

Congratulations to everyone who placed in the top 3 - the standard of so many of the entries was insane. And well done to Brett for running such a great competition.

Wamp award nomination!!

Wamp award nomination!!

Well, as starts to the miniature year go, this one has been pretty good. Spent some good painting time on a new commission which is shaping up to be one of my best, I have a new compressor which is looking like a fantastic investment and I am well on my way to putting together a small Imperial Fist (yellow Space Marines) 40K army.

The cherry on the top of this positive start is that it turns out that I have been nominated for the best Steampunk paintjob in the 2013 Wamp Awards! What is Wamp? Wamp is a large community of hobbyists on a forum run by Brett 'Darklord' Johnson. They are a great, and pasisonate community who hold frequent online painting competitions which are always heavily subscribed and really well supported by the industry, with oodles of prizes up for grabs.

The Wamp Awards are a peer nominated set of awards rather than a painting competition much like the BAFTAs with a number of different categories and then voted on by the community. It is my favourite Ork bust Einstein which has been shortlisted - thank you to all who thought of me/him for this category :D

The rest of the shortlist is as follows:
Best Painted steampunk (this is a link to the category with all the images and the voting)

Kitty Reimer - Morsi
Einstein - Peter Bell
Time - Fesechko
Al Capone - Fabrizio Russo
Tallulah Belle - Javier González

More details of the other categories etc can be found here: Wamp Awards

Don't forget to go over to Wamp and have a look at all the categories and vote for whatever takes your fancy - lots of eye candy to be had!

Congratulations to all who were nominated!

So, the competition is stiff, and there are some BIG names in my category, but whatever happens, I am really chuffed to be included alongside these people!

Einstein does seem to get about a bit ;)

The end of 2013... Happy New Year everyone!

It's that time of year again, when everyone is looking back at the year and what they have achieved... So I thought I'd join in the merriment! Fortunately in some respects, I am a pretty slow painter so this won't be too long a post, but here we go...

I finished 2012 with a squad of gaming standard Grey Knight Space Marines with the full intent to paint a whole army of those guys, but very quickly fell off the wagon and went back to my old 'display painting' ways. The first thing I completed (in February) was 'Poppy Come Lately' by Statuesque Miniatures for a small competition on Platoon Britannica... I may or may not have won the staffers contest...

March and April brought with them 2 greenskins - one 'Einstein' a bust by the talented Allan C for Figone, and another by CMoN for their Wrath of Kings Game. These bad-boys were my entries for the Salute painting competition, with Einstein picking me up a gong (hooh-yah)

Then, after a brief moment of 6mm madness, I worked on a handful of commissions for Studio McVey, Ax Faction and a piece for Warploque Miniatures.

May was this bad boy... 6mm Salamander Terminator

June was the Kickstarter Ltd Edition Vokker commission for Studio McVey

July was the Forsaken Princess for Ax Faction whom I had met at Salute earlier in the year. They must have liked what they saw, and seemed pretty pleased with this girly!

Then a jump to September... the ma-hoo-sive Bayourk for Warploque Miniatures. This was one of their new minis for their Arcworlde and an absolute joy to paint - bags of character! It was around this tie that I was seriously working on my Golden Demon entries for my first GD in 7 years.

September also brought my GD entries to completion - Radagast and the Salamander Marine. And of course, my favourite miniature related moment of the year... my first Golden Demon trophy! I can tick that off the list now :oP (Thanks to MrDee for the barbed wire on the Marine)

November brought another Commission for Ax faction, this time the first in their line of mounted miniatures with fully interchangeable mounts and riders - The Feral Lass

December has also been busy model-wise... two more commissions that are top secret at the moment, but also quite exciting, was the fact that I played a few games of 40K at my local GW store... and have started doing a new Space Marine army... yup, ARMY... its my challenge for next year! I want one of those uber-cool looking tabletop forces like you see online by people like Volomir with his High Elves and MrDee with his bad-ass Steel Legion Imperial Guard force...

This is the most models I have painted to this sort of standard for a very long time, so I am a happy bunny, and painting commissions for the likes of Studio McVey and Ax Faction have been a real highlight. All in all a great model-related year!

Let's see what 2014 brings!

Happy New Year everyone!!