Sky Diving for Charity...

Yup, a non-miniature related post, I know I don't do many of them, but I think this one is worth it...

One month today I will be jumping out of a perfectly good plane for the charity Bowel Cancer UK. I decided on these guys as my charity because of all the work that they do to help people (especially younger people) to recognise the symptoms of the disease and what to do to have the best chance of survival.

Bowel Cancer UK’s mission statement is simple:  “Bowel Cancer UK aims to save lives by raising awareness of bowel cancer, campaigning for best treatment and care and providing practical support and advice.”

For more information about the charity follow this link: http://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/

If you feel so inclined, and have the means, please follow my link below and sponsor me in my endeavour.



In return, I'll post any pics of me looking scared witless when I get back down to earth...!

Putty and Paint - I now have my own account

At the end of November I posted about a new website called Putty and Paint. It is still early days for them and registration is currently controlled and invitation only, but after my post I got an invite to join them (woohoo).

I really recommend that anyone interested in miniature painting and wants to look at some damn good examples head over there right now and peruse their galleries.

I've put up a couple of recent projects which I feel best represent my current painting standard - Dead End, Wolf and my Domaru Butai. I will also put the Avelonian bust up there, but I think I need some new photos of it again... still struggling a little with my camera.

I fully intend to put anything I paint to a decent level up on the site

New kid on the block - Putty and Paint

Cool Mini or Not has been a staple for mini painters for ten years now, and for me was the first step outside of Wargames and into miniature painting as a recreational hobby of its very own. They are well known for their 'hot or not' scoring system where people get to score what they see on the site from 1-10 and people build up a portfolio of their works and end up ranked against the other artists.

There are many great things that have come from CMON, my better half for one! So I have some really good friends and fond memories of that place. BUT there are some huge flaws to their voting mechanism which have a significant effect on the scoring. Whilst the score isn't the be all and end all, it can be a great motivational tool but it often ends up demotivating due to sniping of scores by anonymous voters and other people artificially inflating their score to get into the 'top ten'.

But now there is a new site on the scene, only a fledgling right now, but I have big hopes for it and am really interested in trying it out an investing some time in getting involved there. It is all about the eye candy - no forum, no shop and NI anonymous voting! All very interesting!

The name if this new site with great potential?

Putty & Paint - http://www.puttyandpaint.com/

Get over there and take a look

Indiegogo go, Go, GO! 'Figure Art' by Roman & Raffa

ZOMG!

Alright you crazy cats, the Jungle Brothers are at it again - Raffa and Roman over at Massive Voodoo have launched an Indiegogo campaign to bring their masterpieces to light in printed form. Its something that I am pretty excited about and hope to see more of in the future. Whilst I am all for the information, tutorials and photos these boys supply for free via their website, there is still something special, almost magical, about the printed word... maybe I am showing my age, but I do love flipping through a good art book!

What they say:
"We want to bring you a high quality hardcover book with around 80-100 pages. The book pages will have a Din A4 size (8.3 in × 11.7 in).

Here is a little Preview of what we are currently working on.

The book will be filled with high-resolution photos of our projects and the bigger projects (like e.g. award winning projects) will have some further commentary on them like our ideas for it or how the project developed."


With only 11 days to go, I am coming to the party late, but as Chaucer once said, "better late than never"*! However, what I can report on, coming at it this late, is that not only are the Massive Voodoo apes bringing an art book to print, thanks to the stretch goals over at Indiegogo all $35 backers will also receive a second A4 book (exclusive to the campaign) showing step by steps for some of the duo's most well known projects.

This should really be something special - head over to the campaign page and fill your boots.

http://www.indiegogo.com/figure-art

Good luck my Ape-Friends!

*well, technically he said "For bet than never is late.", but thats how Yeomen must have spoken in C14!

Golem Daemon Day

Last year Golem Painting Studio ran a workshop in the run-up to the UK Golden Demon event. The gist of which was that you took along your current project (potentially your Golden Demon entry) and worked under the watchful eye of a handful of tutors to really make sure your model was the best it could be.

After the success of the event last year, and also the painting masterclass they ran earlier this year, Golem Painting Studio decided to make the Daemon Day a yearly event. It is now that time of year again and there are some really great tutors in the line-up...

1st Anniversary of the Bodgers Blog

Wow, doesnt time fly? The first post on this blog was 1 year ago today... I can hardly believe it!

My first few posts were very tentative "hopefully I can keep this blogging malarkey up", and now we are 12 months on and I think I've managed it. I don't entirely know how interested people are in what I have to say, but in that time (according the the blogger stats) I have had 11,507 pageviews, and now have 60 followers (Hello to CMDante who just joined).

Pretty awesome weekend

Wow, what a weekend... 650 miles on the clock, but most definitely worth it!

It all started on Friday when I started my long trek 'up country' to Mansfield. I decided to take a slight detour to my parents place and stayed there Friday night, which halved the driving I'd need to do on the Saturday morning (only 2 hours driving - yay!). And why was I heading to Mansfield from deepest darkest Devon?

Black backgrounds

As a whole, I tend to be pretty old school when it comes to photographing miniatures - lots of light, and a traditional blue-to-white gradient background. The gradient background seems to be pretty passée these days but I am always a little unsure about people's motivation for the way they photograph their miniatures.

For me, the intent is to give as realistic a photograph as possible with the limited photographic resources at my disposal. I want it to look as much like the model in hand as I can get it, so I try to get a good amount of light on anything I photograph from a number of different angles in an attempt to banish any shadows and let the painting do the work ie, the shadows you can see 'should' be those painted in by me. This is not an easy task, and I don't often manage it 100%, but I do try my best.

For some people (and this isn't about anybody specific, just a general trend I have observed) it almost seems that the photograph has become a piece of art of its own accord - strong/directional lighting, black/photoshopped background. They get a lot of atmosphere into their models, but I am never quite sure they are entirely accurate reproductions of the actual miniature.

New design

Just had a bit of a tweak with the blog 'look and feel'. What do you think?

Whilst this is mainly cosmetic, it also gives me the functionality to use drop-down menus across the top (see the Gallery section). I have high hopes to set up some more 'permanent' pages on the blog in addition to what we normally post.

I'll let you know when I add more content.

New pages:

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Busts

Dioramas/Vignettes

A little frustrated...

Please endulge me, I need to vent a touch of frustration at the trouble I am having with the third model for my diorama... In stark contrast to the two chunky cyber-zombies, my third protagonist in my vignette is a delicate girly packing a couple of sub-machine guns. Should be a nice contrast to the gnarly bad-guys and be a different POV for the scene.

So all is good with the world, right? Not quite... read on for my tale of woe

Movember

Hey guys :)

Its NMovember, and as has become tradition in many places, people are growing moustaches all over the world for the good cause of raising awareness (and hopefully money) about two major men's health issues - testicular and prostate cancer.

I am never one to shy away from facial hair - I am often sporting a bear or sideburns, but never normally just a moustache. This year, with some support from a handful of colleagues (my Mo' Brothers), I have decided to grow a 'tache for charity...

My Movember Page

Any donations will be most welcome... and I won't even object to you laughing at silly pics of me!

So, what's next...

The Domaru is now at a stage where it is theoretically complete (just needs a plinth), but I want to put it down for a little while so that I can look at it again with fresh eyes and make sure its been done to the best of my abilities. I want it to be a 'competition standard' mini, and taking that step away from it for a few weeks can make all the difference.

However, I have not been resting on my laurels, but been prepping and working out what to do next. I have a couple of Studio McVey minis that I want to do in a vignette which I have been sketching recently, a handful of Infinity models which I want to paint as a unit, and then something like the Avalonian Recruit bust by Kraken/Figone...

As each piece requires different levels of involvement I am tempted to start them all at once! One is a painting excercise, once is a base building and scene setting and the other is unit painting.

The bust is primed and I have started work on the metals
The McVey minis are cleaned and washed
The ALEPH are waiting patiently whilst I design the scenic base for them

Sketch for the McVey piece

Torbay Military Modelling show on Saturday 23rd

Well, the next Bodgers attendance is nearly upon us - its the Torquay show this weekend! I am hoping to get some photos of the show and some pics of our display and post them up here, but I am usually pretty rubbish at remembering :P

Maybe this blog will give me some motivation!

The Realm of Atland web comic

Every once in a while you come across something on the 'Net which really grabs you by the balls and screams "READ ME!" in great big letters... discovering the Realm of Atland was most definitely one of these moments.

I tripped over Atland on a friends recommendation a good while ago now and it never leaves me disappointed.

Posting Cycles

Its quite odd - I have been looking at old blogs that I started but never really got off the ground - I think these urges are cyclical... last post on my rambling scrawl was June 2010 and here I am starting another. Ho-hum!