brushforhire

I received this and he is a trip. He looks like he is creepin on my other minis. I love it! Thank you very much.

I am a total beer snob. My wife got me the best V-day present ever: A 4-pack of Young's Double Chocolate stout in the cans, and a random 4-pack of craft beers. I was actually very impressed. Young's is probably my favorite. I do love just about anything super dark. Also do enjoy Delirium Tremens, Magic hat, and a few other lighter colored beers. I'll take a coffee stout anyday, too.

I do agree that a macro lens is a whole different kind of beast. I had to rethink how I approached my shoots. I love taking close-ups of flowers and bugs and using my 35mm to my 105mm are two totally different kinds of beasts. The 35mm is deffinately alot more user friendly, and I tend to use it for parties and weddings and the such. It also does great close-ups for minis. It can be had for about $200 new for the Nikon. I do agree that whether it is Sony, Nikon, or Canon that you will probably be happy with any of the newer DSLR's. I wish I could attach some of the flower pictures I just took at a local conservatory with my 105mm lense. They are on my facebook page if you mosey over there and want to take a look to see what I can do with my 105mm lens.

Honestly at that price point I would go with: Nikon D3200. My wife currently uses the D3100 and I have the D7000. I love both of these cameras and they have so many options and take such nice photos. The nice thing about the D7000 is that when you put it in Manual mode, you can control f stop with one spin knob on the back and exposure with another on the front. So when I am looking through the eye piece I with my pointer finger to adjust one and my thumb to adjust the other. It's so quick and handy. You could get the D3100 at a killer price right now. My wife currently uses the 18-300mm nikon lens and I use either the 35mm nikon lens with f/1.8g or my 105mm Nikon macro lens with f/2.8g I believe it is. By the way I am a Nikon junkie.

Thank you again everyone. For the cloak I used Vallejo cadmium maroon blended into Vallejo dark red and finally blended into cartoon colour vermilion red.

Recruittons, well that helped me a bit. I hope he likes it!

I stopped using my dremel along time ago for pinning. I actually prefer the control I get from my pin vise. I simply use a set of Dremel brand bits I got in a multi-sized pack from wal-mart. I love them. I find taking my time and letting the bit do the work really helps too. I've put to many bits through the sides of legs and arms to count. LoL.

Fantastic!

Okay, my mini was delivered to the person who was supposed to get it. Now, I wonder who it was.

My local shop has "Dragons don't Share" still in the box, new. Maybe I'll go and get that and paint that up.

CashWiley, it's cool. I have no idea who I sent it to and they don't know I was painting for them. At least that's they way I understood it. I'm actually curious who gets this.

I will check to see what paints I used for the cloak tomorrow. I can't recall off the top of my head. Also I forgot to mention I did this mini for my winter exchange mini.

I use several shades of metallics and glazes to shade and add some color to the metallics. I find adding some color to dark areas in the color scheme I'm using really helps. Thank you for the kinds words. I'll try and post bigger pics later.

Nope. I'm just that big of a clutz. I wasn't even working with a mini. I was just getting up from my desk. LoL. Stairs were not my friend the next few days.

It's been about a year since i really painted anything, so I went with this guy. He was alot of fun. Base was sculpted using Apoxie sculpt. Love working with that stuff. I am not a fan of NMM, so I have been really working to try and make my metallics look better. I am fairly happy with the way he came out. Also trying to push myself to work with and understand color theory. I tend to fall into the category of using every color I own on every miniature. I photographed this using my D7000 with my 105mm nikon lens on it. F/11 shutter speed at about 80 I believe. I use a remote to fire the camera. I setup a photo station in my basement where it is dark so the only light it coming from my three reveal bulbs.

Love it!

My Mangu Timur entry.

Also one time slipped and sunk the entire exacto blade right under my kneecap.

I once tried to super glue a cut on my nostril from a cut I got while shaving and kinda super glued my nostril shut.

Mini shipped out!! Woo!

Ttuckerman, that is deffinately one way to do that. I personally am not a fan of it because the metal is still alittle soft and flexible and I like to have the pin as long as I can into the base. Fanguad, yeah on his one foot it did get a little thin, it's what I get for rushing. LoL. I am putting snow on the base so it will help hide his thin foot. Though it is probably closer to scale now. Also a little context on the warrior with an axe: he was a figure I painted years and years ago and recently started stripping paint off of a bunch of old poopy paint jobs I did. I gave him another good wash in laquer thinner and he was good to go.

Hello all. Well this is my first tutorial so bear with me. I gotta take some more pics and improve on this. So here is a rundown of how I remove bases. First up the tools. From left to right: A hacksaw, a coping saw, and a jewelers saw. I have never used a hacksaw with miniatures, I just included it for size reference. As for the coping saw, I have used it a little but it can be a bit of a pain. Now the jewelers saw I love. It is small and easy to handle. It gets real close without messing up the feet. I bought this off of ebay with 144 blades for $12 shipped. Power tools!! This is my tabletop beltsander. Great for making feet flat after cutting and removing the broccoli base when you can't get in with a saw. Like if a figure has cloak that touches the ground and you don't want to goober it up with a saw or it will take forever to cut through. Now for the miniatures I will be using for this demonstration. This has a slotta base tab and I used the jewelers saw and cut it right off the feet with hardly any effort. Now to cut this base off with a saw is a huge pain for me. So I place it on the sand like so: Now of course it has to be on for it to actually work, but let's face it, trying to sand the base off and take pictures will only end up with a trip to the hospital for me. So now that I took my time and sanded the base off, checking a every few seconds to make sure I wasn't also sanding the feet right off the bottom we get this: You can see he even stands on his own with a nice flat footing. I also sanded the other mini's feet so they are flat and to remove the burrs. Now I measure the distance of the stance to pick some bases. Now to dry fit some bases and see what I think looks good. Now this last base is the one I am going to use for that figure. I can bend his feet slightly so they match the angles of the wood. Edit: As fanguad pointed out his feet did get a little thin, so let that be a lesson to you! Learn from my mistakes and take your time. It really only takes a minute or two on the sander to wear the base down. Let me know if you want any better pictures or explanations! Next tutorial: pinning and attaching to bases.

I am working on a side by side comparison of Baking soda and Secret Weapons crushed glass snow. I should hopefully have that up tomorrow. But for a quick rundown: For slushy/wet looking snow - put PVA glue where you want it, then sprinkle the baking soda/snow mix on top. For dense solid/deep looking snow - my favorite is mixing the baking soda with PVA glue until it is like a paste and then spreading it where you need it, then sprinkle the baking soda/snow mix on top for a fresh look. I did a few experiments and methods that I took photos of I'll hopefully post tomorrow.

I bought mine off of eBay, it came with 144 blades. I love it. I only paid like $12 shipped. It is really just a metal frame that is adjustable, that has two clamps, so I don't think you need to go crazy buying something really expensive for how little we will use these compared to a jeweler who does super fine work all day long. Just my $.02. Either way only regret is not buying one sooner. I should have a tutorial up tomorrow about removing bases.

Have you tried Woodland Scenics water effects? It's supposed to be moldable and hold it's shape. I know I saw something about after sculpting a few peaks of water to let the base dry upside down so the peaks don't sag.