Crusaders vignette 1/72

Some months ago the guys of valdemar miniatures contacted me and were so generous to send me some of their 1/72 medieval figures. It are excellent sculpted metal figures with great details and they are about 25mm high. I´ve never painted figures in this scale so one of my projects for next year will be to make a vignette with these figures. Still have to think about the setting and colors.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Merry Christmas!

I wish everybody a Merry Christmas!

Cheers,                                             

Marcel.                                             

More progress

I have made some progress on the figure. Not as much as I had planned, but I was too busy at work these days. I'm still fine tuning the transitions on the face and added some more contrast on the hair.

Furthermore I started shadowing and highlighting the surcoat and added a dragon which still needs some more corrections. The next steps are finishing the flesh part and the surcoat. Here are the last pictures I post before Christmas.

Cheers,
Marcel.

The head almost finished

 The last two weeks I was so busy finishing a report for work and buying presents for the yearly 'Sint Nicolaas' that I didn't had enough time and energy to paint a lot. But I managed to get the hair done. First I painted her blond but it didn't suit very well so I changed it to red. I did some work on the mail and did the first highlights and shadow of the surcoat. I hope to find some more time the coming weeks but Christmas is arriving rapidly. And still all the presents have to be bought.

Here are the pictures of the current status.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Face almost finished

Most of the blending work on the face is done, trying to accentuate the woman's face with soft transitions . Only some corrections have to be made. I also gave her a pair of blue eyes and a pair of red lips. I painted also the base color for her hair and surcoat. After finishing the face I will continue with the hair. 

Hopefully I can give a next update very soon.

Cheers,

Marcel.

The first brush strokes

Here are some pictures of the first brush strokes on the fantasy crusader. The skin part and chainmail is base coated. I added the rough highlights and shadow on the face and made a start with blening the left part of the face. For the skin I added also brown rose to the base get a different skintone. Now the fun part of blending all the transitions and correct all the mistakes will start. I hope to have some more progress soon.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Female Fantasy Crusader

This is my next figure on my work bench. It's a 75mm Female Fantasy Crusader from Reedees Miniatures.

And I'm going to paint the box-art for this figure. It will be my first fantasy piece, which gives you some more freedom in the color choices. I started already with the face and this time I chose a different skin color. Soon I will post some in progress pictures.

By the way,here are the photos of the sculpture taken from Steve's blog. The final sculpt has also a piece of surcoat.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Some more Soldat de Plom 2010

El baluard now published the results and a photo album with all the figures that were on the show on their website. They are all photographed with a nice background and proper lighting.

All the figures can be seen following this link: All figures on the show

The medal results from the show can be found here: http://www.elbaluard.net/guanyadors/slideshow.html

Below are two figures that were there and were lucky to receive a medal. The third picture is me getting a medal from the always friendly and sympathetically Pere Masferrer. (photo taken from the Lugdunum website)

For the ones that can't get enough some more albums can be found here:

http://www.lugdunum-figurines.com/

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2091247&id=1501091969&l=56838f9caa

http://s406.photobucket.com/albums/pp146/fernando-73/Soldat%20de%20Plom%202010/?start=0

Cheers,

Marcel.

Soldat de Plom 2010

From 21 till 24 October the 15th international show of Soldat de Plom in Girona was held. I also joined the show this year. So me and the rest of the family flew on Friday evening to Girona. On Saturday I entered my figures in the composition and directly ran into Fernando Ruiz. Who was also entering some stunning figures. In the competition were a lot of beautiful figures. On Saturday and Sunday several painting demonstrations were given by Alfonso Giraldes, Alexandre Cortina and Roman Navarro.



Roman giving a demonstration

It was very nice to see how you can achieve with different painting styles (airbrush, oils and acrylics) a beautiful figure. On Saturday there was also a presentation of Adriano Laruccia on how an commercial figure is sculpted and produced and the box art painted (Roman). On Sunday afternoon there was the prize ceremony. There several special prizes and one was a figure painted by Fernando for the best Napoleonic figure in the General class.

Which was won by Paul Vincent. And another figure painted by Jesus Gamarra for the best figure in the General class. After the special prizes the medals for the categories General, Master painting and Master open were divided. I totally didn´t expect it, because there were so many excellent figures, but two of my figures also got a prize. One silver in master painting and a bronze in master open. So returning home with a big smile. After the ceremony I went on a photo with the two master sculptors from Italy Adriano and Andrea.

A little later the chaos started when everybody started to collect their figures. But luckily mine figures got save home again.

It was a great weekend and a great show. The last show for me this year. So back to the working table now making more figures for next year.

The rest of the photos can be seen here:

Pictures Soldat de Plom 2010

Cheers,

Marcel.

Celt finished

After some intensive painting weeks and the last night working until two o'clock I finished this figure.

The ground work gave me some troubles and frustration in the end because of the absence of an airbrush. But I managed more or less. The eyes of the figure were corrected another time because I wasn't satisfied with the look. The design on the shield took quiet some hours but I'm satisfied with the result. I'm happy that it's finished. I learned a lot and hope to make some improvements with my next figure. Now it's time to continue with my other projects, back to sculpting and painting.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Starting the shield

During the last two days I made a start with the most difficult and time consuming part. The Celtic pattern on the shield. As shield color a I choose for a dark green color. The highlights and shadows were added and after that I painted the yellow pattern on the shield with a yellow/brown color. The next step is defining more the pattern and correct the mistakes. 

I also did some more work on the figure. I added shadows to the helmet, painted the collar and did a bit more work on the hair. Furthermore most of the blend work for the trousers is also done. Now I have to finish the skin part and continue with the sword and axe. Here some pictures of the figure.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Painting the trousers

Here another update on the Celt. After Euro I started painting again. I'm still not finished blending the upper body of the figure but to do something different I started blocking in the highlights and shadows of the trousers. Now I have to blend everything nicely together what always is the most time consuming. The highlights are done with brown yellow and the shadows with cobalt blue and black. Here some pictures of the current status.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Euro Militaire 2010

Last weekend I went to Euro Militaire. It was my first Euro and it was the 25th anniversary of the event in Folkestone. We went by car and it took us about 7 hours to arrive at calais due to heavy traffic. Which would take us 4 and a half hour on a quiet day. On Saturday we went through the tunnel to Folkestone. When we arrived in Great Brittan I had to get used to drive on the left. We dropped of the luggage in the hotel and went to the show.

I brought 5 of my models for the competition. Because of the 25th anniversary they had a record of more than 1000 entries this year. And the quality of the figures was also very high. On Sundays breakfast in the hotel I unexpectedly met two dutch people I know from Eindhoven. Also some famous people like Jesus Gamarra and Marion and Allan Ball stayed in the same hotel. After breakfast we went to the show and when I entered the competition room I discovered surprisingly that I had won some medals. One Silver and Bronze en two highly commended and one commended.

You can imagine how the rest of my day was. I also ran into several people I only know from the forums, and it was great having a chat with them. For the rest I bought some useful stuff and made pictures of the models. I couldn't photograph all the entries, there where simply too many.

The Best of show of this year went to Chris Clayton with his dragon slayer a very big but beautiful creation and a well deserved winner.

The rest of the photos I took can be seen on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87057&id=1367446367&l=eda43879f9

Cheers,

Marcel.

More paintwork done

The last days I managed to get some more work done on the Celt. I did some corrections to the eyes and face and did some more blending on the upper torso. Still a bit of more work to do here. I also started painting his hair and moustache but I'm not completely satisfied with the final color. For the trousers I wanted something colorful and my wife came up with this base color. The next steps are adding the highlights and shadows. For the shield a green color was decided and some Celtic symbols will appear on the front. Hopefully I can show it in the next update.

Cheers,
Marcel.