Taking better pictures

So a friend recently came over with some serious picture shooting skills (like pro) and we worked on my setup a bit. I might go into the actual setup a bit more later (it involves a lightbox, two daylight lamps and all kinds of cool settings on my cam), but for now this is a comparison of my Tariq mini.

On the left the 'old' shot, on the right the 'new' shot. Both have not been processed after the fact. It is very important to me that I can quickly snap a few shots with minimal editing.

Needless to say I am quite pleased with the results!

Scrutiny: PK-Pro alien base set (part 1)

So... I had these awesome photos of my unboxing and my experience with getting my new alien bases ready. I say had because I accidentally shift deleted them. I am a fool. Some of them I cannot take again, because I have since worked away the problems.

So... I'll take some more photos... at a later date. There are a few things I can already say about how I intend to use the bases though. I am collecting both a devil and a demon range. The devil range is being based on lava bases from dark arts miniatures. For my demons I was looking for an alien sort of landscape that I could paint up as the abyss. Enter PK-Pro, a german manufacturer of among other things bases!

I set my eye on these (painted by the PK-Pro people)

Imagine the same, but with more purple then green. That's the plan. The box arrived this evening after a speedy delivery. Happy me! Unfortunately I did have some issues with the casts. I do not know if this is indicative of the quality of PK-Pro casts or not. I am inclined to say it is, because I ordered 25mm, 40mm and 60mm bases and they all the same defects.

I can work around it, but it will take quite some time. That is time that I would rather not spent on bases that are supposed to be useable out of the box.

More in part 2 when I get some pictures in!

What did I commit to!?

So recently two things that happened to me connected. The first 'catalyst' was the Reaper kickstarter that I participated in. The second a dragon painting 'contest' of sorts on the Reaper forums to paint a dragon before the end of the year.

I just had to jump in! So I scrolled through the dragons I am about to recieve (in march) from the Kickstarter and my eye fell on Nethyrmaul the Undying. Sure! Why not? Well because he is bigger then your hand... stretched out. I've seen a picture, it is true.

Oh boy!

And he has just shown up in the preview gallery on the Reaper site as well. Look at that beauty.

This is going to take months! Hmm now what colorscheme to go with? I am thinking bone with a blue light... maybe too hard for me though. Any links to how to paint light effects link me! Oh and he has to arrive first as well.

*Twiddles thumbs*

It is alive!

*Goes back to drybrushing and varnishing*

Happy new year!

Dungeonscheme locked and loaded

And welcome to 2013! 2012 went by far too quickly. But no point dwelling on the past. This year it is dungeon time!

I have finished the colorscheme for the new dungeon tileset and have begun proper mass production. These are the two paintschemes:

Walls:

• Dark grey basecoat
• Light grey drybrush
• Very light blue drybrush

Floors:

• Light grey basecoat
• Black wash
• Very light blue drybrush

The blue drybrushes really tie the walls and the floor together. So far I have completed the first two steps on most of the pieces, only the corridor walls need some light grey drybrush love before I can finish it all in one fell swoop.

Here are some pictures from the process behind determining the color scheme.

Correct wall, but wrong floor with a green hue.

 

A dark wall test, was not working. The floor was nice though.

The finished combination.

 

And a tiling example.