Golden Demon 2012 and Beyond

It may have happened a few weeks ago, but I have been enjoying the pictures of all the entries for this years Golden Demon UK. I did not go to the event myself, but the pictures of the entrants I have seen look fantastic. I have included in this post some of my favourite pictures from GD, which I found over at From the Fang where there are a lot more pictures than I have here.

The quality of the entrants I have seen in some of the pictures was truly breath taking. The Slayer Sword winner (pic below, on the right) is a phenomenal piece, which I would love to reach the quality of. Others such as the Space Marine Librarian vs Eldar Farseer (left) shows some wonderful imagination from the creator to make such an amazing duel.

Which brings me on to the cryptic challenge I left at the end of my completed Grotesques post. I am going to enter the UK Golden Demon in 2013. I like the idea of the challenge I face. There are certain areas I will definitely need to improve upon and I will be investigating each of these through a series of posts as I work my way toward the Games Day of 2013.

The first step I have taken is trying to find out some tips on preparation people suggest for the event and found some useful info over at Bestienmeister .

First step that is needed to be taken is a critical evaluation of my painting style, looking at what I can do well and what I am not so good at. From there, I get on with practicing, pulling together the techniques I need and then to begin sorting out entries in the categories I will look to enter.

I will be using the blog to chart the progress I make toward the Golden Demon competition, as well as getting the thoughts and feedback (hopefully) from you guys that will push me to improve even further and have at least one decent model sat on the judging tables in about a years time.

It is a long term plan, I do not doubt it will take up a fair bit of time if I am going to make a decent attempt at it, but I am quite excited about giving it a go and pushing myself to try and have some models entered in to the competition.

All pictures in this post are from this years Games Day, taken by Alex over at From the Fang. Many thanks to him for letting me use them for this post. 

If Only Hoverboards Were Real...

Remember Back to the Future? All those hoverboards and how cool they were, how much you wanted them to really exist? I certainly do and I am still bitterly disappointed that time seems to be running out on that dream.

But fear not, I have finished the Beastmaster who gets to travel around on this flying board. Admittedly the board is more Green Goblin than Michael J Fox, but I am still dreaming of that damn board even at nearly 30 years of age.

There were points during the painting of this guy that I really felt like scrapping him. Not even strip him and start again, but chuck him in the bin and forget he even existed. The spray primer went on far to thick in certain areas (feet, engine, the cylinders on his leg, chain/board connector thing in his crotch) which I felt was overly ruining the model. However I pushed him on to see what result I could get from that point, and here are the results:

All comments welcome, so let me know any thoughts you have about this guy.

Getting Closer All the Time.

Another quick update on how I am getting along with this mini-challenge I gave myself. So far, so good it must be said. The Beastnasters board is complete, with the Beastmaster himself around 40% complete.
The Clawed Fiend needs layering up a fair way and is a long way from completion. When I get round to focussing on him though, it should not take too long for him to come together nicely.

Lelith is the last model in this update. All bases layers on and shading applied to the skin. Shall be focusing on completing her hair and skin before moving on to her armour and weapons.

The board is now complete and I am happy with how it turned out. Very happy with the edge highlighting as I have managed to keep the lines relatively smooth and straight to the actual edge of the board. Only slight disappointment is the engine block, which I think got a bit too much attention during the priming stage, and is one of my techniques I believe I will have to look at to improve all future models that I paint.

Anyway, please see below for a few more pictures of the progress made, I apologise for the bluriness on them, better pictures will be taken once the models are complete.



Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger... I Wish!

Completed now are the two Rat Ogre/Grotesque conversions I have done to add to my Dark Eldar forces.

These two were very simple to paint and only needed around 5 different colour areas to complete, which makes a change to normal!

They will be joining 3 standard GW issue Grotesques that I have at the moment, with an eye on another 5 to join them at some point. Having said that though, I've seen a unit of 6 of these guys and Urien Rakarth butcher their way through a Blood Angels army and only take two casualties, so I am not sure the full 10 man squad is entirely required.

Anyway, really pleased with how these guys have turned out (except for maybe that canister on metal hands shoulder) and now looking forward to finishing the other three models and taking a peek at how my painted Dark Eldar look together.

With all that done I will then be looking in to finding a new challenge for myself and I am thinking of something big, something I never considered myself until my wife and friends mentioned it to me.

I shall hopefully layout this challenge within the next week or so. Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks!

Grotesques - Pulling It Together

Quick update on the progress on the Grotesques.

Started these fellas on Friday and managed to get all the base layers on all areas on the same day. Pretty pleased with myself as I quite often find myself procrastinating majorly when I want to get something done.

Managed to stick with it this time though, these guys should be finished in the next couple of days, so the final update is very much incoming.