haychdee

I will be passing right by you so could sort something out though I've not fully decided on exact timings yet. I might be looking to head up after work on the Friday to avoid been half dead through Saturday.

Can I pop my name on the reserve list please Mike. Cheers Haydn

So this update is well overdue as round 4 is already over half way but here goes.... For my round 3, 'Wyrd Science' entry I eventually decided that I would convert Hoffman up into a GW style techpreist. The play on the theme being Wyrd Science in GW style. Originally he was going to be fairly subtly converted with a terror tot cherubim and standing in a little workshop which would have hidden nods to Imperium tech. However, as you will see from the pics below I got a bit carried away and in the end he hardly resembled Hoffman anymore. In that sense I am not really too happy with the conversion but aside from that I learnt new skills in scratch building the servo arm and I discovered a new way to paint flesh. And here he is in various stages... The first layers down of Hoffman's robes and at this point not so OTT The early WIP's of his servo arm. It took me a long time to finally settle on a style The almost complete servo arms and cables. Cables were made with Green Stuff World's roll/tube maker (awesome bit of kit!) A close up of his cherubim. It's made from a Terror Tot with the wings of Nicodems vulture. The hammer is all scratch built A collage of pics from the finished piece And my final pic as it was submitted Sadly the work did not pay off as I scored low with 27 and dropped down into silver. My opponent @Whirler put in a great entry and had a well deserved win. I knew that no matter the result I was in for a tough one but a tad disappointing it came in so low. Admittedly I know my entry has many flaws, as usual I spent too long converting and the painting was rushed. Nevertheless, all C&C, questions or queries welcome hd

So time for a long overdue update... For round 2 I was pretty hyped about theme but in the end I really struggled. Having a spare Nicodem hanging around I decided I'd use him for the main piece. I had an idea to make a small vignette of him rezzing up a zombie and his coffin from the groud with all the earth rising up with him. I was gonna try copy the magic effect Curtis used based on the tutorial on Massive Voodoo and try out some OSL. Well I got cracking on with the project and made good progress early on but I hit set back after set back mid way through. I ended up making 2 coffins, 2 vignettes, having to strip Nico after I fluffed the NMM and then 2 bases for him. Nothing seemed to go as planned and I literally only just got it in on time with 37 seconds to spare. I even ended up having to take a half day from work as I even got the deadline wrong! But that being said, my round 2 scoring sat at 41 to 27 and luckily I kept my gold spot for 1 more round. So here are the finished pictures, I have WIP's but as there are so many I'll spare them... And here's a height comparison between my two entries If you're following the competition you'll know that round 3 is well underway and I'm pleased to say that I'm much more confident with this entry however as my opponent is Whirler I very much doubt I'll be in the gold tier much longer. I'll be sharing my round 3 WIP's very shortly but until then all C&C is welcome. hd

It's nice to see all your LJ crew lined up together, these looks great, good job! That Dr. Grimwell is superb! Really nicely painted and so smooth Look forward to seeing more hd

@Whirler Thanks for the kind feedback. I really struggled with the white as it just required way more layering up than I'm used to. I found it less forgiving when I was trying to shade at a later stage. To be honest I'm actually getting some painting tuition at the moment so it's maybe something I'll address after the competition is over. Although I've painted for years I've not really taken the time to learn and understand technique and theory as I've always focussed more on the modelling aspects. As for the tongue and claws I completely agree. These were some of the details that didn't get the attention they deserved as I rushed the entry towards the end. My round 2 entry will have much more focus on the painting and I want to make sure everything gets the correct amount of time spent on it. hd

Hey all, So round 1 of the Iron Painter is over and I can't hide the fact that I'm pretty stoked to have just grabbed myself a spot in the gold tier. However, I know there's a lot of talk, argue and debate in the forums as to the judging and criteria. I tend not to really get involved in these exchanges so I won't be discussing it on here but I will say that the results (and some of the follow up comments) from this round will definitely influence some of my decisions in round 2. On a personal note, I was a bit gutted to see Stark's (grey_kardinal) entry be ranked in bronze. I'm not here to discus the ins and outs of it all but I've always enjoyed checking out his work and I really like his style so this was a shame to see it receive the score it did. If you've not seen his stuff yet go check out his thread here. Onwards with the pictures... First off I got Teddy all primed up. For me this is normally the stage where I can spot any major defects in my sculpting work. It's quite hard to tell when it's in the green stuff stage as I'm always filing and scraping it down. After the first 2 sessions I'd pretty much got the dress done. The whole thing turned out a bit more magenta looking than planned but I was happy with it. I got the base coat down for what became the nightmare that was the cream and I got the base down on the fur so I could get a grasp on the contrast to the dress. A few stages ahead here everything was a bit more built up and the bow was now complete. I had played around with doing the bow in yellow but it just didn't quite look right to me so I opted for the lilac instead. I just felt it suited the theme better but really I'd have been happy with either option. And then, skipping a lot of little stages, we have the final submission. This was also my first time doing the stringy gore effect so I was really quite happy with how that turned out, really made a difference to the whole overall feel of the mini for me. So as I could have guessed I really didn't take enough pictures again and I really will try for the next round. However, I have learnt some valuable lessons from this project which I'll take into round 2: 1. I will not be sculpting/converting on that scale again for IP. It cost me a week and it took away a lot of time from painting 2. I will NOT be painting white or cream again in this comp as it's the devil and made me very unhappy 3. I need to improve my photography game as it took hours and hours to get it somewhat close to how I wanted it 4. I need better time management and I need to leave more than the last day to get my entry photographed So that's it for round 1. The whole project took me in the area of around 50 hours to complete which has been quite draining but I have something I'm really happy with. I look forward to round 2 and hopefully I can try to keep my gold status though the competition is pretty tough. As usual questions, queries or C&C are all welcome. HD

Hey all, As a lot of you maybe aware it's that time of the year again where the forum goes painting crazy as we delve into the annual Iron Painter comp! Last year sadly due to work timings I never even made it passed round 2 but it's a different story this time around. I've upgraded my work space, splashed out on some new paints, upped my brush game and no more working crazy hours. So hopefully this time I can see it through to the end! Along with the hobby upgrades I've also received a bit of paint coaching and in order to flex my artistic muscles and up my game I will be trying out new styles and techniques throughout this competition. As an avid converter and modeller I will also be doing my best to work in some extravagant basing, display pieces and green stuff work. The whole idea is just to push my abilities and get a little out of my comfort zone. So, round 1... Announced nearly a week ago now round 1's theme is 'Pretty in Pink' which is nice and broad. After a little brainstorming I decided that I'd be sculpting Teddy in a rather fetching little dress which I decided to model off the Candy fig. Whilst waiting for Teddy and supplies to arrive from Element Games I thought I'd work on the base. I went for a style I'd never tried for before and built it up using poly filler rubble, miliput and plasticard. I laid the rubble down first, then filled in gaps and built up a layer of miliput ready for the sanding stage. I then cut and shaped out some plasticard tiles and secured them on top. I then sanded it where needed, painted it all up and added a few tufts of grass. I picked black and white so it will contrast nicely with the large amount of pink to come. Thne Teddy arrived! As with all my projects its a slow and steady pace to begin with. Using Candy as a reference picture I decided to start with the torso and build out from there as there would be plenty of details going on top. I've never done frilly dress bits before so I had a crack at these first to make sure I could do them. Luckily I found a nice easy technique to these and I got them done pretty quick. Next I finished off the torso, shoulders and arms. After these had all cured I marked out with the red paint where the collar would be going and I then cut/scraped this are down. I then began making the basic skirt shapes which would form the underskirt in the end. I added a bit of detail on the underside of the dress which is meant to resemble ruffles (is that a word) of a dress or tutu. It wasn't really an important feature but it made me feel better about the sculpt. I then added a base collar along with frilly edges. Once this had cured I then went back and built the collar up a bit more. You can see that I had also started adding some of the upper skirt layer which had to be quite bulked out to fill in those big gaps. And then the have the almost final build. The upper skirt layer was much trickier than I imagined but I got there in the end. I added a bow on his back and in the end I had to re-do his front bow as it was getting a bit swamped by the existing green suff. I added a little belt/ribbon running around the waist between the bows to cover the join and give me some extra details to paint. All that's remaining is the gap filling, filing and last minute tweaks. Receiving feedback from AWP on Facebook I think I might model a little bow on Teddy's head just to really finish it off. And that's it for now. I will be finishing off the last modelling bits tomorrow before getting him all primed up for some pink goodness. I'll be keeping all painting pics under wraps until I'm ready for the final submission but I'll be taking some WIP's to post after. If anyone has and questions or would like any of my methods explaining I'm more than happy to oblige. I've skipped a few photo stages here mainly because I get so into it I forget to take any. So far the sculpting has taken me 3 sessions at about 20-25 hours in total with the base taking another 3 or 4. It's time consuming but it's the part of the hobby I enjoy the most. HD

Paid. Looking forward to this, really enjoyed last years.

Lovely work as always! Big fan of your colour palettr choices, kind of earthy but still vibrant. Can I ask what set up you use to take your photos? Always come out at a good quality and it's something I'm trying to improve on HD

Hey all, It's been a slow couple of weeks but I have been making some progress across the whole crew. Im hoping to get some more comprehensive pics up in the next week... ...but until then, Santi draws nearer completion. I've been working on his face paint to add more of the Day of the Dead feel to him rather than the voodoo look. I gave NMM a go but tbh I think I might switch back to metallics. A quick pic of Nino's current state. His base colours are down and like Santi he is also sporting some pin stripe pants. I'm really pleased with his base and doing everyting to avoid chipping it now And I am glad to say that my Perdita dilema has been resolved thanks to @BigHammer He has very awesomely donated a Lady Legiea to me so I get to convert up my original plans. I'm just waiting on some parts to arrive and then I'll be cracking on with that conversion. @WalkingInBlack thanks for those reference images. They are a big too sexed up for the Perdita conversion I had in mind but I might use them as reference when looking at making some Pistoleros. Will definitely be using them when deciding on my colour choice though. So just a very small update this time but hopefully a bigger one to come next Monday. C&C as always is welcome HD