New year resolutions ...

1. Post more often in your blog.
2. Abandon all new year resolutions and do what makes you happy - in real life and on this blog.
...
:-)

Long time, no see ... despite an extremely high demand in my RL job in the last few weeks, I managed to progress two creative projects: my 'torre de los muertos' and something that might look familiar to you ... it looks a bit like the dwarf mine I made for Armies on Parade ...

In fact, my local GW shop decided to keep the mine and display it in its shop window. Another shop owner saw it, spontaneously went into the shop and wanted to buy it!
As it would have been too expensive and wasn't exactly what he needed, I decided to build another one, suitable for his needs - a shop window display for coins and gold ingots:

I'll start painting it this evening.

WIP pics of the orcs for my torre de los muertos:

Just a few basic colours to give you an idea where this is going ... Suitable for a Mexican Mariachi band or not? What do you think?

Various projects progressing

Wow, what a creative and productive week!

I was able to progress various projects.

WIP pics:

Trust in God, but tie up your camel

Desert base in progess ...

Torre de los muertos

After removing the mould lines and assembling the orcs for my Mariachi band, I printed a guitar and a violin and used it to cut out plasticard instruments (just the basics, the actual instruments will be more complicated) to be able to adjust the position of the arms holding them. I'm now going to fill the gaps with greenstuff before undercoating them. Then I'll be able to take them with me to the local GW shop to paint them (I cannot see dwarfs any more after painting so many details of my A-team dwarfs).

After hanging out in my local GW shop for a week, I had to empty my Santa Claus sock because it was far too heavy. What a nice bonus for painting work I would have done at home anyway!

I'm really looking forward to painting the two space marines and adding various bits to future bases, and paint pots and super glue will be very useful for future projects!

Which of the current projects do you like best?

Camels and orcs

Last week I took the chance to meet with my favourite gaming / painting group and progress something I find rather difficult to paint.

The camel for my desert landscape is almost done now. As soon as it is finished, I will be able to work on the desert landscape again.

The second project I'm currently working on is my 'torre de los muertos' you might already have seen on this blog as well. I'm planning to give the Duke of Bavaria another try next year (great location, competition and opportunity to meet other painters on an international level!), and this will be one of my entries.

After removing mould lines for what seemed to be countless hours, I assembled several orcs. With their sombreros and instruments, they'll be a fantastic mariachi band in the end.

Still mulling over the right approach to scratchbuild guitars and maybe an ukulele or a violin for my mariachi band and have thus not assembled them completely yet. If you have tried something similar already, I'd love to hear about your approach and experience. Any links, tutorials and comments on how you would scratchbuild these instruments would help me a lot!

Torre de los muertos - last update this year! :-)

I've progressed this project for a few days. It's starting to look like a Mexican tower now. Next on the agenda: highlighting the red parts, painting the metal ... y los muertos - painting the skulls not as standard skulls, but with colourful 'make-up'. I'm really looking forward to finishing this building ...

I 

... as I imagine painting this Mariachi band consisting of several orc gringos with self-made guitars from plasticard for this terrain piece will be even more fun!

The question is: How can I sculpt ponchos for them?

Torre de los Muertos

A short time ago, I found this standard GW tower in my pile of unpainted miniatures:

I'm pretty sure you all know this tower and have seen it painted in the same way with minor variations a hundred times or more. Which is why I was looking for a different approach.

Here's what I'm going to do with this standard piece:

Inspired by a Mexican 'fiesta de los muertos' I had been invited to and lots of skulls on the tower itself, I decided to paint it as a 'torre de los muertos'.

Inspirational pics so you know where all this is going:

Imagination was running wild. I even thought of something around these lines ... :-D

Here's the current state of this project:

So if you have any suggestions, crazy ideas or links to Mexican miniatures of rather unknown companies that could be interesting, I'd love to hear them (and incorporate them into this project)!