My other entry for GDUK this year was the Radagast which I showed as a WIP a few months ago. I was really pleased with the way he was turning out so decided to really try to create an interesting way of displaying the miniature.

With the competition in mind, I knew I had to keep him on his 25mm round 'appropriate gaming base' so I decided to put a lot of time and effort into his plinth. In theory the plinth is not part of judging the painting, but (in my opinion) it will most definitely help catch the judges eye - then I just had to hope that my painting would hold up to more intense scrutiny.

Being Radagast THE BROWN, there was always going to be a lot of brown - the trick was how to make that interesting. I used lots of different brown triads by Reaper and added the same shade colour (Coal Black by P3) and the same final highlight (Vallejo Ivory) to try and harmonize the various colours. The big point of interest for me in a model is always the face so with the 'lack' of colour in the rest of the model I wanted to make the face alive with colour (without being unrealistic) so I used a lot of Coal Black (which is really a very dark turquoise) and P3 Sanguine Base (a dark, desaturated red) to give him a bit of life.

The other POI I decided to go for was some freehand on his outer coat. Looking at stills from the movie his coat is almost like a tapestry with lots of patterns all over it so I went for a series of swirls and leaves and spirals to give a similar feel to it.

I think that's enough of a description and its time to show some photos...

I managed to finish the Salamander I've been working on in prime time for entering him into the Golden Demon competition at this years Games Day UK! (accidental?*)

I managed to get a finalist pin for him in what proved to be a really tricky category - it seemed like there were more entries in 40K single Figure as there are at many other painting competitions in total! I must admit, I was pleased with a finalist pin in this category as the quality was also very high.

I wanted to try and create a tiny 40mm vignette with this piece and hope that it tells a story to the viewer like a larger diorama might.

I have posted this guy up on CoolMiniOrNot and Putty & Paint if you are interested in voting :)
http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/2945 (oddly I think these might be better pictures, although I am not sure why... maybe blogger has compressed these ones?)
http://www.coolminiornot.com/342264

On to the pictures...
*Nope!

The Salamander is on the last rush towards completion. There's a fair bit more to do on the metallics (and his gun) and he is obviously missing a base, but he's certainly coming together.

Here are some picturs of Phill's 250 points - some rather nice Ravenwing bikers

And some photos of our models together - 500pts of marines - not that many all things considered!

some initial pics of 250pt block #2

Grey Knight Terminators
and a Finecast (!) Jokaero
I've still got a lot of prep-work to do on these guys, this month is going to be a real challenge! Part of me wonders whether I should just buy Kaldor Draigo and paint only one mini this month :)

But I will give these guys a go and see what happens!

I managed to get some photos of my first 250 with Puppykickers 250 points of Ravenwing and will endeavour to get some photos up soon :)

Right, I know its the second month of the challenge, but I just wanted to post a few more photos of the first 250 points. I've gone back to the blue-white gradient background and have been tinkering with my camera settings and am quite happy with the results.

So, what have we got?

A close-up of the Justicar

Despite all the conflab about 'end of the world stuff', we find ourselves stepping into 2013 without a hitch.  2012 was a very busy year for the Bodgers; we attended a record number of shows and met lots of 'new' people. I say 'new' because they were people that we'd been talking to online for years in some cases, and we had the opportunity to meet them for the first time this year :)

Avicenna had an awesome painting year, both in terms of output and achievements. I'm sure his highlight of the year was his success at the Crystal Brush in Chicago where he came away with a Gold and a Bronze. His close second was probably selling his first sculpt which was put into production by War Griffon Miniatures - Gladiatorc is one of many great minis Martyn sells so check them out! Success continued at Euro Militaire where he got first bronze medal. Big smiles all round!

Sadly all that awesomeness was counterbalanced by my extremely poor performance for 2012. My head was stuffed full of great ideas as usual but I just couldn't get my butt into gear to make them a reality.  I did make a start on a GW model - the really cool Nurgle Chaos Lord - he's almost finished but not quite! I also bought some lovely Dark Eldar to get involved with the Tale of Four Painters malarky - they are still 'work in progress'.  *sigh*

Back onto more positive stuff.....having met up with fellow painters around Devon during 2012, we starting getting together at various locations and got stuck into painting, jovial banter and general fun times. Having met Andy at the Plymouth Model Show earlier in the year, he invited us down to the Giant's Lair, which he runs with a couple of friends, to help out with judging the painted armies in their tournaments. It was great fun and cool to see so many well painted armies. It's become a regular haunt for us now, although we haven't been there since October due to other commitments. But we will hopefully be there on Saturday 7 Jan, so if you are in the area pop in and say hello.

Something else that we did for the first time during 2012, was attending some painting classes. Avicenna went to a Golem Painting Studios painting class with Mike & Ali McVey and Tommie Soule and he came away with lots of great advice; proof that no matter how good you are, you can never learn enough in this hobby.  Avicenna obviously made a good impression as he was invited back to help with a master class, along with other talented painters, to help people with their Golden Demon entries. I went along too with the intention of sitting quietly in the corner, but Tommie wasn't having any of that and I ended up sitting in and getting some actual painting done (shock horror!). We then both attended another class in November, this time at the actual location of Golem Studios itself - an NMM (Non-metallic metal) class by the painting whiz Tommie. He has a very unique take on how to paint NMM and it certainly works. Even I got passable results :)  The day was topped off by an awesome meal at a local Korean restaurant with friends that also attended the class.

All in all 2012 was great from a hobby point of view - despite my lack of paintiness - and I hope that 2013 is much the same, although with a bit more painting for me ;)  And just to prove I did something - baking and modelling in perfect harmony :D



Happy New Year to you all and may 2013 be a creative, fun and happy year for you all.

Toosh x

250pts of Grey Knights and their Inquisitor - painted in one month.

There are a few bits I could still tweak, but I am happy with how these have turned out!

I'll get some proper photos soon, but here they are for now.

...and the tank is pretty much done!

Now back to the marines