Easter Elf

No Easter bunny or xmas elves here, it's an Easter Elf. I used my very limited watercolour skills on the recent sketch. I did manage to mess up the skin colour, but the pale gold leg and arm guards and the slightly more glittery hauberk with the dark red trim works well. It was useful to test out a potential colour scheme, I think this would suit a Chracian elf force, which I might get round to one day in the far distant future.

Meanwhile, in the present day, elves are taking over. I am working on my own elves and some on commission too, and playing the elf factions in Total War: Warhammer. I'm not sure what has happened to my inner dwarf, it's gone underground for the time being. It must be all this greenery and spring foliage sprouting. 

White Lion of Chrace

There's a pile of old White Dwarf magazines sitting in my house. I am supposed to be downsizing. They have been earmarked for recycling for months. I cannot quite let go.

Last night I grabbed one at random. It was the artwork on the front cover, a Mark Gibbons classic, that caught my attention, just as it did all those years ago. And it was a long time ago - July 1997!

Flicking through I came across a section on High Elves. It was round about the time of Warhammer Fantasy fifth edition and I guess the elves had just been updated with a new book, or were just about to be. Lots of rules and background on the White Lions of Chrace. I can just about remember these special rules.

Again, it was the artwork that leapt out. And again it was a Mark Gibbons piece, this time a mono pencil sketch, but no less arresting for that. I had not practised my sketching for a while so I set to with pencil and eraser.

And finally I had my finished piece. I am trying to simplify my drawings, getting the main lines and shapes rather than lots of shading. There's a couple of things that are not quite right, but I am calling this a good effort. Now, should I ink it and add some shading, or should I watercolour it? Or both?

Goblin sketch

For the past couple of months I have been practising sketching, not quite every day, but fairly frequently. I have tried a number of mediums, but I am gravitating to simple pencil work, inked, or maybe using markers. At the moment I am simply copying/simplifying other artists' work, it's the easiest way to learn technique.

This is a sketch of a goblin I am pretty pleased with. It's a goblin to me at any rate, when I found out the source it may be that it's some other creature. The original was an illustration by Alan Langford from Ian Livingstone's Island of the Lizard King, a fighting fantasy book published in 1984 (thanks to Joe Kelly on the Middlehammer facebook page for this info). I have included the original below for reference, hopefully this does not breach any copyright. My version is simpler and not as polished, but I like it and wanted to show it off! I find sketching is a nice way to wind down in the evening, and results come much quicker than painting miniatures.

More goblins (of the more traditional sculpted and painted variety) to come soon, I seem to be a little bit obsessed with the creatures at the moment. Here's the original sketch I mentioned.

Back

"Well, I'm back", he said.

And to celebrate, here's a picture of my back. I am back from a long holiday in the Phillipines, visiting family and new friends. We spent pretty much the whole of February doing very little, beach life, taking things slowly to cope with the heat, with a little snorkelling and adventuring thrown in. Batteries well and truly recharged.

I am also back to the hobby, after a three month hiatus. During that time I have painted commission work of course, but I have also been dabbling with new mediums - pencils, watercolours, inks - mostly I have been simply copying sketches from various books or online sources, just to practise holding a pencil, laying on paint. There are a few samples at the bottom of the post for those interested.

The main purpose of this post is to check in again. I am eager to get some of my own miniatures painted, the first time I have felt that way for a while. There are plenty of candidates, plenty of figures prepped, primed or even half painted. I think I might warm up by completing a few that are almost ready, then move on to a fresh unit. In the meantime, here's a few sketches to pad out this brief post.

Ian Miller's Grim Tarock

Most of you will know the name of Ian Miller, artist from the early days of Games Workshop. If you like his work, then you may be interested to know there is a kickstarter running to produce a deck of cards using his wonderful art.

My first fantasy map

It's finally finished, my first fantasy map. Now the dwarfs of Oakenheim have a home, along with those pesky Red Hills goblins, the Lord of Bleak Fell and his Undead followers, the witches of WychenWood, and the rest.

For years I have been quite happy to play my games in pre-established universes, mostly in the Old World of Warhammer, or the villages of dark ages Europe. But recently I have been more and more interested in gathering together these fantasy and real world collections into one setting. One world in which dwarfs can fight goblins in classic fantasy style, and vikings can raid Saxons in classic historical style, but there's also scope for trolls raiding viking settlements, Saxons fighting off Undead - a world to include all my miniatures in one big happy collection. It's a map drawn with the dwarfs and vikings firmly in the centre of everything - they have been my main preoccupation over the past couple of years. The areas on the edges of the map, or indeed off the map, represent those figures in my collection that are furthest from being painted.

The basics of how I got started in this endeavour I have already covered in this post. In essence, it's been a process of drawing and refining in pencil, then going over it all using fineliner marker pens. I am quite happy with the end result. The overall layout and the features I am pleased with, the lettering was always going to be the most challenging and that proved to be the case, that is the weakest point in my eyes. But for a first attempt I am happy with how it turned out.

Headland!

A headland is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. 

I started inking the map, working on the coastline, rivers and lakes. I was admiring my handiwork when I suddenly saw this shape. Now that's what you call a headland! When the hills and mountains and lettering are inked in, it will probably be a bit less obvious.

It's pure chance that it has emerged like this. The original shape was based on an approximation of the county of Cumbria, the Lake District in England - hence the lakes. At first I was trying to replicate the bodies of water exactly, but it was very cluttered and I abstracted to this form. The outjutting squiggle of a nose I added at random as I was inking. This will be the land of the vikings, though as it's a dwarf map it's not that detailed. Dwarfs don't have much love for water, or other folks for that matter, so they don't bother too much with little details like rivers, towns and such like.

How To Draw a Fantasy Map

Over the past couple of years I have been painting dwarfs, undead, vikings and goblins with a vague idea in my head about how they would all live together. Names and backgrounds come to me, mostly from my local surroundings or from my travels, from reading history and mythology, occasionally from popular culture such as Skyrim. I have jotted a few of these ideas down in previous blog posts, as a little bit of flavour to accompany the miniatures. There's a lot of stuff whirling around in my head, so I wanted to get it down on paper before it disappeared. I thought a good place to start would be a map.

I have been studying different map styles for a while, and came across a book dedicated to this very subject. I am a bit wary about How To books, as in my experience they never seem to convey the subject as well as, say, a youtube video would. However, we all have to start somewhere and so I thought I would give it a try.

The book cost me less than £10 on ebay and I have to say it has been a good buy. The author goes through the various stages with good, clear diagrams in a reasonably logical sequence. It's quite a short book, with lots of diagrams, which are useful. I did find that the suggested sequence of doing things did not always work for me, but maybe that's just me. The last chapter is probably the best place to start! This chapter is a bringing together of all the theory as the author moves through the processes he would go through in drawing a map (not all of it matching the sequence of previous chapters of course).

As I expected, theory is all very well, but the real value of a book like this is in giving you a starting point. You can get past the dreaded blank page by referring to the techniques, then practise them, then refine, then finally put them on your paper. And that's what I have been doing for the past couple of days - the ideal way to spend a typically British cold, damp and dreary bank holiday weekend.

The main thing I have learned from this process, and it's not going to surprise anybody, is that you have to practise, practise, practise. I have a few days under my belt now, and already I have learnt quite a bit on how to do things. Or more accurately, I have made plenty of mistakes and moved on from there. From preliminary pencil sketches, to inking and watercolours, I have had a little try at many things. I have designed my own icons to represent the dwarf holds. I have developed a very basic dwarf language and scratched out a dwarfish font of sorts, heavily influenced by viking culture.

It's starting to come together now and I have an almost completely pencilled map. I still have to add some features, when I have practised how to draw them. Then I have to move on from the pencil version, by inking in the whole thing. It's surprising how long these things take, but it will be worth it in the end. Hopefully, I can get it all finished in the coming week.

Bilbo Baggins

It's Bilbo Baggins' birthday! September 22nd is the date the hobbit celebrates his birthday, and as mentioned in yesterday's post he is 80 years old - in publishing terms that is. It's also the autumn equinox today, I wonder if Tolkien chose the date for this reason?

I only have one Bilbo in my miniatures collection, which I hastily painted up today! I had to mark the day somehow. For colours, I copied those from the movie. It's a very small mini, so I skipped some of the teeniest details. It's quite lacklustre if I'm honest, reflecting the way I feel today having come down with a cold :(

To properly celebrate this day, I spent some time browsing fellow painters' work on the little chap, and present a selection below. Each has a link to the original source, if any of the owners/painters object to me using their image just let me know in the comments and I will remove it.

by Bragon on CoolMini

by Joan Carles Ros on Putty&Paint

by TheChromaticCircle on Putty&Paint

by David Powell on Putty&Paint

by Winterland on Putty&Paint

I have also been scouring the web for other renditions of Mr Baggins. It's interesting to see how he has been portrayed down the decades. For a thorough examination of early artistic renditions, I can recommend you browse the PowerOfBabel blog, there are a number of posts showing various printed illustrations.

Of course, there are also plenty of more modern renditions too. I have deliberately excluded art based on the movies, I'm sure you all know how Martin Freeman looks by now. Again, the list below contains a link to the original source, if there are any objections to their use please let me know.

by breath-art on deviantart

by Simon Buckroyd on deviantart

by John Howe

by Rodney Matthews

by yoggurt on deviantart

And finally, an image that does not contain Mr Baggins as such but is instantly recognisable as a scene from the book. After the multi-coloured marvels of all the previous renditions, there's something rather beautiful in these simple lines, from the Folio Society version of the book.

A Little Whimsy

And now for something completely different.

I would consider myself a fan of fairly gritty miniatures. I tend to collect more realistic sculpts, prefer a meaner, grimmer look than some of the comical sculpts of yesteryear. One of the things that drew me into the Games Workshop universe was the darker, grimmer art of the 1990's.

A new discovery to me is a French artist, Jean-Baptiste Monge. When I discovered this artist, I immediately thought of another favourite of mine, Arthur Rackham. His depiction of the natural world is superb, many a "proper" wildlife artist would be green with envy at his expertise. Coupling this with creatures of myth and folklore is not a new idea, but I struggle to think of any that do it this well.

I have a minor obsession with short, bearded folk - usually of the dwarf variety, but these figures are equally appealing. They are not grim warriors wielding huge axes, but rather more amusing little chaps with pipes and hats. I find them utterly charming - not a word I would usually use for miniatures, but there you go, perhaps I am mellowing.

If you are equally captivated by all this, you may well be interested in a kickstarter by Blacksmith Miniatures. If you fancy a break from wargames painting and just like to paint a nicely sculpted resin figure, then it's well worth a look. I have my eye on this lovely little trio. Go on, do something a little foolish, add a little whimsy to your life.......

Santa's Sack

What did Santa bring me this year? Not too many minis thankfully, I already have plenty of those. In fact, no minis at all. I got a couple of art books, a set of paints and something of a new diversion - a set of sketching pencils and pad.

I love looking through art books, you can learn so much about colours and setting a mood. The subject matter in this case just happens to be fantasy, but more general art books can also be very inspiring. The Tolkien art book is one for the real Tolkien nerds - full of sketches of maps and line drawings, most of them very basic in fact, showing that all art starts with basic lines on a bit of paper (let's not get into a digital discourse). The Paul Bonner book is the opposite end of the spectrum, full of gorgeous fully rendered paintings of intricate detail and superlative technique.

The Kings of War paint set is a little experiment. I wanted to try the paint brand and picked a starter set to use on my vikings (even though it says Undead on the cover). It contains a limited range of colours, which hopefully will give my figures a certain look. I am not explaining myself very well here - more on this in a future post.

Finally, the sketch pad and pencils. Strictly speaking I have had these for about a month, but I class them as a present to myself so lump them in here. I am trying to teach myself how to sketch/draw. After reading a few online tutorials I decided just to jump in and start scribbling. The Paul Bonner book contains lots of preliminary sketches, so I am getting started by simply copying them. This gives me a chance to get accustomed to the pencils and start on the lowest slopes of the learning curve. As you can see on this dwarf, I messed up the eye and need a decent eraser to fix it. But hey ho, Rome was not built in a day.

Slayers WIP

I think I slightly surprised myself this weekend. Sorting through my dwarfs to decide what to paint next, I came across a motley selection of slayers. I have always loved the fluff for them, but found the models a little lacklustre. However, when I took a closer look at these figures (and stripped away the garish orange paint - the joys of ebay!) I decided there was plenty of potential. I originally had six in the unit, as that's a good number to use in Dragon Rampant, but then decided another two would be good for games of Saga. That's where the plastic dragon head comes in. It was originally intended as an elaborate base for the Blood Bowl figure, but now it's a useful unit filler.

My ideal slayer sculpt would look like these shown below, various artworks collected from around the web, but what can you do? At least I can learn from the palettes.

The Dragon Has Landed!

A late xmas present arrived in the post today - my copy of Dragon Rampant. I picked mine up for an absolute bargain on Books Etc, less than £7 including postage. Other sellers are available, such as the publisher website Osprey, and quite a few indie web sites sell it too. As with all new books, I flipped it open and flicked through the pages. It's similar in style and layout to Lion Rampant, the usual Osprey fare which is solid and serviceable, if a little old fashioned. One big surprise, and a very pleasant surprise at that, was the inclusion of some full page art spreads. These are very nice indeed, I include my three favourites below to give a taster. Best fantasy art I have seen in a good while.

I look forward to delving deeper later in the week and will give a better, more detailed review at some point in the new year. In the meantime, just enjoy the lovely art. The pictures are posted without permission, in the unlikely event that this causes a problem with the author/publisher I will of course remove this post.

Art of Trudvang Book on Kickstarter

There's a lovely looking art book on kickstarter, just in the last couple of days. I have been watching it since it started about a month ago. On the plus side, if you like art, or Norse mythology, it looks absolutely wonderful. If you like both, it's doubly wonderful. On the negative side, it's quite expensive - the book itself is quite reasonable, but shipping nearly doubles the cost. At current exchange rates it's nearly £50 for a picture book! That's a lot of cash. One thing that might sweeten the deal is that the latest achieved stretch goal has upped the page count from 120 to 192+ pages. Some serious thinking for me to do over the weekend, I am completely spent up on hobby with Blood Rage, elves and dwarfs purchases, but these things come along so infrequently that I am desperately trying to see where I can conjure up the cash.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 1983 - 2015 RIP

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us."