WIP: Chaos aspiring champion

My local GW store has started a monthly painting competition.  The rules are very simple, it must be a particular single minature.  They have chosen the first months minature and from then on the winner will choose the next months with a maximum budget of £15.  It can be from any range, converted or standard, on any form of base, so it should be interesting.

For the first minature they have chosen the Chaos Space Marine Aspiring Champion. A nod to last months release I assume.  I'm going to throw my hat into the ring, so I have picked the model up and started to have a go at painting it.

Review: 'Eavy Metal Masterclass

Whilst looking for advice on NMM for my recent Wood Elf model one of the guys at my local GW store recommended this book.  They didn't have a copy in store but they managed to get some in stock very quickly.   I thought I would give you a quick look at what it includes in case you fancy picking up a copy.

Photography:Using Photo Software

In the last post I asked if anybody knew of cheap image manipulation software.  You can imagine that I felt a bit of a wally when I realised that the basic windows photo viewer had all the functionality that I required to smarten up my photos.  Here are a couple of comparisons to show the difference ten seconds work can make.

Astral Knights on public display

When I took my models into my local GW store they asked if they could put them in their window display.  These photos show my two Astral Knights squads and my Wood Elf in the window. I apologise for the quality of the images but I was trying to take the picture on my mobile, through two panes of glass.

Photography: Comparison of mobile phone to camera and lightbox

I just wanted to see what the difference is between using my mobile phone and natural light, and using a proper camera and my home made lightbox.

So here the comparison shots:  I've used my scout Sergeant.

Showcase: Wood Elf Hero with Great Weapon

I know I said that my next post would be a comparison of the before and after photographs using my new light box and long suffering other half's camera but something much better has been finished for their first outing.

Tutorial: Making a lightbox

Since starting my blog I have been using my mobile phone camera and natural light to take images of my miniatures.  Initially I was surprised at how reasonable they turned out but recently I have begun to notice the limitations.  When I uploaded some photos to CMON I could really see the iffy quality so I looked up ideas for how to improve them.

Firstly I need to use a better camera, preferably a proper camera with macro mode, self timer etc.  Luckily, upon investigation, my long suffering fiance's had all the necessary features so I'm going to be borrowing it from time to time.

Secondly I need better lighting and backgrounds.  The solution apparently is a light box.  This diffuses the light from sources such as lamps to remove unwanted shadows etc. I didn't want to spend much (read any) money on this so here is my tutorial on how I made a virtually free lightbox