SMC'17 experiences and... LOOT!

Hello fellow painters, builders, and other hobbyists,

In this article, I wanted to share my experiences at the Scale Model Challenge 2017. I could only attend one day so I didn't enter into the competition. I arrived around 10AM when the convention just opened its doors, but it was already very crowded with people! There were 138 exhibitors divided over 122 stands and 575 people from 40 different countries participating in the contest with 1987 entries!

I quickly entered the contest area to get a peek of what people had entered but there were already so many people there that I only managed to get a couple of photos. (you can see them in my experimental slideshow, frames 2 and 29 are my favorite!)

It was a lot of fun to meet some of my old friends and to create new ones. I also met up with some people that I know from facebook but who I have never had the pleasure to meet in person.

At the stand of Mr. Lee's mini's, where I spent a lot of my time, I found my friends Dennis, Kyle, and Kris. I also met Fancagne, Drew, and Norm. I recently won a model from Kaha miniatures, Fancagne's model company that I could pick up at their stand. This is where I picked up my first piece of SMC loot... the Megaprimatipus Kong!

Kong! Based on the recent movie.

My friend Dennis from Savageforged Mini's also had a 75mm model that I wanted! C-48 Roy is a post-apoc styled android or cyborg. I love cyberpunk almost as much as I love orcs, so this was a must-have for me!

Also at this stand, there was a demo area where renowned painters like Roman Lappat, Roman Gruba and Drew Palies demonstrated their painting techniques and skills. I attended to Roman's demonstration on how to paint eyes and skin on a 1/10 ogre bust. For me, it was very interesting to see his method of painting. I will be using what I've seen on future projects for sure!

Me watching Roman explain how to paint eyes

My friend Kris from Broken Toad also had a lot of goodness for sale. Next to his awesome brushes he also brought his busts to the scale model challenge. I've had his "Rage" bust on my radar for a while, but only now learned that it represents a character from the world of Guildball.

"Rage" by Broken Toad, a Guildball character

Finally, I brought some of my busts to find them a good plinth. I've heard many people speaking very positively about Dino Pivato's plinths. Now I must say that I do find them a little pricey at between €15 and €20 per plinth, but they do look very nice and Dino does try his best to find the perfect match for your project.

That pretty much sums up my day with all my experiences at the Scale Model Challenge. I hope you enjoyed reading this little article.

QUESTION:
What do you think about the slideshows? Do you like them? Do you have any suggestions on how to improve them? Please leave your answers in the comments!

Thank you for reading and I will see you next time!

Noctu the Bounty Hunter - SMC'16 loot review #2

Hello hobby friends,

If you are reading this that means you clicked on the link for my second SMC'16 loot review. This time I will review the bust of Noctu the Bounty Hunter made by Dennis Zarnowski from Savage Forged Minis.

The cardboard box Noctu comes in

I bought the booth at his stand at Scale Model Challenge. Noctu is a Sci-Fi bust that has been on my wishlist for some time now. The bust depicts an alien in some sort of space suit or armor with nuts, bolts, and some vents. He is also smoking a cigar. (kids, please don't smoke)

If you remove the lid from the cardboard box you will reveal the bust, safely surrounded by foam. It is tightly packed to prevent the bust from moving too much inside the box, possibly damaging the bust or any of its details.

Noctu inside the cardboard box

The figure is a one piece bust. this does mean that if you want to paint some pieces separately with, let's say, an airbrush, you need to mask off parts of the model. I'm still trying to figure out what would be easier, to paint the armor first and mask that in order to paint the head or visa versa. If you have suggestions please feel free to post those down below in the comment section.

The model itself requires very little modeling or clean up. I had a small mold line on the sides of the armor near the edge. Nothing a little putty and some sanding couldn't fix. The back of the model (the part you would paint black) is a bit rough. If this bothers you, you can sand it down, or you can use a diagonal cut plinth to mount the model on. It is essentially a non-issue, but I do want to mention it.

Noctu right side

Noctu left side

As you can see this bust offers you a lot! You can do some cool stuff on the skin, giving him some reptilian look or play with different colors, even paint tattoos or tribal paint. For the armor, you can give him prestige armor or give it a cool weathered and worn look.

Verdict: I think this is an amazing bust! Lots of detail and you can apply different techniques. Normally I would maybe suggest having a painted box art but in this case, because of the variety of possibilities you're able to paint this figure, I'm gonna let that one go. There is no reason not to recommend this bust! If you want to get one yourself, you can go to this link. The price is €35 which I think is more than fair!

That's it for today. If you made it this far I want to thank you for reading. If you have painted this model, please share your work in the comment section so I can take a look and maybe get some inspiration.

See you next time and happy painting!

Scale Model Challenge 2016

Hi, guys and girls!

A little over a week ago I visited the Scale Model Challenge! It was a great experience!

To me, it is a social event where I can meet tons of people I know from my time in Chilling Wargamers or from Facebook. This year, their 10th anniversary. set new records in terms of visitors, traders, clubs, and contest entries.

My SMC'16 haul

The first person I met was Manuel from crazywenky.de. He brought me one of his famous Crazy Grip miniature holders! Before I had this I was always using a champagne cork or a pin vice to hold my miniatures but that isn't the most comfortable way to hold it. The Crazy Grip is a wooden handle for your miniatures. It works like a charm and feels really comfortable for long painting sessions!

The Crazy Grip!

Next, I walked over to the HUGE stand of sceneryworkshop.nl where I met up with Patrick. I've been a long time customer of his company and it was nice to finally meet him in person! He had one of the largest and most prominent stands on the event and it was obvious he put a lot of work in!

Alongside the SceneryWorkshop stand was a small stand where Maartje from magie-miniatures.blogspot.com was painting. She was trying out the Scale75 unnatural flesh colors.

For a little while, I was wandering the expo area and I walked into a table where the guys from chestnutink.blogspot.com were painting and giving demonstrations. After a demo from Francois about painting NMM steel, I was interviewed by the local newspaper about the demonstration.

I also had a very nice one-on-one talk with Kyle from http://Mr Lee's Painting Emporium. He was nice enough to give me advice on how to paint contrast in the skin of my orc bust! We spend a good 30 to 45 minutes talking about shading and highlights. It has been a huge help and it really improved how I look at the model now!

Most of my team was spend at the booth of Broken Toad and Savage Forged Minis with Kris and Dennis. Dennis is an artist who sculpts busts and miniature figures, something which in my humble opinion he is very talented at! We used to hang out in Google hangouts back when I was still a member of Chilling Wargamers, so we go back a while. Kris is known from the excellent products from Broken Toad. From pigment powders to brushes to busts, Kris has it all! And it's all beautiful!

My personal highlight was when I got to shake the hand of my source of inspiration and information. Roman from Massive Voodoo! I was kind of starstruck when I approached him because to me he is some sort of painting hero. He turned out to be a super nice guy as well!

Me and Roman! Good times!

The only "bad" thing about events like this is that they are a real-life money sink... I already started saving up for next year!

Thank you for reading my rambling... I want to write a couple of short product reviews of the goods I bought at SMC so keep a look out for those! (I promise I'll post them soon, really!)