Casualty round success

So once again I was able to pull it out and get my bonus round submitted to Curt's competition. I made a conscious decision to go very basic with the techniques because I didn't want to mess anything up. I probably should have used some of the Tamiya Clear Red I bought, but I was afraid of over doing it. Here are some bonus fancy pictures I took, that I did not submit to Curt. If you'd care to leave you thoughts about the pictures, all critiques are appreciated.

I also took these with a larger depth of field, but I like the softening of the background and edges for a vignette.

Here is what I wrote to Curt:

"I am proud to submit my entry into the casualty round this week. Not because of the skill displayed, but because I knuckled down and did it in two days after procrastinating like all get out. Most of you can pump out figures without breaking a sweat, I am well known for never finishing anything.

These three figures are 28mm scale and come from two manufacturers. The two on the ground come from the Conquest Norman infantry set that I won from Mike at Trouble at T'Mill. The standing fellow with the arrow in his chest I can't remember what he was but I bought him in the early 90's with some equally accoutered crossbowmen. His slotta tab says OUCH!

The paint scheme was yellow and blue, I used a burnt umber ink wash and then drybrushing of the base color. Again not winning any awards but serviceable. We're going for completion here. The standing figure is on a 20mm square plastic slotta base, while the two ground casualties are on custom plywood bases with angles that would make Cthulhu proud. If you ever need a 40mm x 39mm base, I'm your man. The groundwork was my normal airdry clay, texture gel and sand. The only modification to the process was the application of a bead of glue near the edges of the plywood. This helped to keep the clay from lifting up from the edges as it dried.

I'll finish with a little about this weeks photography. While I did continue to use the Aperture priority setting at f16, I altered my normal protocol. I used a tripod and infrared remote and set up next to a window with decent natural light. I also used my new flash diffuser, but in the end went with the straight daylight shots. The flash tends to highlight the flaws and the daylight ones seem to show how they look in person better.

Thanks for looking."

Although I cleared up my usual mistakes and omissions with my submission I did forget to mention that the shield was hand painted. To me it was obvious, what with the shaky lines and all.

Just to compare, here is the first picture with all the same settings, just using the flash with diffuser.

I like the boldness of the colors but I felt that the flaws showed more and there was still a bit of shininess off the matte varnish from the flash. What do you think?

Since I could not identify the metal figure, here he is without paint.

I tried looking it up on Stuff of Legends but if my initial assumption about the range is wrong, I'm not sure how to track him down.

I should have some more stuff to show you soon. I didn't paint as much as I'd like yesterday, but I'm making steady progress.

I'd like to finish today's post with a big thank you to Edwin King of The Depressive Diplomatist. After seeing my son's painting efforts he contacted me about sending him some plastic figures. The Mantic skeletons and orcs are just up his alley and "Woohoo" and "Jackpot" were uttered. This thank you should really be its own post, but I just wanted to acknowledge Edwin's generosity before something flew by and caught my attention. I hope to have progress reports of my son's painting before long. I'm going to try and let him do what he wants with these and just support him, rather than micro manage him.

Thanks to all Veterans

The kids have off school and my wife took off from work for this veterans day.

Although I have never served, many in my family have. So to them, and all others who have stepped up I say thanks.

I'm sorry that I have not posted in awhile but I'm in high gear to get our house presentable for the relatives who will descend upon us for Thanksgiving in a few weeks time. Thus far this has entailed me assembling an armoire and two sofas from Ikea as well as donate our large sofa to goodwill. For the time being we are keeping the old love seat in the front room.

In gaming related news, I managed to buy a door mat for $10 at Ikea to make row crop terrain a la Mitch's example here. Also for the Talomir campaign I will be fighting the Stygustani invasion of Treyine. This will see me, hopefully, completing that Stygustan army and then almost the exact same Treyine army that I started and aborted way back in September of 2012 here.

In Fat Loss competition news I am sad to report that I did not win the club honors. I did, however go from ~15% to 9.5% body fat and lost about 13lbs. So I reached my goals, although I was not trying to lose so much weight. The guy who won our club deserved it, I don't know what his numbers were but he looked great. So on to the next phase, calorie increase and try to add muscle while staying lean. If I could just get my back to not hurt.

And lastly, although I'm covered with bruises, it was nice to have Joe back at San Soo last night. He''s been busy with work for the last few weeks and rolling with his 20 something son is not the same. There's no replacement for middle aged pent up aggression.

Although totally unrelated to the holiday I'll leave you with a tribute to the man that brought us San Soo in Phoenix. You can see me at 3:48 (not doing anything cool) as we pose for a picture at an event where I met Master Leitch in 2008. I'm in the front in a Yellow shirt on the left. My instructor is the guy behind me with a beard in a black shirt.