Was it worth it?

I've "finished" the first Middenhimer champion. I can still see things I should do to him, but it's time to move on.

pictures below, but right now the one question I ask myself is the post title - was it worth it?

Judging on the end result I'm not sure. theres some nice bits on him, but overall I'm not really happy. I suppose maybe I'm one of those people who never is happy with his own work, but..

If I were to judge the experience I'd say it's definately worth it. I've learned a few things, mostly "feel" and I'm also lerning what I need to learn, and do more of. I need/ want to get better at blending, and I need to practice NMM If I want to use it, this is maybe the third peice I've ever tried it on and I can see it's potential. I'm trying to refine my ability to "work small" as I often try to make trasitions too smooth, this means I either end up not covering a wide enough spectrum (tones are too close to each other) or having each application obliterate what I've just done and lead to the end result where theres just not enough dynamic range in the area i'm working.

my photograpy still isnt back on track since I move my room round, the light is my biggest problem, I took these outside today but I do need to buy some higher wattage lights.

anyway here he is for your judgement, I'd appreciate any comments or advice for the next guy.

PIP on the Middenheimer Champion

I've been trying to slow down and take my time with this fellow, and trying a few new things as well, one of which is to use far less washes than usual and try to be bolder in my highlighting.

he's posted as "pip" rather than finished for a few reasons - his base isnt done, clearly. there are some smoothing issues on some of the areas, that's a side effect of my trying to be bolder. His face has photographed a lot "colder" than it is, but that still might need attention, his leather work, bag belt etc hasn't been anywhere near finished.

I've tried out NMM again, mainly because I think it's an excellent lerning exercise for smoother layering/blending. the blade needs more work, the chestplate.. well you tell me.

I'm reasonably happy with the sword hilt however.

here he is.


Now is where you, the wonderful community get to help me improve. what would you do to this mini now to "finish" it?

you all thnk about that, while I work on getting the light right to take a better picture :)

Wow, 50 people? really?

I noticed I've hit 50 followers, and I had to say something about it.

I'm shocked, I honestly never expected a response like that. I started blogging here because I was getting tired of the lack of coomunity on some of the larger hobby websites. I'm not an attntion whore, but in all honesty I post this stuff to hear the opinions of fellow hobbists, so when a post goes unanswerd after a week and 200+ views I move on from that place.

I'm very glad I found this, the people here are great. yes. you.

I get an excellent mix of ideas, positive comments and well phrased criticism and suggestions for improvements. the tutorials posted by fellow hobby bloggers are helping me to improve and I'm seeing more great stuff among these sites than a whole days worth of trolling google.

So thankyou, all 50 of you, and those of you who read but don't follow too.

last thing, an apology for the spareseness of posts the last couple of weeks, It's holiday time and I've been quite busy, I'm also trying desperately to change pace and take my time over individual models in an attempt to improve my painting, I should have someone for you by the end of the week, though knowing my luck he won't look any different than the guys I do in a day arf.

Where did all the Middenheimers go?

Been a bit short on poasts this last week, sorry, two things led to this.

Firstly I fell on my ass in the garden (raucous laughter) actually I fell face first on some slippy moss covered steps, the result being i managed to catch myself with my whole not inconsiderable) weight on the knuckles of my right hand.

yes, I'm right handed.

so I was a bit too sore to paint or model for a good few days, and that led me to finally install the expansion pack for NWN2 storm of zehir. I'm enjoying it immensely, its got the open world feel I like and the trading system makes it feel much more like the TSR games of old.

anyway, modelling wise I've been looking at putting a warband together for mordheim. the figures recently posted were ones assembled over 9 years ago, so imagine my surprise when I look on bits sites for some of my old favourite bits (including stuff I've used on this last DH army) only to find they no longer exist.

the Middenheim bits that used to be in the Mordheim box eventually turned into the famed "hairy head" sprue in the knights of the realm box giving the option to make middenhiemer knights. that is now no longer in the box, so for all intents and purposes those heads dont exist. the title of this post reflects my feeling that, were I to pick up an empire army at any point I would be very lacking in troop options without a ton ov conversion, which is very odd to me seeing how many of the HQ choices for the empire are middenheimers, and still in production.

anyway it's led me to one or two bitz orders, an order from these good people and while I wait some creative GSing.

I present to you my first two kitbashed middenhimers in nearly 10 years!

The first is a champion with a two hander. the facial hair is GS over an empire state troop head, the cloak and puch are GS.



Yes. that's a cat hair. it's been tweezered off now :)

This crossbowman also sports GS hair and beard over a space marive scout head, the body and weapon are from the handgunners sprue and the quiver I think is high elf, strikes me as very odd that they give you cropssbow options in the handgunner box but no quivers.



I've "montaged" these to try and tidy up my act a little, these threads of massive ammounts of pictures are getting a bit dull :) let me know what you think, it a few more minutes work but it got to tidy the blog up no?

Also I'd be (as always) very happy to read any comments on the above.