Editing Miniature Photos with Gimp

I watched this nice video on editing your photos to better display miniature online.  I'm most definitely not a graphic designer, but this is simple enough that I can follow.  I just need to assemble some sort of light box to improve my photos.  I'll be trying this out soon!

Wraithseer WIP #2

Broke the airbrush out last night after finishing the assembly up on the Wraithseer and put the base coats down.  One thing I love about this army is how fast you can paint it, while having it still look nice.  Still need to do the ten trillion gems and other detail work.  I'm going to do the spear blade and shield with the airbrush in some nice purples when it's dried enough to mask off.  Will be putting snow on the base as well.

 

 

Wraithseer Conversion WIP

I finished up my conversion for a Wraithseer for my Mymeara Eldar.  It was not too difficult and I'm really pleased with the result.  The base is just a plastic Wraithlord kit and a D-cannon from a Support Weapon platform.  The spear is made out of the wraithsword cut off on top, plastic q-tips for the shaft and then the fuel tank from a flamer from the wraithlord kit for the butt.  There is a wire run through the whole length of the spear to give it strength.  The shield is just made from plasticard with a spirit stone glued to it.  Really excited to get this painted up and ready to play.

Ice Table WIP #3

 

I managed to get all of the white portions painted yesterday and it is really coming together.  I will give the snow areas a coating of Future floor to give a nice glistening effect and then I just need to figure out how to do my ice.  I'm thinking clear resin with a little blue and a little white ink or paint mixed in.  I'll try to pick some up this evening for testing purposes over the weekend.

Terrain Failure - Ice Crystals

Cutting the ice pillars

Painting the ice pillars

Gloss varnishing the ice pillars fail!

Last night the wife and I had a crafting/Star Trek night.  While she worked on some crocheting I pulled a bunch of scrap foam from building the table to work on some ice crystals to use as terrain.  Managed to make a whole bunch of various sizes and was pretty pleased with the result.  I used some cheap acrylic craft paint (only slightly darker than the actual blue of the foam) and dry brushed the edges white.  This morning before work, I took them outside and gave them a spray of gloss varnish to give them a nice shinny look, but to my dismay they started dissolving away despite the paint!  Generally I use a thicker latex paint on foam which will protect it enough that spray paints and varnishes will work, but the acrylic paint is not thick/strong enough.  Probably half are ruined beyond repair, the other half should be alright, but I'll need to make more.  Next time I'm going to use Future Floor polish through the airbrush instead to avoid further failure.

Ice Table WIP #3

 

Did a little more work the last few days.  Put the third board section together (also have enough left over to do a fourth board later), and sanded the flat snowy portions of the board.  Next step will to do the white over-brushing to give a better snow effect.  I will probably end up gloss coating the board as well to have it look a little more snow-like.  I still need to figure out how to do the iced-over river.  Probably use resin with a little white and blue paint mixed in to cloud it up a little and give that a try.  Also time to start making plans for the various terrain bits that I will be doing.  Probably will start on the ice-crystal forests tonight and plan some pumping station style buildings.  Not sure what else I want to do.

I also found a similar board here that someone has built, and will be using some of his ideas, especially on the ice crystal forest.  Hopefully mine looks as good when it's finished.

Ice Table WIP #2

 

 

I managed to do more work on the ice table.  I attached the foam to the plywood and put a base coat of light blue paint on the whole thing.  Also picked up the rest of the materials for the third board section, as I didn't have enough of the 1.5" foam to do the board.  Also you can see the test fitting of some of the details that are going to be added.  For the third section I'm considering narrowing the river down and maybe building some sort of bridge over it.  Though I want to be able to stack these boards on each other, so most detail needs to be removable.  Also I need to figure out what to do for the pumping station in the middle of the river.