Wargaming Tradecraft

Headshots Marathon Wrap & Thanks.. and Up Next at Wargaming Tradecraft

2012-05-29T13:00:00.000-04:00

Well, the weekend is over, and the whole event was quite an experience. We got 3,508 Headshots, (including every boss in the first play through) raised over $2,500 for Childs Play (assuming all the pledges come through) and put on quite the show. If you forgot and want to make a last minute donation, the ChipIn Widget will be up for the next week. What do you get for your money now? Besides helping sick kids, you can still watch video from the event!

There was a fantastic bunch of donations for some great people and companies, an entertaining batch of volunteers and some great viewers who stuck in there for a great deal of the event. We also appreciate the support we got in the miniatures community, so thanks House of Paincakes and Father Geek... and of course, a HUGE thank-you to MiniWarGaming for supplying the miniatures I've painted over the last month.

Next up at Wargaming Tradecraft...

Needless to say, I'm a little burned out. Six well-painted miniatures and fancy bases in under 2 months with a full-time job was definitely an over-commitment. Except for a little time here and there wielding a Plasma Cannon in Space Marine, (as "N++") all my spare hours went in to painting... and that's too much.

I'll be taking a brief break to shift gears a bit and take care of some things around the apartment, fiddle with some server stuff, game, veg, sleep and a wedding to attend shortly. My thanks ahead of time for being understanding. You might find some neat things over at Tech Tradecraft though.

To the people who've sent me Network requests... I haven't forgotten about you - and I'll add you to the list once I'm back.

To all my Twitter followers - sorry for the "spam" over the weekend as I was promoting #Headshots like crazy. Please forgive the efforts of a good cause.

WHEN I'M BACK,

there will of course be more painting of my Hordebloods to continue working on my Hordes army.
I'm also going to look at my Techniques and Supplies pages and get back to writing some actual tutorials - the original intent of this blog. I've got some even saved as drafts that just need finishing... like water tutorials...
sooo, less WIP, more TUT.
Experimenting with a new art style on those Borderlands miniatures was a real good time.. I've been wanting to for a while, and I think you can expect to see me playing with art styles and theory some more..

I think Marcus looks the best... I'm floored at how well he turned out.

Borderlands Charity Marathon Broadcasting in 30 minutes!

2012-05-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

Starting at 12:30pm EST (9:30am PST) and for the next 24 hours...

Four of us and a host of volunteers and interviewees will be raising money for Childs Play, a charity that donates to sick children. We'll be playing Borderlands the entire time, and besides accepting straight donations, are taking pledges for the number of headshot kills we make. There are also plenty of auctions for you to check out - from the miniatures I've been painting over the last month, to an 8-bit Megaman afghan my wife crocheted and a bunch of other geeky crafts of excellent quality & value... even VIP meet and greet tickets to see The Tea Party during their reunion tour this summer!

WATCH US

You can find all the details at http://headshotsmarathon.org
Follow all the awesomeness on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeadshotsHeart or trending with #Headshots

Please repost this on your own blogs to help out!

Headshots from the Heart: Borderlands Figures Completed

2012-05-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

The miniature Borderlands figures I've painted for our Headshots from the Heart charity marathon are complete! Below are the final photos of this great task, and remember that you can try to win them during the event by bidding in our auctions. (All proceeds go to the Childs Play Charity) The 24 hour marathon begins this Sunday the 26th at 12.30p.

To sweeten the deal, my dad's made 3 very nice glass display bells - we're going to include them with the three figures that end up auctioning for the most. (So if you want one, you'll have to keep this in mind!)

These are all painted in a style new to me. I've tried to achieve the cell-shaded look from the video game using exaggerated shadows and highlights while experimenting with how I apply them to the models. This may be less realistic, but I'm greatly satisfied with what I've created over the last two months and think they turned out looking fantastic!

I'm sure what you're wondering though is, "What do they look like?" I've posted the standard quality photos first, and included uber-high-res ones at the end of the article.

If you want to take a look at posts that show these works in progress, with descriptions, you can read the series. (I'll also be adding them to my Step by Step page.)

the Borderlands heroes...

Brick - played by Myself

Mordecai - played by Chris

Lilith - played by Jim

Roland - played by Amanda

and the bonus models...

Moxxi

"Young Marcus"

High-Resolution Photos

DISCLAIMER - these figures are a few inches tall, not 3 feet tall. High-res are great for looking at specific details, but can also make models appear lower quality. Judge them by the above photos, which are closer to the actual size of the figures.

With many thanks to MiniWarGaming and their crew for donating the miniatures that are being painted for this project.

Final figures will be auctioned off, all proceeds going to the Childs Play charity during the Headshots from the Heart marathon.

Headshots: Bases

2012-05-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

This project wouldn't be complete without creating some nice display bases for the figures to stand on.

As mentioned earlier, I'm creating 2 bases for each figure: 1, using their normal base, making them legal for playing... and the 2nd is a larger base with a little decoration for display purposes.

All models are magnetized for this reason.

I've taken a model VW shaggin'-wagon to create some bus debris. Chop some parts up, add a little bit of fire to melt and twist these parts to get a natural look, and here's where we're at. You'll also notice I've green stuffed the first stands on their generic bases so they stand firmly.

And here they are on their display bases. Again, I've used green stuff to form firm foot holds for them, all with magnets inside.

The generic bases I prime black, which makes a nice undercoat for sand.

The display bases I prime white, to keep in style with the models.

A little wet-painting, heavy washing, and air-brushing later, we have the start of painting the bases complete.

Now I've added pigments...

And finally, the bases cell-shaded / highlighted and pictured with their figures.

And pictured by themselves after sanding them up and spraying on a protective varnish.

Tune in later today for photos of the completed Borderlands miniatures.

Headshots: Moxxi WIP

2012-05-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

With a big push this holiday weekend, I completed Moxxi, my final Borderlands figure. Basing is up next, and a few final touch-ups all around. Hoping to be done today.

...but that's not the topic of todays post.

Nothing new here... as I've been doing, here are the base colours that I'll be using.

You'll notice there's a slight shading on Moxxi's red.

And now I've done more shading to her outfit, as well as shading her skin pinker, adding red to the yellow trim for a firey look and highlighting her hair.

You'll also notice that I've shaded her right leg differently. Darker. This leg's in fishnets, and it'll just need some diamond patterning to create this.

Here I've created her face... and I think I need to recreate it in the final steps. I like this softer look.

Next I've done more shading and highlighting. Cleaning things up over-all before cell-shading.

Finally, here she is. As I mentioned above, I think I'll need to touch up her face to soften it. Otherwise, feels good to be at this point!

Headshots: Marcus WIP 3

2012-05-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Not much to say about this step. I've done the highlighting, and Marcus is completed!

Headshots: Marcus WIP 2

2012-05-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

As life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes, I only got the cell-shading completed.

I've come across areas that will need some highlight cleaning, and after that, I'll be doing the cell-highlighting.

Then, only one more Borderlands figure to go + basing!

Headshots: Marcus WIP 1

2012-05-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

Looks like I had a very productive weekend, and not just on the Borderlands figures. I also wrote up a very detailed post on how to stream multiple computers online. But yes, I also finished Brick (though realized I have a few buckles / bolts to attend to) and got a good deal of work done on Marcus.

And I don't just mean the basic colouring...

... or the washing / shading.

(or noticing that a lot of characters in Borderlands have black pants, which seams unpractical for a desert wasteland.)

But I also got all his highlighting completed.

I'm really having fun painting these cloaks... don't know why... but I'm digging it like I used to dig painting chain mail.

(actually, I cheated on this highlighting step. To fill him out, I used white pigment on his thigh and shin guards.)

I even completed shading and highlighting with pigments to soften everything up.

That's an awesome amount of work done for a weekend and next will be his cell-shading. I'm hoping to finish Marcus and Moxxi by the end of Friday, which'll give me the long weekend to base them all, and finish with just under a week to spare!

Headshots: Brick WIP 3

2012-05-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

In the final steps of the Borderlands figure Brick, I've done the cell shading / highlighting and taken care of some of the smaller details.

In the first steps, I've taken care of highlights.. area, edges, and hashing.

Then I do the same thing with shading, including faces.

Can't forget that Brick isn't actually bald... he does have some hair.

Now, Brick in all his cell-shaded glory!

Please do give some feedback... I'm really interested in knowing how this style is turning out.

Board Game Geek userbase possibly compromised

2012-05-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/801384/please-read-security-breach-information
Thanks to @WindsorGaming for pointing this one out.

It would seem that Board Game Geek's servers may have been compromised. If you have an account over there, it's strongly recommended that you change your password immediately.

As usual, whenever a system is compromised, if you use that same password / email combination elsewhere, you should immediately change your passwords in those other places as well.

Headshots: Brick WIP 2

2012-05-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

Continuing on from the last post, I've taken the basic colour and wash and go further in the highlighting of the Brick Borderlands figure.

Basically, the above photo shows various layers of highlighting on the basic wash. While a wash adds some definition to the model, but real highlighting cleans things up and adds truer detail to the figure.

In the following photos, I've gone further with the washing and blending to to take the model roughly where I want it to be before I start cell-shading.

I'd ask what you think, but I wouldn't hear you over the green of his gun... Yeah, I'll be tuning that down.

Headshots: Brick WIP 1

2012-05-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

And now, it's time to begin painting my Borderlands figure: Brick.

A lot more space to paint as he's quite a bit larger than the others. In the interest of keeping things interesting, I'm still trying to do things a little different

To begin, I hash out the colours I'm planning on using, like when I started Lilith. Instead of painting, I thin down everything and wash the colours on. But also, while his blue jeans are still wet, I add some layers of highlights using whites and greys. By doing this while the base layer is wet, you can really blend things nicely.

I've also highlighted his skin with some bleached bone, while leaving the shadows untouched. This adds a much needed softening to his skin.

Nurgle's plague has been circulating my work lately, which has impacted the speed of my progress, but I do believe I'm on the mend, so you should see more next time.

Headshots: Mordecai WIP 2

2012-05-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

Got a lot done this weekend, and I finished off the Mordecai Borderlands figure, so this is the last of his posts.

Now, I know he's already pretty highlighted, but I use some white paint to do a little more highlighting before shading.

Then I begin adding some of the shadow and outlining in the next steps. I've worked on the whole thing mostly at once, but there are a few distinctions to make. Here, the shading is light, but I haven't gone heavy yet.

Then I go to more detail with heavier shadows and some more obvious shading. Notice that on Mordecai I've still used the slash / \ and hash # shading / highlighting method.

And to finish off, I've intensified the shadows and done some detailing. The smaller things and such, skulls, etc. A little more detail on the skin, gun, knife, holster.

Headshots: Mordecai WIP 1

2012-05-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

The next Borderlands figure that I'm painting is Mordecai, the sniper. I'm using the Games Workshop Vindicare Assassin, just because he's basically an awesome sniper.

I've tried some pretty unique techniques in this first phase of painting, and it's coming together pretty well. I expect to be done by Sunday. (fingers crossed)

The first thing I've done is applied a few layers of washes... that's it. No paint. His black pants got 2 layers of black wash, and his darker brown chest / back / head got Devlan Mud, Black, then another Mud.

As I'm trying to experiment with some new things, I hop directly to pigments. (powders that you brush on, like make-up) I do this, because it's the best way I've found to make black look good, and actually highlighted.

So on top of the above wash, I've brushed on black, grey and white pigments, which blend so smoothly.

You still need to brush them on with the same amount of control as if you're painting... it's not dry-brushed on.

Here I've done 3 layers of brown pigments on top of the original wash, darker to light.

I tried them for skin tones as well, which got me close, but not right. I'll have to go over this area with some paint to lighten it.

You'll also notice the transition from grey/blue to skin. Well, Mordecai's shirt doesn't cover all of his arms. The Vindicare wears a skin-tight suit, so I'm able to just paint each part how I like, which I'll trim to add definition.

Finally, I pigmented up some other areas... holsters, bags, gun barrel. I even used a soft green on the whole of the gun to ease off the camo.

Next step... I'll actually start painting ;)

Headshots: Lilith WIP 3

2012-05-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

So if you'll recall, we ended the last post with Lilith appearing complete, but certainly needing some more work to increase contrast. If you'll take a look lower, not only do I cover the cell-shading, but also some pigment (powder) work.

So the first step is I use an actual black wash and a very fine brush to trace in all the edges and shadows. This is just a preliminary step to add some darkness to the model, before going in with a darker black to make those areas really pop. Mostly, I just run the brush across areas, creating a thickish line of shadow.

Next, instead of using a wash, I use black paint that I've thinned slightly with water. The water helps it run smoothly, but keeping it thick enough that it doesn't run and the black colour stays strong. So here I've added all sorts of shadows to add some contrast and strengthen the softer black wash.

You'll notice in the above and below photos that rather than just draw dark lines on edges, which would create thick unnatural looking shadows, I keep the shading rough. This means pulling the shadows away from crevices, adding them to cracks, chips, tears and such. Then, for open areas, I've used dashes, swipes, hashes and such.

Not a huge leap from the above, but below I've basically just done a little highlighting to clean up and soften the shading.

After highlighting, she was still missing something...

Solution: I broke out the pigments. For those not familiar, these are basically powders that you rub on. (Which I use an eye-liner brush for) They're usable in multiple situations, and when you want dirt, create the effect quite well.

You'll also notice they have a secondary effect of some very clean blending.

Over the next few days, while working on my next figure, I'll be using some water effect gel to create a bit of a hand burst of Lilith's psychic powers.

Headshots: Lilith WIP 2

2012-05-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

As things continue, they're coming along well! Sorry about missing Sundays post, but I had a wedding to attend 6 hours north. (oddly, warmer than here, which is unusual in this great North)

However, I got a lot done today, which I'll share with you ahead... Please keep in mind that I'm still skipping the contrast step, that'll come next.

It starts with legs, because why not? Well, actually, because I like to start with colours I'm more sure of how I want the composition. That way, more of the model will be complete when I'm deciding on smaller details.

So I blended up her legs, then her top. I highlighted with pink, which you always need to be careful about... otherwise it looks too unnatural.

Next up was the strapping on her kneed-pads. A pretty simple matter, though also some fine lining with black to trim the white.

Then a little more work to bring out her jacket.

And her frilly cloth parts...which couldn't get too light, so I mostly just blended some lights and washed in some dirty shadows.

I enjoyed painted her armour up.

First I blotched it with a dark grey paint using a rough dry-brush. (dabbing, not brushing) I'd have sponged if the area wasn't so small.
(top photo)

I followed up with the same technique, but using white paint instead of dark grey.
(middle photos)

As a final touch, I washed a dark grey/blue paint over the armour to "steel" it.
(last photo)

So I'm not great with faces, but for charity, I'll try. Went light on the lips, and a slight highlight. Painted a little blush on first, then some tan as a shade and off-white as a highlight. The eyes were simple white, yellow, black dots... and don't forget to mark on some eyebrows.

Going with a little brassy look for the backpack, which I'm going to tweak some more after I cell-shade.

And now, some larger photos to show you overall how Lilith is doing... Next up, I'll be cell-shading with some deep black washing, highlighting here and there, and doing what touch-ups are required. After that, will be a little glow effect on her hand for the whole psychic-power-blasty-thing.

You'll also notice I've highlighted her hair a little more, and taken care of the trim on her cloak.

By the way, I left this photo near original quality if you want to blow it up...

Headshots: Lilith 1

2012-04-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've begun painting Lilith next. For her, I'm going with a little softer colouring.

It's been a while since I've painted with a white base, and because of this, I'm using a different technique as far as the flow and order of things goes.

I began painting Lilith's skin first, which is really pale for someone who spends her time under the burning sun. It's also got a little bit of a grey tint.

Quickly, it became apparent that I can't just start by painting her skin because it's too close to the white base all around it.

I started to paint her hair, which is crazy bold, and it's going to be. But it still wasn't enough, and I thought back to how I used to paint with lighter colours.

So the next step I took here was to roughly and lightly paint on all the colours I'll be using on her. Think of it like how an artist might sketch their image before committing the time and detail to creating a masterpiece.

I've done the same thing here... and all the paints I'm applying are being thinned with water so they go on like a wash. Some of the benefits of doing things this way are:

light colours are easy to build on and paint over.
washing will seep in to crevices, giving you an idea where to shade and highlight.
You can look at the overall model and get an idea of what the finished product will look like.

Don't worry about the painting being rough. These colours are still light enough to paint over AND, that roughness can add character to the final image if it's the style you're going for. (which I am)

Again, I'm going after a dirtier look, so I created some splatter effects with a darker brown paint, pretty much all over.. though focusing on her clothes.

It looks really messy now, but I'll be covering up a lot of that... sometimes it pays to paint a dirty undercoat, if you use thinner layers later... you'll get a bit of a natural dirt appearance.

Like I said, it's dirty, but it's going to be covered up. Here's her cloak after a bunch of layers of various shades of brown thinned with water. Adding all those extra layers is what makes the appearing more natural.

I started in the darker areas, worked up to the edges with a white highlight, and worked back down to the shadows again. By being inconsistent with where the paint and shades went, and layering it a few times, it just looks more natural.

Part of the reason I went so light on the cloak is that in game, Lilith doesn't actually have a cloak... so I wanted to de-emphasize it by going lighter.

Because I'm using light colours and style, I'm going to postpone washing and cell-shading for when the whole mini is ready. The washing will clean up the transition between shades, and the cell-shading will create a bold edge to emphasize the coloured areas. By doing all the sections at once, it makes it easier to make everything look uniform.

alright, lay it on me!

Headshots: Roland WIP 3

2012-04-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

In the final instalment of my work on Roland, I take care of some of the smaller details to wrap it all up. The base still isn't done, but that'll come later... I want them all to look similar, so I'm going to base them all at the same time.

A simple matter with his combat knife.. I use shades of grey to give the knife a steel appearance.

Worth noting is something I've played with a little on this mini is tinting blue in my darker metallic greys. This is another way to create a cool steel look.

For some of the darker greys that Roland has, I use a heavy black wash over white as a base. Then, I follow this up with shades of grey (no blue this time) to highlight. This gets finished with white along the edges to add a highlight.

His back area has a bunch of smaller details.

The grenades have some camo to light green colouring.

The bags were beige and browns, highlighted with bone and shaded with brown and black. All these layers were done wet and while the previous layer was still wet. This creates a natural blend. I use a similar method on his bed roll, but with lighter shades.

His shovel has more examples of the blue-grey, cold steel look.

One of the pics I was going from had his gun with some camo, so I decided to replicate that here. This is just painting some shades of green on, then adding wavy black camo streaks.

I didn't go with the blue-greys on his gun though, I wanted a deeper, darker steel.

The next photo is the final version. Before it, I've gone around the mini and done whatever touch-ups I can find. This means strengthening shadows to increase contrast and amplify the cell-shaded look. It also means going over the mini and adding highlights.

whatcha think?

Headshots: Roland WIP 2

2012-04-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

When last I worked on Roland, I'd completed both his skin tones and his clothed areas. A good place to start, but not really representative of his overall look.

Today, I painted up his armour, and I ended up with a fantastic looking model if I do say so myself. Still a ways before being done, but a great proof of concept for this whole project.

The first area I painted was his chest armour. I really want to give these models that "Borderlands look" and that means being ok with dirt, age, wear, tear and brush strokes. It still has to be clean enough that it looks good though. So to achieve this, I start with a washed green base, then the same green but with less water to add darker streaks. Then I switch to a brownish-grey and ad more streaks... then BACK to the original green to cover and blend out the brown. As a final step, I use a light green thinned to a wash to highlight the armour. Even while highlighting and blending, I allow streaking and I'm careful to paint "with the grain" to keep its uniform appearance.

Once I've painted on all the green, this is what we have:

Not great yet, because while there's a lot of nice brushed green armour, there's no shading. Before we get to that though, I'm going to paint the trim so that I can shade them together.

my apologies for the photos... my camera is once again being stupid...

Next we have a before and after photo of the cell-shading (taken with my phone) which really shows where he's at.

Now, what do I mean by cell-shading? It's that rendering style that video games use to make their graphics look like cartoons. (Most notably the black out-lining around everything) I usually avoid shading with black washes these days, because a black shade tends to destroy colour. I prefer to use darker shades of the colour I'm painting.

However, this is the other aspect of that "borderlands style" - contrast. Borderlands has a bold look, and this is partly created by using light colours to fill space, and making them stand out by going very dark in the shadows and edges.

Close ups with my microscope let you see that I'm keeping the black wash just to crevices. Basically, I just used a fine brush and painted the black wash in, rather than the usual method of slapping a wash all over a surface.

As I said before, I think as of this step I'm happy with where things are headed... definitely a pleasing "proof of concept" step to move forward full steam ahead.

What do you think?

Weekly Update

2012-04-23T02:00:00.000-04:00

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft

Last Week in the Community

Charity

News

Tutorials

A great step by step painting tutorial http://chestofcolors.com/malifaux-seamus-mad-hatter-tutorial/

Ron looks at layering paint http://fromthewarp.blogspot.ca/2012/04/7-quick-tips-and-tricks-for-best-paint.html

Detailed How to paint Grey Knights http://taleofpainters.blogspot.ca/2012/04/tutorial-how-to-paint-grey-knights.html

Tips

More fantastic WIP, especially the skin and such http://gimnir.blogspot.ca/2012/04/lietpold-black.html

Gallery

A nice classic Land Raider http://40khobbyblog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/lr-proteus-base-coating-done.html

Thor finished his Obliterators http://creativetwilight.com/obliterators-complete

Some amazing Thousand Sons found in the forums http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.ca/2012/04/it-came-from-forums-update-kolonel.html

Musing

Gaming

Headshots: Roland WIP 1

2012-04-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

I decided to start with Roland first. He's a larger model than the tinier female bodies without being over-sided like Brick.

This gives me a little more ability to play with the style and see what I can achieve.

First up, was working on Roland's face, which I've photographed here using a cheap digital microscope.

Sometimes it's easier to paint the eyes first.. there's less chance of painting "outside the lines". This means do what you need to to get the eyes done, then paint the face around them.

I'll admit it... I'm not practiced with darker skin tones, but to be fair I'm usually painting Eldar, or more recently, Hordeblood Orcs. I used some elvish skin tones mixed with brown to highlight the brown face tones. This allowed me to lighten the skin without getting pasty or pale from adding white. As a final step, I've added some black outlines, since I'm going for the cell-shaded look.

So, I know Roland doesn't actually have a cloak, but his cloth areas are black, so that's what I'm going to go with for the cloak on this miniature. I start by washing a light grey over the area, and a little darker grey to bring out shadows and imperfections.

Then I want to make the undercoat a little messy. First, this is done by using some black paint and stippling with sponges. Then, I add some pin-striping with a thin tipped marker.

Around here, my plans changed. I was just going to add some lighter grey and white striping around the pin stripes, but as it turns out, the marker (while dry to the touch) will still bleed when wetted with paint. That let me create a nice blended look, and tinted things a little blue-grey. I only pin-striped his cloak, so the rest of his cloth (straps, belt, wraps, etc) are still grey... gives a nice little bit of diversity.

To finish up the shading of the cloak, I add a black wash, emphasizing in the shadows. By doing this, it gave a final blend to the pin-striping. Yes, it pulled away some of the obviousness of the lines, but it cleans up the blending quite a bit.

The above photo's still a little dark however, so the cloak needs one more step of highlighting. This is where my pigments come in handy, so I use some white powder and brush it along edges and lightly around raised areas. Pigments are a great way to softly highlight and get nice smoothly blended transitions.

So where do we stand? Well take a look for yourself:

Headshots: Assemblage

2012-04-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

The figures came in from MiniWarGaming, so I've been able to get started on the project!

First step was cleaning away all the mold lines, which always takes time, but well worth it.

There are a few modifications I need to make, but not many.

For example, Lilith doesn't wield a sword. I use a small saw to cut the sword off, and a slice in her hand. Next a pair of needle nose pliers works to open up her hand in to an energy blast sort of position.

It's smart to pin larger minis, and to be safe, I decided to pin most of the joints on these figures.

Some of them needed a little filling with green stuff, but I've actually needed less sculpting that I originally expected.

I had to add some hair to Lilith and Moxxi, since they both have this thing about covering their right eyes.

All the figures will fit on both their normal sized bases, and larger display bases, depending on what the winners want to do with them.

Magnets are the best way to handle this, so I've drilled out all their feet and glued, then green stuffed magnets in to the cavities.

I still need to give Moxxi a hat, but I'll wait for her hair to dry first.

Charity: Headshots from the Heart

2012-04-15T09:43:00.000-04:00

http://www.headshotsmarathon.org

On May 26th at 1pm, a couple friends, my Wife and I will begin a 24 hour marathon of playing the video game Borderlands to raise money for the Childs Play Charity.

"A game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide."- about Child's Play

The entire event will be broadcast online, hosted by more friends and volunteers. We'll have a chat room set up so that everyone can join in with the fun as well.

How to Help Out

We're taking pledges to raise money based on head shot kills. (Critical Kills) The game keeps track and we'll total things up at the end then ask you to make the donation in the final amount. (Up to your max pledge.) In testing, this could be around 3600 kills... so if you pledged 1 penny per kill, you might end up donating $36.

Of course we're also taking direct donations if you just want to give a set amount.

You can also donate stuff for us to auction off during the event. (Such as geeky or gaming related products or crafts) Or if you'd rather, you can help support the event to cover some of our expenses. (Contact us to work out details)

If you're a business or organization, we have a page dedicated to providing credit for our Sponsors. We're just getting rolling, so help us fill that site up!

If you live in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario, Canada, then feel free to Email us about volunteering during the event.

All donations and auction winnings are being accepted using the ChipIn widget, so money goes directly to the charity without going through us.

Socialize

You can also help out by advertising the event. Anything helps... a post on your site, a small banner, big banner... we appreciate it all. Winding up to the event, we'll all be posting various updates on the Headshots site as well as organizational info that might give others insight in to putting on their own events.

Follow us online:

Or add one of our banners:
Blogger users can click "Add Widget" on any of the banners here to quickly add a link to the Headshots site to your own blog.

That's Not All!

Remember how I mentioned there were going to be auctions during the event? I'm going to be painting 4 - 6 themed figures over the next month and a half.

A BIG thanks goes out to the guys and gals at MiniWarGaming, who have agreed to sponsor us! This is an awesome crew who have an online store with a wide variety of miniatures and resources (When TheWife bought my Hordebloods from them, they actually included free surprise candy) and they've also got a huge amount of videos full of battle reports, tutorials and other useful info. On a personal note, it was getting involved in their very positive forum that sparked the bug which led to me launching Wargaming Tradecraft in the first place.

They've provided the figures, so here's the plan:

The first four will be themed after the Borderlands player characters, and then time permitting I'll paint Moxxi and a young Marcus. Artistically, I'm going to try to bring that cell-shaded look to 3D figures and I'm aiming to magnetize them to be usable on their normal bases, and some larger ones for display purposes. You'll be able to watch these miniatures unfold both here and on the Headshots website.

The miniatures themselves are from Privateer Press, and I chose them because they resemble the characters quite well. There will still be a little sculpting and modding to make them look closer, but not too much. The Mordecai character may be modelled on the Vindicare Assassin from Games Workshop, we'll see.

For those interested, these are the miniatures:

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/units/ogrun-assault-corps
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/retribution-of-scyrah/solos/ghost-sniper
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1140004&prodId=prod1140033a
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/warcasters/ashlynn-delyse
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/solos/captain-maxwell-finn
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/solos/madelyn-corbeau
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/warcasters/lieutenant-allister-caine-2009

Please note, that I and the Headshots team are not affiliated with 2K Games, Gearbox Games, or the Borderlands franchise.

Weekly Update

2012-04-09T02:00:00.000-04:00

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft

Finished my Krielstone Warlocks, and did some work tweaking away the lag on my website.

Honestly, haven't done much painting this week... I've got another project ramping up that I've been working on, plus the whole holiday and everything.

Expect some big news in the next few days to kick off a month and a half of solid WIP work on something new... (Ooooo....)

Last Week in the Community

Tips

A nice looking Defiler mod / WIP http://warhammerinprogress.blogspot.ca/2012/04/nurgle-defiler-modeling-and-base-coat.html

Toilet paper trees - genius! http://thegoldend6.com/painting-and-modelling/wargame-scenery-trees-ii

Gallery

Awesome Scourge WIP http://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.ca/2012/04/so-far-so-good.html

Vindicators done and looking good! http://lauby.blogspot.ca/2012/04/vindicators-1-2-and-3-final.html

FIXED: Blogger website scroll speed laggy / choppy

2012-04-05T02:41:00.000-04:00

For a while now, I've been bothered by the choppy scrolling that I (and probably you too) have experienced while visiting Wargaming Tradecraft. I like Optimized, and I certainly don't like websites that lag.

After working on Tech Tradecraft, and seeing how smoothly it scrolled, I've been poking with the settings of Wargaming Tradecraft to try and get things to scroll smoother... you may have noticed the ugliness of the repeating background, instead of my nice static no-scroll. I was even pondering blowing away my nice theme with it's transparencies to squeeze out as much speed as I could.

Well, tonight I nailed it!

Turns out, the size (specifically, the height) of your widgets will significantly affect the performance of your Blogger website. I'm not sure how this problem / solution affects the WordPress platform, or if it's specific to all Blogger templates, or just certain ones.

I caught on to this when I increased my "Most Popular" links to 10 from 5... and the lag increased further down the page. Now, my "Topics" section was pretty big - I had it "list" formatted because it looks nicer than "cloud" and I was displaying every label, instead of selecting which to show.

Pictured left, is how they currently look, which seems to be a non-laggy respectable size. Because of the cloud "look", I've also cleaned my list of labels, only displaying the pertinent ones.

Sure enough, pictured right, the layout that INSTANTLY lags my site the moment I switch it from cloud to list. Trimming the number of labels only affects the length of the larger amount of lag your site is affected by... so it'll lag a lot, until you're past the list, then continue to lag some.

Yes, cloud is kind of ugly, but I'll choose cloud over lag any day. In theory, it might be possible to manually create links to all your label displays... maybe I'll attempt that in the future... but right now, I'm happy with my smoothly scrolling site once more. (I've also shrunk my blog-roll a bit, which also seems to help)

(Although, my archive widget can get pretty long when you open it up, and it doesn't seem to lag the site at all... so this problem may be with specific widgets, not "All long widgets lag")

** WARNING **

Blogger's bulk add/remove label features are apparently buggy... hence why I'm up later than I wanted to be.

They were adding labels to the wrong posts and deleting entire labels off EVERY post they were applied to, instead of just the selected ones... I had to manually crawl through a bunch of my posts and re-label them one at a time... ugh.

The perfect way to end a very long 4 / 04.