Do you think he'll notice ... ? - Results!

Well the results of the Forum of Doom Diorama of Doom 2009 competition (snappy title!) are now in!

And guess what?

Bob and Dave have managed to snaffle themselves SECOND Prize!
(or as I like to think of it Alternate First!)

Yay! now I'm "An Award Winning Painter!"

Thanks to all those on the FOD that organised and judged the competition... I'll be back next year... in fact I already have all the mini's and the diorama sketched out...

Wanted List III

I am continuing to fill out my Grenadier Orc and Goblin army and as usual find the easy way to do this is to buy stuff rather than acually do anything as tedious as paint stuff I already have. (Besides I've been selling a lot of stuff on ebay recently to clear out some of the rubbish I had and I need to do something with the money, right?)

Well I thought I had all of the Grenadier Trolls and Orges but it turns out there are a couple I am missing...

The Ogre Beserker (908) and the Ogre Line breaker (907)... so if anyone has these causing topological problems in their lead pile then let me know and I'll happily share some wealth around.

Some of my Ogres that I thought were Grenadier, turn out still to have been sculpted by Nick Lund, but for his Chronicle N14 range which was 'absorbed' into the Citadel line.

Again, I thought I had most of these but it turns out I only have 3! (Well I had 5 but I found two of them had lead rot and their faces had fallen off along with other chunks of their anatomy.) So if any of the rest of these pesky blighters are harassing the elf maidens in your storage system and they need to be relocated then let me know.

I'm sure no-one will notice that my "I'm building a non GW Orc and Goblin army of massive proportions" has suddenly sneaked some GW product in there? Well they're Chronicle NOT Citadel right so thats OK, and besides YOU aren't about to let on are you? Oh, who am I kidding, no-one is reading this anyway...

 EDIT: Just relooking through the Fantasy Warriors range and found this Giant I'd not seen before. Which is odd as reading old grenadier figure catalogues is my current porn of choice. Now I want him too! No idea how big he is (ooo-err missus) or how rare...any info?

Edit 26/11/2009: Yay for e-bay. This is now on its way to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'll have to stop buying stuff for this orc and goblin army otherwise there's a chance they might actually beat my dwarfs!

(All of the above pictures courtesy of the fabulous Stuff of Legends site!)

Finally I saw this on ebay:

It's clearly a Nick Lund sculpt and a Grenadier piece judging by the style and base, but it's not in any of the sites or references I can find. Unfortunately I wasn't the only Grenadier fan chasing this auction and I underbid. But if you have a reference for it, or even better have one you would swap for three rupees, two camels and my first born then leave a comment!

As always, please click on the WANTED link over there on the right to see what else I am prepared to swap cold hard (well, paypal flavoured) cash for, and click on the FOR SALE link to see what I'm trying to shift on eBay.

Do you think he'll notice..? FINAL PICTURES

Forum of Doom

Diorama of Doom IV - 2009

Brandlin's Entry (c) 2009

"Do you think he'll notice..?"

Click the pic for a much bigger view.

Click the pic for a much bigger view

Our scene here shows Bob and Dave from Bob and Dave line Marking Limited, discussing the latest cock-up of the younger partner Dave and wondering just how long it might be before the 'copter pilot notices the newly applied yellow line over the nose of his prized flying machine.

Luck it seems, is on Bob and Dave's side for a while as Squadron Leader Gaffer seems to be somewhat distracted at the moment. Having paid his £10 he is idling away a relaxing few minutes with his cup of char while watching an employee of the Megan Fox hand car wash emporium going about her business!

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Finally!

After several tens of hours of work, trial and tribulation, many packages arriving in the Royal Mail (when it was still moving) placing several hundred glass beads with tweezers, cleaning, recleaning and cleaning my airbrush again and again, cutting and applying tiny decals, painting and repainting, falling down stairs and rebuilding the copter, then lighting and relighting the diorama, and finally taking pics and putting them together in piantshop - I AM FINISHED.

This has been a labour of love and hate. There have been times when this diorama was close to going out of the window and times when I've looked it and thought "wow thats better than I could have expected. Its also the first time I've done a diorama, and the first painting competition I have entered!

The large 100mm Base is from Fenris games as is the barricade which is laser cut acrylic painted and then with home made decals applied.

The raised pavement is green-stuff and plasticard, with the copter undercarriage fashioned from pasticard and paper clips, the line painting machne is made from wheels from a 1/72 WW2 german Kettenkrad kit from Hasengawa with the body made from plasticard and the handle from a bent paperclip.


Bob and Dave are Scifi Customs Inspectors from Heresy Miniatures.  Squadron Leader Gaffer is the Grymn Pilot from Hasslefree Miniatures, and his vehicle is the soon to be released Grymn attack craft from the same company. My version is turned into a copter with the addition of lift fans from Evil Mushroom Games.


The car wash girl is a simple conversion of Summer the Cheerleader again from Hasslefree Miniatures. Her pom poms cut down and smoothed to resemble big sponges and her left arm cut off and repositioned with pins and greenstuff above her head.


The bucket comes from a Tamiya 1/48 WW2 diorama pack and the decals were home-made using paper from Antenociti's Workshop. Paints from Foundry and varnish from Testors. Finally tiny tiny glass beads from Blockhead Stamps in America - yes i had to import them as this was the only place I could find multiple sizes under 2mm diameter.


Right I think thats all of the name checks for companies. I should especially mention Kev and Sally White from Hasslefree Games who provided the Attack flyer and Grymn Pilot to me ahead of their formal release as i am such a nice guy (and good at begging) so i could get this diorama finished in time. Thanks guys - you're the best!


The soap was by far the hardest element of this diorama as I had to figure out how to do it from scratch. A lot of people on the FoD, and on CMoN and TMP have offered some elements of advice, THANK YOU all for putting up with what might have seemed silly questions at the time. Subsequently a few people asked for the steps on how I did the soap, so here is the method I developed. 

After a lot of tests it became quite simple:

1. Watered down PVA glue applied in small patches
2. 2mm glass beads applied sparingly with tweezers in small clumps or 'smears'
3. 1mm glass beads applied around the edge of the 2mm beads
4. 0.5mm beads applied more generously arounf the 1mm beads. Allow to dry.
5. Wash with watered down white ink (with a tiny tiny amount of blue to give that daylight sparkle!) with future floor polish mixed in. This makes the wash draw deeply into the areas around the bubbles making the bubbles themselves translucent but the suds around them seem more opaque.
6. seal with PVA.
7. Gloss Varnish
8. Matt varnish the whole diorama
9. Re-gloss varnish the bubbles with 2 further coats to make sure it 'gleams'.

Simple!

The area of the copter which is covered in Soap is deliberately lighter than the rest of the grubby vehicle to try and show that its getting cleaner. The copter was airbushed with Foundry grey/blue shades and then washed in black and brown ink to grubby it up a bit. The ink wash was simply not applied over the area to be soapy.

Anyway judging starts on 1st November ...wish me luck!