[DISNEY INFINITY MV CHALLENGE] GAME OVER

And it is a failure...
Unfortunatly the due date of the Massive Voodoo challenge was for October the 19th and I was not able to conclude it in time.
To be absolutly honest, I don't even have the time to put my pencil on.
It's the problem when you're a hobbyst with a full time job and a two small kids at home, you never have the guarantee to find free time for yourself.
I'm quite upset with that also because all my painting projects are stopped since 2 months.
In fact, I was also confident to finish  my Rackham Grand Crane before November the 1st for the FigureMentors' Art Quest 2017 but at this point, It will be impossible to do it in time.

Hard time for dad painters...

[DISNEY INFINITY MV CHALLENGE] Repainting MERIDA

Massive Voodoo has launched the MV Challenge 2017.
It's the opportunity for me to partecipate to an other painting contest. I have realized than painting with rules and deadline is a very good way to improve and if the theme of the contest is fun, it's even better.
This year Massive Voodoo proposes two contests:
_ Base with water where you have to build a water-themed based alone.
_ Walt Disney Infinity where you must repaint a Disney Infinity figure. I've choosen to repaint one of this Disney figure. There is a lot of choice in the Infinity range with Pixar, Star War, Marvel and other film of the brand.
At the end I've decided to repaint Merida from the Pixar's Brave. She's a cool character and the difference between the infinity design and the original is also an opportunity to play with the treatment of the different elements as MV let complete freedom in term of creativity.

The deadline is on October the 19th, I suppose it let me enough time to create also a nice base for my princess and maybe do some small conversions. 

GANGEEK STYLE PAINTING CONTEST 2 - AND THE WINNER IS...

GangeekStyle has published the result of the contest.
I invite you to visit the site and check all the entries, there was a lot of interesting stuff.

On my side, I've placed 6th with my diorama, with the following comments from the judges:

Rintrah: Technically, there is a lot of improvement to do on different aspects (specially the bricks of the wall) but there is a real work on the composition, the light and the environment. A pretty nice scene!

Slave of paint : Nice environment but technically it is not so good. The diorama would work better with a smaller base.

Stéphane Nguyen : A classic diorama staging very realistic and archetypal  characters. It's a bold choice to present monochromatic zombies. Negative aspect: the technic used for the bricks on the wall is perfectable.

Rémy Tremblay thinks that Carkel is the only competitor who's matched the thematic. He's loved his job and think that the processing of the scene is original and cool.

Ivankaiser : The direction is perfect. We can identify the good, the brute and the mad. The choice to paint the zombies in monochromatic hue helps to indentify the main characters. Pity to have missed the the sculpture of the bricks wall, it seems cardboard. I think that the characters should deserve some extra highlights.

First of all, It's fantastic to have feed back from this judges. We are talking about very skilled painters and sculptors,
I'm very satisfied that my choice of direction has been recognized considering the brainstorming behind and the time I've dedicated to the scene. Technically, I'm aware of my limits so I'm not very surprised, it's clearly an aspect I need to improve. Probably I will have to change also my materials for the building of the scene.

Finally, Remy Tremblay's comment is so rewarding! I love his work, and of course considering I've painted the mini he's created for Zombicide, I was a little bit anxious knowing he was part of the judges.
So happy my scene has pleased you Remy.

and now?
I have different project in mind:

A Rackham Confrontation undead army. I've always dreamed to paint a complete army even if I will probably never play with. I have a nice collection of Acheron undead at home waiting to be painted, I would like to use them for this project. (also because I love the way Rackham did the undead)
  

 A Fantasy diorama in historical style. I have a box of major state templar from Rackham, I'me quite inspired my some documentary about templar and cruisader and i would like to paint them in some realistic scheme.

Kingdom Death Monster. I've pledged for the version 1.5 and very anxious to received my box. Can't wait to put my pencils on this mini!

In the short time, I think I'm going to relax mysef with some tabletop painting for zombicide. There is some survivors from Hasselfree waiting to be painted. Pulp time.

[GGS CONTEST 2] The final result

And so, after 6 months of paintjob, I've finally finished my diorama Zed Is Dead for the Gangeekstyle contest.

It's the most elaborate and complete work I've ever done, and I'm quite sure that it would never finish such a big project without a contest to motivate myself.
I'm very satisfied with the result, it's exactly what I had in mind when I've started it 6 months ago. Of course, some details are not perfect, the ground and the shadows would be more neat. There is also some mistake on the characters painting.
I'm very curious and anxious to read the opinion of the judges.

Now, enjoy.  

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the survivors - Leonard the brute.

The due date for the GGS contest 2 is very near. I've just finished to paint the second character of my trio: Leonard the brute.
I've taken inspiration of Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction, so the idea is to paint an afro american drug dealer with suspicious taste for clothes.
For the painting of the skin, I've worked with a base of chocolate, shaded with addiction of black and highlighted with cream.  

For the clothes I've chosen a mix of orange and blue (it's the idea of the complementary color for each character, the last one will be paint with Purple + yellow).
The base of the suit has been based with a blue grey and washed with blue. Then I've added the stripes with pure blue and finally work the shades and the light. 

The brute done.

the next and final one will be the good. 

3 weeks remained to the end of contest. 

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the survivors - Frank the nut.

I have less than three months to finish my diorama for the contest, it's time to paint the three heroes.
For them, I've decided to use an opposite method than for the zombies. The idea is to paint them with very saturated colors, choosing a limited palette and limiting the use of white and black.
To create cohesion, I'm going to select 2 main colors for each of them playing with the chromatic circle.
I've started with Franck, the mad of the group. I really like the sculpture. He's very original and fun to paint. The colors selected are Green and red (complementary colors).
As I wanted to make him look scruffy, I've get inspiration to Kurt Kobain because I was listening Nirvana when I've started to paint him and though that the grunge style should suit him very well.
I've spent a lot of time on the face to increase as most as possible his expression using glazes of red and blue to create contrast.
Instead the painting of the hairs was most complicated than I though,
Blonde hair has not so complicated, the secret is: Not use yellow!
Instead it's trickier to keep a balance between natural light reflection and "Loreal" super shiny effect which is very nice for a good looking female character less for a grunge style dude.      

For the shirt, I've choosen the red green stripped pattern used by Kobain. It's the same than Freddy Krugger's which is perfect to give a little bit of insanity to the mini. He's the nut of the group right?
The blue jean has been paint with the same method I used for my zombicide survivor. It's a base a blue grey with shades of dark grey and drybrush of white to create the texture of wear. A touch of glazes of orange brown to make it dirtier and it's done.    

For the jerkin, I've painted it like a german military parka. Actually it's not correct because I could not afford to find the right colors and instead painted it with in olive with glazes of blue to correct as most as possible the final hue.
As for the jean, I've used drybrush of yellowish olive to create wear textures even if it's not very visible on the pics.
The beer can has been painted in metalic with a little pattern inspirated on Budweiser in red and white just to give the idea. 

I finalyse the painting with a layer of matt varnish only on the clothes to fuse the colors and increase the contrast with the face.
Franck was fun to paint and I'm very satisfied with the result.
The next hero will be Leonard, the "well-suited brute".

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the zombies

Even if I've already painted hundred of this zombie from Zombicide, I admit I'm really enjoying this phase of my diorama because actually it's the first time I'm really painting them. I mean, this time it's not a matter of speed and mass painting, it's finest miniature painting and I have to say this zombies deserve it because the Remy Tremblay'sculpture are great and it's a pleasure to put some colors on this undeads.
To tell the true, I'd already started to paint some of them before starting the base but I had to cancel the paintjob and do it again....because they were too nice.
I know, it sounds strange but I must keep in mind that this Z are not the main characters of my diorama, so it's important to not overdue with contrast and saturation in order to fuse the zombies with the base and create a visual gap with the three survivors.
So I'm using a limited palette of cold and desaturated colors. several type of grey, white, black, purple, blue. I also avoid the extreme higlight, trying to focus more on the shades.
It works quite well to create a night atmosphere.

I've started to glue them on the base, It helps me to see if the lights are corrects and if the overall visual works. I have three other Zombies (for a total of 8 Zombies) to paint for the base but I'm seriously thinking it's not enough to create a good "horde" effect.

Maybe, I would plain to add other two or three to the total to fill the spaces on the base.

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the urban base

Let's continue with the Zombie diorama for the GGS contest 2.
For the base painting, I'm using the washes techniques diluting my colors as most as possible to reduce the opacity and let the Black& White priming works alone.
I start with the right side of the wall, painting the bricks in brown orange. Once finished, I increase the shades (in the up right part of the wall) with washes of transparent black (Warcolours)  and then add some lights with drybrush of warm grey on the illuminated part of the wall.

For the left part of the wall, I've worked mainly with succession of washes of Ocre and warm grey.

I've also painted the central pipe with metalics.
The ground has been painted with blue grey and then with glazes of warm grey for the lights and black for the shades. I used a very large brush for this job, of course with an airbrush the job would be easier, nicer and quicker but I had to adapt me.



I've finished the base painting with the door painted with washes of green and Transparent black. I've added some extreme light on the glasses and painted the zombie's arm in monochrome scheme.
Then I've added the details to make eveything more credible. So a lot miniature printables applied with PVA glue. As everything was still too clean, I've designed some graffitis. I've use some google images for the inspiration, nothing too fanzy anyway, the goal was to make the aspect of the wall dirtier not painting super defined design.

Once applied all the details on the wall, I've worked again on the shades and applied large washes of transparent black in coherence with the overall lightning of the scene.
Finally the final touches: some mini mewspaper and flyier on the ground, painting of the garbages, some dark sepia washes (secret weapon) around the garbage to simulate some dirtiness and finally a little bit of artifical water from the pipe to the gutter. And it's done!

I'm very satisfied of the result. Now I have a lot of jobpainting to do with the zombies to finalize the scene.  



[GGS CONTEST 2] Building the urban base

Here some update of the diorama.
As you can see I've finished the base building.
I've spend a lot of time trying different minis position on the base. Actually I wanted to put  more zombies but I was not happy with the results because the horde created a wall between the survivor and the viewer making the diorama difficult to read.
So at the end, I've choosen to reduce the number of undead and open the visual on the three heroes also because they are the main subject of the contest, it's important to create a good focus on them.

Once decided the position, I took away the survivors, fix the zombies and prime the entire diorama in black. Then using white spray I've placed the light at the center of the diorama to create an artificial lightning from above. I'm very satisfied with the result. It's exactly the effect I wanted:
A strong light on the survivor in contrast with the rest of the diorama immersed in the night darkness.

Ok, now I suppose I need to put some colors on it. See you soon.

[GGS CONTEST 2] buidling urban base 1

It's time for the next GanGeekStyle contest. This time the theme is very fun:
The Good, the Brute and the Nut.
As usual, the miniature's scale are limited to 25 and 32 mn  but the environment and the presentation are free.
Because I had a lot of fun painting Hasselfree miniature for Zombicide during this last months, I've decided to make a diorama with the same object: survivors versus zombies.

So I've selected 3 minis from the Hasselfree catalogue.



But before starting with the painting of the three heroes, I must build and paint my base which needs to be accurated and elaborated if I want my diorama works.

Urban environment of course. My idea is to create an alley by night with illumination on the heroes in contrast with an horde of zombie in the darkness.
Here some pics of the WIP. as usual I've used a lot of coating to create the texture. It seems quite simple and empty right now but adding the zombie minis (from Zombicide) and some garbage on the streets, the whole stage should be credible.