Concerning why and the hobby drive...

Welcome to a philosophical tangent. Here you will find a total lack of actually useful information but perhaps something thought provoking, generally strange or just plain weird. It's rather like the Twilight Zone or it's successor The Scary Door...

It began with a post on the WAMP forum that asked what do we do with our painted miniatures. There's a general thing on there about display cabinets and the like as one would expect. The thread is below...

WAMP thread

It wasn't a new thought for me but it brought it fresh into my mind and I started to type a response but then I started to think that my actual answer was going to be rather atypical and perhaps a good subject for a blogpost. And here we are... after my self-psychoanalysis.

So, what's the big answer to what I do with my painted miniatures? Um... nothing. I have almost no interest in them at all. That's right, I don't have a display cabinet full of my figures. My Golden Demon winners are in several locations with my not giving much thought to them and the demon trophies are sitting in a box at my parent's place 300 odd miles away. I have a couple of painted demon winners in my flat, the Cadian Commissar and the Empire Greatsword but they're stuffed into a Citadel figure case along with some old paints and a partially assembled plastic Chaos Sorcerer.

So, the question is posed, what has happened to all the minis I've painted over the... err... decades (man I feel old)? Well, they tend to get stuffed into boxes and just hang around until they invariably get damaged and they often ended up thrown away. I've sold some over the years but honestly not that many. I just don't get attached to my figures. Hell, that's something of a general thing for me. I don't get attached to things very much at all. That old question 'what one item would you rescue if your house was burning down?' I'd probably answer with 'item? screw that I'm getting outside where I wont burn to death trying to rescue the toaster'. It's worth noting that I live alone with no pets so those 'dodge the question' answers don't really apply. If it came down to it I might rescue my laptop if it wasn't going to be a bother simply so I don't have to go through the motions of reinstalling software.

I don't have collections of action figures and geeky paraphernalia. I do have a G1 Optimus Prime but am not really that attached to it. I could always replace it if needs be. I periodically get rid of things usually in vast quantities as I dislike owning large amounts of stuff. Before I left Cornwall, I basically had an open house where I invited friends over to basically take whatever they wanted in huge quantities. Cue many looks of horror from said friends who never really understood my lack of a hoarding instinct. An unusual trait in a geek of course. Cars were filled up with my possessions and driven away. Good riddance for the most part. I took a crapload more to charity shops. I left Cornwall with a bare minimum of stuff. Everything I moved with fitted into the back of my brother in law's car. And no regrets of anything left behind...

So, I have no attachments to my minis and no wish to display them or the trophies I have won. I don't really game either. This does lead to a strange place. Given that my general drives are that I can't be bothered to spend my time doing things with no real gain to them, why the hell do I bother painting minis? On the face of it it seems insane. I don't find it incredibly relaxing as many people do and have little interest in the final product. So, what's the drive?

Process! The science of the hobby.

Yes friends, I am interested in what's possible and how it is achieved. I spend my hobby time theorising how to paint and seeing how well my ideas work. I have a particular fascination with the idea of maximum quality for minimum time spent. A lot of the time I don't even paint the mini beyond trying a technique out on a part of it. Once I know whether it works of not I often lose interest.

I like the idea of painting an army and spend a great deal of time working out plans, ideas and techniques to achieve them. I often buy some of the figures but I do wonder what would happen to said army should I actually finish it. In a box somewhere? Probably.

So, my hobby is a rather bonkers one and a rather atypical one. Only interested in the science? Is that mad, well probably but as a great man once said...

Back off man, I'm a scientist!

Blanche on a larger canvas...

A little while back John was in the studio with his latest painting project, the new Forgeworld Cursed Ettin and I was suitably impressed and intrigued. This was something rather different from John: a monstrous figure. Okay, possibly a poor choice of words as John is rather gifted at making monstrous out of even human sized figures but this was on a much larger scale and on a figure with a rather different sculpting style...

The Cursed Ettin model is a figure sculpted by the enormously talented Edgar Skomorowski who slaves away in the Warhammer Forge section of Forgeworld. He tends towards a more sculptural style than the very graphic rendering employed by the sculptors in the Design Studio. The Ettin has an incredible level of texture in it's skin, rather like an Elephant's, which John saw as rather a challenge. His normal painting style is to paint texture on rather as he would in 2d and he uses paint rather thicker than most mini painters. Both of these factors needed weighing up in painting the Ettin.

The skin started with a basecoat of mostly white with a little orange and snakebite leather added. John followed this with a wash of nut brown ink to pick up the incredible textural detail. The skin was then re-highlighted adding yet more white to build the contrast and then more shading painted into the recesses with the ink mixed with a little black. Then repeated extra shadows with a mix of orange and black ink moving towards orange dominated washes. John leaves the top off his orange ink so it thickens, becoming redder with time. He notes that he doesn't have any red colours of any description. An interesting aside given the rich reds in his work but it reinforces that sometimes getting the effect you want doesn't come via the obvious route and that John has decades of experience to draw upon to achieve the effects he desires in either 2d or 3d.

The bionic eye is a ball bearing with no colour added and he added black washes to the eye sockets. John tends to leave the eyes allowing the sculpture to define them and isn't a fan of the goggle eyed look.

A fairly limited palette of materials and a lot of Snakebite Leather used. For me this one is all about the rendering of the flesh and it's vibrancy speaks for itself. Like all of John's work, it's a vivid slap around the face which demands an opinion. And here's the whole beast...

The Asylum has 200 inmates...

... well, minus Neil who escaped to terrorises us all with his own blog... see the last post. So, 200 followers. I'm rather surprised if I'm honest. All going rather well. Not sure I have much content for this post though I can tell you I've got another John Blanche piece to put up very soon (and it's uncharacteristically big). So, I think I shall open the floor to all 200 of you. Upon this anniversary of sorts I'd like to take the chance, once again, to ask what you'd like to see in future? So, don't be shy, there's at least 200 of you...

The inmate...

Spyglass Asylum has, or rather had, an inmate. Now you must understand that Spyglass is not your average asylum and it's denizens should not be assumed so either. We specialise in the uniquely obsessional, the not-so-borderline lunatics and curious insanities. And then, on the end of the line, is The Mad Converter...

The Mad Converter is unusual even amongst the inmates, or 'hobbyists' as we prefer to call them. There was an assumption in the early days that he perhaps didn't quite 'get' the hobby, neither concerned with gaming or even painting. There was only the conversion. A terrible obsession with modifying figures, spending countless hours upon them before casting them aside unpainted. We once spent an entire decade watching him converting figure after figure after figure without as much as a lick of paint amongst them.

Eventually we managed to persuade him to actually paint a few of them and he begrudgingly did so before flying off on a tangent of more converting madness. An extended leg here, a reposed arm there, a completely rebuilt figure around the corner. The occasional overheard mutterings about powdered Artemis or about how 'he'd show that damned bald-headed, crooked grinned head doctor a thing or two'.

The collection of converted figures grew, and grew, and grew. Always behind the closed doors of his dank little cell. The odd painted figure amongst their plastic, metal and putty brethren.

Then came the incident...

Just a few short weeks past we opened the door of his cell to deliver his morning gruel only to find the place cleaned out. The mad converter was gone, the figures were gone, his tools were gone. There was simply a note...

'I've heard that there's this wonderful thing called the internet and you can do this thing called blogging'.

Not good, not good at all. He's out there somewhere in the wilds now. He calls himself Neil and the most terrible thing has happened. He has internet access and is blogging his insanity to the masses. CALL THE INQUISITION!!!

For the purposes of your understanding, and perhaps your morbid curiosity, I offer you the link below to the beginnings of The Mad Converter's blog. I can only imagine the horrors you will see as the floodgates open...

MASTER-CRAFTED

More deadly art of Blanchitsu...

Always a great day when I get to share some new figures from the desk of Mr John Blanche as we can all bask in the craziness of it all. Crazed Inquisitors, Preachers and other such mad characters. However, it's not always about the uber character types. John is obviously well known for such figures but for every Inquisitor there should be mad henchmen and beyond the henchmen there are grunts. Today I'd like to share John working at the basic soldier end of the spectrum. Of course John being John, there's more to them than just 'bloke with gun'...









The figs have all the trademark warmth and texture of John's work. No cutting corners based on their level of importance in background terms, just the underlying feeling that these guys are characters to and not just faceless drones to be mown down by withering enemy firepower...

The cut down lasguns are a particular favourite part of these figures. Gives a massively different feel to the weapons with minimal changes and this is an idea I'm sure I'll shamelessly steal at some point.

My favourite of the two is the guy with the mask (from an Empire Flagellant I believe) and the shield on his shoulder. There's just something of a total character to him despite only minimal conversion (plus I'm a sucker for that John Blanche vicious red (orange paint and red ink. Must try it sometime).

Thanks to John again for sharing his wonderful work. There's more to come but that'll have to wait a little while.

Hang on... what the???

Okay, this isn't even minis related. A good number of you will know the Tears of Envy blog which often touches on minis stuff but also contains, well, everything else you can ever imagine (and frequently what you can't). The lady herself often posts music and videos on there from all over. I thinks to myself, there's an idea I can borrow, steal or whatever...

So, what's this one about. Well, I have something of an obsession with movie trailers. I love the distilled movie experience offered and tend to grab hold of music tracks via said trailers. Today's is a piece that I dearly love from the trailers to the last Star Trek movie (wonderful examples of the trailer art). The track is called Freedom Fighters by Two Steps from Hell. Rousing, dramatic stuff...

2011 done! So then, 2012...

2011 was somewhat the year of the Asylum for me. I actually set up in the last days of 2010 in a fit of spontaneity while trying to deal with a very difficult Christmas period (2010 was not a good Christmas for my family) but I consider it something of a new year launch really. I created this blog for a number of reasons, one of which was as a way to externalise my thoughts on minis and gain some perspective as I'd been a bit 'sculptor's block' for a while. All worked out very well on that front and I spent the first few months of 2011 secretly working on a new start for Spyglass Miniatures. It wasn't to be a radical departure but just to get what I wanted straight in my head. Plans involved working with other sculptors and artists too. I came up with some interesting stuff that will obviously not see the light of day now (don't worry, it never got to the point of finished minis) as 2011 had something else in store for me...

So, the GW juggernaut came knocking at my door with questions of whether I might like an actual paying job with crazy things like holidays and so on? Hmm, says Steve. So, I pack my bags and leave Cornwall for the slightly grim alternative of Nottingham (but with a salary and a nice place to work).

The second half of 2011 was mostly about getting used to a 9-5 schedule and discovering that I'm really not used to having proper time off. It did, however, mean that I was a lot more prolific and have been churning out minis at a fair rate that I can neither show anyone nor tell anyone about. You'll see the fruits of my labour eventually but it still feels like a long way off...

2011 was also a year where my hobby mutated. I got very into the idea of painting in quicker ways and making extensive use of washes. I'm learning all the time with this new way and am enjoying it much more than my older meticulous style. Works nicely as I was never able to achieve the level of quality that I wished (seriously, scouring the Eavy Metal cabinets in the studio is a humbling experience).

2011 also saw my first ever placing in the Open at Golden Demon. Picking up my third place behind Mike and Martin was something of a highlight and it was cool to play with my new quick painting techniques on the grander canvas of my Corpse Cart.

So, 2011 is behind me and 2012 has arrived on my doorstep. I'm starting the year with an earache but hopefully that wont be around for too long and things will move forward.

I have all kinds of hobby plans for this year that I will be sharing via this blog. I have one major plan that will be talking about in the coming months but I'm not quite ready yet. I've been somewhat inspired by Migsula's posts about the dream workspace for modelling and painting on his blog Legion of Plastic. Now I'm not planning to do this but what I'm interested in is certainly sharing in the philosophy of doing something with a different approach. But we'll get back to that...

I'm also planning to paint a few small armies now that I'm starting to get the hang of this quick painting lark and have recently started an Eldar force that I'll be sharing before long. This is my first proper foray into army painting for a long while and I plan to follow up with an army for fantasy battle as fantasy is a little more my thing and I think I've chosen which to go for and an interesting theme to go with it.

And I'll try to come up with some random insights into sculpting stuff too.

Thank you to all the readers here for helping make Spyglass Asylum something that I'm immensely proud of. When it comes to the future of this place I have plans within plans within plans...

So, 2012! Going to be interesting. Ahead, groove factor 5. Yeah!