Holy Flying Cats Batman!

[Blue in VT]

That's awesome! Very nice...keep me on the list!

Cheers,

Blue

 

[cheetor]

Im late to this feline festival (and thanks to fellow cat fancier Phreedh for letting me know about it), but if possible I would very much like to buy a pair of those little guys

As Jonas said, Black Cat Bases (who are having serious problems with delivery at the moment, so its probably best not to order from them, see HERE ) make a "Dragon Cat":

That paint job is pretty brutal, but the model is actually pretty decent. Its one of their other rather odd but nice miniature cat sculpts with added batwings. Its the same sculpt as the orange and red gyrinx below, which is quite a nice model I think. I have it lined up to be a Slaaneshi Renegade champions gyrinx.

Black Cat Bases also made a cat with reindeer antlers and one with a bicorne pirate hat, not unlike "Mudsy", the cat from "The Funky Phantom". My upcoming Freebooter Pirate Captain has one lined up as a gyrinx. In a hat.

I am a bit of a cat fan, both for reals and in sci-fi miniature. Without much exaggeration my cats and my miniatures are my obsessions, so mixing the two scratches itches that booze and women never could...

Sorry about the image bomb and the frothing, but a little enthusiasm never hurt anyone, right? And you know, cats and miniatures right? Right?

 

[Asslessman]

I agree with cheetor (although cats rank n°3 because women have boobs and because I am weak...)
I'd have 2 of them and would immediately paint them after Loulou and Jacky my 2 beloved cats.

 

[phreedh]

And you know, cats and miniatures right? Right?

Ha, I knew it would have a slight bit of appeal to you!

 

[Ti Pouchon]

Luverly mini, great idea!

But wait... is this the thread where we post pictures of our cats?

 

[Chico]

Luverly mini, great idea!

But wait... is this the thread where we post pictures of our cats?

Your cat stole most your carpet and left little circles.. evil mastermind at work!

Cat Vs Dice bag!

 

[axiom]

....erm...it's all gone a bit weird in here in the last couple of hours

Needless to say, I can help feed this tiny little cat desire you're all exhibiting!

 

[phreedh]

Ti, that's a handsome one. Looks a lot like ours:

British shorthair named Vizky (the litter had names starting on V and containing a z, hence the creative spelling of Whisky). She's a jolly good cat, very affectionate even if the wee one still is a bit scary. No biting, clawing or destroying furniture - but a few flower pots have mysteriously toppled over the years.

Also, sorry about your thread Jon. I want a winged beast too.

 

[Ti Pouchon]

Chico, that's marvellous! Black cat on a black sheet, how will you ever find her again once she closes her eyes?

Phreedh, you're absolutely right - British Shorthair it is.

Brother and sister; Tabby (because she's all striped) and Mao (who can say his name). Unfortunately, what they like best in life is to be left alone and treat me like a servant. But they're smart! Mao can operate door handles.

 

[Chico]

Chico, that's marvellous! Black cat on a black sheet, how will you ever find her again once she closes her eyes?

Simple before long he'll be begging (Like a dog does) for his Treaties. Damn fecker wakes me up during the night to get those damn things too heheh

 

[Ti Pouchon]

Yeah, don't I know it. Those cat treats, they work like cocaine. I'm regularly woken up at night too and mistakenly think "whoa, soemone wants to cuddle" but nooo, it's all about the treaties. Left the package lying on the table the other day and the cats tore it to shreds to get at the darn things.

 

[axiom]

OK folks, I now have a herd (flock?) of little winged cats ready to cash in on!

Details in the trading forum.

 

[cheetor]

I got my Friskers this morning and gave it a quick treatment when I got in from work this evening. The model was cleanly cast and nicely sculpted with very nice face detail, extra impressive because of its size. Even for a miniature cat, Friskers is nice and small. My blog post on it is here.

If you havent bought one of these already, then I suggest that you do. A fun little side-project.

I hope that you dont mind me posting here axiom. I am happy to move the images if you like.

 

[axiom]

Fantastic painting cheetor! He looks great. Of course, you've painted him the wrong colours - he should be black and white

 

[cheetor]

Im glad that you like it. It was fun to paint, crisp.

Of course, you've painted him the wrong colours - he should be black and white

Perhaps Friskers should be black and white, but The Viscount of Vicissitudia VII (shown) is most definitely pinkish

I wanted to leave the b&w version for your Eternal Champion project anyway.

 

[axiom]

Perhaps Friskers should be black and white, but The Viscount of Vicissitudia VII (shown) is most definitely pinkish

I wanted to leave the b&w version for your Eternal Champion project anyway.

Ah - very generous thought I keep meaning to say this, but I love your almost glowing paintjobs - the pink suits the Viscount of Vicissitudia VII very much indeed!

 

[cheetor]

I keep meaning to say this, but I love your almost glowing paintjobs - the pink suits the Viscount of Vicissitudia VII very much indeed!

Thanks very much.

I try to bring almost every colour from black through to white. I think that tiny toy soldiers have to have extreme contrast or the work just isnt seen on the table and all of my toy soldiers are painted to game with first and foremost, so extreme highlighting is the order of the day.

I learned that the hard way by spending ages subtly layering things that nobody ever noticed, so my default painting is to make things harsher and brighter now. Its not to everyones tastes, but I like it. Realistic, schmealistic.

Does Beastface have any more familiars planned? Im on the look out for a miniature robotic/cyborg bat, cyborg/robotic wolf and a cyborg/robotic parrot at the moment for example, although I somehow doubt that those are top of any manufacturers lists. Then again, you did just put a dragon-cat into production, so who knows

 

[Blue in VT]

@cheetor...I have to agree that your painting style is one of my favorites that is on regular display here on the Oldhammer Forum. But I think there is another factor at play here in the quality of your images...I would be interested in knowing what your light set up is like for your photography. To my eye there seems to be a particularly warm light coming from the left side of your pictures that helps to accentuate the drastic highlighting that you described above. Am I correct in this belief?

Oh yeah....the kitty looks soo damn cute...now I'm going to have to get one for myself!

Cheers,

Blue

 

[cheetor]

@cheetor...I have to agree that your painting style is one of my favorites that is on regular display here on the Oldhammer Forum.

Thanks Blue, very kind.

But I think there is another factor at play here in the quality of your images...I would be interested in knowing what your light set up is like for your photography. To my eye there seems to be a particularly warm light coming from the left side of your pictures that helps to accentuate the drastic highlighting that you described above. Am I correct in this belief?

Yes and no There is warmer light from the left, but it doesnt have a lot of effect on the highlights, even though it does add an undesirable orange cast to the images.

This is my primitive photo set-up. It normally not as messy as it is in that shot, but I have been getting ready for a game at a con, so its a bit worse than usual.

The leftmost white lamp has an orangey bulb of some sort in it and provides fill light. The rightmost red lamp has a daylight bulb in it and comes it at roughly 45 degrees. These lights were chosen because they are the lights that I already own rather than because of artistic or technical reasons.

My photo process involves setting the camera to a few settings that I have learned from trial and error give me the best results and then using the one-click autocorrect (or whatever its called) function in Picasa. Thats the only post production done on the images other than cropping and resizing. Its necessary because I dont have the technical know how or powerful enough lamps to get a decent image otherwise. Autocorrect brightens everything up a bit, has a restorative effect on contrast and removes much of the colour cast, although there are regularly still traces of the orange light in shot. I should really get another daylight bulb lamp for the left... some day.

The closer a model is to the left hand light the more orange cast it gets. Note that it doesnt necessarily have a large effect on exaggerating the highlights though (in the picture above compare the blue cat with the orange cast with the yellow cat and the yellow parts on the red cat, all of which were highlighted up in roughly the same way to Game Colour Off White).

So long story short, the brash highlighting is at least 90% due to paint, with other process variables possibly accounting for a little. I do push the highlighting quite a bit when painting. I hope that illustrates.

Sorry for hijacking your thread axiom.