Intermission: Road Racing Photos

What? It’s been more than two weeks since my last post?! Where does all that time go..? Anyways, since I still haven’t finished anything new, I thought I’d present something different. I and my better half visited Imatra a couple of weeks back, to see an IRRC (International Road Racing Championship) event. Here’s a couple of my better photos from that day.

Now, I’m not a professional photographer (not me in the pic above!), and wouldn’t even really classify myself as a hobbyist, but I dabble in photography from time to time. And what better subject to practice on than really loud and really fast motorbikes? Armed with an old entry-level DSLR and a brand new super-zoom lense that I got for a graduation present, I took around 400 photos in the 4 hours that we were there. Around half of them were more or less blurry messes, but I did manage to get a couple of nice and sharp shots with motion blurred background. More luck than anything, but I’m happy!

The first race we witnessed when we got to the site was sidecars. I got to say that the passengers, apparently known as ‘monkeys’ in English or ‘purkkiorja’ in Finnish (translates roughly as ‘can slave’), are positively mad! It’s their job to help balance the bike in corners, and they do this by leaning over the edges, with bodyparts (face, mainly) almost scraping the tarmac. From photography point of view, the slightly slower speed of the bikes made them easier to shoot and track, so funnily enough there’s more motion blur on these than the following superbikes.

Due to their speed the superbikes were tough to get sharp photos of. I had to increase the shutter speed, which results in less motion blur, but I guess it’s still enough to separate the bike from the background.

The second-to-last race of the day, and the weekend, was with vintage bikes (from the 80s, I believe). Beatiful machines with cool liveries, and as with the sidecars, were a bit slower and thus easier for me to photograph. I should try to edit one of these photos with some retro effects, I reckon..

From the Archives: Garrek’s Reavers

I’ve started working on the 40k Skaven, but as they’re not ready yet, it’s time to once again present some older models from my collection. This time, it’s Garrek and his merry men.

Even though Garrek’s Reavers were the other half of the Shadespire core set, they were only the third warband to get painted. I was so excited about the Sepulchral Guard, that I just had to get them out of the way first. But these guys got painted eventually, and I reckon I did a pretty good job with them. Being some of the earlier models that I painted after getting back to the hobby, they were good practice for some techniques that I hadn’t done before. Firstly, I wanted to try different skin tones for all of them. I think this was a success, even though the two lightest tones came out a bit chalky. And I even managed to color code the models without realizing, so that the darker the skin is, the tougher the guy is.

Secondly, I got plenty of practice painting faces, as there were four bare heads amongst the group. Again, I’m happy how they came out, as none of them got the dreaded “derp face”, and I got all the irises to the right spot on the first try, believe it or not. I also got some individual teeth done, though only on upper or lower jaw, not both.. Finally, I got to try out Blood for the Blood God, which was fun. Haven’t really used it since though, except for an Ork Dreadnought.

The paint scheme for these Bloodreavers is a bit unusual for me, as it’s the studio version! I tried to find something else that I liked better, but at the time couldn’t. I have some ideas brewing for further Shadespire Khorne warbands though, whenever I get to them..

*Excuse the photos, which are a bit tiny. They’re from a time when I was still figuring out how to compose and take good(ish) shots. At least you can see some detail on the picture above. I should do another photoshoot for these guys, but you know how it is…

Silverlions Retributors

It took me a lot longer than expected, but I’ve got some new models to show: the three Retributors from the AoS starter set! A side effect of taking so long with these is that they totally qualify for Azazel’s Neglected Model June challenge, so that’s nice!

I started working on these right after the Space Marine Captain, and they were supposed to be an “easy win”, quickly getting multiple models done after painting single models for a couple of months. Two-three days, tops! That turned into two-three weeks, but that’s how it goes sometimes. For some reason I wasn’t really feeling these models, and I don’t really know why.

The painting was the same as with the previous Silvelions, so nothing special there. I’ll note that I used a different, finer sand for the basing than what I usually use. I think it’s too fine for my taste, and in hindsight I should’ve added at least some coarser sand in there. Fortunately the tufts and other bits do a passable job of hiding the flatness of the big bases.

For the next project I think I’ll go for something more organic. I’ve been painting so much armor lately that I feel I need some cloth in my painting queue. The 40k Skaven would fit the bill perfectly, so I’ll probably get on to those. I might also paint something else for Azazel’s challenge, but we’ll see if I have time.