Lone Star Figure Show 2013

Got back from the Lone Star Figure Show last night and it was a great time. Bob Bethea, Anders Heintz, Doug Cohen and many others involved really did a great job putting it on again. If you ever never have attended this show or a strictly figure show in general then I highly encourage you to do so.

I did better than last year, taking two Bronze awards, as opposed to one Bronze and one certificate of merit last year. So that's progress. I have included a few shots of the awards themselves as they are really cool and unique. Being in Texas the awards for Bronze, Silver, and Gold are cowboys sculpted by Anders Heintz instead of a plaque or a medal. A really cool idea.

The best thing about these shows is the chance to meet some of the best painters in the world and visit with them. People are always friendly and more than willing to help you with new techniques or ideas to improve your own painting. It's always good to get a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones.
While at the show I got a chance to attended a amazing air brush demo by Chris Mrosko and got some new ideas for painting figures with an airbrush.


 I took some pictures of the models and with my camera they turned out pretty horrible. Unfortunately you wont get to see a lot of the amazing work that was there because the pictures were blurry or whitened out. Still I have put up some of the better shots so people can get an idea of what was there. These photos are just the tip of the iceberg of what actually there so be sure and check the Lone Star Figure Show's main website for the professionally taken photographs. Their main site is here: http://www.lonestarfigureshow.com/

So here are the photos:

If you ordered any of the Reaper Miniatures from their Bones Kickstarter here are some shots of whats coming your way.  These things are massive and you will not be disappointed in their quality.

 Here is a shot of me with Julio Cabos. I attended his workshop last year and this is the figure we used (the Teddy Roosevelt from a previous post here). We didn't get a chance to complete it so I took it home after the show, finished it up, and entered it this year. Luckily it won one of my two bronzes. The other bronze award was for the Night Goblin also in a previous post. If you ever get a chance to attended a workshop by Julio then do so. You will learn a great deal and he is a amazing teacher and really great guy.

Verlinden 1/16 British Color Sergeant Zulu War

This is the matching figure for the Verlinden Zulu warrior from a previous post. I also used the Andrea miniatures red and black sets for this figure. After I had got the pants up to a decent shadow and highlight I went back over them with a slight blue wash. Originally the pants were a deep blue color but almost black. The flash on the camera whitens out the blue on the figure but in person you can get a hint of the blue transparency over the top.

Verlinden 1/16 Zulu Warrior

This is an excellent sculpt and build from Verlinden. It comes with the plaster base with the ammo box . It really builds into a nice model and cleanup was minimal. The only thing I added was some cut tin foil for the strap. I think the skin tones turned out pretty well as this was one of my first times to work with African skin color.This was one of the first times I started using the Andrea Miniatures Red paint set and I can highly recommend it and their other sets. The set makes blending a lot easier and has a nice smooth texture to it. I highly recommend any of the sets they have out and I think you get a lot of use out it.

Forge World Night Goblin

Picked this guy up at the Games Workshop headquarters in Nottingham when I lived in Durham. I asked the guy who worked there if they had any larger scale stuff in the back and this was the only one he found. I have no idea of the scale but I would guess hes around 1/16 or so.

1/16 Tamiya German Afrika Corps Trooper

Painted this guy up several years ago when I was seriously getting back into figures. I replaced the head with an extra from the Dragon 1/16 figures. The original head was really bad and had a silly expression on his face. The shadowing around the pockets and borders is a bit more extreme than I usually do, or at least do now but with the clothing having a faded look I think it turned out alright.