Thursday, November 01, 2012

With a little help from my friends... PART 1

This is the beginning of something EXTREMELY awesome! :) so hang on this is going to be a much longer than my usual posts but will pay off in the end.....

WIP of one of my first Gors from back in the day...
Anyone who knows my work or has read this blog knows that I have a Beastmen army that I have been working on for years. It is a labour of love that has earned me nearly half of my Golden Demon wins and, even though I don't actually play warhammer much anymore, I am still working on the army.

As an artist, I do not work in a "bubble". I owe A LOT to the inspiration, technical advice and critical eye of some of my friends in this hobby. The community of painters that began to grow in the late 1990's and early 2000's  has taken on a whole new life across the Internet, but sometimes the bonds of respect and friendship that form transcend the faceless web and, in lucky cases, become rooted in real meetings and opportunities to share at events like GenCon and Games Day. I know look forward to seeing my friends and meeting new ones annually at such events.


Two of these friends are the main topic of today's post, though more are yet to follow......

Shawn "PPC" Welte is no stranger to the North American Tournament scene.  He is a great modeller with a vivid and imaginative perspective on creating miniatures. He has won NUMEROUS modelling awards and several of his armies have been featured in White Dwarf magazine as well as GW events coverage and other forums of note.  



Our other friend, Mike Butcher, is an accomplished designer and sculptor (large steel real world sculptures - not just minis) and is well known in the hobby for his Nurgle pieces (though historicals seem to be his favorite topic these days) that have long given me inspiration in my own modelling.  He was one of my first inspirations in converting my own models (my personal trinity of unbridled creativity and pure inspiration when I first started converting minis - John Blanche, Mike Butcher & Joe Orteza). When I saw Mike's Nurgle themed pieces in the pages of White Dwarf, specifically a Nurgle Dreadnought, I was blown away. I knew I had to start cutting up my chaos marines - I had to try. I am still in awe of his style, creativity and vision of all things Nurgle. I don't think that I could ever thank Mike Butcher enough for his inspiration.
Somewhere along the way, I crossed paths with both of these guys (turns out they are really close friends with each other as well!). Now I consider them friends, and together we came up with a great idea.

Shawn and Mike and I all have hobby blogs and are always on the lookout for ways to connect with our readers and to share our love of this hobby.

Shawn's Blog is PPC's  The Madhouse Workshop

Mike Butcher's is The Butcher's Bill

Shawn Welte and I decided that as a fun way to cross promote our blogs and spark our creativity, we would each make a model for the other (he is building Chaos Marauders). Mike upon hearing about this up and volunteered to build a piece for me as well which was an amazingly cool thing to do! We each took just a little time with a bit of plastic and putty and just built something fun. It was pretty energizing and certainly different. These were meant to be enjoyable projects not laborious ones. It has really been very reinvigorating for my hobby life to make a "one off" super fun model for Shawn. The whole collaboration has been a great experience that will be shown on all 3 of our blogs. IN FACT - If you want to see the extremely cool Mutant Chaos Marauder that I made for Shawn, you will have to head on over to his page - see above!  ;)

So - what did they make for me? Well.... In my army I have one Khornate themed unit of beasts and one Nurgle themed unit (rules - or lack thereof - be damned), and here I have one friend famed for his Nurgle work and another for his Khornate - a match made in heaven  ;)

Once upon a time, Shawn made an AMAZINGLY COOL  Khorne beastman army that I was very envious of (at the time I was slogging through painting tiny units for golden demons while he was creating an entire army of awesomeness in a fraction of the time).  So when I approached Shawn, I asked him to build me a beastman in the style of his classic blood lovin beasts. Not content to sit on past laurels Shawn actually created TWO models - one in the the style requested and an additional "mini-gor" based on some of his more recent (and lighthearted) conversions for his chaos army. Below are some pictures:









Not to be outdone, Mike happened to have a Minotaur that he had started to convert some time ago but never found the inspiration or impetus to finish (we all have projects like this don't we!). In this case the slightest nudge was all that was needed and "The Butcher" broke out his putty and plasticard! He sent me this incredible piece of Nurgly goodness:

 It connects stylistically so clearly to his own amazing Nurgle WFB army pieces:

I am so incredibly PROUD to have these in my collection! It is amazing to have the opportunity to paint models custom made especially for me by two artists who I respect so much. Dang that is just cool to say!

I will be posting  updates of the progress in painting them over the next weeks and months (I am ridiculously slow at painting - but VERY motivated by the very nature of these pieces). At the time of writing this they are in primer and base coats have begun :)

I will now leave you an an extremely additional cool note. Shawn and Mike and I may have been the start of this, but in sharing and explaining the idea with more of my friends - many of them agreed that this build would be a really fun and creatively stimulating project for them as well! So, as suggested above, this really is only the beginning. Over the next year, Lost In The Warp will be featuring new beastman models built by my friends - who happen to be some of the most well known and respected miniaturists in the world. This group includes no less than 3 (YES THREE!!!!) Slayer sword winners (one of which - Created by 5 TIME Slayer sword winner Todd Swanson - is already in my grubby little hands and is now one of the absolute favorite miniatures that I own!!!! to be revealed soon....). I will also be bringing you some more detailed profiles of the artists involved, more of my usual Warmachine stuff, Terrain, Competition builds, Historical models etc. etc.

The next 12 months are looking good for LITW!


2 comments:

PsychosisPC said...

Thanks James, look forward to seeing your paintwork on the minis.

TKKultist said...

right back at ya buddy!