More animated miniatures.

Horror-faced Apsiring Champion of Tzeentch.
Games Workshop Citadel parts:
*Ork body, arm.
*Chaos Warrior Axe arm.
*Horror of Tzeentch head, reveresed.
*Mouth-Inset Eyeball from Chaos Spawn sprue.
*Tentatcles from Green Stuff (Knead-Tite Epoxy Putty)

Testing out an animated GIF

Miniature:

Satyr Female (Satyar Tiebandigerin)
Das Schwarze Auge, Ral Partha Europe

My Little Cthulu

Miniature from the excellent Night Terrors range by CP Miniatures. Would like to know the sculptor, perhaps George Fairlamb? He has sculpted the Hook Horror from this range.

  ~~The Great Pudding ~~
WIshes You a
Happy Christmas!

The Great Pudding was inspired by this single entry in early Warhammer 40K Lore:

"As the governor of a hive-world you find it difficult to keep order at the best of times. Things have been getting worse since a madman started a new religion based around the premise that a  vast floating pudding would appear to make life better for everyone -- the people have stopped working, even the military has been affected and you can't rely on your own staff anymore. Yesterday you caught your mother reading a pamphlet entitled, "The Pudding is coming-- ten reasons why you should believe." Today the prophet of this insane religion, the Rev. Jeronimo Kipling, will be conducting a whistle stop tour of the run-down city bottom district of Tumbletown. You have positioned a special unit to attack and kill him. The troops dressed in civilian gear as you intend on blaming the whole thing on a rival religious group (possibly the Anadentists or the Church of the Lucid Shirt Button). The target will be surrounded by the usual bodyguards and mobs, and his vehicle may be well protected."


Work forthcoming inspired by the Anadentists.

~D

Wrath of Heroes: The Quick Goodbye

In memory of this cool, fun, characterful game, I present the concept I entered for the Hero Design Contest, sponsored by 6v6v6.com. The best part of this whole experience was that Mythic created a Hero similar in style to mine, Xuq'ls The Gibbering, and his alternate skin was that of a Blue Horror!

~Golmir, Herald of Tzeentch~

Army: Daemons of Chaos
Theme: Mobile & Disruptive--Stances, Charged Abilities and Counters.

HP: 750-800 (variable)

PASSIVE:
Traitor Aura: deals 15% more damage on rival Chaos heroes and receives 5% less heals.

ABILITIES:

Stance I: Storm of Chaos

1.) Fickle Flame: medium-range missile, bounces from one target to next within 25 feet, 40 (20 + 20) total damage, if no other nearby target: 30 damage to one target. *Adds stack to Boon of TChar

2.) Boon of Tchar (release on 3 stacks): AOE Buff (25 ft) on friendly targets—one random ability cooldown resets.

3.) Warp: Short-range teleport (random location)

4.) Rag Doll: Clones a stationary (but Ability-miming) Decoy, explodes after 2 seconds, 180 AOE DOT (60/sec.for 3 seconds)

5.) Change Stance—Heart of the Raven (25 sec. cooldown)



Stance II: Heart of the Raven

1.) Tendrils of the Dreamer: AOE melee attack (5ft.), 25 dmg, Has 5% chance to max Golmir’s HP to 800 for 10 seconds. *Adds stack to Wave of Change.

2.) Wave of Change (release on 3 stacks): Counter Debuff , aura (5 ft range, lasts 3 sec) raises cooldown by 3 seconds on target’s
ability that was used on Golmr (if attacked).

3.) Orange Flame, 3 sec. invulnerability/counter aura, feedback dmg on targets attacking Golmir (max 3 targets, max 90 dmg total).

4.) Dance of Fools: AOE Debuff blast that knocks heroes (max 3, incl. friendlies) 25 ft. away to random locations.

5.) Change Stance—Storm of Chaos (25 sec. cooldown)


STATS:
Offense: 2/4
Survivability:2/4
Support: 2/4
Complexity 4/4


MASTERY TREE:

1) Perk: Violet Fire, unlocks at 18 Assists (9+9)

High-damage single target. medium-range DOT flame spews from Golmir’s mouth. 200 dmg DOT over 3 sec.*

*Additional Effect: If target dies, will leave a Pink Horror (600 HP) that attacks with Fickle Flame (powered with Green Fire) and Tendrils of the Dreamer in 50 foot radius for 5 seconds.

2) Alt: Aekold’s Gift of Life: summons misc. flora & fauna in 25 ft. radius, 3 random heroes (including enemies, if any) restore 27 life/sec. for 3 sec. in AOE (if any), *Replaces Rag Doll.

3) Mastery--Green Fire: Adds a 3rd flame to Fickle Flame but has an 9% chance to hit a friendly target.

4) Alt--Disc of Tzeentch: summons disc that increases speed for limited time. *Replaces Warp with a 4 second Sprint immune to Root, Snares, Pulls, and Knockdowns.




Archive link for contest entry

Hero Contest Results

Wrath of Heroes: Goodbye thread

The Crimson King, Exalted Champion of Tzeentch

We're getting the Warband together...

Or rather, "Squad" in 40k parlance. But Warband sounds more Metal when it's Malal Cultists...

Cultist #1, in the service of Malal's Champion, Kaleb Daark (40k)

~D

Reaper Leprechaun riding Owl

Really great sculpt by Jason Wiebe, can be found here or here.

Here are some other great sculpts from Jason.

Notes: I intentionally avoided the go-to color scheme for both owl and leprechaun. I used the Kakapo as inspiration for the owl, and more of a Valentine's Day/cupid motif for the leprechaun, since this was a present :) The symbol is Japanese (Kanji) for "Sake."

~DQG

Kaleb Daark 40K

Context: 

Entry on Malal From Realm of Chaos 80's Oldhammer Blog.

Notes:

I used the Bretonnian standard bird-beak inelegantly piled on with Green Stuff to make Deathaxe. The head was from the old Space Wolves sprue, and the hair was part of a tail from some forgotten miniature. The chained-on bolter is from the old Black Templar sprue. I added a Dark Angel pistol as an allusion to the secretive Fallen. The right shoulder pad has a skull with a single horn sprouting from its forehead, further imagery borrowed from the original model. The skill is flanked by the old Lost and the Damned Chaos runes for Chaos Weapon and Magic Resistant.  I think I'll start using those symbols as references from now on!

~DQG

Horntooth, Familiar of Malal

Even Malal has little friends too...this is one of his smallest followers.
Done up in the bisected B&W scheme, with some OSL that barely shows up on camera.
Kaleb Daark coming soon, in both 40k and Fantasy flavors.

From the set, Famous Familiars. One of the best-kept secrets of Oldhammer goodies that can still be bought on GW's website :)

~DQG

Old Stuff Day!!

I wanted to continue the idea of Old Stuff Day, also seen here and here*, but with a twist: as there aren't that many blogs on this blog itself, I am going to share something old to me, but new to (mostly, I am assuming) all viewers:

This "Imp" conversion was done in 2005. It's simply Green Stuff (Kneadtite) eyeballs pushed into a regular Warhammer Goblin skirmisher. The pitchfork is from the Warhammer Zombie sprue. I wanted to go for a old-time cartoony devil look. I think I should make more of these.

I plan on adding some more of these "old" minis to show myself how far I've gone since then, and how far I still need to go...after all, that's what makes it a "hobby!!"

* Currently my favorite blog, and responsible for joining Oldhammer and for taking the initiative in finally sharing my minis with bloggers.

Cheers
~DQG

The Crimson King's Banner

Miniature Painting proper will take over this blog for awhile. I will amend it with updated photos as the quality of my documentation increases, or upon my flight of fancy and/or spirit of whimsy.

For now, let us look at the following, a banner painted to accompany the Crimson King, Exalted Champion of Tzeentch...

Based, of course, on the first album of King Crimson, titled, In the Court of the Crimson King.

Colors used include, but not limited to, Mordian Blue for banner base followed by Mechrite Red for face base coat, along with generous amounts of inks and Dheneb Stone and Ice Blue for mixing into highlights. All of these colors are now "out of production" as of this post (and not soon after finishing this model--2012--in fact).

Where, one might ask, is the King himself? Well, let us leave that answer for another day...

Fred the Mustard Packet Likes Being Re-Blogged on The Travelling Mountebank...

Fred the Mustard Packet: Fred the Mustard Packet Likes Being Drawn with a B...: Extroverted, social, outside-of-the-house cartooning. It's not just for cool people anymore. Someone else was able to smell my BO as I...

Dans la vie, Il ya de Cactus...

Cactus Shaman, Acrylic on Munny, found objects, 2011
Photo by Daniel Funkhouser

The Temptations: Not the Musical Act.

DESERT RELIGION

Initially, I wanted to make a puppet show for my MFA Thesis Exhibition, THE END IS EVER NIGH. It would have fit in perfectly with my imagery: humanity controlled by outside forces beyond their control.

However, my MFA was in Painting, not in Intermedia, Performing or Performance Arts. I felt it would be too much of a disconnect from the thrust of my Thesis. I also did not feel I had the time or experience necessary to plan out a proper puppet stage at an appropriate MFA Thesis level without enlisting help from people who already had their own crosses to bear.

Becoming a member of the Eye Lounge collective immediately gave me the push and experimental freedom necessary to begin to seriously think of doing a puppet show. The theme of my Eye Lounge solo show is the desert. The desert in the Bible, also translated as "wilderness" is a place for wandering, introspection, exile: a place to return from after spiritual revelation and visions. Since I have always lived in Arizona--near South Mountain and the radio tower lights--in a modernized "quasi-desert," I find this an experience that is hard to replicate in my own life.

I have gone on many hikes, twice to the Grand Canyon, but have never experienced "the desert." I did not feel lost, I do not feel deserted or wandering, because I know that I can go back anytime...there is a trail "back home." The Desert Fathers had no such conceit: they were always living in the desert, as they wanted to escape the modernization of the church as a legitimate, Roman institution. It became their new home for Christ.

Therefore, my home may be a desert, but it does not feel like a desert...there is always a way back home. I have to use my imagination in order to construct a scenario that could even come close to the experience of the Desert Fathers, John the Baptist, Christ himself, or St. John of Patmos.

I worked on a script for a puppet show: Jesus' Temptations (Matthew 4: 1-11) with Tommy Cannon, a puppeteer from the Great Arizona Puppet Theater. I wanted to tap into his humor and improvisational skill to amplify the sense of irreverence I want to convey in the banter between Jesus and Satan. Jesus maintains His cool throughout the process, tempted three times, to return from the experience steeled in His resolve. Satan, though defeated is unchanged by the experience, a Trickster who moves on to others to be made Fool.

I would like to think that it all happened in His mind, as does all of my imagery in mine: Satan may still have been real, as all visions are to the person experiencing them.

THE END IS EVER NIGH

MFA Thesis Exhibition,

Harry Wood Gallery, ASU. Tempe, AZ
November 2-13, 2009

Thesis Statement:

My body of work is envisioned by the spiritual matters of my upbringing. I was persistently taught that the world would end-- and be reborn-- in my lifetime.This world began to seem temporary; every achievement golden, every failure one of impending doom. I extrapolated later that if it had to end, it should take place in a spectacular way.

These paintings celebrate the narrative traditions of both Christian and Secular end-time scenarios through shifting depictions of fools and heroes, gods and demons: my cast of characters alter scale, form, color and role, as they always do in my imagination. I enjoy toying with boundaries between the sacred and profane in these tellings of Christian stories.

The players upon these stages occupy a mythic space; that is, they come from insubstantial ether that I formally compare to my cast of characters, shifting along and through unseen light sources, emerging from dark voids that hold infinite promise of unknown creation. The scenes continue to play out along the surface of landscapes fraught with the doubts that exist in all supernatural visions.

Dain Q. Gore

The Thesis process was incredible. I had the honor of working with many highly professional Professors during my stay at ASU, but three in particular became my Committee: Mark Pomilio, Forrest Solis, and Jerry Schutte. I was glad to work with new artists as well as familiar faces from my undergrad days at ASU (BFA Drawing, 2000).

Munny, Updated.

Being that many other more pressing matters lay at hand in the past, I didn't have much chance or motivation to take pictures of an in-progress Munny. I decided upon the Owl-design, as you can see above. Some of the symbols I wish to add are yet to be added, or have only been touched upon, but include:

-A single strand of silver hair, of which I have many more at the moment...

-Mariachi pants: I have always wanted a pair of those.

-Purple shirt alludes to my favorite symbolic color, Tekehelet (תכלת), a mysterious violet-purple whose original dye-recipe has been lost.

-Feet of clay (from the Bible, alluding to human fragility)

-Bugs in the hair (in the Vanitas genre of paintings, bugs alluded to Sin)

-Hebrew text of יהוה (YHWH) Yod-He-Vav-He, The Tetragrammaton--on the right hand, Dexter.

-Hebrew text of שָׂטָן (Satan) on the left hand, Sinister.

-A Tarot card behind the mask's string, not sure which to depict yet, thinking of The Fool, Death, The Hermit or The Hanged Man (my favorites)

-Additional masks to cover the already-masked face, more pictures of those to come.

Munny on My Mind...

So I've been wanting to paint my Munny for awhile. After some technical difficulties*, I am finally devising a schematic of what it would look like (in my mind). Actually painting it will come later. I am currently thinking: which artists inspire me the most, currently? What simple, direct color scheme would I use?

Some Examples
More Examples (LA Show)
More Examples (Mini Contest)

*Involving sticky acrylic that had to be sanded down

UPDATE! Some of my sketched-out designs...

UPDATE! 3-12-08
Inspired by Goya's Owls, I have decided to do another sketch. (see above fourth/last sketch in sequence)

Owls can be symbols of:
-Superstition (Goya)
-Heresy (Medieval Europe)
-Wisdom (Animist/Pantheist religions)
-Christ's Vigilance (Aderdeen Bestiary)

So I decided I liked the ambiguity of that image, as a mask.
 The theme will be a "self-portrait" of sorts, with traditional green-ink tattoos of YHWH on the Dexter (Right) side and Satan on the Sinister (Left) side. Other ideas I am toying with include feet of clay, and/or a trompe l'oiel magnifying glass on the belly-button to signify the navel-gazing qualities of the self-portrait...

My color scheme will be a simple warm-cool dichotomy, probably emphasizing reverse contrast through saturation levels.

Stay Tuned!!

My Life-Long Dreamytime Sequelmakery

Ghouls'n Ghosts was one of the most influential games I ever played. It has even guided, in some ways, my aesthetic when it comes to the very modus of Paintery Itself.

Here is a piece I wrote about this game, Hosted and Compiled by the venerable Mike Bevan and his Destroy all Monsters!.

And I present, once again, Ghasts'N Ghouls.


Of course, I have played with many other ideas...