Recently I’ve been playing around with a wonderfully creative tool called Midjourney. For those who don’t know what it is it is an AI program that produces concepts and art through the use of prompt inputs. You can really let your imagination go wild with it and with the right inputs you can really create some out of this world imagery. It is a powerful tool for concept work, weather you are world building, character designing, logo designing, furniture design, building design, the list of creative applications for this is truly amazing.
Needless to say I am hooked! The inspiration has been flowing and I have made some good progress on my first Midjourney project, The Royal Court of The Mel-lish Dynasty. The way I did these characters was to create the elements using the AI and then manipulate and assemble them in photoshop and all in all I’m very pleased with the results. So more will follow soon I’m sure 🙂
Hope you like them.
The Queen Mel-lishPrincess and Advisors to the CourtMage of the Court
Exciting news! Mag Bellum will be at Salute 2019!! Awesome hey? Its been a hard slog and I still have much to do but I will be there and hopefully you will be too. If so come up and say hi, I will have displays on with new stuff that will be hitting the shop along with AoS28 and Inq28 displays using the Mag Bellum tile system.
You will of course be able to buy a box or two of tiles to get started with the tile system and special deals will also be on offer. I will be updating on the lead up to the event which will be held on the 6th of April 2019 at the London Excel.
To get things started though I need your help. I’ve just launched an Everpress campaign where you can purchase a limited edition T-shirt with the proceeds going to help me make Mag Bellum a reality.
On another note, and because it’s hard not to have a picture of a miniature in a blog post, my company Black Edge 3D will be doing our first Kickstarter! It’s just a small one with the miniature shown below on offer.
It’s all very Blanchian and was taken from a concept drawing by the talented Stygian Thorne ( Ahmad Jafar ). More details will follow soon as well as more images of her in all her grim dark glory.
Welcome to the first display tile post. In these I will be showcasing my display tiles and showing a few w.i.p images as well with brief descriptions on the process.
The display tile idea came about so I could add to the narrative of my characters by placing them in particular scenes of note. The first of these are settings in which my new ][nq28 war band, pictured below, are taking part in.
The introduction to some of these characters can be found in earlier posts with the rest to follow soon, if only there were more time in a day or better still a three day weekend! It’s only the beginning of the year and already I have a back log 🙂 Any way the stories have begun and the scenes are being made and I’m sure I’ll have them finished by mid year………or later 😉
So to kick things off are a few images of the first tile without any Photoshop parts added. I used one lamp from above to light it and white paper was used to surround it. This makes it easier to add the photoshop elements later.
The materials used to create this tile are as follows.
GW bits. Parts from the tree kit and the flesh eater courtiers.
Scenery parts designed by myself, which can be found in the shop page.
Left over resin support bases from 3D printing. I’ve been trying to find a use for these for a while now because it’s such a waste and I’m loathed to throw resin away. So to use them as the textured floor worked really well and will do it again as I have so many of them.
Skulls, candles and random bits plus the usual suspects when texturing up a tile or base.
All was painted using washes and pigments with areas being drybrushed in grey and toned with washes.
Fake grass was added last in random areas.
Once I had the character placed right and the shot I wanted I open it up in Photoshop and began to create the background image. This one is of a worn ancient wall with a dark foreboding entrance and I used images taken on my trips to castles and various old or ruined stone structures I have seen over the years.
Although it takes a while I feel it adds to the process of a narrative wonderfully and is very rewarding. To have you’re characters placed in a scene it’s like a snap shot from a film.
Mercy Enters Alone
Well there you have it. I hope you like it and any questions please ask.
heresy of us 