New Figures and a New Toy

Instead of sharing my work, I wanted to post about a few new releases on the market that people may not be aware of.  The first is from Arena Rex.  You may remember me posting about their figures and kickstater.  Their figures are nicely detailed resin kits that fit into this interesting mash up of history and fantasy.  Their kickstarter has finished delivery and all of their figures are now available on their webstore.  They just released a new figure and it's a real beauty.  The figure, pictured below, is Medusa (though a prettier version than most of us are used to).  She does have snakes mixed in with her hair and at least one mixed in with the cloth around her lower body.  Other than that, she looks like a regular human (well, regular supermodel version of a human).  Her face is covered in a shroud and would be an excellent chance to work on painting sheer fabric.  Their normal figures are 35mm scale but, as a mythic creature, this one is closer to 54mm (the base is 40mm in diameter).  A really stunning sculpt.  I'm really looking forward to getting to paint this one!

Pegaso is releasing a number of 90mm scale mini busts.  Most of the busts we see on the market are 150mm to 200mm scale, so these will be about half that size.  Basically, what they're doing is converting several of their existing 90mm full body figures into busts.  These are not posted to their website yet, but should be up there soon.  So far they are releasing four: a Mamelouk, a French Napoleonic drummer, a Delaware Indian, and a Roman Signifier.  However, if these sell well, I'd expect to see them convert more of their 90mm figures into mini busts.

Above is one of these new mini busts and below is the 90mm full figure.  As you can see, no changes to the sculpt, just cutting it down to create the smaller bust.  It's an interesting idea and, if you're used to painting smaller figures, would be an easier transition than going directly up to the 200mm scale busts.

I've talked a lot about the Scale75 Metal 'n Alchemy paint sets.  In my opinion they are the best water based metallic paints on the market.  However, the main drawback was they were only available in sets.  So if you wanted one then you had to buy the whole set.  Well, Scale75 has finally made them available for individual purchase.  Right now you can get them through Scale75's main site.  The individual metal paints aren't available on the US site, but I'd expect them to be up there shortly.  Oh, and right now the US site is offering 15% off for the entire month of August.  So if you were thinking about any of their figures or paint sets, now is a great time to get them!

Finally, I wanted to share a new toy I just picked up.  I've been taking part in painting/hobby hangouts on google chat and for a while I've been wanting a better webcam.  I was using a basic cheap-o webcam and, while fine for things like video chat, it could not focus on small things like the figures so no one could actually see what I was working on.  Well, on the recommendation of Shades, I picked up the Ipevo VZ-1 HD camera.  It arrived yesterday and I set it up for a quick test.  Below is a screen capture with the camera.  The setup for the picture isn't the best (the lighting is a bit harsh and the angle is very low so reflections off the metallic sections is a bit off), but the camera does a really nice job of focusing on the figure and capturing the detail.  I still want to play around with the settings and setup, but I'm very pleased with it's capabilities so far.  And, who knows, maybe I'll even start to use it to create some video tutorials!  No immediate plans to make any, but I will keep you all posted.