All posts tagged: pictures

Cool Tool: Canva

Cool Tools: Canva – For Awesome Blog Headers and Social Shares

Published by Joe B

I’ve had a couple of people ask me how I make the blog headers and other images I use. When I shared Canva with them, I’ve had nothing but positive feedback. So I figured it was time to share it with all of you: use Canva (a free tool) to make awesome images with pictures and text. Before we get too far along, I want to clarify that Canva is a free tool (with paid upgrades of course) and there are no affiliates, meaning I get nothing for sharing this tool with you. It’s simply a tool I have found super helpful and want to share with you. What Is Canva? I found Canva as I’ve dived into the how-to-blog world. Amongst all the bloggers-selling-to-bloggers crud I have found a few gems worth sharing with hobbyists. With Canva being one of them. As an online web app, Canva is super easy to get started, create images from anywhere, and use them for anything. It prompts you to create a new design based off of a ton of different pre-configured …

Adding pictures metadata so they get found and shared

Adding Pictures to Your Blog – Uploading, Editing, SEO

Published by Joe B

In the greater blogging world they speak of the importance of adding pictures to posts, the get more readers, shares… blah blah blah. In our hobby community, adding pictures isn’t the problem (we are sharing our painted miniatures after all) but rather may don’t understand the importance of the metadata associated with the image. As hobby bloggers, we are often uploading our images or WIP models, finished collections, or battle reports to have readers enjoy, critique, or even find us. It’s that last point I wish to speak on today as I’ve noticed many of my fellow bloggers miss out on new readers by not adding a description to their images. The Might Google Image Search If you go to images.google.com right now and type in your army, faction, character, does your miniatures pop up? Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you, but if you spent time creating a post on your conversion or a fantastic painting tutorial, having new people find it would be good yeah? While the Google is smart (scary smart sometimes) it still can’t …

Ork Boyz Squad 1 - Front

Orks for Chirstmas

Published by Joe B

Well it only took 4 weeks but I have finished my first squad of Ork Boyz! One could argue that I spent a bit too much time on simple boyz, but since I’m doing this for the enjoyment of it, and trying something new, even Boyz get a shiny paint job 🙂 Even though these are the Orks from the [amazonify]B000057SRB::text::::Assault on Black Reach[/amazonify] set, they are still detailed and entertaining to paint. From their unique sneers, dangling teef, and cobbled together weapons (there are bolts holding the choppas together!) it was fun picking out the details as I went along. A decided to paint the squad as Death Skulls for two reasons: I like the color blue, and I wanted to try a hand at war paint. So each Ork has sone form of blue face paint, painted weapons, or shoulder tatooes. I was also going for a heavily weathered look so I added rust, teal patina a lots of scratches. Even the mud was brought up the legs, knees and rear ends of …

Cypher the Fallen Angel - Front

Completed Cypher and Command Squad

Published by Joe B

As promised I completed Cypher and posting the pictures, off to a good start on my new goals! Cypher was a great character in 3rd Edition Chaos that was mysteriously phased out in the following Codex which really is a shame. Though after reading DFG’s rumor roundup it seems like he may be making a comeback! And here is the full squad together. I am quite aware that I may never be able to play with the squad (except for Apoc of course) but after sitting in my closet for years I figured that Cypher had earned himself a squad. Well the pictures capture that I haven’t really “completed” the squad as most evident by the lack of a banner. I also haven’t finished clear coating and glossing the models (see the back of the medic for a finished piece there), but it is done enough to post and put on the shelf until the day I decide to add custom banners to models. Next up will be some Ork Boyz!

Today’s Tip: Editing with GIMP

Published by Joe B

Ok so you have a descent camera, a light box, and nice looking models you want to share with world. Now what? Well for me I spend a few minutes to edit each picture before posting it online. My program of choice: This is an open source (and free) version of Photoshop that can do way more than I will ever need but it does the things I do need very well. For this tutorial I will go over cropping and white balance. Cropping There may be ways to take the perfect picture so that you don’t need to crop out the extra white space but I find that if I zoom in to the point the model fills the screen the depth of field is too narrow and much of the model is blurry. Below is a pre-cropped image from my light box from my recently finished terminator squad. This is an easy fix in GIMP: click on the rectangular select tool and drag it so it roughly contains your model. Now there should …

Something New: Tau – ToEMP #6

Published by Joe B

Although I’m not sure if I will ever build up a full army, I succumbed to the desire to own a mecha army.  I like the idea and look of the Tau army so I thought I’d try out painting a few before committing.  After buying the codex and spending a few days searching Google Images I decided on the blue suits but wanted a worn and dirty look. I was inspired very much buy this guy on Advanced Tau Tactica. Although I enjoyed painting this model, the battle suite models (I built another to escort the Shas’O) it is poorly designed and had a bunch of voids that needed filling. Even discarding the minor conversion work, I still needed to use a great deal of green stuff to smooth out the armor. The armament was chosen more out of looks and “coolness” than perhaps competitiveness. I like the idea of the ion blaster, although (and maybe perhaps because) it is unpredictable and using the droid as the shield generator just looks cool. Although  I …

Missile Launcher Squad – ToEMP #4 Done

Published by Joe B

Well I was hoping to have finished both this squad as well as the mortar squad for the 4th ToEMP challenge, but alas, I got distracted yet again. The 4th challenge was 60 points of what ever we felt like, as long as we gave a reason why we chose what we did. I picked this squad (and wanted to finish the mortar squad) because they are the “last” troops I need to paint for my traitor guard.  And when I say last, we all know that means: “all I currently have at this time, until I get inspired to buy more plastic crack…” Any way onto the pictures: I want my traitor guard to be colorful, but not over the top with mutations and such (the Iron Warriors really don’t like that type of thing). For the fourth challenge I earn: Foot sloggers x6: 6 points Meeting deadline: 2 points Total Points: 8 Total to date: 69 Hmm I didn’t really push my self to much for this challenge did I? One of my …

Armour Sentinels Finished

Published by Joe B

I finished the last touches on my armoured sentinels for my traitor guard a few days ago but haven’t had a chance to post the pictures yet. Although one of the options for the current ToEMP challenge is a fast attack, I’m not going to count these as I had them nearly finished before the challenge was called. I have two scout sentinels that are coming along that I am using for the third challenge and should be posting wip shots soon.

Traitor Leman Russ Complete – ToEMP Challenge 2 Done

Published by Joe B

Pictures of my finished Leman Russ Battle Tank for my traitor guard. Although I was hoping to have had a head start on the second challenge for 73rd’s A Tale of Even More Painters with my sentinels, I came back from my work trip to find the challenge was to paint an elites choice, and if none were available then a heavy support could be painted instead. I had neither choice planned for the short term for my traitor guard and didn’t even have any models I could put together for it, but luckily I had one of my brothers old Leman Russ tanks in the back of my closet. With his permission I have relinquished the tank from those who worship the corpse and added it to my growing horde.