Reaper Spirit of the Forest part 5 and Reaper Antarctic Explorer part 1

Spirit of the Forest

So with the holidays fun and games been a bit patchy with the blog posts.  However good progress has been made. 

I finished off the Spirit of the Forest figure.  Final steps on the base included

- brass etched ferns
- water reeds in the pond, then Vallejo Water Effects to add some ripples to the pool
- redoing some of the grass to add some different tones
- painted a butterfly (hand made from paper)
- made some Old man's beard from steel wool.  Originally painted green and then lightened on the figure

Butterfly cut out

On the figure I varied some of the green areas as most of the green was too uniform in tone.  I did this by using Jo Sonja Hookers Green and Pthalo Green to darken and cool some of the lower greens.

Steel wool vines

I did a bit more on the OSL, but not much.  Then it was just gluing the figure to the base and repainting the sides of the base to clean up any over paint.  Calling it done.

Butterfly in (fuzzy) detail

Then it was onto the Reaper Bones Chronoscope Antarctic Explorer 28mm figure.  I saw this one in my LGS and really liked it.  Something quite different in genre.  I cut off the rifle barrel and replaced it with a plastic rod.

Reaper Antarctic Explorer

I had a strong idea for a base of a ruined building in the background to give a "end of the world" vibe.  The figure being more a survivor than an explorer.  With that in mind I wanted muted colours and worn clothing.

Wall painted and window frame done

For the base I purchased a sheet of pre done plastic card brick work.  I cut out a window and used plastic card for the framing and clear plastic sheeting for the glass.  I cut up some more plastic card to make the wooden planks.  I tried the method of scoring the plastic card with a razor saw to make wood grain.  It worked a bit but not enough.  Need to give that another try and be more violent in the application.

Fire damaged wall

The ground work was built up with some DAS modelling clay.  The snow effects will be added once the figure is in place.

Painting the wall I used Vallejo German Red/Brown primer as the base coat.  It is a near perfect red brick colour off the bat.  I then added some lighter and dark coloured bricks to break up the wall.  I went for a mix of approx.

- 40% base colour
- 20% one step lighter
- 20% one step darker
- 10% two steps lighter
- 10% two steps darker.

The mortar was VMA Light Brown.

The wood planks were Bestial Brown + Black as a base and then shaded as usual.  Once everything was glued together I used my airbrush to add some smoke damage.  First VMC Black/grey and then VMA Black.  I find straight black too much normally.  I then painting in the graffiti ("No Food").

Next time the figure.

Reaper Spirit of the Forest part 4

Well it's that time of year and I'm fully into silly season.  Frantic week at work before we go into change freeze and lots of family stuff over the weekend so not much progress.

Spirit of the Forest

I played some more with the OSL and used some of the Liquitex ink as the glaze on the face, hands in lower legs.  Although the legs are quite far away from the eyes I want to make some harsh highlights on the tops of the legs to enforce the OSL effect.

Base

On the base I repainted the tree stumps to look more like birch trees.  I also did the resin pour on the pond.  Like the fountain for the Violinist diorama I used clear casting resin.  I dries in a day normally unlike the Liquid Gloss that takes a week.  You just have to be very careful with the harder ratio so as not to cook the resin.  I think I may have done this incorrectly (always hard in such a small batch) as the top of the surface of the pond has a slight ripple.  However that is fine as I was planning on using Vallejo Water Effects after on the surface.

Pond close up

I wanted some ferns on the base so ordered some brass etched ones.  In all my diorama books everyone uses brass/laser cut paper for ferns rather than diy ones.  I've never used brass etch before so some learning up ahead for that.  Now I need to work out what else greenery can be added to the base.  Some reeds for the pond will be first.  I'm also thinking of draping some vines/etc over the figure too.

Reaper Spirit of the Forest part 3

Spirit of the Forest

So this week was the rest of the wood on the figure and the core the the greenery done.  I also started to work on the OSL from the eyes of the figure.

For the greenery sections my base colour was JS Sap Green and a touch of Burnt Sienna (to blend it with the wood).  Shading was done by adding in JS Pine Green, Red Earth, Pthalo Green, VMC Red and black.  Highlights were done by adding in Cadmium Yellow Mid, Warm White and White.

For the recessed areas of the greenery went for more of the Pine Green and Pthalo Green.  For the darker areas I used more of the red and black.  Mid level highlights were done by adding the yellow, upper highlights by adding in white.

I also did some of the mushrooms in various colours to add some variety to the figure.

For the OSL I used white and Liquitex Lime Green ink on the eyes.  This was diluted heavily with water/flow aid and glazed on the jaw, eye area and on the two fists.  Pretty much did an straight line from the eyes and where ever that sight line hit the figure I added some glaze.  I now need to got back and add some higher level highlights closer to the eyes.

On the base I painted up some of the grass area and painted in the pond ready for a clear resin pour.

Finally I did a bit of work on the Terminator Genisys terrain piece.  It's way too dark (really should have base coated in a much lighter grey) but I'm happy with it.  I played around with trying some rust colours.  I started with a dark brown and went up to a light orange.  I also tried the AK Rust Streaks which I blended with some white spirit.  That worked pretty well.  Just need to finish painting the ground around the base to all this one done.

Reaper Spirit of the Forest part 2 and Terminator Genisys terrain

Spirit of the Forest

So I slacked off big time from painting.  On the plus I watched two seasons of "The Expanse" and most of Punisher season one.  I now however have a very strong urge to scratch build some spacecraft.  Also my shed is cleaned up and has some new shelving.  Also the cosplay sword I'm making for the wife finally got going again.  Too many projects.

Getting back to the Spirit of the Forest figure I've done the wood layer on another leg and both arms.  I kind of forget that I had the Red Earth in the base and went for a mixture of Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Indian Yellow? and White with a touch of red at the end of the highlights.  Shading was done by starting with the base and adding Pthalo Green, VMC Dark Sea Blue and Black.

Rather than do the green parts as I complete each limb I decided to just get all the wood done.  On the left arm I found I had gone too far with the highlights so need to bring that back a few notches.  Do do this I did a few light glazes of the base Burnt Sienna over all the arm.

For the eyes I added some Pthalo Green to the mixture and highlighted by adding in more yellow and white.  My intent is to do some OSL from the eyes (yes - very standard but my first attempt at OSL).  Also on the fists I have done some glazing in the green mixture on where light would hit if coming from the eyes.

Finally while cleaning out the plastic scrap bin in my shed I came across a few pieces that I though could make some good modern terrain.  The base was the holder for a router bit and the tubing is from a CD spindle holder.  I'm going for a ruined comms/power tower look.  I super glued the tube to the base and put a wooden dowel inside the tube to fill up the space.  Then milliput standard was used to fill in the gaps.  I stripped some insulated wire and used the copper wire pieces to stick out the top to represent some broken rebar.  Next will be coating the whole think in Vallejo stone paste which I'll sponge to get a rough concrete finish.

Reaper Bones Spirit of the Forest

I worked a little bit on my next figure, the 'Spirit of the Forest' Bones figure by Reaper.  Most of the work however was on the base.

Spirit of the Forest by Reaper

I want the figure in a woodland scene but don't want to have any full height trees of the base.  They would be too big and dominate the small base.  Instead I've added some fallen trees and stumps to the base.  The two stumps are resin pieces and the fallen tree is a home cast I did awhile ago of a nice looking stick that had enough texture that it would still look ok at scale.

Base - white area is where the feet go

I also plan to have a small water feature/pond at the front of the base.  Adding the water effects (I will probably use casting resin) will be done last.  Currently at this stage I have glued in some rocks and coated the wood with PVA to avoid the resin seeping into the wood.

For the ground cover I used DAS modelling clay with a layer of PVA glue underneath.  While the putty was still wet I added a layer of PVA glue on top and pressed in some home made scatter material (coloured sawdust).  I wanted to use this over the usual sand/rock mix as I wanted a dense undergrowth look.  This will be further painted.  For now I just some some washes to make sure all the white from the DAS putty was gone.

On the figure I did a rough base coat of Jo Sonja Brown Earth, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna and white lightening the mixture as I went up the figure.  I will paint the figure in parts due to the size of it.  So far I have painted one leg with the wood details and some of the greenery and mushrooms picked out.  For the green areas I have been using JS Pine Green and Sap Green.

I'm finding painting some areas quite hard due to the arms of the figure being in place.  I don't really want to cut up the figure so a bit of rough painting (which can't really be seen) will be needed.

Terminator Genisys terrain

I’ve had a few pieces of terrain for Terminator Genisys sitting half done for months now so I decided it was time to finish them off.  Trying to clean all the little side projects at the moment.

These are designed to match the bases of the figures which are quite stark and dry, as you would expect after judgment day.

The first piece is a concrete entrance to a tunnel system.  Something that works well with in the Terminator universe.  The piece is on 3mm mdf with plastic card making up the box.  There is some old sprue pieced underneath the plastic card for support.  The door is from a Warhammer 40K rhino.

The second was a collapsed building with another tunnel entrance.  Again the door is off a 40K rhino.  I’m liking the idea of a game where the terminators have to find the tunnel entrances and then attack the resistance base.  The bricks were a plastic card A4 printed sheet.  The rubble was formed by using some foam for bulk and then covering it in a mix of plaster of paris rubble.  I make this by making a thin sheet of plaster of paris, then breaking it up with forms some nice jagged pieces.  I also added in some 1/35 scale bricks.

The last is a couple of the resin rocks and resin tree bit that I use for my larger scale figures.

All three bases got a covering of my usual three part sand/pebble/rock basing mix.  I always glue this down twice with PVA glue.  Once to glue on the rocks and then a second over the top to bond everything together really well.

Painting was just simple washes and dry brushing.  When dry brushing I did this in one direction usually to help enforce the light source aspect.

Finally some grass tufts and pieces were added to bring a bit of variety and colour.

Terminator Genisys human resistance figures

I started the week with the last bits of tidy up on the ADV Mujahideen figure.  It was nice to do a quick figure and learning how to do dark skin better than what I could do previously was good.  I need to do more figures like this.

Terminator Genisys figure

I’ve got the 16 human fighters from the Terminator Genisys game to paint up.  I painted the faces of two over a month ago and left them at that.  So this week I made the effort to get them going again.  Whenever I’m painting up a force of similar figures the first few are the hardest as I need to work out the look of the force.  Also you learn about the details on the figures as you paint.  There is a bit of blending on the figures (i.e. where an arm morphs into a rifle) but that is expected on plastic figures with are not multipart.

Given how little play time these figures are likely to get I wanted to keep with the quick and easy method for them.  However given all the layers of clothing they have that’s a bit harder.  My goal was 1.5 hours per figure which I came close to.

Given they are future army men I had to avoid going all green on them.  I needed to break up the areas of cloth to make the outfits look a little more random and scavenged.  On these first two I probably went for too much green.  More brown on the next ones :)  After all they don’t wash much.

My base for the green was JS Green Oxide.  To this I added a range of colours (black, yellow, a few browns, tan) to give me the various green shades.  I usually highlighted up by adding in yellow to lighten the green and fade it.  Sometimes a warm white was added.  Shading was done by adding black, Dark sea Blue or red (or mixtures of these) depending on the base colour.  On what looked like harder, more rigid pieces of armour I added some scuff marks.

The plasma rifle (which I consider the weakest part of the figures, has a bit blob on the bottom of it) was painted in AP Gun metal, shaded with dark sea blue with a VMC Smoke wash, highlights in AP Plate Mail.

Also I’ve been trialling some water effects for the Reaper Spirit of the Forest figure.  Might get started on that one next week.

ADV Mujahideen 1/35 figure part 2

This week I pretty much finished off the Mujahideen figure.

ADV Mujahideen, sans mine and AK-47

For the green pouches I shaded down with some VMC Red and VMC Red/Violet.  I highlighted by adding more Indian Yellow to the base mix, then some JS Light Yellow and white.  The small pouch toggles were painted white.

For the hat I used VMC Khaki highlighted with JS Light Yellow and white, shaded with VMA Armour brown and VMC Dark Sea Blue under the rim of the hat.

On the jacket I had a few attempts.  I found my dark brown kept going to light purple during the highlights.  I was trying to highlight in yellow/white and this wasn’t working.  In the end I went back to using VGC Beastial Brown and Leather Brown and the final highlights in a warm white.  I stippled the top of the shoulders with a warm white/white mixture.  Shading by adding in Dark Sea Blue and black.

Figure on base

The clothes were a bit of a trial.  I was trying to use JS raw sienna as the shade and that was making a flesh colour (not unexpected as warm white + raw sienna are the base of most flesh mixtures).  Then I remembered that on Adokul the Monk I had used VMC Smoke as the shade colour for his linen cloth.  Hate it when I forget how to paint a colour that I worked out previously.  Once I switched to the Smoke things went a lot better.  Highlights in white.  I also make sure I mixed in some flow aid into the mixture to try and stop the white paint from getting lumpy.

For the base I liked the cover art that had the rocks in an off white/blue colour.  Makes the ground work look nice and barren as you would expect the mountain areas to be.  The figure was glued to the base with two part epoxy with a small rod drilled into the wooden base and the resin base of the figure to give support.

Last to do is the anti-tank mine and AK-47 which are half done.  Need to finish them off now that they are glued on.

Worm bust part 2 and Mujahideen 1/35 figure

The worm bust

Over the last week or so I’ve been working on finishing the worm bust.  The areas that I worked on were the eyes, robe and collar and green skin area (esp the neck).

For the eyes I wanted to bring out the faceted shape of the eye (modelled from a cheap plastic bead).  I highlighted the edges quite strongly but that didn’t really get the effect I was after.  I then added in some streaks radiating from the pupil and added some darker adjacent lines to help with the look.  I made the inner eye a triple colour, being purple, inner white, black pupil.

For the cloth area I added some light blue on the shoulders and back to give a few points of contrasting colour and to add some details to the figure.  I used a base of VMC Prussian Blue and highlighted with white and shaded with VMC Dark Sea Blue and orange.  For the collar I made a crisscross pattern and then filled in the lower triangles.  The yellow areas were then highlighted with JS Light Yellow and white.

For the green skin area the neck needed a lot of work.  It was a uniform dark area so I went back and repainted with the base colour and then was more selective on the shading.  On all the small ridges and muscle areas that I had sculpted on the neck, these were highlighted up like the top of the head but not to the same level.  I also redid some of the top of the head adding in some more contrasts to break up the large areas on similar colour.

After that the under base was painted a very dark maroon/purple and the figure was glued into the wooden base.

So that was the first figure that I designed (well, made up on the fly), sculpted, cast and painted.  Not sure how many I will do but really glad that I did one and it worked out ok.

ADV Mujahideen 1/35 figure

Awhile back I purchased some 1/35 figures off eBay.  One was a Mujahideen from the 1980s by ADV.  Really liked the natural pose of the figure and the flow of the clothing.  Also I have not painted non-caucasian skin much (read almost never) so this was a good reason to try to see if my colour mixing skills had improved.

Well the have, but not much wrt to skin tones.  I have always struggled with skin tones.  Hence why I didn’t try non-caucasian skin.  My first attempt used the below mix

JS Raw Sienna
JS White
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
spot of VMC Red

This colour struggled, being too grey/purple and the highlights too pale.  Wasn’t happy by the time I had painted the skin areas.

Looking in my skin colour recipe book (yes, why didn’t I look there first?) I used the mix of

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
JS White

But this just gave me purple/grey which is a sign of too many complementary colours in the mix.  Of course I had painted all the skin areas and shaded/highlighted before I stepped back and went “nope”.  I think the AP black is on the purple side slightly.

So I revised and tried

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Indian Yellow
JS Black
JS White

This gave me a great looking dark skin.

Shades - Burnt Sienna, Black, Red, VMA Armour Brown
Highlights - Indian Yellow, White, Red, Light yellow

Again I went and painted away and the skin looked good.  However it was too dark (almost African).  So I went back, made what was previously the first highlight colour the base colour and repainted the skin for a third time.  This time I think I’m in the ball park.  I also started blocking out the rest of the figure with the base coats.

AK-47 and anti-tank mine

Dress of the area is very plain, with tops and pants the same colour.  The clothes are Raw Sienna plus white, the ammo pouches are JS green oxide plus Indian yellow.  The hat is tan and the jacket a mix of Burnt Sienna and black.  For the clothes I made the pants a slightly darker base to avoid the two pieces of clothing blending together.

The base will just be the rock base that he came with.  No fancy 3 month dioramas this year.  Well maybe one but that will be later on and the Reaper Bones figure “Spirit of the forest” may be getting the fancy base treatment.

MOAB 2017

I’ve been away on holidays for the last two weeks hence the lack of posts.  I did manage to get to MOAB 2017 on the final day.  I mainly go to MOAB for the bring and buy (second hand stall) so I expected that by the third day it would be pretty picked clean.  However to my surprise there were still items there.  Makes me wonder what was there on day one.

I also got a few normal purchases from the various traders as well.

- Billionaire card game $3

Very fond memories of playing this as a kid so got it to add to the family game stash.

- Roman pillars $5

Some plaster casts of Hirst molds, for dioramas.

- Egyptian bits $5

Some plaster casts of Hirst molds, for the kids.

- Israeli paratroopers $2

Four figures for $2, why not.  Just couldn’t help myself.

- Misc 1/35 germans $6

19 figures in total from various sets.  Got it for the Tamiya tank loaders, but some of the others are good.  One day will start painting all these 1/35 figures I’ve collected.  But again, at $6 for 19 figures why not.

- Renedra fence $15

Nice addition to the diorama stash.

- Ex Manus demon figure $15

Interesting figure that I liked.

- Reaper Bones Spirit of the Forest $12

Another figure that I saw and just could see so much fun to be had with all the extra details on the figure.

Worm bust part 1

So I started on my worm bust this week, however most of my time was spent doing some shed jobs.  Sometimes you just have to let the urge to chop pieces of wood into smaller pieces take over.

I wanted to have a limited colour range used on this bust.  The best thing about making your own busts is that you have an unlimited number to try things on :)

For the back shell I used VMA Scarlet, VMC Red and JS Napthol Crimson.  Some JS Pthalo green was used in the shading as well as some purple ink.  For the highlights I added some JS Cadmium Yellow mid to make orange (and later white) and mixed that in with the base.

For the eyes I’m thinking of yellow with white highlights.  For now I have just blocked in the eyes with JS Cadmium Yellow mid.

For the skin I used JS Sap Green as the base.  Highlights are done by mixing in JS Yellow light and shading by adding in JS Pthalo green and violet red/purple to the mix.  I’ve done some work on the top of the head but haven’t done anything on the area around the neck and below yet.

For the shirt I made a burgundy red/purple from the VMC Red and highlighted that up with some purple ink and white.  The collar is JS Yellow oxide with some JS Cadmium yellow mid  added.  I think I want to add some pattern to the shirt to add some detail as the figure is quite plain.

As you can see not many colours there with some (Cadmium yellow mid, purple ink, pthalo green) being used on multiple sections to try and tie things together.

Adokul the Monk part 7 - finished. Plus Terminator Genisys and Dungeon Saga bits

Adokul the Monk

Well I mucked up the gluing this week.  I attached the figure to the base with two part epoxy as per usual.  However I had too much glue on the feet of the figure and some glue spread out as I pushed the figure down.  The end result was that some paint from the base got lifted and there are some glue visible.  I repainted the areas where paint was lifted but unfortunately the texture is now different (i.e. quite rough compared to the smooth surface of the plastic card).  Even though I painted over the glue spread around the feet again the texture is different and it shows.  Rather annoyed that I did that to be honest.  A real down result after a long paint.

Other than that there was some little clean ups on the figure and fiddling with some sections.  Nothing major but at some stage you just have to stop.  So I’m calling him done now.  On a side note I have a nice supply of books now for the next diorama.

Most of the rest of the week was allocated to shed work so painting was light on.  I finished the last four terminator figures (including the command figure with scratch built comms backpack).  I also painted up Blaine from the Dungeon Saga kickstarter.  He was one of the exclusive kickstarter figures.  Had an interesting bone helmet on.  I like painting these one off figures as it gives me a chance to experiment at bit with no downside.  If the experiment fails at least there is one less figure to paint.  For Blaine I tried out some new ways of painting brown on both the cloak and the armour.

Blaine from Dungeon Saga

With the cloak I started with VMC Leather Brown and shaded down with blue ink, a touch of green ink and black.  This is because blue is the complementary of orange and brown is dark orange.  For the highlights I used JS Yellow Oxide and then Cadmium Mid yellow and white.  I didn’t get as much contrast as I would have liked so still need to work on that.

For the armour I mixed up a warm black from VMC Flat Red, JS Yellow Oxide and blue ink (I think).  I then highlighted that by adding in more tan to the mixture.  For shadows I adding in purple and black.  I liked the end result as it was something different and gave a much different look.

Terminators

On the side project list up next are the humans for the Terminator Genisys game.  The will probably take a bit longer given they have more to paint than the terminator figures.  Some are in army uniforms, others are more ragtag.  Also lots of ponytails.  Guess barbers are hard to find in the future war environment.

Other candidates for side projects are the orcs from Dungeon Saga and the LotR figures I have.  Not sure I want to start the orcs as there are quite a few to paint.

For the next main figure I will be starting my worm bust.  I’m thinking red currently rather than the standard cooler schemes that worm things have.