More putty work and a Dungeon Saga figure

So the putty work continued this week.

All ready for primer

Up first was the wing claw of the GW LotR Balrog.  This had been snapped off at some stage.  First up I drilled and glued in a paper clip shaped the rough curve of the other claw and then covered it in Milliput.  Once dry I carved this down to match the existing claw.  After that I sanded the Milliput with 320 and then 600 grit sand paper to smooth out the surface as the existing plastic claw is very smooth of course.

Redone claw

I then dropped the figure and chipped off the end of the claw.  So I switched to green stuff as it is more flexible and redid the tip of the claw (unfortunately not as sharp) and added in some more knuckle shapes, etc.  Calling it done at this stage.

Final thing was drilling and pinning the feet for attaching to the base.

Two joins only - take that Balrog

I also did a bit of green stuff work on some Reaper Bones figures I purchased to cover up the join marks.  Nothing major there.

I had planned to start priming all these figures but the weather has been too wet whenever I'm at home and the shed does get a bit cold and humid so decided to wait a bit.

Dungeon Saga figure

Finally actually did some painting and worked on the Kickstarter exclusive figure from the Dungeon Saga kickstarter.  Kind of need a small figure to get back into things after near two months with very little painting.

Milliput is my friend - GW Balrog work

Feed me hobbits!

This week went to town with the milliput on the GW LotR Balrog figure.  So much milliput.  Part of this was because the figure had been broken apart and bits had been snapped off, especially around the wings.  Part was because of the usual GW approach to cutting up figures for the molds.  No hidden joins under overhanging sculpted details to make things clean.  Nope, been spoilt there with new resin figures.  Just the good old 'slice off the pieces' and let the buyers fix up the joins.

Wings after glue

I pinned (using chopped up paper clips) and superglued (with Zap-a-gap) all the pieces together.  The arms were the easiest as they had sockets.  The wings originally did but the inserts had been snapped off and were still in the figure.   So drilling and pinning there.  The back flames had tabs so they didn't need pinning.  The head had nothing, just a smooth join so pinning was a must there.

Wings after putty work

...and some more putty

Original base glued inside the new resin base, pre milliput

For the base the figure came with a 60mm flat base, totally different from the usual GW lipped bases. So I went off to The Combat Company and got a 60mm resin base.  I glued in the plastic base inside to add some bulk and used more milliput to hid the edge gap.

Love this barn

I also put together the Renedra barn and have now glued this onto a piece of 3mm mdf.

Reaper Fire Giant

Finally I put together the Reaper Fire Giant.  Only one tiny seam line to fill in on this one :)

MOAB 2018

Well, been a bit quiet.  Home life has been kicking me around recently with lots of 'around the house' projects that took up most of the last month.  Those now are finally done and I can get some free time on the weekend to do my stuff instead of home stuff.

MOAB 2018 was once again on over the long weekend and I headed for the bring-and-buy.  After waiting in line for 45mins (every year I'm having to go a bit earlier :) ) it was into second hand game heaven.

Every year I love seeing the gaming trends come and go.  This year it was obvious that X-wing was on the decline with lots of items for sale.  I found quite a few bargains and some just random things I didn't want but were priced at the 'why not' price point.

* Various lego sets - $38

Not only were all complete, but the boxes had all been opened very carefully to avoid ripping.  Plus they had been stored away from the sun and not crushed at all.  Some true anal retentive behaviour there.  The kids of course just ripped them apart.

* Bane 75mm $30

A cheap 75mm figure as a painting project.  

* Walrus 1/72 - $10

I've been after this kit for some time but it is out of production it seems.  I have dreams of dioramas around this plane.  Too much Biggles as a kid.

* Barn - $5

Awesome buy at $5, plus inside the box were three sprues of the Renada wattle fences as well.  $45 for $5.  Already built the barn.

* Reaper Bones Fire giant (old) - $10

Another figure for painting just because.

* GW LotR Balrog - $20

In pieces and paint stripped (badly) but complete.  Not really for playing LotR (a game and figure range I love) with but more for a huge figure and only at $20.  Will need a fair amount of putty work. 

* Tree set - $10

Purchased this mainly for the plastic tree pieces for dioramas.

* Battlemasters map - $5

Huge hold out vinyl map with a hex grid.  Purchased to keep the kids occupied for a day or so over the school holidays

* DS game - $3

For the kids, can't complain at $3

* Gamer's grass - $10

The only thing I actually purchased from a retail store at MOAB because they were on special.

So some good buys and the kids were pretty happy with all the Lego.  Resisted all the Walking Dead sets there that were very cheap and other things I just didn't need.  There were some great MDF laser cut sets on sale from various retail sellers.  But I just can't justify buying them given that I'm not playing anything at the moment.  

Blacksmith workshop

Slightly off topic but I went on a two day blacksmith workshop course held by the https://eveleigh.works  I took the 'Blacksmith Introduction I' course.  Great fun pounding away on red hot metal and I only lost the hair on two fingers.  We made a coat hook holder with consisted of two hooks (with spirals) hot riveted onto a base plate.  The baseplate also had some details of a cut line rectangle.  Those lines are meant to be straight.  On my piece I then hot cut out the corners with a custom chisel and used a ball pein hammer to add some texture details.

Photo bomb tour below...

250kg anvil

The old furnaces

Racks of steel ready to be worked on

Our instructor in front of the large power hammer

The two hooks tapered.  This took half of the first day.  Noodle arms at the end

Baby gas furnaces.  Not something to stand in front of

The anvil I was working on with some tools of the trade

The classroom with the striking anvils in the middle of the room

So much history laying around - a die for a hook.

Hooks now with spirals

Hooks bent to shape - this was the end of day 1

Day 2 - Marking out the back plate - the last time anything was square on this.  Witness punched holes to help guide the fuller.

When the anvil has two hardy holes, you know it's serious

Random spanner left laying around

Bench (well floor) grinder of death.  In the time before OHS a big red sign meant this machine kills people.  The wheel has sharp teeth for chewing up metal.  Not sure how you would stop it from flipping the work piece up.

Hooks hot riveted onto the base plate and coated in bees wax

54mm Andrea Teutonic Knight (FP-2) part 3, Stormcast Eternal conversion, Celtic Chieftain bust

54mm Andrea Teutonic Knight (FP-2)

Well I did a bit more fiddling on the green cloak of the knight and got happier with it.  I decided the spear needed a pennant.  I first tried doing it in paper but the paper kept folding after painting, even after being covered in PVA glue.  Next I decided to make one out of green stuff.  After cutting to shape and attaching to the spear I created the folds and let it dry.

Green stuff pennant

The green stuff needs to be supported (I used a plastic bag underneath to avoid the green stuff sticking) otherwise it will sink before drying.  The advantage of green stuff for this kind of work is that you can get it very thin, it holds the shape and when bumped (as happens, esp. with flags/etc) it doesn't break as it's always flexible.  I'm really happy with the contrast work I got on the pennant.  Unfortunately makes the rest of the figure look a bit flat.  Next time..

Green cloak of many coats..

For the ground work I tried two different techniques.  Normally I sculpt the ground with milliput/modelling clay, glue on a sand/rock mix, then add flock/scatter and then static grass tufts, etc.  This time I mixed-up a batch of the usual sand/rock mix and adding the scatter and bits of static grass (the leftover jar from previous flocking jobs with all kinds of bits in it) and mixed it all together and covered all the base with this.

Ground work start

The variation in materials gave a much better ground texture.  Many people just use real dirt, plaster, ground debris for their bases and I see why now.  Another lesson on why you should try new things, esp when many other people are doing it that way.  The second technique was for the static grass.  Rather than just put it on, or use pre-done tufts I used the 'gently blowing on' technique that I first read about from Sheperd Paine.

Finished ground work

You sprinkle the grass on and then blow it from the side.  This blows off the excess but also makes the remaining static grass stand up.  Works a treat.  I also added in some longer grass bits bent over in the direction of the wind that is blowing the cloak and pennant.

The expression "before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything" could be equally said for Sheperd Paine.  The book "Building and Painting Scale Figures" is a fantastic reference and is the book that really turned me from an army painter to a figure painter.

Cut down and wire supports added

I purchased five GW Stormcast Eternals secondhand in Cancon this year as experimental figures.  The second figure I wanted to convert to a chaos corrupted version.  I had a vision of a tentacle arm going through a nose, with the nose being on the chest.

Shaping areas

Then I added some eyes as per the usual "lots of eyes on chaos things".  All very standard and a bit of a throw back to the old school Chaos marines.

Eyes...

For sculpting I'm using a mix of milliput an green stuff in approx. 60/40% mix with a dash of harsh language.

Celtic Cheiftain 1/16 bust

Finally started on the Celtic Chieftain bust.  Starting to get the bronze where I would like it.  Flesh next.  Need to work out the cloak and shirt colours and I'm thinking about using the airbrush on these given the large flat areas.

54mm Andrea Teutonic Knight (FP-2) part 2

Teutonic knight of colours

So lost a weekend to moving the parents.  On the other weekend I got the cloak on the Teutonic Knight sorted out.  Trying green and having limited success.  My main issue is that I seem to have streaks/lines in the paint.  I'm thinking this is from the JS paints being a bit thicker.  However I haven't had this with others so maybe it's just the Pthalo Green?  The cloak colours were

base - Pthalo green + yellow oxide
up - green and yellow ink, with more pthalo green added
down - base + violet mix from the JS Ultramarine Blue and red ink.  Random shades using the base + ultramarine blue for variety.

I did try using white to highlight the green but that (as expected) chalked out the green.  I also found that adding yellow made a much more dynamic highlight over the white.  Really added shine to the green over lightness (aka whiteness).

For the three shadow folds the wife suggested making them each a different height (originally two were roughly the same).  This added greatly to the dynamics of the cloth.

I'm not sold on the green to be honest.  It doesn't sit right to me.  Perhaps it's just too much, or maybe needs some texture on it?

28mm bridge

Second up was adding some flock/scatter to the bridge to make it look a bit more run down.

fix up time

Finally started to fix up a Celtic bust I purchased awhile ago.  The figure came with a left hand instead of a right hand.  So I cut off the fingers and thumb, glued on the hand stump and started to sculpt new fingers/thumb and fix up the sleeve.  For the sculpting I used a mixture of green stuff and standard milliput.