Stormcast Eternal vers 1 and prepping new figures

So a bit of a mixed bag over the last two weeks.

Stormcast Eternal

First up was finishing off the Stormcast Eternal I was working on.  I didn't get the bottom of the shield quite right but I'm pretty happy with the hammer and cloud effects around the top of the hammer.

Next was getting back to the ruined house I purchased for Terminator Genisys.  I airbrushed on the majority of the colours.  After I had all the base colours done I then did a smoke overlay over the top of the horse in grey/black to emphasise the battle damage.  That was a bit stark so I used some VGC Bleached Bone and dry brushed top to bottom on the black areas to lighten things up and get a bit of a 'burnt ash' look.  I also added some green mold in the corner of one room and some rank marks just to trial a few techniques that I had read about but not tried.

3 eyed alien

I prepped up a three eyed alien (?) bust that I purchased some time ago off eBay.  Something different to try.  Thinking about doing some kind of ochre colour for the skin.

I got the 54mm knight together and undercoated him.  While thinking about basing him the wife mentioned that he would look good with a horse.  Luckily for me a I have 54mm horse (again, another random eBay purchase).  Not sure if the figures together will work so I'm going to build up the horse (it's lead and needs some work to clean up and put together) and see what they look like together.  The knight is a good standing figure so would fit with a standing the horse which I didn't have any real plans for.

I keep getting distracted by milling machine projects so I'm finding my painting time is going down.  Plus I'm finding it hard to sit and do any painting at the moment.  The desire is there but not the motivation unfortunately.

Stormcast Eternal vers 1

Stormcast Eternal base coats

So got a bit done on the first Stormcast Eternal I have (purchased from Cancon in January).  Sick kids and work did put a damper on things.  After much paint shuffling I went for a turquoise and red/brown mix.  The turquoise is

VGC Falcon Turquoise base
Shaded with VMC Dark Sea Blue
Highlights VMC Light Blue and white

Stormcast Eternal with the turquoise done

The red/brown is

JS Red Oxide/VMC Flat Red base
Shaded with black
Highlights with VMC Flat Red/JS Orange, JS Light Yellow.

For the red/brown rather than using the red oxide as the base I used a lighter mix made from adding Flat Red as the base.  This is because the red oxide is too dark compared to the turquoise.

Colour chart for Stormcast Eternal

Trying to (re)learn a few things I did make a colour chart first.  This did help as it made it obviously that the red oxide was too dark.  Prep work for the win!

Resin fail :(

My second attempt to base coat the spacecraft failed.  The resin is bad/weeping so it went in the bin.  In the picture you can see that half the paint is still glossy (ie not dry) after two days.  Sigh.

Lots of pinning...

I need to have another go at a 54mm figure so started prepping up a knight I got off eBay awhile ago.  A very traditional knight figure.  I was thinking about a head swap (as I find helmeted figures a bit impersonal) but decided to stick with the figure as it is.  Slowly gluing and pinning all the parts together.

Klaus Copperthumb

This week I was working on Klaus Copperthumb.  I'm really liking these Reaper Bones figures.  The exaggerated 28mm scale compared to the old school Ral Partha 25mm figures makes them a bit easier to paint (for older eyes).  Plus they have some great classic fantasy archtype figures and are only $5.  I always wanted the nirvana of buying a single figure a week and painting it that week  (ie no pile of shame).  The bones range seems to meet that for me.  But to be honest I really should save some money and break out the older Ral Partha figures again.  I guess I've had the older figures for so long the interest level in them has dropped.  Plus the bones figures fit in nicely with Dungeon Saga.

Klaus Copperthumb by Reaper

Most of the figure went well, except for the cloak.  I was trying for a slightly purple grey but really failed to find the mid-tones for this.  My mix was

VMC Deep Sea Blue
VMC Red (small drop)
JS White

In the end I found highlighting up with white and JS Cadmium Medium Yellow didn't work as well as just using VMC BoneWhite.  The final highlights were just glazes of the Bonewhite on the top of the hood.  For shading I tried adding more red (to make the mix more purple) and Black.  That was less successful.

The shirt was more of a surprise.  My base was VMC Golden Yellow and a drop of AP Black.  Obviously the AP Black is pretty high on the blue scale as I ended up with a great looking green.  Highlights by adding yellow, shadows by adding some VMC Violet/Red.

The armoured belt base was VMC German Medium Brown and Black.  I highlighted strongly with the Bonewhite and White which worked out quite well.

I worked on the spacecraft for my Ex-manus void suit figure.  I have a nice idea of a "working outside the space station" in mind.  I used resin in a plastic cup to cast a rounded hull shape, which I then glued various bits onto to 'junk it up' a bit.  Looks really cool.  I undercoated it and then...sad face.  Looks like the resin has gone off as although it set fine it seems to be weeping sticky oil which means the paint can't dry.  I've had this once before and there was no solution.  I suspected the resin was not 100% as the colour of one part of the resin (I use Easycast) had gone a bit funny but hoped for the best.  So now I've cleaned off the whole thing with kerosene and will leave a day or so before trying the repaint.  If this fails again I'll have to start again (and probably chuck the rest of the remaining resin).

Maybe next week?

So up next probably won't be my void suit guy.  Instead maybe a Stormcast Eternal and try something different on him.  I've got 5 of them so I'm using them as test figures (ie not of any game and probably not good enough for display).  I'm also wanting to do a bust again or a 54mm figure.