Orphan 9 kickstarter figure and base

So I've mainly been making fidget spinners this last week or so.  Resin casing up some and making and casting an additional bar spinner for the kids.  That is now into the final spray painting stage so almost done there.

I finished up the 28mm barbarian I was working on.  Putting him in the cupboard with the other (and much older) figures it's pretty much chalk and cheese between the old and new.  Even with figures from a year or so ago there is a huge difference.

I am still not sure on how to get started with the 54mm knight.  Not sure what is going on there.  Didn't stop me from buying some more 54mm figures from eBay however.

Orphan 9 kickstarter figure

The figure from the Orphan 9 kickstarter arrived a few weeks back and I got a really strong idea for a diorama base for her.  She is very much a true 25mm (think old school Ral Partha) figure with super fine detail.  I seriously am doubting if I have the brush control to paint her face it's that small and fine.

Start of the base

For the base I got the idea of her waiting around the corner in a cyberpunk environment.  Using pine as the base material I used some pre-printed brick styrene sheet for the walls.

The bits..

The railing that is a great source for odd shapes

Then with some card I made up a door.  I have a Victorian era railing that I cut up for various details.  I used the rails for electric wire holders around the top of the building, the round rail decoration bit for wall bolts (to show age in the building) and some of the circle detail bits for the door handle.  Max level repurposing.  To attach the figure to the base her legs are almost too thin for drilling and adding pins so I am thinking of cutting down the support tab to make small pins under each foot.  Going to have to be rather careful there.

all together

For colours I need to trial some ideas.  Currently black boots (of course), red jump suit and dark blue padding/armour areas.  Really going to need the optivisor for this figure.

Now for the paint

Cosplay shield and a few figures

So for the last few months I have had a side project to make a cosplay style shield for the wife with an Elder Scrolls theme.  She worked out the design (slightly organically) that she wanted and I got to make and paint it.

Warbla and craft foam, light areas the wood putty

I used warbla as the base material for this.  Previously for the kids I had made shields out of foam (ie garage floor mats) as they were going to be beat up a bit.  This shield would be handled a bit more gently.  Also I wanted a large project to learn how to use warbla.  There are 2-3 layers of warbla over most of the shield.  The was a main backing layer, a top layer so that the centre could be appear recessed and then a another backing layer as I found just one layer of warbla was too thin and bent a bit in places.  On heating one layer of warbla tends to wrinkle.  I found that with multilayered areas sometimes the warbla would de-laminate.

Gesso coat

Craft foam was then glued on top to form the petal pattern and the stylised hand in the centre of the shield.  Unfortunately I had a seam line (due to the size of the pieces of warbla I had) across the centre of the shield which despite filling with wood putty and sanding still showed through.  I was thinking it would be blended in pretty well but that was not the case.  The petal design was a late change to the design and if I had known about that in advance I would have hidden the seams under the layer of craft foam.  So more planning in advance would have helped like always.

Undercoat

After everything was glued/puttied/sanded I coated everything in three coats of gesso.  The pro builders use spray on plastic-dip and I can see why.  However it is rather expensive.  Following on from the gesso I undercoated everything black.

Done

The red sections were airbrushed on after I masked off (so much masking) the rest of the shield.  I used JS paints for this.  The gold was from the AK wax metallic range and painted on.  Very much like Rub-and-buff but it paints on much easier.  Almost like painting with soft butter.

Following on from the paint I did two clear coats (spray can) before the weathering with oils.  I thin the oils down with white spirit to do basically pin washes along the edges and some highlights.  However despite the clear cost some paint was still lifted by the white spirit.  I think next time I'll just stick with 100% acrylics.  I highlight blended up the red areas (to more plum red) and the black (to light purple/grey).  Totally monotone areas look very odd so variation is needed.  The gold got a raw sienna wash to tone it down slightly.  On the areas that the paint lifted I went back and padded/finger stamped on some black/grey to redo those areas.  I find this blends better than just straight painting.  More of a stipple than painting.  The petals and the hand were repainted in flat black to make them pop a bit.

Again once that was dried out (I left the oils 3-4 days to dry) some more semi-gloss clear coats.

Witch

Eureka samurai

Old school is the best school

Away from the shed I painted up a few old figures.  A witch from Warlord Games (I think), a samurai from Eureka Miniatures and an old Grenadier figure.  Just something to keep the brush going.  Still very much stuck in a rut on painting.  I cast up a new copy of my alien bust I did last year as another thing to paint and experiment on.  Still haven't gotten going on my 54mm knight with maybe a horse added.  This didn't stop me however going to a scale model show and buying some new 1/32 figures.  They were cheap however.  I've always wanted to do some American civil war project so the box of figures from Master Box seemed like a good idea at the time :)