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.

Adokul the Monk part 6 - more base, books and scrolls

First up was doing the marble flooring for the new base.  I started with a base colour of JS Indian Red Oxide and VMC Red.  I needed three coats to get an even coverage of the plastic card.  Doing it again I would have airbrushed on the base coat.

Marble flooring

For the marble streaks I used white, grey and red in thin lines across the base all travelling in the same direction.  After I did some lines I would do a thin glaze of the base coat again (usually with more red) and then a layer of satin gloss.  Then I would repeat and do more lines, etc.  I also added in a layer of yellow flecks by flicking paint off the end of a wide brush.  Crucial was using flow aid to keep the paint thin.  I was using approx 50/50 water flow aid added to the paint.

Template used for drilling in the pin holes, much easier this way

I made two darks areas by first painting on VMC Smoke and then cleaning the bush and putting a line of the flow aid mixture on each side of the paint line.  This way the flow aid trapped the paint but softened all the edges.  The result was a dark patch with no hard transition line so I was pretty happy with that.  Once done this was glued onto the base with two part epoxy.

Book of burning spells, toothpick for scale

I painted up a number of books to be used.  Two of them will be the support for the raised foot.  I had made a couple of different thicknesses to I could get the height right.  While doing this I found the other foot to be very uneven.  I filed down the foot a bit, but then found because of the books it was in the air.  I used some green stuff to make a new sole of the boot to fill in the space and that worked well.

Starting work on the scrolls

To hide some of the gaps around the base of the books I made up some scrolls out of thin paper.  I used a small piece of green stuff as the core and then soaked the paper in PVA glue and water and rolled up the paper.  This was then painted with a warm white (Citadel Bleached Bone) and washed with VMC Smoke and VMA Burnt Umber.

Figure with books added and new pin for support

On the figure I redid the eyes again.  Twice.  Lots of deep breathing.  They were looking in the wrong direction so had to be corrected.  I really should have left glueing on the head until the last step.  The figure is quite heavy to hold which made working on the eyes harder than it had to be.  I’m still not sure about the left shoulder pad.  May rework that again.

So up next is gluing the figure onto the base and adding in the scatter books and scrolls.  Then the final touch ups and I’ll call him done.

Adokul the Monk part 5 - bases and books

So this week was more work on the arms of the figures.  I now have both arms pretty much sorted so the figure is starting to come together now.  The sword needs some love next.

Right arm done

For the base I did some samples on some parquet flooring plastic card sheet I had.  I tried three colours of wood - tan, red/brown and dark brown.  Some of them were starting to look ok but none of the colours were really working with the figure.  Then the wife mentioned porphyry marble which is a rich red/purple with white flecks.  The red/purple I think will look quite good with the figure so some experiments with that are next.  Also I will use flow aid medium to get the marble effects like I did with the Violinist marble fountain.

Start of one of the large books

Most of my time this week was spent sculpting books.  Another one of those moments when I catch myself and think “I am really doing this?”  The plan is that the figure’s foot will be on a pile of books and the sword will be driven into the books (maybe with the tentacles as well).  The whole “evil heresy books” theme which fits with the look of the figure.

Sorry, no macro lens shot

I started the books with a core of balsa wood with two pieces of plain plastic card for the covers superglued on.  Then I used my standard Milliput/green stuff mix (70/30) to put a layer of putty around the book that I then sculpted in some pages.  On the covers I added various details made from plastic card, some sections of fence I had and hardened green stuff rolled out flat.  I found the hardened green stuff was the worst to work with as even though very thin it wanted to got back to being flat so was hard to glue.  The plastic card strips were the easiest as I put some glue on the area I wanted to bend, let the glue soften the plastic, then shaped it.  I made up a number of books so i have a selection to choose from.  I might also put a chain around one for some more flair.

Adokul the Monk part 4

Well a bit of two steps forward, one step back this week.  A bit of rework on a couple of bits so not much progress forward.

Head and arms attached

I started on the both arms.  I got the leather gloves, tassels and linen cloth done before gluing the arms in place.  All of these areas are on the underside of the figure so pretty hard to work on once they are on the figure.

For the leather gloves I used the same base as the leather tassels (VMC Leather Brown/VMC Medium Flesh) but I highlighted with more JS Yellow Oxide so they would be a bit different.

Pre-shading started on trim

The arms glued on without issue (pinning the figure before painting always a good idea).  However there were some small gaps on the rear of the figure.  Nothing major so I used some green stuff to fill them in (I didn’t want to use milliput as it can stain).  However while I was moving the putty around I managed to lift off a large chunk of paint on the back.  Sigh.  So a quarter of the back had to be repainted.

Repaired back

I then started work on the left arm shading up the blue and then starting the pre-shading of the gold with some orange/yellow oxide mix.  Lots of tiny details needing to be edge painted so very slow going.

Book all done

Finally I painted up the chain that the book is attached to.  I used some VMA Rust and Gold together to make a weathered looking chain section.  I didn’t want it gold as I’m reserving that for the trim sections.

Looking at the figure on the base the wife bought up the point that the base was a bit big for the figure.  Originally I had made the larger base because of the weight of the figure and all that metal making it quite top heavy.  I did a trial on a smaller base where I had stained the wood a red/brown (Jarrah wood stain) and the blue really worked well with it.  So a made a new smaller base and drilled out the bottom of it.  Then I melted some lead (from old bases, etc) and poured it into the hole to add some weight to the bottom of the base.  Then I used two part epoxy to fill in the rest and to seal in the lead.  I’m going back to an earlier idea of having the figure standing on a stack of books.  So I need to make up some books in milliput.

New sword for figure

Last week I was thinking of not going with the warhammer.  Going through the figure stash I found a large claymore sword that fits with the figure.  I’ll go with the stance of the weapon end being in the ground.  The sword was quite old and made of lead.  While working on it, it broke in two places.  Rather than drill it (parts too small) I used Zap-a-Gap super glue.  Normally I use the cheap and nasty super glue.  Well Zap-a-Gap is worth the extra money.  Works really well and using the kicker helped a lot.  Despite being a very small join area it’s pretty strong.  I then covered the blade in diluted milliput to fill in all the cracks and gaps from the poor casting.

This week more gold arm trim…

Adokul the Monk part 3

Continuing on from last week I decided to paint all the trim gold.  I first pre-shaded this in a brown/orange before painting over with a mixture of Vallejo Metal Air Gold, VMC Gold and some VMC Dark Sea Blue.  Then some highlights were picked up by using just the VMC Gold and some AP Silver.

I did the same for the chest eagle as well.  Once it was done I redid the blue around the eagle to fix up some over painted areas and shaded around the eagle in a dark violet to make the yellow gold pop some more and enforce the 3D aspect of the eagle being on top of the armour.  I also shaded the gold eagle with some VMA Armour Brown and Dark Sea Blue.

I then saw that I had forgotten the detail work on the feet, so I went back and did that.  Rather than the bright gold I used VMA Rust with the gold mix to tone everything down.

Then there was lots of detail shading to bring out some of the details around the gold armour and the blue armour.  I also added some scratches to the armour.  To do this I painted a dark line with Armour Brown/Rust and then underneath that (i.e. catching the light) a line in light blue.

I started the base coats of the various components on both arms.  I think I will paint the white cloth, gloves and leather tassel's to completion before gluing the arms on.  Then I will finish the blue armour and trim with the arms on the figure.

The book

I painted up the small book and glued that onto the figure with two part epoxy.  Luckily I remember to check that the chains fitted and realised I had let the book sag a little.  So the book was moved and tilted up so the chains fitted (just).  Getting the plastic rods through the mounting holes and the chain was painful.  One was easy but the second was right on the limit of the chain.  That took the better part of 10 minutes of trying and failing before finally getting the rod through.  Along the way I chipped off a little paint as well.  The rods were then glued with PVA (I was afraid super glue to fog the paint).  They aren’t structural, they just have to not move.

Book attached

I also painted up three more terminators and three terminator crawlers.  Only two walking and two crawling terminators to go.

Terminator Genisys figures

So next week will hopefully be the arms and getting them on.  I haven’t considered the warhammer yet.  I’m thinking of replacing it with something (a mace?) else.  But I want to get the arms in place before deciding on that.

Adokul the Monk part 2

Creases redone

So last week I wasn’t that happy with the skirt, especially around the left knee.  I later worked out I had the shadows wrong which is why it looked off.  I had shadows uniformly in the creases (like the old days of army painting) instead of just having shadows under the ridges of cloth.  So I had a few attempts at redoing that but the colour was just off.  I couldn’t get a shadow colour that looked right as I was using various browns but the shadows were getting too purple.  So I did some experiments and found that VMC Smoke worked best as the shade colour for the warm white.  In times past I have vague memories of using the old Citadel brown ink which is a very similar colour.  So happier now with the skirt.

Before I started the blue armour I did some tests on an old 28mm Grenadier figure.  That took on a bit of a life of it’s own and I took a bit more time on him than expected.  I also started experimenting with using inks in the colour mixes.  I used some red ink on his hat to add some vibrancy.  For his sash I used red and yellow inks to make an intense orange and then darkened it with some blue.  This ended up with a super rich brown that I really like.  I also discovered once some paint was on the figure his wasn’t wearing boots, instead he has clogs and stockings.  An odd choice with plate mail, but why not.  Then I had to remember how to do 28mm faces again.

Back to Adokul I started on the blue armour.  As I was lightening the blue with white I would add in a small amount of blue ink to avoid the blue going grey (an issue on the 28mm figure).  For the shading I used some VMC Light Orange mixed with some yellow and red inks.  There weren’t many large expanses for the shading except for the back of the figure.  For all the trim on the edges of the armour  originally I was just going to use the blue highlight colour.  Now I’m thinking of gold trim after the work I did on the chest eagle and skull motif.

On the chest of the figure is a large eagle.  I pre-shaded this with JS Yellow Oxide/Light Yellow/White and then did a light glaze of the VMA Gold.  This was very nice but with the blue around it the gold was definitely looking green.  For the skull on the leather tassel I pre-shaded with Indian Yellow/Orange and then glazed with VMC Gold XX.  This gave a much more orange tint to the gold that seems to work better.  So I will probably redo the chest eagle.  Once I’m happy with that I will then work out the armour trim.  I think using a few shades of gold on various bits of the trim could be really add some pop to the figure.

Adokul the Monk part 1

Adokul the Monk underway

So finally back to Adokul the Monk.  I had a few high level goals around the look of this figure:

- a general warm tone overall
- various points of distress on the clothing/armour.  The lower parts of the skirt are sculpted as damaged already.
- keep the metallics muted so that they don’t end up being sparkle points

Working my way up the figure (as I wanted to do the underside first before too much paint went on) I started with the skirt.  For this I wanted a dirty/stained linen look.  So I used some Jo Sonja (JS) Raw Sienna, Warm White and VGC Bleached Bone on this.  I’m pretty happy with it except of the area on the side of the knee.  I think that needs another go as it looks a bit too forced.

Leather strap details

For the leather straps hanging from his belt I used VMC Leather Brown and VMC Medium Fleshtone as the base.  For highlights I added more Fleshtone, Bleached Bone and White.  For the shades I used AP Strong Tone first to give the leather a bit of a sheen.  Then I used the Leather Brown and some old Citadel purple ink for the darkest areas and wherever the leather straps crossed.  This really helped pop out the layers so the straps didn’t look like one mass.  Then I used the Bleached Bone as an undercoat on all the small trim details on the ends of the straps.  This was then covered with Vallejo Gold.  I used some more of the leather brown/purple ink mix around the gold to help accent it and then a thin glaze of VMC Dark Sea Blue to tone down the gold as it was a bit too harsh.

I then base coated the armour in a mix of VMC Prussian Blue, Dark Sea Blue and White.  I painted the chest eagle in JS Yellow Ochre to give me a rough idea of the colour contrast and to undercoat the area.  I want to chip the armour after I have finished shading it.  There are lots of little raised trim areas on the armour, I’m not sure if I will also paint them gold.  It may become a bit much for the eyes to handle.

Chain of insanity

The figure has two books chained to his belt.  I think the two don’t look that good so just went for one.  There are tiny holes at the top of the book that the chain needs to go on.  So I had to cut one link of the chain, open it up with tweezers, loop it through the hole and then squeeze shut the open link.  The first one took about 20mins, the second under 10.  Lots of deep breaths.  Then I had to drill out the attachment points on the belt, thin down some plastic rod and measure and cut the chain.  I must be getting more mellow as there weren’t hardly any harsh words needed to get this done :)

So good the be on the way and with a reasonable idea of the direction I want this figure to go.

Finally a pre-shaded shot of the worm bust which shows the details a bit better.

Love the flu, Milliput and Terminator Genisys

Back from a sickness enforced break.  Had the worst flu/cold for a long time which wiped me out for the better part of two weeks.  So work has been a bit patchy…

Terminator Genisys figure

I finished off the first trial Terminator figure.  I base coated the figure with AP Gun Metal and VMC Dark Sea Blue and then applied a heavy wash of AP Dark Tone.  Then I dry brushed the figure using:

VMA Metallic Black - whole figure
AP Gun Metal - head to knees
AP Plate Mail - head to waist
AP Plate Mail + VMA Aluminum - head to shoulders
VMA Aluminum - head

I always dry brushed down the figure in the same direction, i.e. the strokes from the head down to the toes.  This works much better than the usual ‘back and forth’.  Pretty happy with the result in the time frame so will continue to do these figures in the background.

Mold box setup on larger resin piece

Adokul the Monk got a lot of base work and his head painted.  My original idea of the base wasn’t working so I went for a cobblestone base instead.  I purchased an A4 size resin cobblestone section at the MOAB 2016 bring and buy so decided to use it.  Rather than cut it up (and I suspect the resin is quite brittle as it already has a repaired crack in it) I cast a mold of a section.  I used a part of that for the base.  The dwarf statue head was then glued down with some Milliput underneath it to make sure there were no air gaps.

Cast section on figure base

Test fit

For the head I went for an orange (ish) hair colour.  I haven’t worked out what the headband will be yet, need to decide on the armour colour first.  However I got a bit of a mental block there and nothing seems right.  So rather than force that I decided to have another go sculpting something (the previous attempts never really went anywhere).

Adokul head

Rather than sculpt a figure I decided a bust would be easier (bigger scale but less figure anatomy) and do a non human so that any oddness looks more intentional ;)  The rough idea is some kind of worm/sea creature/alien thing.  Real sculptors draw pictures.  I can’t draw so doing it all freestyle.  Note that isn’t a good thing.

Stage two (missed getting a photo of stage one)

I started with a base of Milliput Standard around a paper clip armature (no picture of that).  I then rough bulked out the figure with more Milliput.  For the eyes I got some of my daughters plastic beads, filled in the hole and super glued them on.  This will give the eyes a real alien multifaceted look.  I didn’t have the eyes tracking as I was thinking of getting the whole chameleon vibe, with multi directional eyes.  That was partially successful.  I should have made one eye looking forward and the other looking way up instead of just to the side.

Stage three

To do the main sculpting I used a mixture of Milliput Standard and green stuff at 50/50.  I find this is butter like but holds well and doesn’t dissolve like Milliput does if you use too much water to work it as I tend to do.  I did the figure in a number of sessions

- back scales
- neck, mouth and head crest
- neck and eyes
- expand neck base (done in milliput only) and chin

Stage four

The eye sockets need some more detailing (next stage) and the head crest needs to be worked out.  The mouth needs more detail (teeth?).  Probably some more secondary muscles/veins on the neck too.  Then I need to work out how to give some character.  I’m having a great deal of fun with this so far.  Previous sculpting attempts (at a 54mm figure) never got past the rough bulking out stage.  I’ve also made myself a few sculpting tools as well so managed to get some shed time in there as well.  Both are rounded blunt edged tools to help lift up putty and smooth together putty joins.

Stage five (the yellow Milliput didn't come out right in the photo)

No real end goal here.  Just learning and trying.  If it all looks ok I might try and make a mold for resin casting as an exercise on how to do more complex molds (mostly I have done simple one sided molds).

Adokul the monk and some old school 25mm Ral Partha and Grenadier

Adokul the Monk by Andrea

I did a lot of prep work on Adokul this week.  First up was drilling and gluing in pins in all the parts to hold him together.  I always pin my metal figures together and then use two part epoxy to glue them together.  The fact that the two part epoxy have some bulk helps filling the gaps as most metal figures don’t have that good a join between parts (compared to plastic figures).  I glued the legs and body together and then filled in the gaps with some Milliput.

Adokul wooden base underway

For the object under the left foot I played around with a number of options and in the end went for a dwarf stone statue head.  Makes him more fantasy based but that is ok.

I had to wait until the weekend to undercoat him as it’s a bit cold at night in the shed.  I did the usual two stage undercoat of all over black, and the white on the highlights.

Ral Partha thief

While waiting for undercoats to dry I wanted to try doing some armour and do some colour/enamel like effects.  So into the stash of old school Ral Partha/Grenider figures.  I found a nice plate mail figure and a thief to do while I waited for the plate mail to dry.  I ended up doing the thief first, she was a bit hard as the face was obscured by her hood.  Also my eyes needed to be trained back to doing 25mm again.  After all the broad brush work on the Anonymous bust hard to go back to super small work.  Plus the eyes aren’t what they were 15 years ago when I was painting these more often.  Kept her pretty dark as that fitted with the thief idea.  Thieves don’t want to stand out too much.

Grenadier fighter underway

For the plate mail guy, I decided to go for a dragon skin cloak and practice on getting my reds better.  Wanting coloured armour I mixed some Jo Sonja’s Phthalo blue with the AP Plate mail.  I bit more subtle than the standard metallic blue.  I do like the AP metallic range, I find them very smooth and the mica is really ground fine (so no silver flakes).  I need to do the armour highlights/shades still and more on the red.  His face was a pain as it is quite recessed and the left arm of the figure gets in the way when trying to get a brush in there.  I think I did the eyes at least 6 times.  Definitely lost the touch there.

Banshee Anonymous bust finished, the next project and a Dungeon Saga troll

Anonymous bust

Just tidied up the bust some more with various little bits here and there.  I redid the rear left shoulder and then decided to continue on the open wound look and made a patch of raw flesh/meat in the hollow area.

To add to the depth I highlighted a mid point area and put a very dark shade below it to try and reinforce the depth perception of the area.

I’m pretty happy with the overall result.  This was my first bust I purchased and intimated me for over a year.  Seeing all the amazing versions online didn’t help.  Really happy I attempted it as it pushed me way outside my comfort zone and I’m not likely to paint this much flesh again in one figure.  Really like how I did the orange hair.  Go complementary colour shading!

I’m now totally converted over to making my own flesh mixes for larger scale figures (for 28mm quick and dirty figures maybe not).  I’m also in awe of people like Ben Komets who paint flesh with only four colours and make it work.  I was getting up to eight base colours in some stages and thinking that I was making it too complex.

Dungeon Saga troll shaman

After the bust I finished the last Dungeon Saga troll.  Now just the orcs/goblins from the second expansion to do.  Think I’ll have a long break before them.  I have the Terminator figures and some LotR figures I want to do as my background/in between painting tasks first.

Adokul the monk

A few years ago I got a subscription to the new defunct Figure International magazine by Andrea.  Part of the subscription was the figure ‘Adokul the monk (RS-013)’.  A very Warhammer (40k) inspired figure.  Lots of big armour bits and skulls.  He will just be on a small base, no big diorama.  I think I will modify him a bit and have his hammer with the head at the top of the figure (rather than under his foot) and have his left foot on something else.  Doing some dry fittings to try out options.  I’ll leave off the arms for painting for now.

Lastly started helping my son (his is 6) work on his first entry to the Crystal Dragon painting competition.  A strange diorama (20x14cm) with four small areas with a high brick wall separating the areas with a mix of skeletons (Reaper Bones), scorpions (Reaper Bones) and eagles (Eureka) in each area.  He has a very strong story idea, I’m still getting there.  Of course when my daughter saw that we were doing it, she started working out what she wanted to do.  All about the next generation :)