Slacking off and a model show

Pretty much just slacked off this week.  I finished off the second Terminator board so those are now done.  I tried to do some of a WW2 German AT crew figure I have but didn’t really do much.  Some weeks the painters block sets in hard.  There is the desire to do some painting but when you sit down there just isn’t any energy.  Then the regret of not painting hits and you start to wonder why you bother.

I rallied late in the weekend and managed to finish off an undead troll from Dungeon Saga.  For the second one I will do some more pre-highlights on the top of the figure as this one was a bit too uniform in tone.  However the two tone AP wash (Strong Tone, then Dark Tone) worked out pretty well for quickie paint job.

Inanis

Inanis got some more water effect coats, getting there.

Also made up the base for my Banshee bust.

On Friday night I found out that the IPMA show was on over the weekend.  This is in Wollongong but only takes me approx 45mins to get there.  Pretty much the same time as to get to Parramatta where the Sydney model show is normally on and I don’t have to fight city traffic and parking.  So the wife and kids all came for the drive and we did a few tourist things in Wollongong afterward.  The bring and buy was excellent and I purchased a few things.

- Building $15

A vacuum form building.  Even better two spures of the building accessories.  This includes lamps, fences, light posts, etc.  Diorama gold.

Accessories

- German mounted infantry - $5

Germans on horses, why not

- 1/24 68 Shelby Cobra - $5

Missing all the clear parts (i.e. windows, lights).  I’ve never made a car kit and always wanted to.  However the $40 for a new one was more that I was willing to do for a “just because” feeling.  However at $5, bargain.  Plus if I totally muck it up no money lost.  I’m thinking now of a diorama of a car being worked on in a garage (to cover for the lack of windows), rust effects, oil stains, etc.  I already have a 75mm figures from the set of railway figures I purchased for the kids to paint.  He wasn’t quite good enough for a standalone figure but in a diorama he should be fine.  Another bucket list item underway.

Ater Inanis base work and Dungeon Saga

This week was working on the Inanis base and some Dungeon Saga figures.  To try and make the water on the Inanis base as smooth as possible on the blends I used my airbrush.  I used teal and turquoise as bases and some dark blue for the shadows and white on the highlights.  I didn’t want much contrast, just some dark shadowing where the water spouts were going to be coming from.

Ater Inanis on base with water

Once the figure was glued on I glued in the water spouts with two part expoxy glue.  I didn’t used super glue as the fumes would fog the clear plastic that the spouts are made from.  I then started covering the base and the spouts in Vallejo Water Effects.  This make the spouts really sparkle and become much more water like.  The base is going to need many coats to get up enough for wave patterns to be seen.  I think I will add in some more fishing line mini spouts to stop the base from being so flat.  There isn’t enough height variation currently.

Dungeon Saga Ba'el

On the Dungeon Saga side I painted up Elshara and Ba’el.  Elshara seemed to be wearing gloves so I went for the whole opera outfit as something different.  We are currently playing the Return of Valandor expansion so I needed to get Ba’el finished so for once the main bad guy is actually painted before the party meet him/it.  Now just the three trolls and the troll shaman and all the base game and Return of Valandor figures are done.  Then onto the orcs (maybe).

Dungeon Saga Elshara

Ater Inanis part 3

Slow progress on Inanis again.  I think I may be a bit stuck.  Did some more detailing on the figure but I’m still stuck on what to do with the shoulder pad.

Water spouts test fit

Swapping to work on the base I played around with some different sized bases.  I settled on a small plastic jar with a screw on lid that I purchased from the $2 shop to store paint in.  I glued some lead to the bottom of the base and then glued in a large piece of wooden dowel to fill up most of the space in the jar.  Then I used some plastic card to form a mould around the top of the jar and poured in some Easycast resin.  This way the resin covered the screw thread and formed the top of the base making working with it easier.  I then sanded the whole thing and undercoated it black.

On base, millitput done

In the clear light of day I saw my sanding job was pretty poor.  So back to the shed and time to sand it properly.  To speed things up I drilled in a wood screw to the top of the base, cut off the top of the screw and then put that in the chuck of my drill.  Slow speed and some sand paper later and life was smooth again.  Recoated black and it looks much better.

Getting there..

I then mixed up some Milliput and made the top of the base.  I made it slightly wavy as it is going to be water.  I also spent some time with a scalpel scraping the top smooth and then sanding and polishing the Milliput (the advantage of that material).  So it’s now ready for painting.

Dungeon Saga Dwarves

I also finished off the last of the small undead figures from Dungeon Saga, the Dwarves.  Next up are the trolls.   Before I get to them I will probably do a few of the boss bad guys/gals.

Ater Inanis part 2

Inanis by Deadsculpt

This week was a bit quiet and on the Inanis figure it was more of the same.  I completed all the brown sections on the figure using VMC Leather Brown and VMC Vermilion as the base and highlighting up with white and VMC Lemon Yellow.  Shading was done with VMC Dark Sea Blue.

On the green skin I redid most of the upper body in parts trying to smooth out the skin and redo the initial shading as that was too harsh and quite jarring.  I also pushed the highlights on the top of the figure all the way to white.  For the shades I was more careful the second time using Vermilion and VMC Violet Red in the shadows.  I also made sure there was a transition glaze from the main colour to the shade to avoid an abrupt dark line.  Still not sure what to do with the eyes.

Water spouts

I’ve got the water spouts how I want them and now need to start working out the base as I need to have them glued in place before working on them any further I think.  Still haven’t done the cotton wool test (got busy making more foam weapons for the kids).

More Dungeon Saga undead

On the Dungeon Saga side I’m almost through the undead figure.  Just the dwarfs to finish off and then the three trolls.  Need to work out a way to paint them so I don’t take forever on them :)

Ater Inanis by Deadsculpt

Inanis in the box

Some time ago I backed the kickstarter for the Ater range of 54mm figures.  I got the Inanis figure.  He (it) came in a nice little box with a base included.  The figure sat in the cupboard for awhile as I didn’t have a colour scheme in mind.

Recently I’ve been playing with some of the Jo Sonja’s range of paints.  I got the idea of a forest/dryad ish figure, hence the recent terrapin trials.  However I wanted a much cooler green so I purchase the Phthalo Green which is a lovely cool green.  That combined with VMC Lemon Yellow and white makes a great cool light green.  Shading down with VMC Vermillion works pretty well too.

Figure assembled

After gluing (with superglue) the figure together there was a bit of putty work needed to fill the gaps.  I find that using a 50/50 mix of Milliput (standard) and Kneadatite (aka green stuff) gives me the benefits of both.  I can sand the putty after it dries but it is softer than just Milliput.  The mixture shapes like soft butter and is really easy to work with.

I preshaded the figure by painting it black and then some progressive highlights of lime green, yellow and finally white.  Rather than painting the whole figure in one base colour I started with a 50/50 mix of Phthalo Green and Lemon Yellow and as I moved up the figure I increased the amount of Lemon Yellow.  This way I’m not trying to later highlight over a dark colour (i.e. the single colour base coat) on the top of the figure.  It’s always easier to get darker over a base coat than get lighter.  The picture is of the ‘base coat’ although that base coat varies across the figure.  Slowly learning how to do things better.

Base coat

The figure has raised (armour?) sections all over it.  It’s a bit hard to decide what is what as the figure is very organic and some areas morph into various shapes.  Very alien looking, but some head of scratching over “what is that bit meant to be”.

I first went for a darker green on the armour bits, but that made too much green.  I’m now trying for a cool brown/red highlighted up to off white/tan.  I’ve done one leg but the lighting of the picture puts that area in shadow so you can’t see it very well.

I plan to have the figure in a pool of water with some water spouts rising up and flowing through the holes in the hands.  Rather than use fishing line (like the Violinist fountain) I heated and stretched some plastic sprue.  Need to do some more trials on that combined with the Vallejo Water effects gel to see if I can get some nice water ripple effects.  I’m also thinking of using cotton wool for some waves.  All out for the water effects trials :)

The best laid plans… and the grey pile grows

Finally coming together

Plans do tend to go astray when sick family members and life comes up.  Spent half the week out of town so pretty much a bust this week.  I spent a couple of hours reworking the shield which is getting better slowly.  I also started working on the mock up of how my knight will sit on his base.

Rather than do dry run tests on the nice stained pretty base from last week I cut out a piece of scrap wood the same size to use for trials.  That way I can drill holes (and drill again when I change my mind) in the wood to work out the positioning of items without any worry.  I have the resin rock centred on the base with the bent tree at the back and the tree stump at the front so the helmet can rest on it.

I found that for the figure to sit properly I will need to grind down some of the rock (in foot size holes) to get a nice standing position.  Also in the final piece the flat ground area will be covered in milliput to give some undulation to the ground.  Then the snow on top of that.

Inanis in box

Also this week my “Inanis” figure from the Ater range by www.deadsculpt.com arrived (this was the Ater Kickstarter project).  A very well run Kickstart project that went along with no issues at all.

The figure is a 54mm resin sci-fi figure of a humanoid who happens to have a large hole in their chest.  Well packed in a little box and wrapped up in bubble wrap.  Some very nice details and hardly any flash.  The figure is quite skinny however.  Maybe I’m just use to chunky medieval knights.  I got the figure as it’s not normally something I would paint but the example paint job I saw was quite inspiring.  Into the projects draw for him :)