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 :)

54mm Knight Helm work and other bits

This week I worked on my 54mm knight helm, his scabbard and belt.  Also I did a little more rework on the white surcoat to make it a bit whiter than previously.

I was a bit stuck on what to do about the helmet.  When in doubt just start painting.  At worst you can always undercoat again.  Initially I had the top hand a deep maroon but that just didn’t look right and was too dark.  I then came across the idea (it flew into my funnel so to speak) of painting the visor in the same blue as the cloak and shading it from white to dark blue like the cloak.  Ie an extreme zenithal lighting example and carried that also onto the metal of the rest of the helmet.  The blue shading was a bit easier the second time round and looked quite nice.  Reminds me of the Iron man visor.  Keeping with the idea of replicating the colours of the figure in small scale on the helmet I painted the hand white like the surcoat.  I had to over shade between the fingers of the hand to make them stand out.  Otherwise the hand looked like a really bad rubber glove.

On the main body surcoat I lightened up the white a few levels as he was looking a bit on the grey side.  I’m happier with the look now but the white is getting towards the lumpy side after so many (thin) coats.

For the main belt I went for a light brown.  The colour range was

VMC German Black/Brown
VGC Charred Brown
VGC Bestial Brown - base
VGC Leather Brown
VMC Iraqi Sand

Might need a another go a a few bits are a bit rough

The cord belt above the main belt was done in brown/orange and then highlighted with Orange Fire.  This was a make it pop a little and break up the white surcoat.

To inject a bit of warmth back into the figure I did the scabbard in a dark red/brown (VPA Shadows Flesh) to tie into the shade colour of the face.  This was then highlighted up to orange with an old Citadel Blood Red and VGC Orange Fire.  I have some AP reds (part of the set I won some time ago) but find them very poor.  I keep going back to the old Citadel Blood red (from the old, old hex pots).  Probably time to invest in some Vallejo reds before it dies for good.

Also I have been playing around with lots of snow effects trying to get something I like.  Hopefully next week a few findings from all the experiments.