More putty work and a Dungeon Saga figure

So the putty work continued this week.

All ready for primer

Up first was the wing claw of the GW LotR Balrog.  This had been snapped off at some stage.  First up I drilled and glued in a paper clip shaped the rough curve of the other claw and then covered it in Milliput.  Once dry I carved this down to match the existing claw.  After that I sanded the Milliput with 320 and then 600 grit sand paper to smooth out the surface as the existing plastic claw is very smooth of course.

Redone claw

I then dropped the figure and chipped off the end of the claw.  So I switched to green stuff as it is more flexible and redid the tip of the claw (unfortunately not as sharp) and added in some more knuckle shapes, etc.  Calling it done at this stage.

Final thing was drilling and pinning the feet for attaching to the base.

Two joins only - take that Balrog

I also did a bit of green stuff work on some Reaper Bones figures I purchased to cover up the join marks.  Nothing major there.

I had planned to start priming all these figures but the weather has been too wet whenever I'm at home and the shed does get a bit cold and humid so decided to wait a bit.

Dungeon Saga figure

Finally actually did some painting and worked on the Kickstarter exclusive figure from the Dungeon Saga kickstarter.  Kind of need a small figure to get back into things after near two months with very little painting.

Milliput is my friend - GW Balrog work

Feed me hobbits!

This week went to town with the milliput on the GW LotR Balrog figure.  So much milliput.  Part of this was because the figure had been broken apart and bits had been snapped off, especially around the wings.  Part was because of the usual GW approach to cutting up figures for the molds.  No hidden joins under overhanging sculpted details to make things clean.  Nope, been spoilt there with new resin figures.  Just the good old 'slice off the pieces' and let the buyers fix up the joins.

Wings after glue

I pinned (using chopped up paper clips) and superglued (with Zap-a-gap) all the pieces together.  The arms were the easiest as they had sockets.  The wings originally did but the inserts had been snapped off and were still in the figure.   So drilling and pinning there.  The back flames had tabs so they didn't need pinning.  The head had nothing, just a smooth join so pinning was a must there.

Wings after putty work

...and some more putty

Original base glued inside the new resin base, pre milliput

For the base the figure came with a 60mm flat base, totally different from the usual GW lipped bases. So I went off to The Combat Company and got a 60mm resin base.  I glued in the plastic base inside to add some bulk and used more milliput to hid the edge gap.

Love this barn

I also put together the Renedra barn and have now glued this onto a piece of 3mm mdf.

Reaper Fire Giant

Finally I put together the Reaper Fire Giant.  Only one tiny seam line to fill in on this one :)

NMM trials and Wood elf bases

Firstly apologies for the picture quality, just didn’t have the right lighting at all today.

For the end of last week and this week I have been trialling Non Metallic Metal (NMM) on an old Ral Partha Ravenloft figure (from set 11-111 “Lords of Ravenloft”).  He had a nice large metal breastplate and sword with minimal details which made for an excellent trial piece.  I’ve never tried NMM before so as a painting exercise off I went.

My first trial was to use a mid grey (VGC Cold grey 72.050) then darken with a darker grey (VMC Black/grey 70.862) and highlight up with a lighter grey (VGC Stonewall grey (72.049).  At the end I had a very nicely shaded grey breastplate.  But it didn’t look like armour.

On the second trial (and after some more web research) I went of a base with more blue in it (Cold Grey mixed with VGC Night Blue 72.019 and black) as that seemed to be a common technique.  Also I used just black for the shading and white for the highlighting.  This worked much better and I was starting to see a much more armour look at the end.  The sword worked better but that was more due to the narrower space which worked well with the highlighting.  I probably could have gone up a few more levels on the highlight.

Another technique that I practised was trying to get my glazes working.  I wasn’t until recently that I got the difference between a wash (flood the area with watered down paint so some pigments ends up in the cracks) and a glaze (paint on watered down paint so that when it dries the whole area has a tiny amount of the glaze colour).  It was also a experience thing to get my eye into recognising when the paint was at the correct consistency.

So for the other areas of the figure after the usual base colour, shade/highlighting was done I then did a glaze of the base colour over the entire area.  This resulted in the visible layer difference (i.e. between one colour and the next) dropping quite dramatically.  Or to put another way it go much hard to see the different shade/highlight colours.  Everything just started to blend.  Definitely one of those “so that’s how it’s meant to happen” moments.  Now I just have to get good at it.

Also I finished off the bases for the wood elves.  Although I have another 20+ to paint they will probably go on hold as I keep trying to skill up to do one of the 54mm figures I have.

LotR Wood Elves wip

I have a lot of Lord of the Rings (LotR) figures from Games Workshop, almost 350 on last count.  Among the last to be painted is the plastic set of 24 wood elves (not the new Hobbit versions).  They have been undercoated for some time as I wasn’t really sure I wanted to paint them.  I impulse purchased them, then put them on the back list and did the LotR dwarves instead and then stopped painting LotR figures as I wasn’t playing the game that much.  Then I considered selling them.  Not much love there to be honest.

The sculpts have that unfortunate blending of detail that some of the single piece GW figures have.  Ie a cloak becomes a leg without any clean separation in the mould.  This put me off them a bit.  Long enough for the Hobbit movies to come and and so I waited to see what the Hobbit version of the wood elves would be like.  They are ok, but with half (only 12) the figures and prices at $50+ it was back to the old ones.  The last of the LotR forces…

I wanted to go for an autumn colour scheme so I spent some time getting a combination of greens/tans/yellow/oranges to go together.  In the end my colour palate was

VMC Flat Yellow (70.953)
VGC Orange Fire (72.008)
VGC Charred Brown (72.045)
VMC Goldenbrown (70.877)
VPA Shadows Flesh (70.343)
VGC Dark Green (72.028)

The Goldenbrown and Shadows Flesh were the primary colours, Dark Green and Charred Brown the secondary and the Orange Fire/Flat yellow tertiary.  For the flesh my base was VGC Dark Flesh (70.927).

Again I’m attempting the zenithal painting technique and spending a lot more time on the blending.  These figures are the first two trials.  I’m thinking of replacing the Dark Green and it pops out a bit much.  Then again that does add a bit of contrast to the flatness of the other colours.  Also I had the most trouble with the shading on this green.  Out of the pot the paint is quite thin.  Next time I’ll try some underpainting to bulk up the colour.

The faces are really small I’m finding.  Maybe my eyes are getting old.  Lots of deep breaths and occasional harsh language was needed for painting the eyes.

I’m happy in the most with the result so far.  However quick this process is not.  The cloak alone I almost spent an hour on (I hope later figures will be a bit quicker).  Normally I would take 1.5 hours for an entire figure.  But these two figures do look a lot better than my usual army standard.

A Church for Saga by Miniature Scenery

Smells like gold

One of the few pieces of terrain from my LotR terrain period that survived the purge was the church from Miniature Scenery .  Although not strictly a LotR appropriate piece it fits very well into Saga.  Vikings know those monks are flush with gold...

The front door

This is a flat-pack MDF building that you need to assembly yourself with PVA glue.  Although around ten years old it still looks pretty good for a non-laser cut MDF building.  I build it as spec expect for the front entrance.  Rather than have the door at the front of the nave I put it back a bit so there was an alcove for figures to hide in.  I then painted in some tiles at the entrance.

Fake lead glass windows

I did a number of extra texture features to increase the detail level.  Firstly I created fake lead glass windows out of a spray painted cdrom case and some metal flyscreen.  The clear plastic cdrom cases are cheap and can be cut up and snapped apart easily.  I painted the flyscreen Boltgun metal and drybrushed it with Chainmail.  I sprayed the cdrom case black and then glued the flyscreen over the window with the black cdrom case added behind that.

One of the side windows

For the window in the steeple I painted a piece of cdrom case orange as I planned to add electric lights.

So so orange

The roof was constructed out of cardboard tiles rough cut to look like slate tiles.  I found the cardboard from Games Workshop boxes the best for this as they didn't warp when painted.  They seem to be a slightly waxy cardboard.  I went for a very Warhammer fantasy dark blue roof colour scheme.  In my defence it was the style at the time.

Dry brush heaven

The walls were painted with a textured paint.  This is basically paint with fine sand in it.  The advantage is that during drybrushing there is lots of texture that is picked up.  You can either purchase this or make your own by dumping in a handful of sand in some paint.

I also added some led lights to the inside of the building.  That way I managed to get both my main hobbies in one project.  The leds were glued into place with silicon before the base was attached and a small hole was cut in the base so I could get access to the main circuit board with the batteries.  The light in the steeple through the orange painted plastic work well.  The light in the main part of the building was less successful as the led was pointing down thus there wasn't much spread of light.  To be honest I never really use the lights, it was just a fun thing to try.

The base was whitecote mdf with the edge sanded down and painted green.  Then some static grass and flock was added.  I recommend basing the building as it adds a lot of strength.  Ten years on and the only damage to the piece is a few dings on the cardboard roof tiles.