Worm bust part 2 and Mujahideen 1/35 figure

The worm bust

Over the last week or so I’ve been working on finishing the worm bust.  The areas that I worked on were the eyes, robe and collar and green skin area (esp the neck).

For the eyes I wanted to bring out the faceted shape of the eye (modelled from a cheap plastic bead).  I highlighted the edges quite strongly but that didn’t really get the effect I was after.  I then added in some streaks radiating from the pupil and added some darker adjacent lines to help with the look.  I made the inner eye a triple colour, being purple, inner white, black pupil.

For the cloth area I added some light blue on the shoulders and back to give a few points of contrasting colour and to add some details to the figure.  I used a base of VMC Prussian Blue and highlighted with white and shaded with VMC Dark Sea Blue and orange.  For the collar I made a crisscross pattern and then filled in the lower triangles.  The yellow areas were then highlighted with JS Light Yellow and white.

For the green skin area the neck needed a lot of work.  It was a uniform dark area so I went back and repainted with the base colour and then was more selective on the shading.  On all the small ridges and muscle areas that I had sculpted on the neck, these were highlighted up like the top of the head but not to the same level.  I also redid some of the top of the head adding in some more contrasts to break up the large areas on similar colour.

After that the under base was painted a very dark maroon/purple and the figure was glued into the wooden base.

So that was the first figure that I designed (well, made up on the fly), sculpted, cast and painted.  Not sure how many I will do but really glad that I did one and it worked out ok.

ADV Mujahideen 1/35 figure

Awhile back I purchased some 1/35 figures off eBay.  One was a Mujahideen from the 1980s by ADV.  Really liked the natural pose of the figure and the flow of the clothing.  Also I have not painted non-caucasian skin much (read almost never) so this was a good reason to try to see if my colour mixing skills had improved.

Well the have, but not much wrt to skin tones.  I have always struggled with skin tones.  Hence why I didn’t try non-caucasian skin.  My first attempt used the below mix

JS Raw Sienna
JS White
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
spot of VMC Red

This colour struggled, being too grey/purple and the highlights too pale.  Wasn’t happy by the time I had painted the skin areas.

Looking in my skin colour recipe book (yes, why didn’t I look there first?) I used the mix of

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
JS White

But this just gave me purple/grey which is a sign of too many complementary colours in the mix.  Of course I had painted all the skin areas and shaded/highlighted before I stepped back and went “nope”.  I think the AP black is on the purple side slightly.

So I revised and tried

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Indian Yellow
JS Black
JS White

This gave me a great looking dark skin.

Shades - Burnt Sienna, Black, Red, VMA Armour Brown
Highlights - Indian Yellow, White, Red, Light yellow

Again I went and painted away and the skin looked good.  However it was too dark (almost African).  So I went back, made what was previously the first highlight colour the base colour and repainted the skin for a third time.  This time I think I’m in the ball park.  I also started blocking out the rest of the figure with the base coats.

AK-47 and anti-tank mine

Dress of the area is very plain, with tops and pants the same colour.  The clothes are Raw Sienna plus white, the ammo pouches are JS green oxide plus Indian yellow.  The hat is tan and the jacket a mix of Burnt Sienna and black.  For the clothes I made the pants a slightly darker base to avoid the two pieces of clothing blending together.

The base will just be the rock base that he came with.  No fancy 3 month dioramas this year.  Well maybe one but that will be later on and the Reaper Bones figure “Spirit of the forest” may be getting the fancy base treatment.

MOAB 2017

I’ve been away on holidays for the last two weeks hence the lack of posts.  I did manage to get to MOAB 2017 on the final day.  I mainly go to MOAB for the bring and buy (second hand stall) so I expected that by the third day it would be pretty picked clean.  However to my surprise there were still items there.  Makes me wonder what was there on day one.

I also got a few normal purchases from the various traders as well.

- Billionaire card game $3

Very fond memories of playing this as a kid so got it to add to the family game stash.

- Roman pillars $5

Some plaster casts of Hirst molds, for dioramas.

- Egyptian bits $5

Some plaster casts of Hirst molds, for the kids.

- Israeli paratroopers $2

Four figures for $2, why not.  Just couldn’t help myself.

- Misc 1/35 germans $6

19 figures in total from various sets.  Got it for the Tamiya tank loaders, but some of the others are good.  One day will start painting all these 1/35 figures I’ve collected.  But again, at $6 for 19 figures why not.

- Renedra fence $15

Nice addition to the diorama stash.

- Ex Manus demon figure $15

Interesting figure that I liked.

- Reaper Bones Spirit of the Forest $12

Another figure that I saw and just could see so much fun to be had with all the extra details on the figure.

Worm bust part 1

So I started on my worm bust this week, however most of my time was spent doing some shed jobs.  Sometimes you just have to let the urge to chop pieces of wood into smaller pieces take over.

I wanted to have a limited colour range used on this bust.  The best thing about making your own busts is that you have an unlimited number to try things on :)

For the back shell I used VMA Scarlet, VMC Red and JS Napthol Crimson.  Some JS Pthalo green was used in the shading as well as some purple ink.  For the highlights I added some JS Cadmium Yellow mid to make orange (and later white) and mixed that in with the base.

For the eyes I’m thinking of yellow with white highlights.  For now I have just blocked in the eyes with JS Cadmium Yellow mid.

For the skin I used JS Sap Green as the base.  Highlights are done by mixing in JS Yellow light and shading by adding in JS Pthalo green and violet red/purple to the mix.  I’ve done some work on the top of the head but haven’t done anything on the area around the neck and below yet.

For the shirt I made a burgundy red/purple from the VMC Red and highlighted that up with some purple ink and white.  The collar is JS Yellow oxide with some JS Cadmium yellow mid  added.  I think I want to add some pattern to the shirt to add some detail as the figure is quite plain.

As you can see not many colours there with some (Cadmium yellow mid, purple ink, pthalo green) being used on multiple sections to try and tie things together.

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.