Started work on the crew and priest shortly after. Stuck to a piece of foam with blu-tac, they were painted Codex Gray and washed with Badab Black…to soon. Mephiston Red on the scales and Dwarf . . . → Read More: Crew and Priest]]> I finished the smaller front part of the howdah tonight. No photos, it’s less interesting than the big section.

Started work on the crew and priest shortly after. Stuck to a piece of foam with blu-tac, they were painted Codex Gray and washed with Badab Black…to soon. Mephiston Red on the scales and Dwarf Bronze on the metal. I kind of want to wash the entire model with Badab…so now I wish I hadn’t done it to the skin already.

I spent the day inside, painting, since I celebrated yesterday. Finally screwed together the courage to finish the main part of the howdah for my stegadon!

The brass is Dwarf Bronze and Runefang Steel. The stone is Dheneb Stone, glazed with Bestial Brown and then Fortress Grey to bring . . . → Read More: Howdah – Final]]> Today is my birthday!

I spent the day inside, painting, since I celebrated yesterday. Finally screwed together the courage to finish the main part of the howdah for my stegadon!

The brass is Dwarf Bronze and Runefang Steel. The stone is Dheneb Stone, glazed with Bestial Brown and then Fortress Grey to bring the grey back in. The vines are Snot Green, glazed with Umbral Umber to try to make them a little bit dead.

The planets are a random assortment of bright colours, with other colours badly glazed on. Planets are messy things!

The black pillars I’m surprisingly happy with. I thought for sure this was a bad idea, but it worked out pretty good. I ended up following the “shiny stone” guide in the Skorne Hordes book. It says to paint all black, then mix some Coal Black in, which is a little bit green. Then mix in Menoth White Base, which is similar to Ushapti Bone. And then use Menoth White Highlight, or…White, to paint little dots around. After that, I painted ‘Ardcoat to make it shiny.

As a last step, I used some of the Secret Weapon weathering pigments to dirt up the place a bit. I used Green Earth and Sewage Muck on the stone, and dabbed some of the Sewage Muck onto the pillars, an attempt at growing moss and lichen.

Lastly I dullcoated the whole thing to try to fix the pigments. I’ve used the MIG pigment fixer on my tanks, and I usually end up with big tide marks. The Forge World Masterclass 2 claims that they just varnish over the pigments, so I gave that a try. Not bad! I had to re-apply the ‘ardcoat on the pillar a bit, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

I still have the front howdah bit, the ceremonial headdress for the steg, 4 crew and the priest to paint. Then 4 more Temple Guard and I’ll be ready for OFCC!

The entire team! …they don’t have a name yet.

Took 4 photos of each of these models to make a little collage. You can click through the . . . → Read More: Veer-myn – Final]]> Bought some lamps and new lights to replace my old ones this evening. Pulled out all of the photography equipment and here’s what I ended up with!

The entire team! …they don’t have a name yet.

Took 4 photos of each of these models to make a little collage. You can click through the images to see larger versions, as always.

One of the strikers. There are 2 variants of this model.

One of the two guards. There is only one variant of guard.

The paint job on these guys was pretty quick. 3 layers on each area, base coat, wash down, highlight up and it was nice to get back to a workflow that I know pretty well and can do quickly.

After applying the transfers last night, I came back and used the matte medium to flatten out the gloss. Then I took a sponge and splattered on some Boltgun Steel and Umbral Umber to muddy the whole thing up.

Still really disappointed by the damned mold lines. I swear to you, I checked every model for those things and every time I turn a model around there’s another that I missed. There has to be a better way to find and remove them!

I’ve been reading the Forge World Masterclass . . . → Read More: Veermyn – Waterslide transfers (decals)]]> I picked up some of the Dreadball decals since they look way better than my free-hand numbers painting. Would you believe that I’ve never applied a waterslide decal in my life? I’ve bought next to a billion orks, with 10 billion decals, and I’ve never once used one.

I’ve been reading the Forge World Masterclass Vol 2 book, and it reminded me that decals can look good and not “fake”.

I’ve been using this guide from the blog “From the Warp”, which didn’t steer me wrong. I think I would add three things – use both tweezers and hobby knife when picking up the transfer, don’t put to much water on the model, and have a paper towel handy.

You need one implement to move the decal from the water to the model, and a second implement to get it off the first implement! I picked up with the tweezers and removed with the knife. The water thing is because otherwise you’ll have no control over where the decal slides to once it’s on the model. The paper towel is because no matter how much you think you’ve master point 2, you’ll eventually add to much water and need to soak some of it away so your thrice-damned decal will stop sliding around.

Thinking I’ll head to Staples tomorrow and pick up some more lamps, so I can photographize this week. This team is a decal-weathering away from being done! I love a project that starts and finishes in 4 days.

Rucksack tan skin, liche purple clothes and rune fang steel gloves and armor. They might be done Monday…doing it fairly quickly.

Finished the base coat of the howdah. Brown/grey stone for the slabs, a wooden brown for the connecting pieces, “obsidian” for the poles, brass for the engine and some bright planety colours for the spheres.

We last saw photos of the howdah from afar a month ago. It’s been entirely white primed since then while I focused on one piece at a time.

I made a bad bad . . . → Read More: Howdah – Beginnings]]> I had to edit this photo…it was so badly cropped and colour balanced, I couldn’t leave it. Still pretty orange though…

We last saw photos of the howdah from afar a month ago. It’s been entirely white primed since then while I focused on one piece at a time.

I made a bad bad mistake here. Duke came by last week and said “that looks pretty cool! Does it come apart so you can paint the inside?” … $#$@!!. I wasn’t going to take it apart, so I did my best.

The inside is very quick paint job, to get it over with. A solid layer of Mephiston Red (still watered, just not that much). Then a couple layers of Lamenter’s Yellow to make it more orangey in places. Then a very messy top layer of black. Mr. Wappel is doing something similar with his Rock Golem – in his case it is meant to show that the outer layer is cooling and the inner has a lot of molten rock. Mine doesn’t look anywhere near as nice, but I’m hoping to gloss over that…

The sculpey has a layer of Dheneb Stone on it, but you wouldn’t be able to tell. I’m planning to darken this with glazes of some medium browns.

I’m thinking of making the side pillars obsidian. I think it would contrast nicely with the greens and browns of the rest of the howdah, but also give it an “other worldly” look. This is technology, folks, but it’s old and dusted over.

I say “mostly” for two reasons.

The scales are still not where I wanted them . . . → Read More: Stegadon – Mostly final]]> A few photos of the steg body, mostly done.

I say “mostly” for two reasons.

1. Every time I pick it up, I find something else I want to touch-up on it.
2. I showed it to Patrick and he said that the feet looked awkward.

The scales are still not where I wanted them to be. The top scales look great. They are this beautiful orange colour, mixed with some slight yellows and reds to give them an organic look. The side scales aren’t there yet, but every time I look I’ll apply some more Lamenters Yellow, which brightens them. Then they get shiny, so I have to do something to bring the shine down. Then they get darker, so I apply more Lamenters. Rinse and repeat. I wish I knew how the top scales ended up looking so perfect. The sides are getting better though, but I suspect they’ll bother me until I put a giant thing on top of the model to draw my eye away.

When I modeled the base, I built it up and then put the steg on top to see where it sat. I puttied the base up until it fit mostly, but since I didn’t glue it on until recently, it wasn’t a perfect fit. All of the feet were off the ground in some way and Patrick noticed, so I fixed it. This was easier than I had thought!

I puttied messily under the feet, just stuffing it in there to fill the gaps under each foot. After that dried, I took the oxid paste and spread that around the edges of the putty. Wash on black to get the recesses, then drybrush codex gray to get the highlights. I’m probably going to glaze some oranges and reds to bring back the “heat”, but I’m mostly happy with how this fix job went.

Unfortunately, things seem to be getting in my way. I get a gradient blue background printed, but it isn’t big enough so I have to get another . . . → Read More: Bad photography]]> Randomly I’m working on my photography setup for the finale posts. I learned a lot from the Adepticon photography class and want to put it to good use.

Unfortunately, things seem to be getting in my way. I get a gradient blue background printed, but it isn’t big enough so I have to get another printing done the next day. My lights aren’t bright enough. I find new lights around the house, but one of them doesn’t work in my lamp. Go buy some more.

And then, the final straw for this attempt…

Melty! My old lights were CFLs, but I wanted bright, so I bought some 100W incandescent. This is what happens when heat meets crappy plastic. And woooah did it stink. So now I’m thinking I need to pick up another desk lamp…or two (the three I have already are either broken, or are hard light bulbs to find).

Lamenters Yellow continues to be a great colour for me. I . . . → Read More: Stegadon Body]]> I evened out that stark highlight I had in the mid-section. Watered some codex grey and fixed that up. Patience, and solid brushwork were needed – you have to push the pigment where you want it to be while it floats in the water.

Lamenters Yellow continues to be a great colour for me. I put it over the red to make an orangey-fiery thing. Some of the scales (left of the first photo) they are really dark and not fiery at all. Added some watered Mephiston, some watered Ushapti Bone, more Lamenters, and lastly really watered down some chaos black and painted that in between the scales. That’ll give them more “pop”!

I think the moment I started to feel better about the model was after I painted the bone. I had started to do the glazing thing again, and it wasn’t working and was creating another horrible patchy mess when I decided to screw it. Layered highlighting had gotten me this far in life, and I wasn’t going to put it down yet. Moments after I started, I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders. When I was done, the model had the sort of characteristic brightness that I like in my models. It was that simple – a few simple spot colours cleaned up and instantly it looked much better.

A bit of work here and there on the ropes, some more cleaning up and that’s where I got to tonight.

Only two more things need doing here — the metal bits, and for me to accept that it’s a good paint job. I could feel something resembling obsessive perfectionism sneaking in today while I worked the skin back and forth trying to reduce the chalkiness. Perfect is the enemy of done, and of good enough.

After that, I glue this sucker to his base. Pretty excited about that!