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Work-in-progress

Everything before it’s done.

Work-in-progress

Playing with dry pigments

Posted on April 1, 2012

I haven’t yet gotten around to writing the final day of my Masterclass posts, so you wouldn’t have read about my experiences with dry pigments. (It’s still on my todo list!) But there is a minor story that goes along with this post. These first two paragraphs are just preamble – head below the jump/line to read the interesting part. 🙂

I leave the class and immediately head to Secret Weapon Miniatures to purchase dry pigments. Out of all of the techniques we learned for vehicles, I felt like this one was the most accessible and the most generally useful for what I wanted to do – mess up some Ork trukks! Upon navigating to the web site I was presented with a staggering array of colour options…I tried to pick and choose the ones that I thought I’d need, only to order every colour they had. $100US and several weeks later, I have the pigments.

You also need a pigment fixer in order to ensure that the stuff stays adhered to the model. I was told that Burnaby Hobbies stocked it, so I went there…only to find that they had sold out. And apparently this stuff can’t be air mailed, so they weren’t expecting a shipment for some time. I asked a few people, did some research and randomly called Strategies on the off chance they had some…Darren told me that they had one bottle left, so I rushed over on my lunch break to grab it!

Head below the jump to read about the pigments, using them, what I liked, what I didn’t like and questions that I have!

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Work-in-progress

Terrain: Orky Lander 1

Posted on October 1, 2011

I’ve been thinking about this blog since I got my new camera. One of the things I wanted when I started it, was to purchase a macro lens so I could take some better close-up model photos. I still don’t have the macro, but I do have some models…

I’ve been working on a piece of terrain. Started with a piece of “hardboard”/MDF and used my Dremel to cut it out to shape. Glued down a piece of construction foam to serve as a core. Added wood filler, hot glue, and plasticard to create the shape you see below. Then a few select pieces from my never-shrinking box of bitz, and voila, you have something that resembles a crashed Ork lander.


Painting started with a drybrush Codex Gray+Fortress Gray. They’re my Ork base colours. Regal Blue on the Space Marine tank parts (again, to match my army). Then…I got an airbrush. And started to use it :P. Airbrushed on the metal, then a couple layers of different grays, then the black.

A few things I’m not happy about right now: the black isn’t scorched enough, the hot glue needs to be something, and the entire piece is really just a big gray lump on the table, and the lighting of my photography…

Ah well. Better than nothing, right? 🙂

Work-in-progress

Ork Warboss 1

Posted on January 7, 2011

I’m re-jigging my Ork army a little bit in the face of Derrick having played and provided input on it.

Prepare yourself…for Dug’s latest creation!

I’m going to take one of these…and put a warboss in it. I don’t quite know how yet, but that’s usually the best part of being an Ork. 😀

WAAAAAAGGHHHH!!!!

(also the Kroxigors are making fine progress, just haven’t posted any photos recently – I should make time to do that, since they have several layers on them now).

Work-in-progress

Kroxigors 1

Posted on December 2, 2010

Got down to some minor painting this evening at GW after a solid game. Put a layer of dry brushed Codex Gray and a wash of Badab Black on these bad boys. Got home and pulled out the new camera (I don’t think I mentioned a new camera) and the mini-studio and took a few photos.

I like it! Not as nice as my dads DSLR, but not nearly as expensive either :). Oh, and the kroxigors are pretty cool too :).

Work-in-progress

Painting fail

Posted on September 27, 2010

So I left Astronomi-con, as usual, filled with passion and bluster and all that good stuff, ready to take on the painting world.

And I promptly fell into high-geek-mode in League of Legends. >.<

So, I post for you, tonight, the first model-based activity I’ve partaken in for a month and a bit:

The movement tray!

<.<

It’s not done. >.>

Ok, so none of us is impressed.

However, what will go onto this movement tray should be pretty cool. I finally got over my anger at GW and ordered Kroxigors for a skink and krox unit. (The anger was related to the fact that I couldn’t impulse-buy Kroxigors…that I was FORCED to order them in…piss me off…still).

So I present to my collected readership (of 1 or 2?) a poll. I have several things I want to work on next (somehow, all for my lizardmen army). So, should I…:

  1. Paint the kroxigors that I’ve just ordered. No conversions planned. A little boring in comparison to some other things I’ve worked on recently, but that’s a-ok.
  2. Work on a skink standard bearer conversion. Lizardmen don’t really need a standard bearer…but they’re just so damned useful in 8th edition that I can’t seem to leave him out.
  3. Convert some chameleon skinks. I can’t stand the metal models, and I think it’s finally driving me to do some conversions of these.
  4. Paint Chakax. I have the model and it’s awesome, and I promised I’d paint him here, but never got around to it.
  5. Put together the “front row” of the skinks with javelin and shields. I think GW current rules say just the front row…anyway, I have 24 skinks with blowpipes I’m using in this unit right now. I’d use 10 from the box for chameleons, the rest would become javelin/shield skinks.

I think that’s about all I have on the planner right now. Anyone have any thoughts? And “All of them!” isn’t an answer – I need to prioritize!

Work-in-progress

Ork Battlewagon 4

Posted on July 26, 2010

Yesterday, I referred to having a plan to offset the boring drybrushing I painted myself into.

You can see the start of it here – Shadow Grey and Scab Red panels. I’m going to try painting metal chips on the edges of these and seeing how it looks.

Next up is a watered down wash of Graveyard Earth and then another of Scorched Brown as the Battlewagon guide suggests. Lets see what that looks like!

(I like that the carnosaur is visible in the background of these pictures…I took him out of the case after my tournament so I could try the Slann in 8th ed :))

Work-in-progress

Ork Battlewagon 3

Posted on July 25, 2010

A quick priming and we’re ready to put some paint on this thing.

I think I regret doing this now, but first I dry brushed the entire thing Boltgun Metal. It’s been my standby metal dry brushing for years, and it’s only after reading that Battlewagon guide I posted last post that I realized there were other options. Talk about a mindset. I’ve got plans to offset the boring nature of this though, so not all is lost.

Regal Blue is the base coat for all of my Rhinos, so that went on here as well. I usually do two watered down coats of the Regal, to prevent paint clumping since I’m applying vast quantities of it all at once.

That’s the update for today – later!

Work-in-progress

Ork Battlewagon 2

Posted on July 25, 2010

This part was less heartbreaking, and more difficult – how to fit the GW add-on kit deffrolla onto the Rhino. The deffrolla fits perfectly onto the stock cab of the battlewagon…no attachment points on the Rhino!

When I started out, I was fiddling around with placement, and I found a spot that looked like it was almost as if GW had intended on the deffrolla being attached to a Rhino in this way. The spots where I glued it – if the Rhino had been a quarter inch higher on the trukk bed, and the deffrolla been a quarter inch thinner, it would have been absolutely perfect.

As it was, I had to shim. Cut a door in half and stick it under the rolla attachment points. Cut up some sprue and glue it beside the attachment to add extra stability.

Added an Ork glyph or two to each side door, and voila! It’s done.

I will be adding on extra grots and orks and things later. I learned that lesson from the last trukk I assembled – don’t glue things inside until you have them painted, or they will look like ass!

Painting

I read this GW article on painting a battlewagon. Pretty good, with some good tips on rusting/corrosion. I have a different paint scheme in mind, but that article will be sitting in a Firefox tab for the next few weeks.

The Rhino will be my standard Regal Blue, with Space Marine Blue highlights. Not certain what other colours to use, but I think I’ll be using the technique mentioned in that article on some darker grays or reds.

Work-in-progress

Ork Battlewagon 1

Posted on July 23, 2010

With the last of my Fantasy tournaments for the summer over with, it’s time to change focus to my Orks again. I have some dethkoptas and a battlewagon to finish. I’m prioritizing the battlewagon for a couple reasons:

  1. If it goes no further than it is right now, it isn’t playable. The dethkoptas are playable, and look mostly done.
  2. For some reason I’ve constructed a barrier of fear around the dethkoptas. I really don’t want to paint them anymore.
  3. Battlewagon == AWESOME.

With that decision made, we pick up the project where I last left it – mostly assembled.

The Dilemma

Most of my trukks are Space Marine Rhinos that have been caved in, sawed in half, guns glued on randomly, etc. It’s a lot of fun. However, for this model I won a Battlewagon model and so wanted to use it instead of the Land Raider that I would have used otherwise.

I started to assemble it a couple months ago. I was amazed at the quality of the construction. Everything fit together perfectly. The instructions were complete and useful. The model was beautiful. It was a work of a divine being, and not the Games Workshop that I’ve come to know and love.

Which left me with an issue – how can you cut/carve/slice/scratch the work of the divine?! I didn’t want to convert it. I wanted to put it together in its pristine beauty and leave it for all the world to admire.

But…that would go against my theme. I asked a bunch of my gaming friends what I should do, and none of them could truely understand the nature of my problem – they all said (paraphrasing) “carve it up!” They thought I was asking for conversion advice, and not looking for permission to leave it as it was “no, it’s ok Craig, you don’t have to follow your theme this time…my that’s a beautiful tank you have there.”

The Solution

Time. I left it for a month. It’s still a brilliant model, but I don’t feel so bad about slicing it up. woot! Lets get cutting!

The primary conversion on this thing was to take a hack saw and slice a Rhino into 2/3rds, then glue it where the cab of the Battlewagon usually sits. For this stage, everything else is stock Battlewagon.

The Next Steps

  1. Figure out where to place a couple guns. The stock tank has gun turrets on top of the cab, but that won’t work out perfectly anymore.
  2. Figure out how to attach the deffrolla. Yeah, this bad boy needs a rolling pin.
  3. Decide what options I’m going to give it standard, and provide magnet attachment points for those. Think about future options and see if I can’t provide attachment points for those as well. This is hard, since it requires reading the future and I’m not so awesome at that.
  4. Orkify the cab.
  5. See if the Animosity Orks will fit in the trunk. gwahaha.

Work-in-progress

Temple Guard Banner 1

Posted on July 16, 2010

I mentioned that the banner for my Temple Guard snapped off in the process of transporting them around. I also mentioned that I took it as a sign. There’s a reason for that.

Last year sometime I had another brilliant idea. I would make a custom banner for one of my units (not the Temple Guard at the time) – I had a book of mythical creatures, I had a computer drawing tablet, I had the ability, I could do this!

Unfortunately, reality set in. I couldn’t figure out how to get a drawing from a computer into reality. Paper was a bad idea, and any sort of plastic/laminate I’d need to see a specialized printer to get done, and none I looked at would do anything quite so small!

So I gave up on the idea, after having some some effort into drawing something that looked pretty good. A year (or so, time flies…) later, banner snaps off and it’s time to bring the idea back.

I have some fabric lying around that I used to make my Ork hut. I cut up a regular Saurus banner pole, stuck a spearhead on top of it, and then puttied the fabric onto the pole. A paper clip pin on both ends, and we’re ready to go.

I did a few sketches, after measuring out about how much space I was going to have, and managed to drawing something that vaguely resembled a Quetzalcoatl – a mythical South American creature that apparently taught the Aztecs how to do agriculture. Who knew? It’s a snake with wings, essentially.

After I’ve painted the image on it, I’m going to use white glue to stick it into a more dynamic, waving position. But for now I’m happy that it’s flat and relatively stiff, so I can paint on it.