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Work-in-progress

Everything before it’s done.

Work-in-progress

Lizardman Temple Guard 4.1

So close…I finished off the scales last night, thanks to a clever colour tip from Patrick that I wouldn’t have thought of. A watery coat of Bleached Bone over the watery Blood Red that was painted only on the edges – it highlights the edges without making them bright like the Blazing Orange that I used on the regular troops.

And then a quick highlight on the various straps.

Todo:

  1. Hanging dead heads. There are 4 of these that need a different colour.
  2. Eyes. Whoops, forgot the eyes >.<
  3. Some greenery on the bases.
  4. The musicians drum.
  5. …the banner. Which won’t be done this week, I suspect. If you remember, the banner snapped off and I took it as a sign that I should do a cooler banner…well that hasn’t happened.

No photos this time, but next post should be a finale (except the banner…which I’m considering a new project :P)

Work-in-progress

Lizardmen Temple Guard 4

I went to my dad’s last night to make use of his nicer camera. We played with the settings and lighting a bit, and found some cool things (which are easily found elsewhere on the internet) (which I will be writing about in a later post :P).

But THIS is a Temple Guard update!

Last we spoke, I’d finished the bandages and then put a base coat on everything. I’ve done a lot of work on these guys since then, but there is still more to go. If you remember my last post, you’ll see a lot of that technique here.

  1. Finished the metal parts. I started with Tin Bitz, then mixed that with some Boltgun Metal (which completely overpowered the Tin Bitz…it was not like mixing colours at all). Then did a highlight of just the Boltgun Metal. Lastly I washed all of the metal with Devlan Mud.
  2. The bone is done. Started with Bleached Bone, washed with Devlan Mud (I bought a lot of the mud recently…) and then did a really gentle highlight/feathering with Bleached Bone on the raised surfaces.
  3. Started a very tentative highlight process on the scales. This is Scab Red with a very watery Blood Red gently placed at the tops of the scales.

The scales are scaring me a bit. I have a few ideas of how to do it, but the model as it stands right now is much to bright, even while before I added the Blood Red it was much to dark. So I did a test piece to see if I could think of what I wanted to do. I think I have a plan, but I’m worried that it will look terrible. So I think I’m just going to do it on this one guy to start, and see how it goes.

  1. Scab Red with the Blood Red, as you see below.
  2. Blazing Orange in the tiniest amounts possible, while still looking orangey.
  3. Baal Red wash over the whole thing.

If you head back to my Lava post, you’ll remember that the goal is deep, dark red in the middle, with a glowing brightness at the edges. This is beyond my skill, and the first step in producing something that will look good is to admit that :). The scales are too small, my patience too small, and my eyes prefer bright colours so I tend to over highlight.

The plan I’ve got will let me paint up to a colour that is bright, and then wash down to mute it a bit, while re-darkening the middle of the scales. I choose the Baal Red over more Devlan Mud, because the Mud doesn’t look red enough! The Baal maintains the red tinge I’m looking for.

After that, there are some straps that need a little bit more brown, and a couple heads that need some ugly colours, and then I’ll inspect each model to ensure it doesn’t have any colours over the lines. Lastly I need to paint the blasted drum of the musician >.>.. Annnnnd then I need to start thinking more about the banner that I mentioned I had planned.

Later!

Work-in-progress

Lizardmen Temple Guard 3

Last we spoke I had become determined to finish off the Deth Kopta bottleneck so that I could move onto other projects. I added another few details onto them and then realized that my next tournament is Fantasy and it’s happening in almost exactly a month from now, and that 4 nights of painting (each Thursday night for a month) wasn’t going to cut it.

So I re-arranged my priorities and started focusing entirely on the Temple Guard.

Now, my fear with these guys is that I’ll screw them up and they’ll end up looking horrible. I’ve put a lot of work into puttying them, and a failure at this stage would be disastrous. So hear me when I say good god I hate the photos I’m about to show you.

Part of it is the lighting. Part of it is the half-finished nature of the bone, which is glaring and hideous. But right now, neither of these facts is salving my fears.

Added since last time: Tin Bitz on all metally parts, and bleached bone on all boney parts. The Graveyard Earth of the bandages was highlighted up using Desert Yellow, and then finally with a 3/2 mix of Desert Yellow and Bleached Bone.

Some kid at the store asked “so you’re almost done?” and I looked at the models disparagingly and had to say “No, I have a lot of work still.”

Work-in-progress

Deth Koptas 1

This is another “oh, I’m mostly done” sort of post. I promise this is the last one – I’ve run out of projects that I’ve been meaning to finish! Everything from here on will be from the start (except for my battlewagon…which is partly assembled)

Paint Scheme

  • Bloooooo. These guys follow my Ork vehicle paint scheme of Regal Blue base, Space Marine Blue highlight. It’s a Space Marine theme’d Ork army.
  • The metal is just Boltgun Metal with a Chaos Black wash (remember, my Badab fails).

Conversion

  • I was trying for a long while before assembling them to figure out some awesome conversion I could do. In the end, I just added some extra metal plates and called it a day. They are like…6 piece models, almost snap together, and there wasn’t a lot of room for cutting and pasting.

I’m honestly not to certain where I need to go from here. It looks like there are a lot of little details on the models that need finishing – the straps on their hats, a highlight on the green meters, some extra colour on some of the little knick-knacks around the model. Little things.

Then the bases. Need a little bit of flock, since that’s the thing I’m doing for the Orks.

Lastly, the rotor blades need some colour. Likely a blue colour. I could also do that yellow/black hazard striping, since I put that on some of my vehicles as a strong contrasting colour, to ensure that they weren’t entirely blue. Slightly unnecessary here, as the orks themselves (and the large amount of metal) keep it from being a sea of blue, but it is nice to be consistent.

Work-in-progress

Lava

Photography+internet is a little odd to me. I feel like, if I can look at a picture, I should be able to distribute that picture. I mean…I’ve got it already. It’s on my hard drive, being displayed by my monitor. And yet I get the feeling (was unable to confirm) that it’s probably against the rules to take those photos on your computer and to use them directly. (This can be contrasted with movies/games/music, where you have to actively search for them to get them onto your computer, so you can steal them.)

Did you know that “smoldering lava” is the name of a particular card in the Molten Core raid deck from the WoW:TCG? I didn’t, but now I do, since that’s a good portion of what a Google search will bring up.

Annnnyhooo. I decided to link to the source instead. So click this link and lets talk about lava: http://english.cctv.com/20091130/103250.shtml. The link has 6 pages of photos, with 2 photos a page. So I’ll be talking about them like that.

Page number:

  1. This page didn’t inspire me.
  2. The first photo, with volcanic lightning excited me. I want to add volcanic lightning to my models. Seriously. That’s like two of the most badass natural events bound into one tight little package. Volcanic lightning. If you aren’t tittering yet, go look at the photo. But ahhh…I think I’d probably fail >.<. Any ideas on how I could incorporate this?
  3. This page has no pictures of lava on it…which is entirely useless to me.
  4. The first photo has a little bit of what I’m looking for. Notice that it’s a completely dark photo – grey, dark blue, smoke, rock, black. With strong highlights of this eye-piercing orange. Although this isn’t ideal for the Temple Guard, it’s getting close. It’s a little bright still.
  5. Here’s the money shot. First photo, magic-mud lava (I’m sure the scientists have a better name for it :P). Dark, black red in the center, with a slightly brighter dark red on the edges. This is how the TG should be done. Downside: the scales on these guys are tiny, edging will be a pain >.<
  6. Just a mountain here. Lame.

11 photos, 3 ones that have anything to do with my project, 1 that is probably “the one”. Success!

Work-in-progress

Lizardmen Temple Guard 2

I worked on these guys scales a bit. (I showed up at 6:30 at GW, tables were all full :P)

Scab Red, with a Chaos Black wash on the scales. My other lizards have a vibrant Blood Red/Blazing Orange/Sunburst Yellow scheme on their scales, imitating lava. These guys I hope to have similar fiery colours, but much more muted. Maybe I should look at some pictures of hardened lava to see if it gives any inspiration.

For some reason, whenever I paint Badab Black it ends up shiny. I hate it. My other washes don’t do that. Which is why I’m using watered down Chaos Black as a wash instead.

    Work-in-progress

    Tyranid Hive Guard 2

    I worked on the Hive Guard weapon a little bit. I’m not 100% on it right now. It looks pretty good…but it’s too much…bone. Too plain. Probably good, but not my usual style :P.

    • Bleached Bone base coat.
    • Devlan Mud all over.
    • Bleached Bone effectively dry-brushed over raised areas. Protrusions on the left, all of the holes on the shaft of the gun. This is a really light coat, subtle is the name of the game.
    • Solid Bleached Bone on the “spears” that it shoots, followed by a very watery coat of Skull White. Watery mostly because my White is almost dry…but also so it’s more subtle. Looking at this photo…maybe to subtle.
    • Dwarf Flesh on the cables, followed by a light touch of Tentacle Pink. Interestingly, it’s a lot more of a “light touch” in reality than it is in this photo :P.

    I also (not photographed) brought the Bubonic Brown further up on the top-most ridge of his back armour. I realized that it was silly to have a highlight that didn’t start at both ends of the scale. Looks a lot better now.

    The skin is next and then it’s done! (oh, and a little work on the base…)

    Work-in-progress

    Lizardmen Temple Guard 1

    Lizardmen are my current favourite Fantasy army and, even better, the first army to have had an updated army book that didn’t ruin the army for me (O&G, Chaos both ruined…).

    I was reading the Warseer forums one random day, and came across a some random person commenting on how he was thinking of converting up some undead Temple Guard. This idea just latched onto my brain and wouldn’t let go. I picked up a Lord Kroak model and painted him up, purchased some Temple Guard…who then sat there on my shelf for several months waiting for me to do something.

    You see – I’ve never worked with green stuff in any significant way. I’m more of an Orky sort of converter – grab some random bits and glue them together until it looks mean and green. This project would require slightly more finesse.

    I asked a friend of mine to show me how to putty up some bandages – his work is brilliant. He took one and did it in about a minute, and it looked gooooood. Damn him and his crazy skillz. But you know what? It turns out that making fake bandages with green stuff is a lot easier than you would think.

    I’ve been working on these guys really slowly for almost a year (rough guess). Most of that time was puttying one model at a time, once a week at the local GW if I couldn’t get a game in on Fantasy night. They are a long-term project so far…but I’m planning on using them at a couple tournaments I’m going to this summer, so they need to be finished “soon”.

    Paint Scheme

    • Codex Gray drybrushed, with Fortress Gray overtop on the skin. The point is to make them look old and dusty. My other lizards are a similar shade, but darker.
    • Graveyard Earth bandages. No idea what I’m doing from here, but biege is the plan.

    Conversion

    • The bandages were relatively easy. Roll out a line of putty, flatten it and then wrap it around various body parts. Make sure you keep your putty tool wet (I use saliva…despite that being a potentially unhealthy idea). Once it’s wrapped, draw lines in the putty with the knife edge to make it look wrinkled. Rinse and repeat. A lot of work, but not hard.
    • While transporting, the banner fell off of the banner-bearer. About a year ago I had been working on a hand-drawn design for a banner. I took this as a sign that I should put this design on this unit. We’ll see if I have time.

    Work-in-progress

    Ultramarines Land Raider Convertible 2

    I didn’t get as much done this weekend as I would have liked. I had hoped to have the tank assembled and primed.

    I did manage to solve the question of whether to have the doors ahead of the weapons, or behind. In most of the pictures in Imperial Armour 2, the Land Raiders have thier lascannons in the aft, and the doors forward. The pictures of the Crusader/Redeemer in IA2 and the models in the codex and White Dwarf have the weapons forward and the doors aft. Since I didn’t really like the look of the having the lascannons forward, I made the obvious choice.

    Magnetize everything!

    I added magnets in both doors so that I can mix and match as needed. It also keeps the door open for a Land Raider Terminus conversion if I find some extra predator sponsons. I used some sprue to span the doorways, and filed the ends down to fit between the track-halves. I used some 1/16″ thick card to make sure the magnets are close enough together.

    This side was easy, since it has the flat interior door. The other side has the control panel/equipment door. I suppose I could just use a flat piece of card instead. that would ensure having the same amount of clearance for the magnets on all doors. Besides, no one will ever see the thing anyway…

    Oh, and to tie in with Craig’s post, I’m using the camera in my cell phone. 😀

    Work-in-progress

    Ultramarines Land Raider Convertible 1

    No I’m not making an assault tank with a ragtop. That would be heresy.

    For a while now, I’ve been wanting to start a real painting project. Most of the things I paint are for current armies or upcoming events. They generally feel rushed or burdensome. I’ve decided that the way around that is to just pick something that I don’t have an immediate need for, but that would be a fun model to build and paint.

    I won a Land Raider at Astronomi-con Vancouver last year. I ordered the Crusader/Redeemer sprue from GW and a set of Ultramarine doors from Forgewold. I also picked up Imperial Armor – Model Masterclass Vol. 1. It has some neat weathering techniques I want to try out.

    I usually dive right into these things, build it, paint it, play with it. I’m going to try to pace myself this time and take the time to make everything as good as I can. It’ll be interesting to see how I do with that.

    Tonight, I washed off the Forgeworld doors. I’ve got an old head from my electric toothbrush that I use with some dish soap to remove the mold realeasing agent so the primer will stick. Speaking of which, I’m out of primer… I’m also trying to figure out how much to assemble before priming. I want to make at least a token effort to paint the interior (though no one will ever see it, so I may skip that), so I can’t just put it all together. Plus, I’m concerned about putting together the assault ramp before priming, since that’ll stick it shut. I’m not sure how string the resin will be as compared to the normal plastic, so maybe I should just glue the whole thing shut anyway. Decisions, decisions.

    I’m using this website as a guide for magnetizing the weapon and accessory mountings.

    No pics this time. We all know what bare plastic looks like.