Work-in-progress

I got a little drunk — enough to think that starting the next step of this project would be a good idea, but not so much that I couldn’t actually do it. The project has been staring at me, haunting me, since my last post, because the next thing I needed to do was going to be very hard.

I decided, after consulting with my gaming club, to use FixIt Sculpt. I would use a board to press pieces of putty into the Basius, then slide the piece off the board and onto my display board. Because I only had a small section of texture to work with, this would require quite a bit of sculpting to mend the edges of each piece of putty.

I started…

I started just by just placing the putty, then cutting away where I needed bases and terrain pieces to go.

After a while, I realized this wasn’t the best plan and started using the bases to cut into the putty. I’d apply it to the board, then press the base/terrain in where I’d drawn the circle and pull away the cut putty. This gave much nicer circles than cutting by hand!

The above two photos are the process. Use that tool to slide the putty off the board and onto my display board.

It took me 3 sessions to get to this point. I realized at the end of the second session that I’d totally messed up the count. >.< No idea why I thought 12 was the right number!! So I’m going to cut up a second board to nestle in behind the first, and cut only 4 spaces in it.

If you look carefully, you’ll see a new addition to my team on the left…

Painting this thing is going to be relatively easy. The bases are just Dark Flesh, Mephiston Red and then a bunch of Sepia to shade. I had originally planned on putting some simple green flock in places, to mimic the CHOP! boards we have, but never got around to it. With this project, I think I’ll get that flock on the bases as well as on the board, to help bring some other colours to it.

Between my conversions, paint job and this board, I can’t help but to steal best painted for this season!

My goal is to win best army, away from Clayton, this Blood Bowl season. To that end, I’ve been putting a lot of effort into the models, making fluffy conversions and now building a display tray!

I have MDF lying around my house for just such occasions. I started by picking a piece of an appropriate size and lying out the items I want to put on it in a pleasing manner.

It didn’t start in this configuration. I took a photo at one point, and looking at the different view helped a lot in being able to figure out which pieces were too close to each other, and which pieces weren’t framed right. Part of this process is placing those taller pieces in a way such that they aren’t unbalanced visually.

I drew out the outlines of the pieces so I could keep the layout organized while I worked and then I took my trusty wireless Dremel, cut out the edges and then used two types of sanding bits to sand down the edges.

I have a couple thoughts about what to do from here, some of them easier than others.

1. I’ve previously used the Vallejo texture paint to paint in the non-model places. This is relatively easy.
2. My existing bases for these models were pressed with SculptIt and Basius pads. (which, it turns out, I didn’t specifically write about). I could try to do something similar, but I don’t know how I would do it. The pad isn’t entirely that one texture, so I’d have to do it in stages, letting it dry after each stage. Then I’d have to sculpt the edges of each stage, and there is a risk that it might look “copy pasted”. Which it kind of would be. 😛 I’d also have to very carefully prepare the places for the models, cutting then sculpting those edges as well.
3. I could do something a little easier (maybe) and use the Basius to press larger independent sections, then cutting and placing on the base. SculptIt is very hard to cut once it has dried, so while this would be easier to make the texture pieces, it would be harder to cut up. Then I just now thought maybe I could use Sculpy. It dries softer. But it would be more work keeping the texture in place while I peeled the Sculpy off since you have to bake the Sculpy. Maybe you can bake the Basius? Something to look into.