Browsing Tag

fantasy

Work-in-progress

Painting fail

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!

Featured Images

Temple Guard Banner Final

I got the banner done in time for the tournament.

I recommend not following my steps exactly. This process could have been done better.

So, last we spoke I had assembled the banner and was moving onto painting it. I laid the fabric flat and started painting. You can see the result below – not spectacular, but not bad.

Someone commented that it wasn’t bright enough, in the sea of my bright yellow spotted saurus, which this is definitely a flaw. The issue here is that it is relatively difficult to get a bright colour down, as it just soaks in and diffuses into the black fabric.

I finished painting it and went to give it a wave…and discovered that white glue doesn’t set immediately. >.> Whoops. I lucked out, in that the multiple layers of paint gave it a bendable quality, so I bent it as much as I could without cracking the paint and then watered down some white glue and painted it on. I repeated that process 3 times before I could get a wave on it that looked any good.

Some people at the tournament recommended:

  • Paper. Actually, the person I was talking to was complaining about how his banner ripped. So he didn’t recommend it, but it’s an option.
  • Pop can aluminum. Warning: You must ensure that you file down the edges, lest you lose flesh one day.
  • Tin foil. I thought this would rip as well, but apparently you use layers of it and super glue them together to create a relatively thick piece of tin foil cardboard that won’t rip. Pretty smart, assuming you don’t wrinkle it in the process.

A tournament update to follow in a day or two. Later!

Work-in-progress

Temple Guard Banner 1

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.

Featured Images

Lizardmen Temple Guard Final

I don’t recall when I started working on these guys. It was last year sometime I think. Actually…I could probably look this up, since I bought the unit shortly after the new temple guard were actually released. Looks like it was around February of 2009. So going on a year and a half.

However, at long last, I present…

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Tournaments

ConquestBC Tournament

Bah!

I had planned on writing about the finished Temple Guard tonight. But I took about 30 pictures and only 3 turned out good, and those three weren’t a complete set of angles. So I’m going to wait until tomorrow to take some more.

Then I was going to write about some more photography stuff, but I can’t really write anything useful without referring to the pictures of the Temple Guard…which…I don’t want to post until I can post all of them.

So instead I’ll write about the tournament I went to this weekend.

This will probably be long, so if you care, hit the cut and keep on reading.

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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

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

    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.