This is the most badass drawing in existence. I don’t remember where I’ve seen this before, but I have a strong and currently unfulfillable desire to model and paint this guy.
Browsing Tag
temple guard
I had originally planned my Temple Guard banner to be modular. This was mostly because I didn’t have a plan for making one until after I’d finished the unit, but once I was done my original one I realized that I could easily make a new one for it.
The Thursday night before OFCC I scrambled to use some Sculpey to create a big slug of a banner and pin it so that it would fit into my banner-bearers hands. I primed it Thursday night and planned on painting it at the tournament. I usually eschew last-minute painting, priding myself on being good at time management, but this was a special case.
CHOP!
My painting station in the Red Lion.
I need another 4 Temple Guard to make my unit 24 – a 6×4 unit, and enough that in 8th edition (which we’ve been playing for years…) it has enough staying power to not wither and die in seconds without a Life Slann.
This has been a learning experience for sure…my painting style has changed so much in the last year that trying to re-create this paint job has been challenging. The primary problem — the white primer! (and I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was until tonight).
I went back and re-read all of my articles on painting Temple Guard from a few years ago to get a sense of what was going on. The first problem – all of the skin needed to be black so I could drybrush two layers of grey on top.
Solved that and put some more paint on, no problem. I got all of my base colours on and this morning I did a quick wash of a few colours to bring it down – my goal for OFCC (in 3 days) is to have them looking like they could hide in amongst the other 20, not necessarily to be done – and they need to be darker for that.
This evening I came home and they were bright. Hoooly. Bright. Really nice looking colours, Scab Red in particular is gorgeous with a darker shadow behind it and the white primer, but…no…these are dark models. I only had a half hour to paint tonight, so I slapped another coat of Badab over everything and tomorrow morning we’ll do some more hoping. 😛
White primer, it giveth and it taketh away!
OFCC in Portland (or Vancouver…) this weekend! I’ve never played with such a large army before (2800pts), and I’m really looking forward to the event! Driving down Friday with some of my Warhammerz friends, coming back Sunday sometime.
If you look carefully, you can see the finished Scar-Vet BSB in here, but I forgot to take some solo shots of him while I was doing this last night. Another time.
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!
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.
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…
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:
- Hanging dead heads. There are 4 of these that need a different colour.
- Eyes. Whoops, forgot the eyes >.<
- Some greenery on the bases.
- The musicians drum.
- …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)
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Scab Red with the Blood Red, as you see below.
- Blazing Orange in the tiniest amounts possible, while still looking orangey.
- 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!
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.”
