Mako Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Hey, that was yours? It was awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted July 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Thanks Mako! Really glad you liked it :-) That was pretty much my motivation here. If anyone looked at it and thought 'that's cool!', it's a win in my book! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viruk Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 The head looks great. It's a very interesting project and I'm going to follow it with keen interest. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sybarite Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Oh cool! I really liked that mini A very impressive sculpt. I voted for you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mako Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Same - the painting was great, and that mechanical beastie tipped it easily into my top three! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted July 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Thanks for the kind words gents :-) I shall try get some phase 2 photos up tomorrow. The head ended up being the easiest part to do, although getting some of the watch parts to set at the right angle was really tough. I glued my fingers to this model way more than was excusable! I have to say that the box of broken watches I acquired to do this is both one of the saddest and most beautiful things I've ever seen. Some of the faces have writing on the backs, dates and initials in faded script, there are also hand painted enamel faces, shattered and cracked. I've made some necklace pendants out of some of the smaller copper faces, so it feels like maybe they are getting a new life after all, even if none of them will tell the time again. Introspection over, all the tiny cogs and springs are really cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHero Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Yes that crew submission was amazing! It was in my top 3 as well. The home made sculpt really did it for me, very creative! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted July 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Some more of the WIP shots of the dragon incoming. Once I was happy with the head shape and how the armature was posed I started adding the primary pieces - large wheels for the shoulders, adding cogs and wheels to bulk out the chest and back. I also discovered a selection of amazing 'fin' shaped pieces that I decided would look great down his spine. It took me quite a while to find enough that were the right size, and I also wanted them to alternate left and right to give a bit more symmetry to his back - turns out I don't like making things easy for myself! I was sure to blu-tac everything in place before I glued anything down. I think on some of these pictures I've tac'd some watch hands to the eyes to see how I felt about them - not great as it turns out since they never made it to the final piece! In one of these pictures he also has a 'tongue' made out of a strip of blue plastic cable-tie - that didn't make it to the final piece either, although I liked the idea of it - maybe next time... The tail was built up with more electrical wiring from inside an old server, hense the exciting colours! I also started using some plasticard tubing to bind it together and hide some of the nasty joins between the body and tail. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Sarcasm) Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 ^ This was my favourite thing in the entire competition 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted July 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 A couple more pictures today of the dragon with limbs. I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to do these, and was keen to make them as flexible as possible so I could look at a number of poses before gluing them in place. I started out by cutting a length of hollow plasticard tubing to be the upper arm. I drilled a hole through the top to secure it to the shoulder wheel (which was already attached to the wooden bead by a metal pin). I didn't glue the arm in at this satge as I knew I needed to get to it from all angles to sort the elbow, forearm and hand. The elbow was made by threading a guitar string through the hollow upper arm, snipping it short and gluing it inside the plasticard tube. I then threaded a smaller guage wire around the elbow and twisted it closed but not so tight that it wouldn't move. I left this wire a little longer as I wanted to to poke out of the forearm (made with more plasticard tube) and run into the hand. I repeated this in reverse for the opposite arm. While the arms were tricky (and in hindsight, a little long!), the hands were by far the worst part to make - they were so tiny and fiddly! I twisted some thin wire at the wrists to separate out into fingers, securing them in place with some tiny cogs and washers. Once the wrist was dry, I bulked out the fingers with more washers and cogs to give the impression of joints in the fingers. The back legs were an even bigger problem. It took me several tries to get them into a position where they looked right. Originally they had a backward knee like a dog, but it just looked wierd. With the added complexity of the way the body twists as it curls around I was struggling to find a pose that didn't look too busy or un-natural. Eventually I got there, and the legs were built in a very similar way to the arms. The main difference is they are shorter (long legs looked really silly!) and the foot was 3 toe'd. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swiglitz Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 My one and only contribution to the painting competition...I told Vai to put the legs on the other way around as they looked a bit daft the way she'd put them originally. Woohoo! I helped! I will now bask in your praise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIGHTHATER Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Vaiuri, I haven't forgotten about your painting style change up comment and my comment on page 4. I will go into depth about my comment to you soon as I have some good free time and can organize my thought on the matter better. Thanks bud. Nighthater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Hi nighthater, much appreciated! Any help is useful. I really pushed myself painting Mei Feng and crew, but I know I can do better. Sometimes I think it needs a fresh pair if eyes to pick up where someone can improve, so I really like getting feedback :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 So it's been a couple of busy days, but here is another segment in the Scrapscale Dragon saga! I decided to paint him before finishing off adding the 'detail' cogs, reasoning that they might not retain the detail under a layer of paint. It was quite difficult to get the undercoat everywhere it needed to be and I was terrified of obscuring any of the smaller details, so some basecoating was done by hand. I started off with a spray undercoat Citadel Black (I undercoat 99% of my models black, I tried white once and dicovered that that way madness lies...), filling in any missed parts by hand. This done and dried, I mixed a dark brown and went over the whole model a couple of times with a thin layer of this colour (about 50:50 Mournfang Brown and Chaos Black). My thought process here was that I was bound to miss bits and pieces here and there and a dark brown would be a bit more forgiving and look like shadows on the warm metallics. Once the base coat was done, I started picking out sections in mattified metallics. Copper base was a mix of Mournfang Brown, Bestial Brown (or whatever name it has changed to!), P3 Molten Bronze and Vallejo Bright Bronze. Brass was the same mix, minus the Bestial Brown, added a touch of Vallejo Brassy Brass plus the old Citadel Snakebite Leather. It's apparent at this stage that I don't like to make life easy for myself... nor do I make up enough of these colours to go back from them, instead re-mixing by eye from my pallette (an old plate). Silver was more difficult. I absolutely hate painting silver, as it always photographs flat and dull, so I returned to a method I'd played around with in the past by 'cheating' the non-metallic method and mixing the silver with the non-metallic colours. I started off with purple and turquiose mixed with black and P3 Pig Iron, highlighting up by adding white and P3 Quick Silver. This was a disaster. After finishing some more of the warmer metallics, the silver looked completely out of place. It was back to the drawing board... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 This is my final post/musings on the Dragon (unless anyone wants to know something specific!) and finishes off the painting aspect. It's worth pointing out that I hadn't thought much about the base (big mistake), and at this stage I started to investigate my options and who would join him, Mei Feng and the Scrap Wrangler (the Low/High river monk). My original plan was for him to be a Dawn Serpent, and I finally got hold of the model as I was painting this chap - and wow, was there a size difference! Coupled with the problem that he wasn't even fitting on a 40mm base, I resigned myself to the fact he would have to be a stand-in rail golem and put him on a 50mm base. I base-coated all the tail wires before fixing him to his base as I wanted to see how the shadows would fall before highlighting them up. This also had the added bonus of me being able to hold the base to paint him, as the blue tac method was starting to get quite cumbersome! I painted the base first (the Scrapyard bases from microart studios), layering on Pig Iron, highlighting with Mithril Silver, then applying the copper areas as I had done on the Dragon himself. I used the Ryza Rust paint from GW, then gave everything a wash wit Soft Tone before adding more targetted shading with Strong Tone. Once on his base I turned my attention towards 'fixing' the silver. I decided to get rid of the purple tone and went back over everything with a watered down Pig Iron/Hawk Turquiose/Black mix, blending back up by adding Mithril Silver and shading down by adding a Black/Blue wash. As I was using blue as a contrast colour throughout the crew, this really helped tie everything together and made me a lot happier! I finished off the 'cheats' bronze and brass by adding more of the metallic to highlight, going up to gold on the bronze pieces. I washed the shadows with Soft Tone which helped to being out the richness of the coppers, then went back over with gold to pick out the details. I eventually went back and added a few more pieces of silver to help break up the copper/bronze, then added some more of the tiny cogs and wheels, painting them carefully by hand so I didn't fill in any of the details. More photos to come...and here they are (thanks for waiting! ). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Current project: Turning the Flesh Construct with Victum into an executioner. Last night I started to give him some trousers/shorts, no self-respecting executioner is going to wanter about in metal pants! I want to pick up some new skills along the way (like spelling...) so have decided I want to have him hefting a dirty great big axe over his head, but this means learning to sculpt hands... I've already started making excuses for what I expect to be a somewhat pitiful effort in that I can give him a pair of gloves if he ends up being a bit 'sausage-fingered'. The start of the trousers... The legs will both end up the same length! I need to have a play around with fabric folds/stitching etc... But for now I wanted to just slap some green stuff on there and get a feel for how it's going to be. Just for the giggles, here's what 2 minutes with paint gives you: Rest assured, his head won't look like a Pac-man ghost... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mako Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Hands are a bit of a mare to sculpt. Though it's easier if they're holding something. Let me see if I can find the guides I used when learning, they're PDF but not sure which hard drive they're on, in which machine... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swiglitz Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 I personally think his head should look like a Pac-Man ghost, nothing is as terrifying as Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde. *shudder* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 That's it. His name will be Clyde. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Behold! Clyde the Executioner has magnificent turn-ups! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swiglitz Posted August 8, 2014 Report Share Posted August 8, 2014 Is he wearing cargo shorts? He's not really an executioner is he? He's a really angry postman ... With an axe ... Eventually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowfane Posted August 8, 2014 Report Share Posted August 8, 2014 That universal delivery service is really good value for money, clearly.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suvalas Posted August 8, 2014 Report Share Posted August 8, 2014 It's understandable when you consider the dogs he's got to face on his rounds;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2014 He's too punctual to be a postie... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaiuri Posted August 11, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2014 Clyde hasn't made much progress this weekend, although I hope to get his cowl sorted by Friday! The Guild will be taking a back seat for a bit while I work on a birthday commission of Five Rings Scorpion Clan inspired Yan Lo crew. Hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew, but I'm really excited about the possibilities with this one... even if it is dirty ressers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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