tmod Posted May 17, 2015 Report Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hi, all! Thought I'd post up my scratchbuilt Ashes & Dust, Ashen Core and Dust Storm. As you can see, they're almost finished priming, and will hopefully get painted soon... I have a lot of WIPs, so will post those later. Quick rundown of how they were made... Ashen Core: This is the one which is less sculpting and more kit-bashed. First I made two square-profile rings of Kneadatite (Green Stuff). Then I filled the bottom of each with Magic Sculpt to give rigidity. Added plasticard rods side by side between them to create a sylinder. Added studs made from 0.5mm square profile plasticard, sharpened with a scalpel. Sculpted a small smooth sylinder with a platter on top to for the base for the arm/skull. The arm is sculpted from Magic Sculpt, and so is the skeletal hand. The big skull is an Ogre Skull from Battleforge. The horns are from the Warhammer Chaos Knight musician bit. There is a piece of jewelry chain there, and the row of skulls are white metal skulls from a eBay seller archeotech-uk. Great stuff, by the way! It all rests on a mound of green stuff with skulpted cobblestones and textured paint (Vallejo Black Lava). Ashes & Dust: Sculpted over a wire frame. First Kneadatite for stickiness, them bulked out with Magic Sculpt for rigidity, finally green stuff for getting the texture. On the base there's a small splash of dust and dirt made from green stuff, casts of sculpted cobblestones, and Vallejo Black Lava. Should look nice once painted; there will be a trace trailing the miniature on the base... The details on the torso are identical to Ashen Core, and the same is the head with the addition of extra horns from a Warhammer Beastmen banner. Actually they are cast from a mold originating on the banner, needed some adjustments for me to be perfectly happy! The tip of the claws are carved from plasticard, easily the most tedious part of the whole sculpt. Greaves are otherwise sculpted from Green stuff. Dust Storm: Sculpted before Ashes & Dust, and using a slightly more primitive technique. On A&D I used a scalpel to "pull/cut" the pattern on the surface. On Dust Storm I used a long sausage og Green Stuff, twisted it and wound it around the bulked out frame. The result looked a lot liek the Michelin Man, but with a Disney-evil-monster face, so I added a liberal coating of Vallejo Black Lava. I think it seems like it will turn out somewhat decent, but might end up redoing it later. No bits used here, all sculpted by me (probably not for the better...)... All three use my outcast basing, supposed to evoke the Quarantine zones. Grennstuff stamped with a fishbone cobblestone pattern from HappySeppukku, added loose cobblestones originally sculpted from Greenstuff by me and recast in both Squadron Green Putty and Milliput. These fracture differently when destroyed, so they make a nice mix IMHO. Debated sculpting an extra pair of greaves to add to the base of the Core, but my wife not liking the idea and me being tired of carving plasticard got me off the idea. Let me know if you disagree! All in all pretty happy with these, particularly A&D. As most of all minis are self-made they should be GG-legal, but wil probably get the official minis when they're done anyway... A&D is pretty huge, especially for a Ht2 model, but I like it. I imagine the whole thing waxing and waning, stretching up and shrinking down on the battlefield. One could hardly expect it to stay small just for the sculptor... ;-) Let me know what you think, will post WIPs if there's any interest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) No comments yet, but here are the WIPs anyway: Two shots of the wireframe for the Dust Storm. Made using thin iron wire, bought from a florist. The wire was twisted in a drill, and the resulting "braid" was wound around a air of pliers, and then adjusted by hand. Arms made from the same wire were glued on with cyanoacrylate.. This one shows the wireframe for A&D, the bulking out of Dust Storm, the beginnings of Ashen Core, the skeletal arm, some bits and bobs, as well as most of the raw materials used. Micheline Man bodywork of Dust Storm being covered in Vallejo Black Lava. Added finer Vallejo textured sand in the recesses later on to further remove the emphasis on the tyrerings. I really liked the facial expression on this, but only as comic relief, not as a scary monster... The component parts done (less bases), A&D done from waist down. Beginnings of the dust cloud on A&D's base; the track can clearly be seen Rear view og almost done model. Only thing lacking are the pointy elbow bits (made from coctail sticks) and the extra set of horns. The basing is fairly visible in this picture, and one can also see the added texture (black and grey/blue) from Vallejo textured paint. Hopefully this will create som extra interest when done... Edited May 18, 2015 by tmod 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lusciousmccabe Posted May 18, 2015 Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 I like how you can see how the two parts would fit together to form ashes and dust. It's a nice touch. Do you find the black and white primer to be useful? I'm thinking of trying it out as some stage. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmod Posted May 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 I like how you can see how the two parts would fit together to form ashes and dust. It's a nice touch. Do you find the black and white primer to be useful? I'm thinking of trying it out as some stage. Yeah, I made sure all sizes were equal and all so it would support the impression that it's really the same machine just with a dust devil attached. I did, after much back and forth, add the lower set of horns/tusks to A&D which is lacking in the Core. To me it looks better, and it matches the art, but I might try to add them to the Core as well. The models give no explanation as to where the greaves and elbow spikes come from, might decide to sculpt an extra pair to rest on the base of the Core, we'll see... The priming is actually not white at all, just various mixes of black and grey. I wantes to do a three stage priming with Vallejo polyurethane airbrush primer in black, grey and white, but the grey is so light I've switched to black -> 75% black + 25% grey -> 25% black +75% grey. Looking into getting a darker tone of grey primer to avoid mixing in the airbrush... Otherwise the setup is awesome! I spray everything black from below, usually about 45° angle. Then I mist everything from the side/top (about 30° angle), but heavier from the direction I want the light to come from. Finally I hit the model with a short burst of light grey from the direction of the light (usually top right on my models). This ensures a smooth surface to paint, all the recesses are dark, and the transitions on highly textured models like these are great. Makes directional highlighting/shading a breeze! :-) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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