GDUK Gold Duel ..... Updated PICS in thread

[demonherald]

well here's the first pics of my duel . Just a glimpse really as I've been getting a lot of requests for pics..Need to adjust my pic area to get the right light on something this tall so ot the best pics yet but will be taking more over the weekend as well as next week sometime putting together a step by step progress type affair with pics I've managed to rescue from the whole laptop dropping escapade....

The basic idea was to recreate a classic confrontation between a chaos Raptor and Dark angels marine..

I wanted to push the movement of he two as far as I could as well as get a little creative with the basing ..(surprise surprise) .As well as give something interesting to look at from every angle.

The biggest challenge was making this bugger in pieces so it was all paintable and not really knowing how the whole thing would work until fully assembled..

The base is completely scratchbuilt from plasticard , tubing , strips and putty except for the generator which is a chimney stack off of the citadel scenery sprues as well as a couple of forgeworld brass etched Dark angel pieces.

Tricky parts along the way were, dark angels robes.. (never done them before..) The bolter ammo feed which is ridiculously huge on the model as well as being welded into the arm detail..believe it or not this is actually smaller than on the original kit..There were others but they were the main pieces that gave me nightmares.

overall I'm happy with how it came out but as always there are things I would do differently but I can't argue with the result. Also congrats and big thanks for keeping me going to Nigel Carmen (Talonicus) who took bronze with an insanely huge pairing for duel ( I was about to quit until he kicked me in the ass. Been a very bad year for me.)and fellow Brit Mark Lifton who took silver A very rare all Brit 1 2 3 in a UK GD category and hopefully the first of many more as the UK scene get's organised.

more on the theory and design as well as build and paint of the piece once I get a moment but thought I'd share some first shots with you guys here..

any questions fire away..

Rob.

Edited September 26, 2008 by demonherald

[Kaine]

Having seen this one close up in the flesh the pics (although great) really dont do the true model justice, theres just so many little features that you only see when you can look at it from every angle.

[demonherald]

yeah I'll play with the set up over the weekend and figure out a plan of attack for capturing it.. scratchingmy head a bit at the minute and very tired.....cheers Dave didn't even realise you were on here welcome aboard....

[Ritual]

My head hurts just from looking at that construction... My hat's off to you for pulling it off with such finesse. Congratulations! I look forward to seeing more pics and close-ups.

[St. Anger]

Rob,

That is absolutely incredible!!! The dynamic pose really conveys a sense of the action. I love the basing. I also look forward to seeing more pics. Congrats!!!

[Nathan Caroland]

I just want to know who wins ..

Lovely work Rob!

[TheBugKing]

I just want to know who wins ..

Lovely work Rob!

The bad guy OBVIOSLY!

The bad guy always wins in real life! <what?... no? Really Oh ok.>

Hmmm maybe I have that wrong.

I really love the repose. The interaction between the figures is really well executed.

[Keltheos]

"In the war between Good and Evil, Evil has more fun." -- Living Steel

Trying to find where my jaw dropped off to. Amazing work!

[gregdorf]

nice work

[Moavoamoatu]

Congratulations Rob, the movement is great, the paintjob fantastic and the base is very creative : I love it.

a chaos Raptor and Dark angles marine..

That's why it gives something interesting to look at from every angle

Edited September 26, 2008 by Moavoamoatu

[demonherald]

Congratulations Rob, the movement is great, the paintojob fantastic and the base is very creative : I love it.

That's why it gives something interesting to look at from every angle

Yay somebody spotted it...... nice one my friend.

[Jabberwocky]

Congrats again! An absolutely amazing piece...I am looking forward to additional angles!

[Chameleon]

Sadly, I didn't get a decent look at this on the day because the cabinet was too crowded: now I see why! Looks awesome, and I for one am glad that you didn't give up painting because it would have deprived the world of this magnificent duel!

[demonherald]

Cheers for the compliments guys very much appreciated. I can see this being a real bugger to get right on the pics.

Okey dokey slowly rescuing a few pics hee are some shots of the early base construction.

here are the three main components..

individually the wooden block , 50 x 50 mm . The front was sawn off then shaped using my dremel and a milling tool. Holes were drilled and the pipes added.. The idea here was to create substructure so this is underground. the pipes are sewage pipes and are pretty standard in pieces where the ground is blown apart. milliput was used to create rocks etc and fill out the general shape then vallejo texture paste and sand added funnily enough to provide texture.

The duel base 50mm square monster base was built to represent a broken floor level. and attatched to the base with two rare earth magnets.. a few people asked why I did these seperately. Well firstly it was so I could construct and paint each pat seperately. secondly the showing of the base meant that I was showing itwas on a 50mm base clearly within the rules. The thing with UK GD is that things can get really tight and not giving any excuse to an extremely anal judge when two or three pieces are in the mix I played it safe.. I also quite like the fact that there is a slight gap that follows the concrete structure lifting slightly as te earth falls from under it.

The base was cut away to fit the corner and filled with magi sculp t represent the concrete. reinforcing bars were added as extra detail using paper clips cut and twisted into interesting shapes.

The basic foor plan and where the second structure layer was to be added was done with plasticard and the tiles are a sheet styrene simple square pattern. again vallejo texture paste and sand to finish.

The channel on the left was made with plastic I beams or H beams depending on your angle This was to represent a cbl channel running from the generator/boiler ...

now at this stage it was time to go back in with those extra little details that help sell a scene.

some individual tiles were cut from the sheet and scattered in the underground section (explosions aren't tidy) then two loose pieces of concrete complete with reinforcing bars and tiles were added to give the sense that this thing was still in decay.to make these pieces I used fimo .. roll it out , fold it roll it out fold it (repeat this around ten times then roll to the right thickness and cook.. ) when cured just break pieces off of t and they break with a nice concretey /layered texture. tiles are stuck on top with super glue and rods added...

Another important thing to think aout here is the flow of the pieces.. look at it and if your ey stops or is caught by something change it.. if you can look down the piece and not be distracted your on the right lines...

now the irst floor main structure is added but not glued at this point.....

This was made using the citadel cityfight mechanicus chimney stack x 2 stuck together to make the boiler and pipe. A tank hatch was used for the door at the front as it had that industrial feel to it. The handle was ff of a gun I think ?? and the ladder pieces added off a tank kit to change it's nature slghtly.. a landspeeder antennae was added for further detail and to raise the eyeline slightly. The floor of the structure was made with plasticard cated with half round plastic rod. the sides were finished with Brass etch rivet sheet. The floor supports are imperail eagle heads out of the cityfight kit..A copper pie was also added coming out of the boiler and running down the service hatch where it was bent to go into the ground. This served a duel purpose.. detail in the service tube and a locating pin when putting the piece together to keep things level (ish).

now wasn't content with stopping there.. I wanted to do a second level .. and there were two challenges I wanted to take on.. I wanted to have this damaged .. I also wanted to avoid the usual solid bunker wll or tower emplacement and go for a thin walkway type platform leading to an extra element of "how was that done" to the piece.. Another thing when I'm doing GD pieces is look at details like this and basically see what has been done before, how can I do it differently .. It is usually at this point that you realise why things have been doe deifferently . Generally because it's easier , however if it's tricky and causes the head to be scratched then it's got to be worth trying. This all add to another element of my GD thinking.. at the UK Demons there are thousands of entry .. The thing is massive.. So anything and everthing you can do to make your model look different to the norm will help you.

After a couple of experiments with a solid platform I decided to go with the split walkway as it opened up the piece a lot more...

You'll also notice at thi point that the top section is solid where as the finish piece it is collapsed.. This was because A) I was still unsure how I was going to go about it and whenever I am doing any kind of wrecked structure or vehicle I build it wholefirst. That way when you wreck it it is a lot more natural looking and all the associated details come with it.. make sense???

anyway basc structure was plasticard , thin plasticard was used to add a metal reinforcing edge to the sections, brass etch DA symbols for detail C beam was then used to edge the piece.. Therewas also a c beam cahnnel added underneath into which a pipe and a guitar wire were run simply to add a more service feel to it.

The legs were made from copper tube for extra strength and thats about it...

One thing here that saved a ton of work was a discovery on antenocitis (spelling??) I usually mak nuts and bolts and rivets from hexagonal plastic rod and round plastic rod. however in antenocitis I found some perfectly scaled resin nuts and bolts and rivets.. They come on a strip and are the absolute dogs danglies........ They were used to add details round the edges of the platform and on top.

here are some early paint shots for the base...

The whole idea was to go dark dirty and rusty on the base so that despite all the modelling detail the whole thing didn't appear too cluttered (although there is an element of mayhem required) and also meant I could do the models brighter colours to stand out...

The top platform has had railins added after deciding positions of the models , again brass rod uprights c channel tops finished with resin rivets.. the broken pieces are bent to indicate stress and any piecs removed are added to the ground structure.

After painting the ladder was added. the order of paint was the same as the build..

underground, floor level , first platform , Top level. One thing I was keen on doing was the open structure as already mentioned and with that comes the fact taht all areas are viewable so all areas must be painted. doing the pieces seperate and gluing after painting made this posible.

The top floor sectionposed me all kinds of poblems on just what kind of finish I wanted.. in the end I decided to experiment.... Basically I undercaoted black spray then ogre flesh spray , I added random blobs of masking fluid then sprayed Humbrol green , more masking fluid blobs then sprayed humbrol dark earth.. more masking fluid then painted bone then more blobs and added grey , finally added in juices of greens and rusts athen after an overnight dry started peeling off the masking fluid.. the multiple sprays meant I had a build up of paint layers and in parts when the masking fluid was removed this started to peel and gave me the laky paint effect I was wanting.. really happy with that particular experiment and will definitly be using it again.......

next stage will cover the figures converting .. not gonna promise when but when I get a chance....

[Wren]

Very cool! The dynamism is impressive, particularly in that it carries over to the base. (Which is wonderfully detailed and neat and textureiffic in its own right.)

Congrats on the gold, woo hoo!

[talonicus]

meh!

Its ok spose.

[St. Anger]

Rob,

Thank you for the breakdown of how you built and painted your base. Alot of great details that can be implemented in other smaller dioramas and other basing projects. Great job, again!!!

[demonherald]

cheers Guys hope this i helpful to you in some form or another any further questions just fire away and I'll do my best to answer...

Now moving onto the minis themselves and I warn you now my usual crappy pics are about to get crappier but things were tight for a while so I just had to move on..

As mentioned before I wanted to get a feeling of movement and momentum in the piece.. I also wanted to get a little bit arty.

Luckily GW does a wide range of plastics that came in really useful . At the same time Marines are a bit of nightmare to reposition times so there are a few main things to consider..

Firstly , most marines don't have an abdomen.. This is due to them being modelled in a slightly squat position so when moving the body back at all it i wise to add in the abdomen. This was done simply by cutting a 3mm piece of plastic tube an filling with Greenstuff.

Marine arms and pads are very blocky and simply raisng an arm means the pad wont fit. (in real life the buggers wouldn't be able to raise their hands) To get around this I generally cut the marine at the arm right above he elbow then rebuild the upper arm and inner detail with GS after first getting the position I want the shoulder pad to be in..

I had also given myself an additional problem when I did the thin platform idea and that was simply how am I going o support two models with minimum contact on something so blooming thin....???

well I did this by making a very long pin. I drilled right across the diagonal f the plastic and bent the pin up from there . I cut back into the platform a bit and rebuilt around the area to hide the pin. This gave me a very long pin to work with. I then built the marine like a Kebab around the pin wthout gluing first ..

let me explain. Basically with any marine I cut it into it's component parts, Feet, Lower Leg, Kneecap,Thigh.Groin arms lower and upper hands elbows . I then usually pin in the position I want and fill afterwards. For this piece I had to drill right though the Dark Angels Foot Lower leg Thigh and Groin, through the body into the head.The pieces were then thread onto the pin and positioned. I tacked these in place with a spot of plastic glue. Then built up the detail around the pin using GS.Then the piece was removed and held in a pinvice for painting seperately.

Here are pics of the conversion work on the Dark angel.

The green putty areas are A 50/50 mix of greenstuff and Magisculp and the white areas Magisculp alone.. I use these mixes all the time but particularly with marines as smoothness is key and they can be sanded down with fine grit sandpapers.

The robe was made by flattening out two sheets of GS ?MS mix ona tile using talc as a lubricant and sliced out. After leaving to dry for about 30 minutes I then got them into the rough position I wanted on the model and left to dry checking every 15 minutes or so and pshing back into place with a paintbrush where necessary. When dry the GS MS mix is like a solid plastic and doesn't have any of the movement GS alone has so it is ideal for robes. A couple of folds and creases were then added withMagisculp.

The cords at the front were made with Thin copper wire from a beadmakig place.. I always use it for this kind of work. just double it up and twist together and it makes great cord that allows for extra movement to be added. The little details on the end are from Forgeworlds Brass etched sheets.

The head was a fluke really.. I didn't have any shouting marine heads and was just about to order a new kit when the ticket with the limited edition model landed through the letter box and fit fine.. (it looks long necked here due to being blu tacced in position)

The in out of the shoulder is where the raptor would be added and is L shaped going into the Dark angels body. there is a secondary small pin behind it to stop any twistmovement. The damage was done after first building the raptor clawed foot and making cuts in the pad and rebuilding with putty to give a slightly crumpled and cracking look as a 7 foot heavily armoured super human turned psycho hits quite hard when he comes hurtling in n a barely controled jetpack.:vb_devil:)

The gun hand looks weird due to the size of the weapon and bugged me all the way through.. I was hoping the cabling I had removed and the ammo feed wold change this look when I finished it..

onto the raptor...

With the DA position decided I moved onto the raptor. The biggest problem I had was all the raptor models are metal and there was just going to b too much weight. That's when I decided to have a play with the possessed plastic body.. I particularly liked the muscly texture of this one so ran with it.Also here s where another key element to all my GD thinking comes into play.. I think the UK Demons more than any other in the world hold a lot of inportance to background.. I read as much as I could find on raptors and learned they modify and personalise their armour to mimic birds of prey and demons. so the taloned feet became a must and the living nature of the armour became a plus.

The feet were already pretty much in plac minus the claws so these were added and putty used to blend and add detail.

The right arm was practically completely rebuilt with putty.

The back of the model needed the backpack and associated workings added so the main box was built with putty and Pewter cables from Dragonforge dsign (where is Jeff anyways) were used to detail.

The fine parchments were made from Magisculp and positioned to be flowing in the direction of the movement anthe two skulls (thanks Squig) added using barbed wire.

The positioning of the legs and arms is prettymuch a mirror image of the dark Angel . after a bit of playing around it suddenly dawned on me that this worked and it became a more concious decision adding a Ying and ang element to the model which I really liked.

fitting it against the Dark Angel on the base I followed the base diagonally from the back corner using this as a lining point for the chainsword tip and creating a line down through the dark Angel into the opposite corner of the block adding to the whole movement and flow I was going for....

The back pack itself as almost completely hollowed out to reduce weight.

next up will be the finishing off bit.

[Brushmistress]

The basing is absolutely amazing Rob (as is the whole piece). I've never invested that much work in a Golden Demon entry - closest I came was the Ogre Samurai from a few years ago which didn't really resemble the original pieces when I was done with them, but this is just wow...I'll be snagging a few trick of the trade from you I think (like hollowing particularly heavy bits to make things more managable!).

[demonherald]

cheers Jess.. .. I've taken to hollowing out most large components these days just makes for turdier construction with the reduced weight.

[demonherald]

Heres some pics of the finished piece before I commence with the How To....

heres a Coolmini Link http://www.coolminiornot.com/202166