Rail Crew

[bfrench]

I picked up the rail crew box set recently and just managed to get it put together prior to an event in Austin. Seemed like everyone had their models painted up and I felt pretty lame bringing unpainted models to the table. Here's my progress so far.

I wish I could say the LED idea was mine but I was inspired by Demonn Anagram and his post http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?26892-Demonn-s-Lair/page23

The materials were purchased at RadioShack for about $25, and despite what some online tutorials said, I didn't need to solder the connections or put a resistor into the circuit. The battery is a 3v lithium disc. Will have more pictures to follow as the crew progresses.

---------- Post added at 08:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 AM ----------

I'm not as excited about the emberling. I think he needs to be more on fire, but c&c are welcome

[Agermemnon]

I like the effect you've done with the Emberling, it looks like lava and as for the lighting on the Rail Golem lol very cool, do you have to hollow out much of the mini to get the lighting stuff in there out of curiosity.

[adary]

The thing with LED's and resistors is to keep the LED alive. Red LED usually takes 2V and 20ma current. It will most likely tolerate up to 2.8V, and the 3V battery you have is most likely 2.7V battery (or even lower) so you are on the safe side. If you connect the same LED to a 9V battery, it will die instanty.

If you want to have other projects with LED's, there is a simple formula to see what resistor you need:

(Battery voltage - Led voltage) / LED current

So if you want to hook up more leds in series, (lets say 3) you would use a 9V battery:

(9-(3*2))/0.020 = 150 (OHM) (if there is no 150 OHM resistor, take the closest value that is higher than your number)

You can also hook up a lot of LED's in parallel, but in that case on a 9V battery you have to stick a resistor to every LED, most likely a 360 OHM (9-2)/0.20 = 350

This is especially important to think about if you plan to close your LED's in resin, or inside a painted mini. If it burns out, you can't really get it out without destroying a lot of work

Oh and yeah, Great model Perhaps you can add some colour to the smoke plumes as well

[bfrench]

Thanks for the comments, hopefully the LED lasts since it only gets used for short periods. The rail golem body is already hollow enough for the LED I had to drill through the legs to run the wire which now comes out the back of his leg and can be seen in pictures 1-3. The eyes and grate had to be drilled and carved out. There's a pretty sweet tutorial at the link I put up above. Any ideas on how to paint the cotton? I've had no luck with spray paint or acrylics.

Just finished up Mei

After multiple failed attempts to get her pupils going the same direction, I gave up and went for a glow effect instead. Now if I could just figure out how to have a crushed soul stone in her hand. . .

[Agermemnon]

Good selection of natural colours used on Mei, all work well together too and nicely done, I've seen quite a few people now not use the base that Mei's on as standard.

[adary]

Here is a nice video that explains making smoke effects from cotton and glue

Very simple, and if you don't want to use spray paints, you can just drybrush it (or if you have an airbrush, it's even easier)

Forgot to add:

I love how you based Mei. Pretty much perfect in my eyes

[bfrench]

Thanks for the tutorial link, I'll have to try that out

Also thank you for the kind comments

[FoeRender]

so far lookin great .

[Bruglyother]

For the smoke, you could also go with clump foliage. You glue it to a wire frame, harden it with PVA, and then paint as normal. (You can check my blog for examples of the effect.)

[Demonn Agram]

Great job on the Rail Golem! (looks familiar LOL)

also, cool looking bases on the rest of the Rail Crew!

[bfrench]

Thanks Demonn!

Here's another update, going to try and get these done weekly. This week I managed to finish up Kang and one rail worker. Still trying to get the eyes down . . . I remeber why I always used to leave that detail off. I also started work on my wife's Perdita crew. She likes the models and I'm hoping to get her hooked on the game.

Kang

Just noticed the apparent gap on his shoulder :1_Exhausted_Puppet:

Rail Worker

Perdita

I did manage to get the eyes looking half decent on Perdita, but just couldn't get a good picture of it. As far as the other two I tried the all black edge with white technique and the black stripe white around the borders and just haven't been able to get anything to line up well. I think I may need to get some smaller brushes but right now I'm using a 18/0 script by Master's Touch.

My wife is a red head and so I went with a different look for Perdita and tried to get it more closely resembling her. Well that's it for this week, trying to paint up two more rail workers and some of the Ortegas for next week. If I get bogged down at work I may just end up posting some pictures of my Kaeris crew. Thanks for the read

[Bruglyother]

Love the coals on Kang. Wish I had thought of that. May have to go back and add them on to my own at some point.

[Tombanjo]

Nice looking models, can you share your technique for the emberling?

[i_was_like_you]

Thanks Demonn!

Here's another update, going to try and get these done weekly. This week I managed to finish up Kang and one rail worker. Still trying to get the eyes down . . . I remeber why I always used to leave that detail off. I also started work on my wife's Perdita crew. She likes the models and I'm hoping to get her hooked on the game.

Kang

Great work on Kang and the rest!

Kang looks exasperated at having to clean up Mei's pet Emberling's droppings, though.

[Guild Monkee]

Looking fantastic so far!

[Ratty]

How many LEDs did you use for the Rail Golem is it 1 or 2?

[bfrench]

@ Ratty

1 LED not sure exactly what size can check tomorrow, but it was red and I applied a thinned yellow coat over it to give it an orange effect.

@Tombanjo

Emberling was crazy easy. Based him on a pile of green stuff then used a medium turf to make it look like he was coming out of a larger pile. Covered it all in yellow with more thinned orange at the base. This was exceptionally sloppy really no attempt at detail work. I then hit it with GW red glaze which gives it this slightly wet color and shades the orange to the deeper red at the base and the yellow to a vibrant orange. I did this leaving some yellow in places then simply dry brushed black over the top and picked out a few areas with more black and a darkened up grey.

My typical technique is very sloppy (re: stay within the lines no extreme focus on detail) initially then heavy washes( two ones currently in heavy rotation are GW Nuln Oil and Reikland Fleshshade). After that I thin down the original colors and come back to do a highlight then one more highlight with a slightly lighter version of the original. I started using a wet palette last year and it's made a huge difference. I use a P3 palette I picked up at my FLGS. I tried making my own but didn't have much luck.

I'm finally starting to get the eyes down, finished up Niño, Fransisco and Santiago last night. pictures to come

Edited January 15, 2013 by bfrench
Stupid iPad auto correct

[bfrench]

Ratty, not sure on the sizes. I bought this

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062588&filterName=Price&filterValue=%244.00+-+%245.99

At radio shack and used the larger red one. It has some really small red ones that might work great on the metal gamin

[BlackDog]

Man, I'm loving everything here. That LED is too cool for words!

And the Emberling looks great to me, man.

~BlackDog

[bfrench]

So it was a pretty productive week painting wise. I managed to "finish" my wife's Perdita Crew. By finish I mean Abuela is still hiding on my desk waiting for some paint Didn't make any more progress on the rail crew, but I'm hoping to get some of that done this weekend and next week. Also I have a Lady Justice crew with Miss Terious sitting on my painting table . . . so many choices *grin* Thanks for the comments and support it's really encouraged me to continue painting.

Francisco

Santiago

Nino

Papa

---------- Post added at 08:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 AM ----------

As an added bonus I think I'm finally starting to get painting the eyes down, check out Papa

[adary]

Loving this thread. Bring more eye candy

[bfrench]

I received a question on how I'm doing my lighting. My set up is shamefully simple, and there are much better threads about light boxes and gradient backgrounds as well as camera choice and setting.

I borrowed a sheet of construction paper from my wife set up on my desk so that is was curved. I went with the light blue as it's generally been providing a good contrast with my models. The desk lamp is just your average lamp with a 40w REVEAL bulb by GE. I try to take my pictures in the morning when the most sun hits the room. The pictures are taken on an iPad and loaded through photo bucket.

For great pictures I've been told that using a Macro Setting with a nice digital camera and constructing a light box will give much better results . . . but I don't know where I'd store the box. And frankly I don't feel like digging around for our digital camera

The malifaux fate deck in the picture is there to help hold the paper in place :facepalm:

Also please forgive the mess

[bfrench]

Managed to finish up the last two rail workers last night so that everything would be painted for the tourney today

And a group shot

[Guardian]

Nicely done! Liking them alot!

Admire your bases, too!

[Nickienogger]

Very well done! I was looking forward to seeing the end product and so happy for you with how it turned out! I always place a tremendous value on how the bases play out for Malifaux crews, helps weave a story and makes models so much more dynamic. Like Kang and his coals and Mei fang actually rail walking. Awesome, hope to see more from you!