Sorondil Part 6

Well, a week away from painting has left me with a lot left to do on Sorondil and not much time to do it.  With the Draconic awards coming up this weekend, I've only got 3 more evenings to work so I've had to make some cuts.  For the time being, I've got to leave off the dinosaur.  I like it, but I think the piece can stand on its own without the dino.  And, when I don't have the deadline to worry about, I can still paint it and add it to the piece.  Instead I'm focusing on getting the base finished (something the figure definitely cannot do without.  If you recall, last time I'd shown a quick look at the base's construction and then tacked on a shot of the primed version.

From there I used a bunch of browns (super exciting, I know) to paint the tree and the dirt.  I used an airbrush to speed this part up... unfortunately I'm still not very good with the airbrush, so I redid a lot with a regular brush so it didn't look terrible.  Since I'm going for a primordial jungle scene the base needed some plants.  For that I used some of the etched brass plants from HassleFree Minis.  Here is a blurry shot from my cell phone camera.  This was for reference so, after I'd primed and base coated the pieces I would remember where I wanted them.

Skipping ahead a few steps, I tried to use the airbrush to give me a head start on the plants.  Again, my lack of airbrush experience did not do me any favors.  After a while of messing with it, I basically just had a green base coat.  Oh well, I'll just have to fix it with the regular brush.  Anyway, at least they're green so I could glue them in place.  Seeing how that looked I then attached a few more pieces.  The last thing I did was great some moss for the tree.  I took this from one of the MassiveVoodoo tutorials.  It's that fine turf used for model railroads mixed with matte varnish and then applied with a toothpick.  I was quite pleased with how it worked and, while not super strong, it holds up pretty well for the sort of handling a display piece would get.

And now back to the real photos.  No more dino, at least for now.  I've gone in and begun to repaint the plants, adding more contrast and using different colors for the different plants.  I'm not quite finished, still haven't touch the ferns.  I also used some washes/glazes to give some color variation and shading to the moss, though the top half of the tree is still untouched.  I wish I could spend more time on the base, but I have to hope the figure will distract from any less than stellar portions of the scenery.

So what's left?  I still need to finished of the rest of the plants and moss.  The figure needs his bow finished.  And I still want to go in with pigments to weather the figure and the base.  Three more nights of painting should be just enough time to do all that (I hope!).

Sorondil Part 5

Now that is a spear!  But, if you're hunting dragons or dinosaurs I suppose you need a weapon up to the task.  The past two nights I've been working on the spear blade.  Based on the sculpt, I went with a stone look instead of metal.  For the colors instead of pure grey, I used Reaper's Dark Elf Skin triad and then went into the Vampiric Skin triad (mostly just the shadow, but a slight touch of the midtone in a few spots).  They're a bit more interesting than your neutral greys.  Plus I've used the Dark Elf Skin colors in the figure (for the dark scales and mixed into a few shadows) and the Vampiric Skin Highlight has been used for a lot of the top highlights, so it brings some more consistency to the figure.  To further sell the stone look I drew in a few cracks.  These are simple enough, a thin line of Dark Elf Shadow, then a highlight below it (a bit lighter than whatever the original shade was).  After that I can go back with the original color for that area and then those lines until they look like fine cracks.

And a slightly closer look...

Sorondil Part 4

I haven't done much painting in the past week, though I did manage to completely reorganize my hobby area... so I guess that's something!  I also got Sorondil's right arm attached and took care of the rest of his skin.  

Although I didn't get much paint on the figure, I did put in some time creating the base.  You'll also notice his little buddy in the pictures.  As I said earlier, I found a box of 1/35 scale (same as the main figure) velociraptors from Tamiya, so I put one together as his hunting companion.  I will probably add a leash or something once the figures are both attached to the base.  Okay, so on to the main point... creating the base.  I wanted to do some sort of primordial forest/jungle so I needed to create a tree.  I've seen some tutorials using wire armatures for trees, so I thought I'd give it a try.  The basic idea is to take a bunch of wires of more or less equal lengths and then twist them together to form the main trunk.  You can then pull off sections and form the branches and roots. I could have used more wires and pulled them apart more at the top to create a bigger network of branches, but I wasn't going for the full tree, just a section so the scene would not become too large.

The ground itself is made of cork (thicker cork made from a pack of Ikea trivets) torn to create an irregular shape.  A few more pieces were placed on top to give the base a little more height variation.  I then wrapped the wire roots around the cork and pressed the ends into it in places to anchor it onto the base.

The next image covers several steps.  Since it would be messy, I used some painters tape to make off the wood plinth.  Then I took some scultpamold modeling compound and coated the wires to give the tree some thickness.  I applied some to the surface of the base as well.  Using sculpting tools I shaped it around the tree until I had something I liked.  It was a bit lumpy, but that was fine for my purposes.  Once that was dry I took some sand paper to smooth out the roughest parts.  Then, using some white glue, I applied some sand and rocks to the ground to give it some more texture.  I applied some on the sides and bottom of the cork to change up its look.  After that I took some milliput and did finer adjustments to the tree's shape and covered the wire for the dangling roots.  The last step was to paint the tree using a crackle medium.  This was done to give it more texture.  I'd bought this a while ago, but this is my first time using it on a project.  It's interesting stuff to work with, the thicker the coat, the larger the pieces it creates.  A thin coat will create very fine pieces, though too thin and nothing happens.  The tree has a mix of large, small, and then completely smooth portions... though I think that works.  It will definitely take some practice if you want to have a lot of control over the size of the pieces the crackle medium creates.

There is still more to add to the base.  I've got some etched brass jungle foliage, moss, more hanging stuff, etc.  But I think I will prime it and get the colors for this main part done first.  For the foliage, I'll be using the tropical assortment pack from Hasslefree Miniatures.  They've got a bunch of other ones which now I'm wishing I had ordered.  If I order them now, I'm not sure they will arrive in time... but it may be worth a shot.

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Quick Update: Here's the primed version....

Sorondil Part 3

I've finished more of the figure.  The sculpt has this patchwork look to it, so I find it tricky to balance introducing those multiple colors while still creating a cohesive look for the figure.  To help I'm using a lot of the same colors in the different mixes.  The purples (Burgundy Wine and Imperial Purple) show up a bunch, either in the mixes or tinting the shadows.  Then the browns (Brown Liner, Muddy Brown, and Tanned Skin) show up and get mixed in with blues, reds, and other colors for the cloth and leather.

In the last update I attached one of the arms, this time it was the quiver.  I attached the main part of the quiver, but waited until the glue had set before messing with the straps.  If I start to push the straps into position too early it could have easily popped the quiver off.  The straps were longer than they needed to be, so I pushed/bent them into position and then cut off the excess length.  You can see the intermediate phase below.  I was also test fitting the arm with the spear to make sure I wasn't going to run into any issues with the quiver positioning.

Sorondil Part 2

More progress to report on Sorondil.  I'm more or less making this up as I go along.  I knew I wanted to do red scales and I thought I'd do a lot of red and purple on the rest of the figure.  I don't have a super clear vision for the rest of the colors, so I'm starting with the parts I know and I'll figure out the rest later.  First up was the scales on his back.  To give it a little more visual interest I added a dark stripe down the center.  Since the pattern is organic I threw a bit of randomness in there too.

Up next I went to work on the leather and bone.  The texture is important for the leather parts.  With the straps I used a lot of short semi parallel strokes, getting lighter along the edges and more worn areas.  For the larger sections on his lower body I switched to more of a stippling approach.  The darker shades were done normally, but as I got into the highlights it stopped being continuous and was just a series of tiny dots.

With the scales and the padding on his sides finished I was able to add his left arm.  I wanted to out a string on the bow.  I know this isn't new (though it's new for me), but I decided to try using hair for the bow strong.  It's strong and very fine.  I began by wrapping it around one end of the box and then dabbing it with a drop of thin superglue.  After that dried it was on to the next side.  The final step was to use a knife to cut the loose ends.

Sorondil Part 1

During Shades' (and friends) Hobby Hangout last night I decided to start working on something new.  I've got a couple projects already in the works... but they're all either at a tough spot or just not inspiring me at the moment.  I decided it was a good time to go back to a 54mm figure, they tend to be quicker projects for me and the scale is much more in my comfort zone than the larger ones I've been doing recently.  I was also on the lookout for something I could bring with me to the Bay Area Open next month for the Draconic Awards.  I settled on a fantasy piece from Andrea called Sorondil, Dragon Hunter.  It's not the most popular one from that range, it took quite a bit of searching to find any other versions of it online.  But I think it's an interesting sculpt and I've got an idea of where I want to go with it.  I'd actually prepped and primed the figure over a year ago but for some reason got distracted by other work.

It's a bit of a tricky build.  Hanging from his body are a quiver and a horn, but will be added later so it's easier to paint his main body.  I also left off both of his arms.  The left is holding a bow and, again, was left off to make painting the details on his clothing easier.  The right arm doesn't really block the body... but it's holding a spear with a huge blade and a very thin shaft.  If I tried painting this figure with that in place, I'm fairly confident I'd have accidentally broken it before I was even done base coating the figure.  So for now he will look a bit funny, but I will begin to add those remaining pieces before too long.

I began (as usual) with the face and skin.  I made some small adjustments to my usual mix.  Normally it's Mahogany Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow and Chestnut Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow for the darker tones, then into pure Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, and finally Fair Highlight (all Reaper paints).  To shake it up a bit, I mixed in 25-33% Imperial Purple into the Mahogany Brown and Chestnut Brown.  It's a fantasy figure so there's more flexibility in the color choice and I'm planning to use a lot of red and purple tones throughout the project.  On top of that I use some red and purple glazes to further develop the colors on the skin.  I ordered the Inktensity set from Scale75 and it arrived today.  So I used the red and purple from that to make my glazes.

Olfo Completed

It took about a month but I've finally completed Olfo, or as I'm calling it now 'Lost in the Dark.'  I liked the forest setting but still felt like it needed something more, some ominous presence in the dark to add some drama to the piece.  In the end I drew inspiration from the Mirkwood scene from the Hobbit (and Shades' suggestion) and went with a giant spider.  It took a bit of searching online to find a figure I was happy with.  The GW ones tend to be too cartoony and I wanted to be able to pose the legs.  Somewhat randomly I found this giant spider kit from Otherworld Miniatures.  Truly massive on a 28mm scale, even at 1/35 scale this guy is pretty huge.  What really sold me on the kit were those long slender legs.  I used a small pin to attach the main body of the spider to the tree.  Then I posed the legs with a little bit of bending, some filing, and some green stuff.  Their attachments aren't quite as secure as I'd like, but with the pin supporting the weight of the spider they should be okay.  Just don't want to drop this one or knock it over!

I found a nice tutorial on making spider webs from UHU glue over at the 5th Dimension blog.  Surprisingly simple and I really like the end result.  In the tutorial they apply the glue strings to a pair of tooth picks and then to the base, I skipped that intermediate step and went directly to stretching them around the trees.

I've submitted this guy to the contest over at the 5th Dimesion.  Submissions are accepted until September 5th, so it will be a little while before we see how he does.  In addition, this past weekend I took him up to San Jose for the Bay Area Open 2014.  I was lucky enough to win Best in Show with him!

I wanted to give a quick blurb about the painting competition because they're trying to start up something new and I think it's an interesting idea. The group running it is trying to create a circuit of painting competitions culminating in their Dragonslayer competition which will pit winners from the different circuit events against each other for the Dragonslayer title. They've got events planned for OcGRE in Anaheim (Nov 21-23 if the show happens), Templecon in RI (Feb 6-9), Las Vegas Open (Feb 20-22), G&GCon in London (sometime in 2015), CaptainCon in MA (2015), and Califaux in Sacramento CA (2015). This is all still pretty new and I'm guessing they're looking for more conventions where they can sponsor competitions. The entries are judged using the open system, so there's not just a 1st, 2nd, 3rd. All entries are rated against a set standard and they hand out as many gold, silver, and bronze medals as are earned (not just one of each).  You can enter at the master level or the journeyman.  Another neat feature is their scoring system.  You're rated out of 10 points and your total score is the average of the 5 judges.  It's all on the computer so you get a print out of your scores along with any comments the judges make.  I thought the comments were especially nice.  Always helpful to hear what they liked, what they thought could be improved, etc.

After all the scoring they pick an overall best in show that wins a special trophy (this will be unique to each event and fit into the dragonslayer theme), some other prizes (the BAO had a Badger airbrush and the complete set of minitaire paints), and entry into the culminating dragonslayer event. I think it's all an interesting idea, they just need publicity and people to go enter their work! So keep an eye on their website for more info

http://draconicawards.com/

Olfo Part 7 - Testing out the Airbrush

Time to start putting some color on the base.  While I could use a regular brush, this seemed like a good time to dust off the airbrush and try it out on a real figure for a change.  For a while know I've known that I needed to add an airbrush to my set of tools.  There are a lot of instances (like right here) where it can make painting a lot easier.  Unfortunately I haven't devoted the time necessary to really learn how to use it.  Hopefully in the next month or two I'll set aside some time to run through some tutorials and practice models.  But for this mostly dark base I figured I couldn't screw it up too badly so I decided to jump ahead a few lessons and give it a go.

The first thing I needed to do was cover up that horrible satin black.  I took the blue-grey tones from Olfo's dark side and covered the base.  I applied several coats to create some simple highlights.  With the base a little more in tune with the moonlit feel I switched over to my lamplight color (the mix of Polished Bone and Lemon Yellow).  Now I tried to lighten up any areas that would be lit by the lamp.  I tried my best to spray from the direction of the lamplight, so plenty of rotating the base so I'd hit it at the right angles.  I kept this paint pretty thin so I could gradually build it up.  I wanted the areas closet to the lantern to be the brightest, so I applied more layers in those areas.  So, for example, the tree on the right is intentionally brighter than the one on the left.  After I'd finished with that I switched back to the darkest of my blue-grey colors to fix some of the shadows.  Olfo's body blocks some of the light so I had to darken some of the ground behind him and fix some of the overspray on the trees.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the results.  This would have taken me the better part of a week with the brush and I was able to do this in less than two hours.  That's good motivation to devote a few weekends to actually learning how to use the damn thing.  Anyway, now I will go in with the traditional brush to clean up the OSL a bit and add some colors to the lit areas.  I kind of like it as is, with only Olfo in color... so I will probably try to use some more muted colors for the parts of the base in the lamplight.

Olfo Part 6 - Building the Scene

I've begun the base for Olfo.  I ran through a couple different options but decided to stick with my first idea, a dark forest.  For the OSL effect I feel that it's important to have a solid backdrop behind the figure.  So I tried to place the trees close enough together to form a mostly continuous background.  I also used the trees to stretch the scene vertically so the figure looks even smaller, surrounded by the dark.

The main structure for the base is cork (from an Ikea Trivet, you can get a set of 3 for about $3).  It's best to tear about the cork instead of cutting it.  By tearing you get some nice jagged shapes good for dirt and stone.  I started with one large piece and then glued smaller pieces to it to extend it down the wood block and also to give the top some variations in height.  The trees are just dried sticks that I found on a walk, broken into roughly even sized pieces.  I used a saw on the bottom ends so I had a flat surface to connect to the base but I intentionally left the top sections jagged.  To help place them I drilled a small hole in each and inserted a pin. Then I could push each into the cork and experiment with their placement before I did any gluing.  After that had dried I took some green stuff to create some roots and fill any gaps where they contacted the base.  It's a little hard to see the roots in the images below, but one on the far right is pretty visible. 

The last step was to add some more texture to the ground.  I used an old brush to spread white glue over the cork and then sprinkled the base with sand.  This creates a nice rocky texture.  The best option is to pick up some sand from the beach (cheapest option too).  If that won't work you can find some at a pet store.  Look for a bag that has different sizes.  You don't want the sand to be too uniform.  After that I took some leaves and forest litter from Secret Weapon and sprinkled that on top of the sand (along with a little more white glue).

To see how it all looked I primed the base black and then carefully set Olfo into his spot.  I'll remove him before I start painting of course.

Olfo Part 5 - Day for Night

I've continued to work on Olfo's back.  I redid most of what I had in the previous post.  Instead of the black-teal-skin mix I used only the Scale75 paints for the blue steel in their NMM set.  The effect I'm going for is similar to that day for night filming technique where they'd use a blue filter to simulate a nighttime scene.  The idea here is just use shades of blue (mostly dark) on the unlit section and then all the other colors where it's lit by the lamp.  In theory I can then still do a decent amount of highlighting in the dark areas so I get the needed contrast. I want it to look like he's in darkness and not like he's just walking through a dimly lit room while also carrying a lantern.

I'm pretty happy with the results, although I'm sure I will continue to tweak.  I can still see some blends that need work.  After the first pass it got a bit too bright so I used some dark glazes to knock the highlights back down (I did the same thing on the dark side of the dagger, it's much more subdued than in the previous post).  However there are a few highlights I think I'd like to restore.

This is pretty much how I envisioned the figure when I first began.  I'm taking him to the SCAHMS meeting tomorrow so I'll be curious to see what sort of reaction he gets there (and from the online community as well).  Once I put together the base and start to see how everything works together I might come back and make some changes.

Olfo Part 4

Just a quick update.  I've started working on Olfo's back, the part not hit by the lamplight.  I wanted to go monochromatic with this and do it all in shades of blue-black.  Make it seem dark with perhaps a bit of moonlight giving some contrast to the shapes.  It's still pretty rough, I need to clean up a lot of the transitions.  I'm trying to decide what else it needs.  I'm thinking I should add a little more contrast in the back by taking the highlights up a bit.  I'd also like to do the few other metal parts like the 'dark' side of the dagger.  However that seems a bit too bright, so maybe bring that down with a couple dark glazes.  I'm open to suggestions and thoughts on what I should do with him.

The back was done with the same Black, Marine Teal, and Tanned Skin mix I used for the Praetor.  The 'dark' side of the dagger was done with the Scale75 NMM Steel paint set.  That set has 4 neutral grey colors which I used on the 'light' side and 4 blue-grey colors which I used on the 'dark' side.

Olfo Part 3 and NMM

I've just about finished the portion of Olfo lit by the lamp.  With the pants and legs finished I could finally attach the cape and backpack.  Not too much to paint here.  The left end near the lamp would be brightly lit, so the highlights were pretty close to pure Polished Bone and Lemon Yellow.  Some light would also hit the bottom of the cape between his legs, so that got some color although not quite as bright.  For the scabbard I used the same leather mix as for the belts.  Lastly a little light would hit the bedroll just above his shoulder, a portion of his walking stick, and the edge of his mug.  I went with a mix of black, mahogany brown, and chestnut brown for the walking stick and mug.  For the bedroll I also took a couple browns.  While I could have gone with something a little more colorful, I really didn't want to introduce any new colors especially since only a very small section would be lit.  A purple would blend in with the hood and cape too much and the green from the pants just didn't seem right, so brown was the only reasonable choice.

The section I've been avoiding was his dagger.  With the strong OSL I did not want to use TMM.  You can make it work, but it's difficult.  Instead I thought I'd give NMM a try.  I've had the Steel NMM paint set from Scale75 for a while but never actually used it to paint NMM.  In all honesty, probably not the smartest purchase.  After all, steel NMM is just made up of grey and every line offers those... but NMM had me so intimidated I got suckered.  What you're seeing here are the white and 3 neutral greys from the Scale75 set plus a bit of Reaper's Pure Black.  The Scale75 set also has 4 more blue-greys for a slightly different NMM effect.  I'm planning to use those for the other side of the dagger to give it more of a moonlit feel.  This is my second attempt at the NMM dagger.  My first one didn't look too good.  I did my best to fix it, but the more paint I layered on there the bigger the mess I had.  So finally I just carefully sanded all the paint off and started again from a smooth surface.  For the hilt of the dagger I pulled together a couple of the Reaper colors, Blacked Brown, Chestnut Gold, Palamino Gold, and Pure White.  I may have mixed in a little bit of black too.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the metal.  I'm far from an expert in NMM, but I think it turned out about as well as I could have hoped.  Next I have to work on all of the unlit sections and somehow make it all look good together.  That should keep me busy for the next few nights...