Jailer painted

Since the last post, Games Workshop has introduced a whole new range of paints, shades, dry compounds and glazes which are meant to supersede their existing ones. The paints are divided into Bases (equivalent to Foundations) and Layer paints, which are the standard hues used for the typical GM method of "layer" blending. Base colours are heavy in pigment and will cover even a black undercoat, while the Layer paints are graded in hue to make seamless blending easier. Shades are the same as the old Washes and with a larger range, do the job of filling the recesses and creating shadows even better. Dry compounds are a new idea to make dry brushing easier, in that they are so thick as to need very little scrubbing off to get a good effect. Glazes are also new and allow the painter to apply a basic colour (red, blue, yellow, green), to tint the main colour scheme.  

I wanted to try out these new paints, as well as presenting a "painting log", similar to 'Eavy Metal' (the GM painting team). As the Jailer was the subject of the last entry, I decided to make it the focus of my first  log. The model was first undercoated in flat black -see, the breakdown in sequence has already started- and then spray Base coated with the new colour Screamer Pink.


This was given a wash of  Reikland Fleshshade.

 

A light spray of Bestigor Flesh (this was made from the old colours of  Tanned flesh , Kommando  Khaki and Dwarf flesh ) was added from a high angle to give a highlight effect.

 

Next  the whole was washed with Athonian Camoshade. Great names aren't they?  These new  names have been a bone of contention for many, as all the old paints have their equivalents in the new system but the old names have been changed. As well as having to learn 80 new paint names, the modeller has to recognise the 60 odd new names for their old favourites. Actually that lurid pink base colour I used first was  really the old Warlock Purple.



 

Now the real job begins, the application of paint in "layers"of colours that create a seamless blending from dark to light. The colour here is the same Bestigor Flesh from step 3 but this time brushed onto the folds of that disgusting flesh. The areas of armour, fur and bandages will be treated separately.  

 

The differences in appearance are now more subtle as only very thin layers of paint are applied. Here the addition is made using the new Dry Compound, Underhive Ash, dry brushed lightly over the surface to lift the highlights.

 

As I had bought another Dry, I decided to lighten further with Longbeard Grey. These Dry C's leave the surface a bit uneven and "dusty" and are  more suitable for roughly textured areas like fur or groundwork.  This is where the rot sets in, and you apply something which doesn't really work as you visualised it. So what to do? 

 

Application of Washes or Shades softens the dustiness of the dry brushing so I washed with Athonian Camoshade again, this time quite diluted and see, it's dark again, damn!

 

This time I added a bit of Nurgling Green to the mix of Bestigor and layered the flesh again- but it didn't stop there. The model was Glazed with Lamentor's Yellow as an experiment to try these new tint colours and at first (wet) it looked really good, so I added some  light Pallid Wyche Flesh. When dry, however, the Lamentor's  was a bit over the top and I had to knock it back again, probably with another wash. At this stage I was only really interested in getting an acceptable result and forgot to take properly sequenced photos so the next three photos are of the finished product, set in the vastly reduced dioramic base.  

 

The Jailer

THE JAILER

 

 

 

This sculpt began with a request by a games player on a chat site who had found the above image and wanted help to turn it into a 3D model. By a complex chain of "someone who knew someone else", he found me. We live in different towns but he was able to visit for a day and I began to teach him my method of scratch building a figure.

 

I always start with a full sized plan however simple, so the model can be checked against it. This was the basic armature wire layout.

The shape has been fully realised and wire has been laid onto the plan and soldered- hence the scorch marks.

 

Quite a number of plans were drawn, this one showing the squaring up method for determining positioning of detail features. The wire armature can be seen with loops at waist and shoulders that allow for the thickness of the figure. (Remember, when modelling from a picture, you very rarely get a look at the back or side views, so you have to invent some workable dimensions.

 

Here is the armature bulked with alfoil.This is where a small hammer comes in handy for compressing the foil and making it stay where you put it.

For this model I used Sculpey and this is the first  piece to be added. Sculpey needs to be fresh so it is quickly made pliable and workable. I have had experience with old Sculpey and it is not so accommodating.

 

The rough blocking is complete with no detail at this stage except for the depressions  of the mouth and "chest cage". *This creature is a JAILER, and places captured victims in cages, one built  into its chest and another suspended from a hook stuck into its back!                                



 

Here are the first details which show the really nice way Sculpey can be worked to simulate flesh texture. Small pieces are added and blended into the landscape of the body.



 

I worked on the whole right arm and hand, adding lozenge shaped pieces of clay for the large muscle groups.This is my favourite part of a build - love those oversized muscles.

 

Constant reference to the scale plan helps keep everything on the right track.                                 



 

 

 

The Jailer has a belt made of chain holding up a fur wrapped around him and this was a tricky part to sculpt.You could 'carve' into a mass of clay until something like fur eventuated or you could 'grow' the fur  bit by bit . I felt this second method would result in a more realistic fur wrap in that you could see each tuft  individually and that they could even be made to overlap.



 

Here we see the fur making method allowing the tufts to naturally overlap the chain belt. The chain links were scratch built from aluminium wire that had been hammered square, sized around a jig and super glued. A first look at the back of the monster (helped by some internet research and an amazing 3D program called Z-Brush) and what a back it turned out to be.



 

The Z-Brush pictures showed that the entire back was covered with the corpses of its victims .Maybe it didn't know they were there and someone had used its back as a walking morgue?



 

More detail- teeth, chain links from copper wire, a chest cage (one of 5 that I made for the final diorama, skulls all over the back, a large hook and armour plates. 



 

What a handsome chap,no eyes, a perpetual snarl and dead things all over him.



This is the finished sculpt before painting. Bandages from masking tape strips were added to his wrist and legs, a mace for a weapon and lots of small spheres (from a foam rubber dinosaur) to add to the texture of the back. The next three pictures show the final paint job in a typical Nurgle colour scheme. The model is not a Games Workshop character but the pestilential colours of Nurgle do suit it.



Can you see the poor soldier trapped in the back cage?                                                                       

Now here is a picture that captures all that is gruesome about our world. Before the next paint job I had resprayed the Nurgle scheme an overall yuck dead flesh colour  but we happened to go away for a while and when we returned, a wasp had used the open mouth as a nest. This means of course that it had been hunting caterpillers and laid its eggs on their paralysed bodies, a ready food source for the young wasp larvae. I must have disturbed mum because this poor moth/butterfly to be, was trying to make a break for it.

 

 

 

Iguanodon, the scientist

This is a print by my daughter and just shows that strange things do run in my family. I saw it it, loved it and was given it as a present -lovely girl. I decided to return the favour and make a 3-D model of it for her.

After making a strong wire armature, it was filled with a bulking material -in this, and many other cases, aluminium foil. You can use pretty well anything to do this bulking job, but the stuff needs to be light, workable and dense when complete. I have used newspaper with a class of students as foil has some expense associated with large purchases  and really all you are doing is filling a space which will never be seen. The advantage foil has, is that it can be compressed and I use a small hammer to bash it into position ,where it is usually hot glued to itself.

The material I used for this build was Super Sculpey, a polymer clay, used for jewellery, doll making and general small scale sculpting. It is a very controllable medium and will take fine surface detail, but it requires a heating stage to make it hard. I have found that it can be too old and the white Sculpey I tried to use here was definitely past its used by date. It was crumbly and although the liquid softener recommended was used, I had to buy some new stuff  - not cheap, Sculpey.

New pink stuff to the rescue and the modelling continued.

Now this Iguanodon is no dummy - in fact, he is a CSIRO scientist, along with the duck on the piano - (another and much older story altogether). He therefore needs a lab coat, but with those Hadrosaurian thighs, I was really pushing to cover him with constant splitting of the material, which as you see is the rubbish white  stuff. 

Every good scientist needs a work station and this is probably my favourite part of modelling. I really like creating machines from plastic or things I have been given or have collected.

When I asked my daughter about colours, she said to keep it very flat and green, in keeping with the cartoony theme, so that saved me a lot of work by not having to shade and layer it.

A closeup of his noble head -who could possibly say that dinosaurs were dumb?          

 

Every good model deserves a decent base and this one got a mesh screen panelled, double layered and fully wired doozy, and there it sits awaiting the inevitable "What the hell is that?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Araby Ogre bust



THIS ENTRY IS BEING REDONE AS I MANAGED TO DELETE 748 PHOTOS FROM ALL MY BLOGS, NOW YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THE OGRE INTEREST.



 

One of the things I would like to see in the Warhammer world is their models at a decent size. I realise for gaming purposes the models need to be small but I am not a gamer. The only alternative is to make a larger version of my favourite one myself. The Ogre Kingdoms Araby ogre has always appealed to me, maybe because you rarely see it in White Dwarf and I like the combination of the turban, skulls and gutplate. The muted colour scheme is also to my taste.



I had to start with a standard WH ogre. I photographed him from all angles then printed these views to an appropriate size. These would be my template against which the sculpt was measured.     

 

Here is the armature matched to the template photo.       

This is the start of the blocking in process using aluminium foil and a glue gun. I have found that  foil doesn't  always want to stay where you put it , so the glue fixes it . The picture also shows the Apoxie Sculpt which will be used in the main build as well as my personal 28mm model holder made from a pin vice attached to the ball joint arm of a handy hold.

Here the model is having its first skin added, using Ferropre (mentioned in the entry on the trilobite) and you can see by the size of the cans that one purchase will last a lot of models. At this point I had added the gut plate in Apoxie, cutting it in half as befits a bust.        

Now the real work begins, getting that handsome ogre face.                 

Close up he's no oil painting- but there's something wrong with the eyes. I think I had tried to use 
 small balls of the Apoxie(cured quickly in the turbo oven), but they were unsuccessful so I had to try something else.                          

 

If in doubt, use lead sinkers! These were definite enough to allow the building of the eyelids, which, allied to the brows, give the face its character.

 

Here the main body work continues with the gut plate removed so that the chest area can have its coating of chainmail.




 

Wow! A lot has happened in one photo.The chain mail was made from basically sewing thin solder
  onto itself  - daisy chaining it along a line of loops then back again. There was a pattern to this but it rapidly degenerated to, loop, loop, somewhere, through there and then squash it all flat and make it fit this bloke's belly.The gut plate was decorated with split lead sinkers, a sword made from laminated styrene  with a lead foil wrapped hilt and quite a few skulls were manufactured - the model needed 12. At this time I hadn't learned how to cast in resin, so I had a little production line for skull making - at least this gave me practice and a choice of different sizes. I didn't realise, but there is the multiple jig on the left of the picture. Horns! The ogre grew some balsa horns and a spiked helmet. I always treat furry balsa with a coat of super glue after any grooving or sanding.



Add a turban and a few skulls and a real transformation occurs. The ogre's back build didn't get much of a look in here but a scabbard and a few dangling skulls were added. That turban with its passengers caused a bit of trouble and I really had to see the way it was layered. I originally was going to wrap a single piece of Apoxie, as per real turbans, but had to resort to "build it as you see it"". This meant if a ridge appears in a certain position, that's where you put yours. 

In all his glory. The base is two 1/16 scale Dragon figure bases which were always stacked together and looked better that way. 'Araby Ogre', is made from lead sheet hammered flat  - there are those friends again  - engineers, plumbers, farmers etc. The paint job is oils, as this medium is easiest to blend over large smooth areas such as the flesh.

Finally a pic of the back. The sword is removable for ease of transport and posed some problems as to how it was going to be held, but two great big horns took care of that. The leather jerkin and loop join to the front chain mail to complete the model. 

 Height  210mm     Width  145mm      Depth  130mm    Weight  790g       A whopper!