Modelling Typhus Part 6 Conclusion - Painting and Basing

Painting -  I'm afraid this is the part of a project that I enjoy the least. Maybe, because of the amount of work that has gone into the build, I feel that it should be finished then, and yet there it is staring at me, unpainted and accusing. The trouble is, a familiarity with Games Workshop Golden Daemon paint jobs has put the stakes so high. I know what this model deserves in a finished form and yet also know that I probably will not be up to that standard.
Korpus took so long to paint in the GW style using their acrylics, that I decided to opt for oils, hoping that the large areas in a model of this size would lend themselves to the blending qualities of the oil paint.
This pic shows the body sprayed in an acrylic basecoat of various greens and the head, brush painted in the recommended Tanned Flesh. My source for the painting came from White Dwarf (GW's monthly magazine), number 382 Pg. 56, an article by Seb Perbet where he did a full Masterclass on Typhus, Herald of Nurgle.

 

 Here is the first use of the oils and you can see how the various colours (olive green, burnt umber and sienna, phthalo blue etc) cover the underlying acrylics so well and blend over the large surface of the greeve. Two characteristics of oils are also visible - their slow drying and their shininess, even when dry. I wasn't too worried about either of these as this model didn't really have a deadline, but I really did mourn the lack of other qualities of acrylics - easy cleanup, no smell and a thinner application layer.

The head is finished and finally glued in place. Remember that I mentioned something about not being happy with the length of his right forearm? Well I did a job on the offending limb and, with a fine bladed fret saw, cut about 1cm out of the middle of his arm. I then had the problem of bending the right hand and scythe handle backwards to allow the joint to be Araldited together. It was successfully joined but perhaps there could have been a bit more removed. Maybe much later in the future when it bugs me too much - but for the moment, it stands.

Various oil paints have been applied and the whole thing is slowly coming together. Those damn hive funnels were a pain to paint as different oil colours cover their underlying colours to vastly differing degrees. You can see here the shiny oils as opposed to the matt acrylics and just a positive hint of some successful highlighting.

 Basing - Unlike painting, I really enjoy putting the model on a suitable base and try to make it add to  the story of the character on it. This is the first time that the black baseplate had been permanently glued to a specifically shaped base board. The model had to be raised so that the scythe could swing free in space and a layer of polystyrene was added to a thinner layer of plywood.

 

 My main idea for the base was that of a rock shelf set above a churned up, muddy battlefield, with a horde of severed skulls spilling out from under the rock. To accommodate this skull pile, room had to be made by carving the foam, ply and pine, as seen above. This was without out a doubt, the hardest, noisiest and most irritating part of the whole build. I had limited angles of attack due to the figure above and ended up using an angle grinder (probably the loudest hand power tool this side of a router). Not only was it slow and noisy but it caused all my smoke alarms to go off at once. I found ones I didn't even know I had, screaming at me from inside tool cabinets even!

Once finished, the hollowed out area seemed suitable and the rock shelf could be added. This started as a shaped piece of polystyrene pinned and glued to the black figure base.

I have started to cover the 'rock shelf' with Apoxie Sculpt which was then worked into horizontal, strata- like layers with a few random rock bulges added for geologic correctness.
Extra holes had to be drilled to help take some more skulls - I did not want to have to pick up that grinder again.

Here is a view of the back of the rock shelf showing some nice details added with the silicon tipped brush. Geologically speaking, it is a bit vesicular.

 Love those skulls! Celluclay, a ready mixed papier mache product, makes a perfect groundwork, especially a muddy one. It was mixed with some earthy coloured acrylics and went on as this strange purple mud, liberally prodded with a large paint brush to form holes that would gather water and general liquid gunge.
Some tall grass was added, poked into areas that needed a bit of a lift. I think I added it because I had the stuff, but I quite like the effect even though the clumps are a bit 'wooden'. Must research on how to use tall grass clumps effectively.

 

This method of finishing the base surrounds in lead sheet, is an idea I used on the Korpus figure and seeing as how the two models are sort of a pair, I decided to repeat it. Being able to carve his name into the lead is a bonus of course.
Various GW washes were used all over the model, especially the rocks which had been painted in acrylics. I used Codex Grey, drybrushed with lighter greys, browns and a few greens. The mud was painted with browns, greys and black and then a mixture of inks - brown, chestnut, green and purple - was applied with a flow of Realistic Water,( a clear acrylic liquid used to make pools and puddles).

The only thing left to do was add a felt cushion on the bottom and this was easily done with PVA.

At last, it is done. These four views give a good all round idea of the Typhus model that I started on the 18th March 2013 and completed in early June. Much of that time was taken with the painting but if I ever become more proficient at that side of this modelling lark, then more monsters will be on the way. 

Here are the two models together for their first family photo, along with with the GW miniature. I am quite pleased with how Typhus turned out but I will be making a list of a number of things NOT to do next time. The problem is, will I ever learn from my mistakes or will I just keeping inventing more of them? Time will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modelling Typhus Part 5 - Daemons on the left, Skulls down below

 There aren't many classic illustrations of our friend Typhus, Herald of Nurgle, but these two keep popping up in reference to him. The left pauldron, in these cases, shows an open mouthed daemonic head. (In the Warhammer world, yes there is an an extra 'a'). On the official Games Workshop miniature of Typhus, the emblem on the left shoulder is a giant fly, Nurgle's favourite carrier of disease, but I had enough of flies during the Korpus Festerheart build and so it was the daemon for me.

I started with the problem area first, the open mouth, seen in the illustrations as a blank blackness. What to do? I did have a fall back device though, the hive structure I had used to gap fill on the main body. This was joined to the lower jaw and we were away. The daemon had a central nasal horn and two large curved fangs in the lower jaw. These were all made of Apoxie Sculpt, cured separately in the turbo oven and scored with a sharp tool to give a bony, horn like appearance. The toothpicks were inserted to make the handling and heating processes easier.

The large upper jaw needed to be made of putty as well as all the other bits, but the Apoxie  I use for general modelling takes too long to cure to hold this hollowed shape. Kneadit to the rescue! This stuff goes off so quickly that I was able to form the shape roughly, attach it to the pauldron top and keep the gap open, all in about two minutes. Within ten minutes I could use a motor tool to grind away any imperfections and have it ready to be worked upon with the detailing putty- great stuff.

I had recently bought this Dremel bit and now had found a perfect job for it. The fangs needed a good strong attachment and by grinding the base down to a smaller peg, (easily done with such a nice square tool), they were able to be housed in the jaw in a secure but small hole. I don't like gluing things together without some sort of connective piece, be it a pin of wire or in this case, a peg.

In they go. I probably shouldn't have glued them  at this stage as it would have made the teeth fitting a bit easier but there you are, you can't get it right all the time.  I think the question came up as to glue or not to glue, but ' what the heck' won and so the teeth went in later.

Here we see the modelling of the top of the head with the horn in place, eye sockets and a bit of skin fold detail started. It looks sort of benign and frog- like at this stage, even with those fangs. I'm sure such niceness can be eliminated with a few teeth.

The teeth were made of Apoxie which had been rolled into a number of equal sized balls. Each small ball was then rolled into a cylinder and each end of the cylinder was rolled into a taper.These twin sharp ended shapes (like spindles) were then slightly curved into a bow. I now had quite a number of potential teeth, all I had to do was cure them in the turbo oven (10 min. @ 140 degrees C.) Once they were cool, I cut each bow shape and voila, two nice pointed teeth. This process gave me a choice of many teeth and I was able to match them to each other and their position in the jaws. They needed gums to be set into and I think animals that show their gums and teeth when angry are the fiercest looking, so this guy really got  a set of humungus gums.

All the teeth in and what a pretty smile he has. A face only a mother could love but then again, this bugger probably ate his mother, warts and all.
The eyes are those jewellery/ pearl things I used for the torso signals buttons or whatever they were.
A difference you'll notice between the two preceding pics, is that the areas at the front and back bases of the shoulder guard have modelling done to them.

 

These areas seemed to need something and even though the illustrations don't show much, I was able to fit in an arm at the front, and a tentacle at the back. I'm quite pleased with the arm, as it seems to be hanging on for dear life, whereas the tentacle just wants to keep away from that mouth.

On the right pauldron, the miniature has the typical Nurgle arrangement of three skulls. I decided to put three 'skullish' type things, a zombie head, ghoulish head and, yes, a skull. These looked a little lonely so I added some putty spikes as well. The curve in the spikes looks especially nasty and definitely discourages any nurgling trying to climb up Uncle Typhus' arm.

Speaking of skulls, here is the mould for making them. I thought I would need a few for the base so made another to speed up the process. One of the skulls was drilled out to take a chain and become that detail seen in the top illustration( but not on the miniature).

Here it is in place attached by pustulated bits of armour, all hived out as usual

 

This is a shot of the cast skulls ready to be undercoated in my spray booth. I could have shown them after that operation but you wouldn't have seen them against the general blackness of the booth.

(A)

(B)

Here they are - (A)  Mounted on cottonbuds (skewers were not thick enough for the holes I had made with  extra drilling and individualising of each) and painted with Citadel Bleached Bone.
(B) Washed with a mixture of Brown ink, Chestnut ink and Agrax Earthshade.

Well, Typhus the model is finished, now begins the painting and basing. That's an entry for next time.

(Note how long his right arm is. I did and was not well pleased. Some radical surgery was in order - drastic at this stage of a project, but necessary and do-able)

 

 

Modelling Typhus Part 4 - Chest detail, Cabling and Hands

This chest area has had a number of different treatments, mainly due to its curvature and size, but the addition of the front cables was the most radical. The size of the central unit was such that if it were placed on the surface, it would protrude too much, so I decided to excavate an area for it to be dropped into the chest. Various Dremel tool tips allowed the job to be done fairly neatly and even though it looks quite painful, no monsters were harmed in the fabrication of this area.

 

 The central unit was a complex little piece in that the tubes on either side had to be slightly curved to conform with the rounded chest, and this was achieved by gently heating the tube in a candle flame. Tube does not like this treatment and care must be taken so as not to kink it. The whole of the plastic assembly was mounted on heavy solder as this allows any bending with ease. Kneadit, (a quick curing two part plumber's putty), was used to make the large fluted centre piece, as it gets very hard, very quickly and can be drilled and sanded within ten minutes. I had to make a couple of these because my initial triple grooves were a bit wonky. Evergreen styrene tubes are designed to fit into each other as the sizes increase, and as I have a good supply of them, all manner of mechanical joints can be manufactured. Love the stuff!

 

 

These pics show the placement and filling work needed to get the unit seated in the chest. Where the cables enter the body, the junction was made with Apoxie Sculpt as even Evergreen does not have such a shape. The cables themselves were made by wrapping thin solder around the thick and making sure they were tight enough so that they would hold a bend without exposing too much inner wire.

 

Here is the three-way junction under the right arm, made of putty and fitted tubes, ready to accept cables from the belly and right shoulder. Gluing the pieces into position was not necessary as the curing putty does the job by itself.

General overview pictures of the cabling in place as well as details of the typical Nurgle bloated and rotting belly, complete with pustules so large they look like eggs.
Other features include chain mail made from lengths of jeweller's chain hung in super glued parallel rows, collar spikes added to the gorget around the head casket and strange hip pieces that all 'space marine' type figures have.
I have added rivets (made from slices of plastic rod), to any piece of piping to show the mechanical aspect of these super warriors, as well as smaller cables connecting upper leg to the knee joint.

 

Two succeeding pics of the left side, showing the treatment of the space between the body and arm which gave me a bit of a headache earlier in the build. Putty was added in a layer to cover the smooth plastic surface and then more was added in various places to build my preferred, 'hive' structures. I alluded to using these when there was a space to fill, but only with an appropriate structure. I think that the 'hives' fit the bill.

Here is a good overview picture of the figure showing the left hand gripping the weapon and subsequently, the whole idea of the Typhus model. In this can be seen the 'hive' structures doing their job of appropriately filling the gaps under the arms.

Three views of the left hand in the process of gaining its armour. Thin lead sheet was cut individually to fit each finger and to link the top plate to the lower. A cutting wheel on the motor tool was used to abrade the edges of each piece to denote battle damage and general wear.

Here are similar shots of the right hand showing the rivet detail on the hand armour as well as some closer  details of the weapon. It had the same 'hive' treatment as the main body but with a little subtler use. In these pictures can be seen the 'wood' treatment of the haft of the Manreaper and those parallel marks, indicating timber, were made in the putty covering with that silicon tipped tool I had mentioned earlier. The black hemispheres, representing large rivets, are found in the scrapbooking or jewellery departments of craft shops or cheap outlet stores. They come in a range of sizes on a plastic sheet and have a low tack adhesive on the back. I chose black ones but pretty pink would have done just as well.

 

 To finish this entry we see the whole model with the weapon undercoated in Games Workshop Chaos Black spray paint. You can see how big this scythe is and how it presents a problem in posing any converted version of the original figure. My model, just by being as large as it is, has I think enough impact that a simple lowering of the right arm is a sufficient diversion from the original to be acceptable.


In the next entry I will cover the modelling of a different and spectacular daemonic left pauldron, as well as possible plans for the display base  and maybe some ideas on painting the monstrosity in oils.