Scattered projects

[Arne]

Hey all. I'm new here, but not new to collecting and painting miniatures. I've always liked boardgames with physical pieces and strategy. Before running into 40K in the early 90's, I used to design my own boardgames using clay figures and pizza boxes. I also remember playing Drakborgen (DungeonQuest) and some of my games were based on that. I remember Talisman being interesting too.

Onto the projects.

Starsword 700 is my 40k'ish project. I'm just having fun and being silly at this point. I'm thinking '28mm heroic' (i.e. 32mm tall humans or whatever), with the larger heads, minus the huge feet and trunk limbs.

I'm paraphrasing the Beakies and Old dreadnought here.

There's some stuff in my open 40k dir. Most (nearly all) of the miniatures were painted in the late 90's. Nowadays there are so many other competing activities, so I've only painted a few figures in the last decade. Some years ago I experimented a bit with making my own EPIC bases out of clay. I quite like the look of round 4 figure bases. I'm collecting 40K Eldar and EPIC Chaos, plus quite an amount of whatever looks neat. Probably not alone on that one.

StarGladius is the 1:72 scifi miniature project of mine. I wish there were more realistic 1:72 miniatures to go with my ZOIDS. StarGladius is based on:

StarGuard, a scifi miniature game from the 70's.

 

[Arne]

I drew some "demon engine" paraphrases today.

Hopefully I'll be getting my Citadel washes on Friday. Eager to try those out!

 

[Arne]

Here are some random soldiers. I'm trying to get a feel for the scales (and proportions) that are out there.

 

[cassar]

very cool project look forward to seeing more

 

[Arne]

Allright! I just got my Citadel Washes! I'll be trying them out in short notice.

Also, I ordered 3 to be on the safe side.

...

Wat.

Oh well. At least they weren't already in the main gang box.

Oh, wait.


I Drew a Blood Reaper and Cannon of Khorne (paraphrase) yesterday. See Post 2.

 

[Arne]

Having acquired pink, baby blue and yellow, I proceeded to quickly paint up an Amazon from StarGuard. Here cloned with digital trickery. To the left, a Phillips Night Intruder. Right, Valkyrie Fembot.

These are around 1:72. 24-25 mm without high heels for this particular Amazon. The StarGuard stuff is pretty old and a bit blobby, so if you want crisp detail you sometimes have to paint it.

 

[Arne]

GW's sculpting tool was so sloppily made I don't even know where to start. It's as useful as a axe made out of plastic.

I'll be sticking to my handmade ones. They're easy to make, and you can create any tip you fancy. Carve with a knife, sandpaper, then polish against a carpet or something.

 

[A Luna]

To think (I am interested in going sculpting stuff) that I wanted to buy a GW sculpting tool. You've proven me wrong. Good luck with the sculpting!

 

[cassar]

chrome knocks out some fairly nifty sculping tools i believe give him a pm

 

[GTherk]

I like the stuff in your open 40k directory. Those Slaanesh drawings are really nice. Looking forward to more sketches and development of the 40k-like game.

 

[Chrome]

chrome knocks out some fairly nifty sculping tools i believe give him a pm

Thanks!

 

[freakinacage]

have to say, i sue my gw tool a fair bit. that said, i use my home made ones more. bear in mind you can also make them from toothpicks and lolipop sticks. just shape, soak in superglue and then polish

 

[Arne]

I didn't know other people did sculpting tools. I thought I was Special!

The colorful Amazons actually use those colors as camouflage, I speculate, because the flora is very colorful on their planet.

Made some quick GS plants.

Base color tests. I'm really against busy bases on regular army miniatures though (even just grass/dirt patches), because the noise blends into the features of the miniature. I'd probably paint the plants greenish in tone, so I get a distinct ground/base color that separates from the mini.

Also, random scribbles and King Crab (Battletech) appropriation.


---

Rant {

Also, someone said GW had great customer support, so I mailed them about my dupe'd Necromunda blisters.

Got a quick reply:

"Wow! Looks like someone got a little sloppy picking those blisters for you. Yeah, we understand that no collector is interested in duplicates to that extreme. Also, we're sorry that you didn't get any of the figures that were advertised on the product page. You know what? Since you ordered stuff for 250 dollars, we're gonna send you the figures that you were actually attempting to purchase. These are not terribly expensive for use to produce anyways, and keeping customers is really important to us!

Sorry for the inconvenience. By the way, I'm Jessica. Check out my sexy fb profile."

Nah, just kidding, this is what I got:

"It states in the product description 'A variety of designs are available and are supplied at random.' I hope this answers your question."

Can't say I'm feeling the random variety. Looks more like a bad apportion. Mail order customer -> blind man you can push shelf leftovers on. They did offer to replace the blisters if I sent them in unopened, even though I had sent an image of the blisters... which I unfortunately had hastily opened. Even so, I might not want to invest time and shipping money. Whatever. I'm gonna let it be. After whining a bit online.

On a sidenote, when my Hasselfree stuff was a little late I got a nice handwritten personal note from them (and what might have been candy, but I didn't dare to eat it in case it was poisonous moisture/mold absorber or whatever). When I ordered StarGuard stuff, I had a nice little chat with the author of the game (I even had to remind him to bill me). When I was inconvenienced by GW, I got Jessica's sexy fb account. Uh, no, wait, that one was just in my imagination ._.

}

 

[Arne]

Mockup cover.

 

[CavCom]

Cool! Didn't know you where a miniatures man yourself. I remember seeing your artwork a while ago, while looking for anything related to Star Control 2 but also seeing your other unique taken and interpretation of classic PC and console games like Master of Orion. Your artwork has definitely a distinct and unique quality! Is this going to be a commercial venture, with you producing your own minis, or something you're doing for yourself? Anyway, all the best on your Starsword project!

 

[Arne]

Thanks. I'm just doing this for my own amusement atm. I think I do have the funds to have some plastic sprues made though. I'm thinking 1:72 Scifi-pulp, i.e. something from my StarGladius project. Maybe some Zoid'y pilots.

Here I have started on a female 1:72. It's my second full figure, and just for practice. I might have to lengthen the torso 0.5mm (have to cut the armature), but she's pretty much female height. The Starguard Amazons are pretty tall women.

The goblin is GS pressed in my old Prince August Molds, so it's not something that I sculpted (!). Lots of flash, but good detail otherwise. I've cut some flash collection pockets for next time. It's a pity the human models are quite a bit larger than 1:72/25mm.

Also started making a little (well, pretty large) hand, using that tutorial someone posted. Misplaced thumb.

I'm gonna pick up some acrylic thinner for my airbrush and coat those Amazons soon. Yellow really needs a white coat. Well, most colors do. Maybe not blue.

I spent yesteday doing another FSM painting, even though the actual LGM news were faux.

Edit: Any idea how to polish hardened GS? Carving it can rough it up pretty bad...

 

[Chrome]

Edit: Any idea how to polish hardened GS? Carving it can rough it up pretty bad...

I polish it by using first a strip of 240 sand paper to remove the cut feel to it, then attacking it with a dry wet/dry 500 sand paper, after that I wet the same 500-paper, go over it again and as a last finish I use an old stiff toothbrush and some water. This gives a smooth, matte finish to it, using toothpaste or ketchup instead of water when going over it with the brush will shine it up a bit.
Here's how the GS looks after my method: Example

Cheers!

 

[Arne]

Thanks for the advice!

I found some 360 and 600. The toothpaste step might be overkill for me at this stage in my development, unless it makes the sculpt easier to 'read'. I like a dull/matt finish on my miniatures though.

Speaking of readable... I have a dark green Thraka Green Citadel wash. Is it advisable to use that on the GS original, to spot flaws and such, or does it ruin things for later steps?

 

[Chrome]

Those sizes work perfectly. If I were to spot flaws in the greens I think I'd prefer using leviathan purple instead, gives a higher contrast than green against green. It shouldn't make that much of a difference whether you have a layer of wash on or not, worst case scenario, the gs won't adhere to the layer beneath it and loosen if you're unlucky, but then again, that can happen just from having touched the area you're layering on so I'd deem the risk minimal.

Though after using the wet/dry 600 there wet your model will be full of lighter GS-dust that loves to fill up crevices and deformities, that's how I usually spot mistakes in my sculpting.

 

[Arne]

Hmm, my reply was lost in the warp it seems. Clicked wrong button.

Moving forward. I'm hoping that I can use the time that I normally spend waiting for stuff to cure, if I work on a batch of figures.

The next step is probably basic body volumes, some polish and shape refinement, then sub volumes and last details. I've found that doing a little 1:1 drawing of the fig helps with proportion when doing the armature, and probably later too. I still need to do some detail drawings, and back drawings.

(Used some Thraka Green wash on that Goblin just as a test. It's good enough. Red is a bit clearer of course. (I don't have purple.)