Stompa Gargant W.I.P.

[jamsessionein]

Originally posted by AinuLainour
Technically, this is now more of a diorama?

I think it\'s always sort of been, at least in my mind. Once I had the general plan for a \'battle base\' and a \'display base\' I couldn\'t help myself. Still, the actual model\'s definitely going to see some play, I hope.

And I do believe Recoil\'s comments were aimed at my self-deprecating remarks about sculpting earlier. I wouldn\'t take it personally.

 

[jamsessionein]

So, I feel at this point I should mention that my choice of basing material might not have been a great idea - in future, I\'ll try and base properly, rather than finding a wood-putty paste in my garage and using that. The general reason is evident once you look at primed pictures of the base - the overall appearance is a bit \'muddy\'.

Even though this has been left to dry for a very long time, some spots appear very slick and shiny, and some appear smooth - apparently areas where I may have skimped a bit on the surface sand and gravel detail. The only way I can figure out working with those spots is painting them up a bit muddy, I guess - particularly the footprint area. I did try and go light on the primer, but Citadel\'s new Chaos Black is a bit finicky. I think the ruins will look fine, but some of the open, bare patches that are supposed to be dirt look a bit screwy.

I\'m open to ideas as to how to paint this. I don\'t know if flat-out drybrushing it terrain colors will do with the \'muddy\' spots.

 

[angus147258]

Just cover it up with some sand/gravel. If your not willing to do that then paint it with some textured paint.
Jake

 

[AinuLainour]

The base looks fantastic, and I know that you wouldn\'t screw it up even if we didn\'t give you advice, but this way it\'ll be so much better!

I suggest painting the ruin buildings and tiles different, but worn colours (see Cyril\'s gallery).The muddy areas should be, well, muddy, so lots of gloss varnish in the deeper sections and brown-red colours. Here\'s some links that might help you out:

Scenery from Me - You\'ve got to scroll down a little.

Posts #133-134: On Mud Bases

 

[Phaen]

Been watching your topic all day here....so impressive and alot of good ideas coming to me from it.

since we\'re on the topic of the base, i\'d say you have two options really (unless you want to completely scrap the base and start anew, which i know you dont wanna do). Firstly, you could go with the muddy design. I think it could come out looking great, but just the thought of it makes me cringe at how many opportunities i know I\'d have at screwing it up. Secondly, you could always go over it with some more textured materials like gravel.

any way you choose to do it, i cant wait for the finished product, as im sure every other soul who\'s caught a glimpse of this topic feels the same.

 

[jamsessionein]

If I re-gravelled the bare spots, what would you recommend? Watered-down glue and sand and gravel and just go for it?

I\'m trying to figure up how I would re-prime that without mangling whatever ends up getting a 2nd coat. I could paint that by hand, but meh.

Think I should?

 

[AinuLainour]

Did the links help?

 

[jamsessionein]

Originally posted by AinuLainour
Did the links help?

If I go the mud route, I will probably do something like what\'s done on those - it looks like reverse highlighting? Start with bright colors in muddy areas, and wash the hell out of it with darker earthtones?

I\'m not sure if I should try and add gravel or leave it as-is, though.

 

[jamsessionein]

After a fair bit of deliberation, I\'ve decided to go with the current appearance. A few extra hours to dry helped improve the look a bit, though I don\'t think I\'ll be using Citadel\'s black sprays ever again. I was feeling a bit adventurous, so I began the tedious process of drybrushing the dirt and soil areas with Scorched Brown, and it started to look a bit better. I\'m not going to post pictures until I get the entire coat of scorched brown down properly, but I\'m going to brave out what I have there.

 

[Phaen]

in my experiences it\'s always best to go with your gut. sounds like you\'ve got a good handle on what you\'re doing.

I stopped using citadel\'s black primer as well. I actually am very fond of priming white or grey and then moving on from there.

 

[DaN]

I still think it looks great.

I think doing the ground muddy will only add to the effect of the piece - especially with regards to the poor squished IG

 

[jamsessionein]

Here we go.

I don\'t know if my photography is getting better or worse. I think I need to turn my exposure down a bit.

I\'ve laid down most of the base layer of Scorched Brown on this, and it doesn\'t look all that bad. I\'ve been working out how I\'m going to paint the entire thing up, and here\'s what I\'ve basically come to so far:

Color coded. The general thought I have on this is that the building ruins should have some greys on the base around them.. the muddy areas are ones I\'m going to have to work out a bit to try and maintain that soft and squishy appearance. The reds are where I\'ll probably drybrush a firmer rock color down, as the entire thing can\'t be one bit sinkhole, and the sand is just to represent some of the sandbags that have been torn open and stomped about.

I would appreciate advice for these spots - really, all of them. I\'m not sure how to best execute the grey areas or the sand, and I\'m only guessing that the brighter spots need to have a drybrushing of progressively lighter brown. The mud I now have a.. general idea of, but I still need to keep it fairly dark colors and I\'ll need to keep it wet-looking.

Same goes for the buildings. My initial impression was to drybrush them using boltgun or something along those lines, but I think I\'m going to forego the metallics in favor of codex and fortress gray...

 

[Phaen]

for the mud, i\'d say get some ideas from what previous posters like AinuLainour have said. i\'ve never done mud before so i cant really give any good advice.

for the sand, definately use just that: sand! i\'ve worked with quite a few sandy bases (wish i had a digital camera...) and my favorite thing to use is real, unpainted sand, with some sort of sealer to keep it in place.

 

[matty1001]

Watered down PVA glue has always been my choice of sealer for basing.

 

[DaN]

Sand: V V fine sand - but make sure the glue you use doesn\'t make it shiny or smooth.

As for the rest of it - muted pastels if poss. and (unfortunately) lots of drybrushed gradations!

At least - that\'s how I\'d do it.
Also - for your buildings- don\'t use PURE fortress and codex - it looks too clean and satdn out. Try mixing a little blue-green (mint kindof colour).

Also - different areas of concrete/cement will be slightly different shades, so also try mixing in some brown too.

If you want to make the buildings heavily stained and dirty, I recommend mix of dry brushing and washes:

Drybrush extreme edges almost pure white (space wolves gray maybe)
Wash browns and greens (A mix of shades and tones) into crevices - pulling down where they would naturally and pooling in indents.

I can go into more detail with this if you like - PM me.

 

[jamsessionein]

Man.

I just got back from some airbrushing adventures, and wow. That is one fickle beast to use, eh? Getting the mixture just right so that it comes out properly is more art than science, I think - I made a proper mess of pretty much everything I sprayed near, including the board, which I then tried to clean up.

Anyhow, I\'d started by drybrushing the buildings with a blackened fortress gray in the hopes I\'d see something fruitful, but it was too inconsistent and wasn\'t making me all that happy - the \'gradienting\' I wanted between the gray, concrete-dusted areas and the soil/mud was far too harsh with just drybrushing.

So, I whipped out the airbrush, and after a lot (and I mean a lot of trial and error) got it to spit out a reasonable darkish gray color.

SOME FREE ADVICE: ETHANOL AIRBRUSH THINNER AND VALLEJO PAINTS DO NOT A HAPPY AIRBRUSH MAKE - it seemed to clump all of the pigment in the vallejo paint up, which subsequently jammed my airbrush up all nice. It took me a few tries to figure out what the hell was going on before I decided that the bottle of thinner I bought maybe wasn\'t helping me, and switched back to water. Blissful water. I\'ll never take you for granted in airbrushing again, even if you do dry slower.

It\'s odd, too, because on my test sprays earlier with a vallejo flesh color the thinner worked wonderfully, but it flat-out globbed the greys up.

So, of course, having a working airbrush I proceeded to go totally overboard on spraying the grays down. This was mostly because I got a bit over-triumphant and started spraying areas I know I shouldn\'t have touched with grays.

The good news, for what it\'s worth, is that I came to my senses shortly after, re-loaded the airbrush with scorched brown, and proceeded to use a wide-angle nozzle to roll the greys back a bit into the rubble piles.

Now, I\'m not going to lie - the browns and the greys are a bit harsh together at the moment because you\'re basically looking at completely unhighlighted soil on the ground - it still needs drybrushing to brighten it up properly, save for the muddy areas, which will bring it more in line with the brightness of the grey areas. I\'m also going to drybrush all of the grey areas with a lighter shade to hopefully pop out the details a bit, and I\'m thinking I may do a black ink wash over all of it as well - there\'s actually a bit of GW\'s roughcoat spray on the buildings at this point, as I put it on shortly before the initial black priming, which should help add a bit of surface detail.

I\'ve not yet figured out what I\'m doing with those busted-up floor tiles in terms of color.

Advice or recommendations appreciated, in any case. Think I\'ve ruined it yet? It\'s got a ways to go, in all fairness.

 

[jamsessionein]

This is a photoshopped color test, just to see what you guys think of this general idea. Please note that this is just me messing around with the top image in photoshop, but I think it looks good enough to pursue?

ORIGINAL:

Color test:

May be a bit brighter than ideal, but you get the gist.

 

[Rev]

i\'m so happy this thread has come back to life - its an inspiration to me!

the base is looking great - cant wait to watch its progress.

 

[jamsessionein]

Played around with it a bit more. I drybrushed beastial brown onto the base, and it looked really bad at first, so I went back and went over it a bit with rotted flesh.. I also hit the ground up with an unusual substance - I found some \'old english\' dark wood wax/stain/shiner whatever the heck it was and ran it through there. It made the ground look a bit wet and evened out the browns a bit, which was nice. I felt the buildings were a bit too bright to begin with, so I mixed up an unusual concoction of black ink, future floor cleaner, vallejo matte finish, and water - it worked surprisingly well in the airbrush to \'smoke\' everything and darken the colors up without obscuring them. I then went back and drybrushed the color I\'d originally based them with around the edges to try and bring out the surface details. I tried to leave them darker towards the bottom, which I think shows nicely in the little comparison animation above.

The base\'s overall color direction has probably gone a bit more orange than I was intending on with the drybrushing, but I don\'t think it looks bad, not yet. I want to keep that footprint with the grot in it a really deep earthy color, as it makes it look more \'sunk-in\' the ground, if you know what I mean. The grot hasn\'t gotten paint on him yet, but he will shortly, I imagine.

I\'m not sure what details to pick out on the buildings or in what colors yet, and I still haven\'t figured out what to do with the tiles - I tried a variety of colors in photoshop as a test, but nothing looked right.

Advice is, as always, appreciated.

 

[angus147258]

It\'s looking pretty good. It might help to add a wash of something to tie everything together like very thinned dark green ink. I\'ve done that before and it works well.
Jake