Work in progress on my current model from Ronin Arts Workshop - Goth Girl Itza. Had a real issue getting the arm join right. The resin I'm using has a bit of expansion and the parts didn’t fit well, needed a bit of sanding and putty. This photo of the base colours really shows it up. Think I’ll need to put on some tattoo designs to help hide it.
I finally got around to finishing off and mounting the Masina Island Rogue model. I had picked up an odd ball offcut from some wood from my father some time ago had that I knew one day I'd find a use for it in a base. It fitted quite nicely with the model.
I decided to use most of the offcut and leave the base
rather large for the one model. With the intention of finding a monster or some
type to have at the base is a challenging style pose. I'm been thinking of
maybe a lion or big cat of some type. Yet to find a model suitable. But
very pleased with the outcome
A busy couple of weeks with work and family stuff, but
today I finally got to finish off the pin-up set Ridia and Chrysi which I
started some time ago. Quite a learning curve with using different paints and
having them react to each other creating a bit of cracking in the sink. In the
end I just left it as trying to fix that would be a complete start from scratch
and I decide it wasn't bad enough for that. Still got a lot to learn on the
airbrush, but the biggest thing I learnt from doing this set was I need to improve
my painting mounts to hold the parts as I paint them. Ended up losing a finger
on one of them due to poor mount and dropped a part breaking off a finger. Models are by Hector Moran @ RoinArtsWorksop.
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| Ridia and Chrysi |
So my fantastic wife got me an awesome birthday present the other day. The Figures FAQ from AK, so that gave me the idea for the base for Masina, the book as some awesome images and ideas in it not to mention all the notes and tips, I can foresee it getting well used and worn. With my limited skills, I thought I'd make one in Thinkercad online and print it. I'm going to try out painting a background for her. So just kicked off the print job which will take 8 hrs, all going well I'll have a base come morning.
Got
a bit more done on her, added a satin varnish coat to her help protect and
assist cleaning up my mistakes that are bound to happen when I get into the
detail work other belt and jewellery Aso trying out using the pencils from AK
for around the eyes and face paint.
After soaking the leaves in the AK mix for 20
odd hours, took them out and placed them on some paper towels and dabbed them
dry, then placed a few more paper towels on top and left them for a few hours,
then I added a weighty box to the top of half of the leaves so I could compare
what happens to them. Overall it only used about 1/5 of the bottle if that.
The ones under the weight flattened out really
nicely and were easy to use with the leaf punch. The other were way more
natural looking so that will work for stuff I'm not going to punch out like
small fern fonds and actual sicks and branches.
It didn’t take long to punch a good amount of
leaves out and the different colours so will now have to glue some onto my
Lecky model.
While looking for some model leaves to
add to my Leachy model I found this AK product to preserve natural plants so I
thought I'd give it a try, at $21 from the local store it's not breaking the
bank and if it works well, I have an entire forest behind my place to source materials
from so it could turn out to save some money. So on my evening walk tonight I
collected a bunch of autumn maple leaves of various colours, along with a few
varied petals from some flowers. Soaking them in the liquid for 24hr in an
old takeaway container.
Will see what happens in a few days after I dry
them, and try using my leave punch.
Trying to work on my airbrush
skills and improve my control I've been running into some paint flow issues and
getting varied results and problems. Having a much greater success now I've got
my mixing in of thinner a lot better, I thought I'd try out the Flow Improver
that just got released by AK. (or at least just landed in my local hobby store)
So far after the base skin
tones put down on this model, I'm in the I have no idea if it helped or not
camp at the moment. I had less issues this time and maybe I just picked them up
sooner and my practice is starting to pay off. I think more time on the brush
will be needed before I can come to any conclusions. But at this early stage it
hasn’t hurt using the Flow Improver.
The model is from "The
Dragon Tappers Lodge"
3D Printable Masina Island Rogue - Presupported by The Dragon Trappers Lodge (myminifactory.com)
Also just done some youtubing on the Flow Improver options and how others use it, so have some more experiments to try out using less thinner and more flow improver.
Back onto my large diorama, I’ve moved onto the other mechanic. I've been enjoying using the AK paints I got for skin tones, so have got the pastel box set from them since I don’t any colours close to pastels. Tried out some on model wet blending with mixed results.
The
model itself is a bit rough, her back is a bit pocked with support marks… a
learning curve in how not to do resin supports.
Happy with the paint work on Lechy, I've moved onto the basing for him, Due to his feet and the flat surface of the wood I've decided to go with a strong steal pin (actually a drill bit) to secure him to the base, otherwise I risk damaging the feet trying to mount him. The plan is to add a bunch of leaves on the ground and cover it up somewhat along with adding some leaves to his branches. The base itself needed a good sand back after my resin leakage, then a polish and it came up really nicely.
Lechy is coming along nicely, slowly getting better with my airbrush.
After the success with the AK concreate, I had picked up an odd offcut of a bit of Kōwhai from my Dad that I thought would make a cool base for something. So got some two-part Water Resin from AK to give it a go. Learnt the hard way that you need to make sure the thing is really well sealed your poring into. Ended up have some resin spill out the side though one of the nots in the wood. Nothing major but a bit more to clean up.
Once I started on Amanda Pistons and watching a few videos online I got enthusiastic and thought I try out a full-on diorama and get away from painting war gaming minis for a bit. The plan which has morphed a few times as I build it. Basic idea was to have a cyberpunk style garage. First up was some oil barrels. Again upscaled off some models from 3D Printable Oil Drums by Marián Corvis Kronauer (myminifactory.com)
Another larger piece in progress, Amanda 'Wrench' Pistons - cyberpunk from UNIT9.
Upscaled so I could practice using my new airbrush and try out some AK products.
It's been awhile since I last posted, life sometimes get in the way.
This is my latest project, a large Predator bust, in fact it's the largest model I've printed on my resin printer. I originally was just going to use it for practice for a new airbrush. But in the end it came out rather good so worked on it a lot after doing the base colours and skin with the airbrush.
Now we (all of New Zealand) are in full lockdown with the COVID19 virus for the next four weeks, it must be time to do something about the lack of blogging. Not that I haven't been busy, the past week was a bit insane with working from home and trying to get my clients all setup so they too can work from their homes. I'm one of the lucky ones that can still work. Hard times for a lot of people out their.
After just getting back from 12 days on holiday in Indonesian hunting dragons ( the Komodo kind and using a camera not a gun) I managed to get a couple of hours in at the local Model show in Auckland. Some of the models were pretty amazing, and inspiring.
I meet Mike Butler after taking a close look at some of his stunning work and got chatting to him. A really nice guy and I even picked up a few tips from him.
https://www.facebook.com/michaeljbutlerNZ
Here’s some of his painting below… (pretty sure they are all his) I was to gobsmacked to take note of the exact details :-)
After some hit and missing printing onto the t-shirts I did some more research and ended up getting myself some Essdee fabric inks along w...
