Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Very nice. Sorry to see the damage on the big gal :(

I've used paint on primer almost exclusively since the beginning of summer. Too much humidity here...Anyways, I just use generic Gesso (from the arts and craft store) for it. I usually put one little ol' drop of water in with my gesso for something like a 1:50 mix. Adding too much makes it just slide around like if you started with paint before priming.

Well, the boys got their washes and the Harpies and Shades have all been stripped to within an inch of their lives.

Touched up the Cold One with the primer to see if where it had scraped off could be rescued easily and I can't see or feel any line between that and the original coat once it had dried. Really pleased with that. I also sanded some of it off with my P2000 sandpaper and then reapplied it over the top, and I still can't see the join. Works for me

spyguyyoda wrote:I've used paint on primer almost exclusively since the beginning of summer. Too much humidity here...Anyways, I just use generic Gesso (from the arts and craft store) for it. I usually put one little ol' drop of water in with my gesso for something like a 1:50 mix. Adding too much makes it just slide around like if you started with paint before priming.

I did hear nice things about gesso, and also that it took a fair amount of trial-and-error to get the hang of it. As we live in the middle of nowhere, it's just as easy to get hobby specific stuff as it is arts and crafts stuff. I have heard that Vallejo Primer is a lot like gesso in it's make-up, though.

Well, today I skipped to the local GW to get my hands on a finecast Nightbringer. "As it's finecast, that'll make it easier to convert", and so, armed with the proceedings of auctioning off my harpies, I picked it up. After some scrutiny for flaws, I was happy that they were minuscule at best and pranced off into the sunset.

I got home, pulled out Sersi's torso, and then came upon a conundrum.



As you can see, the size difference is very obvious. A small discrepancy I could have worked around but the Nightbringer's torso is a third, if that, of the size of Sersi's beautiful work.

I'm honestly not sure where to go from here. Any ideas, guys?

This is the original concept work, by the way.

Sculpt a bigger leg? Or just cover the leg completely in robes?

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Sculpt a bigger leg? Or just cover the leg completely in robes?

Unfortunately, I'd have to sculpt the robes much larger to accommodate the chest piece in that case, the chest pieces is also about three times as wide as the Nightbringer's robes. I might as well make it from green-stuff/milliput only at that point :\ rather than using a £21 model as an armature. Thanks for the idea though, unfortunately the best the robes could do would be to make a front or a back.

The other option I considered is to try to sculpt a replica chest straight onto the Nightbringer's manly frame.

The other other option I'm considering is bizarre and crazy (but just might work?). Which is to take the Forgeworld Keeper of Secrets spare arms, cut off the claw part, stick them on, copy/sculpt the Nightbringer's robes in 1:3 scale for the lower half and do the hood on the top, sculpt the trailing pieces of cloth (which also cover the lack of hands) and finish with Terrorgheist wings. However, I'm pretty sure that then isn't 80% GW merchandise and as such I wouldn't be able to play it in stores. :( Unless green-stuff counts as GW merchandise?

EDIT: Been playing with Paintshop Pro about the third option, scratch-building an entire bigger set of robes for the Daemon Prince. Turns out that its only 150% bigger, not 300%, so there's that. Figured you guys might find it interesting how I work off my concepts when I want to make something like this.



The colours signify sections and help me figure out where things are seamless and where they aren't, and I also break down some of the larger parts into separate sections to sculpt and then blend together (the blue and the green, in this case). Then I take something as a length, in this case the length from the neck to the beginning of the clothing on the back of the model and use that to figure out how tall it is and the proportions. This means that when I make my armature I can use a ruler to get more or less the right dimensions for what I want.

Err. Hello!

Well, I took a bit of a break from the hobby. After losing my work on the Greater Daemon, the knock-back for my Daemon Prince and my boyfriend and brother moving on to other things, it was pretty hard to summon up the enthusiasm to keep going. I did a few bits here and there (and shall have pictures of them for you shortly) but mostly I've been playing computer games and working.

Of all the things that could get me interested back in wargaming and such, it was the new Citadel paint range coming out. So many new colours, new formulations, I was actively curious about this new occurrence. Chaos Daemons haven't been touched for ages, so I guess it had to be something else that would shake me out of my fugue. So, after a trip in to play with the new paints, I also decided to dig out my models and stuff, and go back to Dakka.

Quick review of the paints: Bases are fine, the white covers creepily fantastically, I predict a lot of happy Raven Guard players, though I'd still thin them a bit and use two layers for a super smooth finish. Layers are also fine, though again, just a tiny bit too thick for my liking. Drybrush paints are amazing, gone are the days of sodden kitchen towel covered in precious paint just so I can drybrush something, these will save me a lot of money in the long run. Shades are just as good as before, if not better, and glazes are .. fine? I can't really see myself using them for much apart from maybe glow effects. Texture paints are a waste of money, unless someone finds a better use for them than basing. I could do better bases in my sleep.

I'm not really sure where I want to go from here. Part of me wanted to sell my paints and buy a Mega Set, except that was scuppered by the fact they're already all gone. Another part of me wants to do more sculpting and modelling before I jump back into painting, and a very guilty part of me wants to finish my brother's Kasrkin before it's his next birthday.

I'll probably end up doing a bit of everything, buy some paints (Dry Paints! Yeah!), do some modelling, and work on the Kasrkin occasionally.

So yes, hello. I think I'm back for a while now. And expect some pictures of the work I did on my Greater Daemon during my absence, it's not a lot though.

Just read through this entire blog and, just wow. The backstory is amazing and your models are unique in every sense. I'm definatly look forward to seeing more of your work!

Thank you very much

Well, like I promised, the bits of work I did on my Greater Daemon while I was MIA. Not a lot, just filled in the arms and the neck a bit. Started work on the chains, but can't go much further without doing some sculpting on the chest.





Unfortunately I can only work in the garage at the moment, and as it's still only a breezy 8C out there, I'm sticking to daytime work. Managed to clean up ten of my Horrors (yes, metal models I've had - and painted! - for ten years or more were never cleaned originally. I was young, and apparently oblivious.) and put their heads back on. Doing a bit more work on making sure that the shape of the body is right once I green-stuff the chests, so some of the Horror's heads have been chopped off for the cause.

Hoping to get to clean up the other ten tomorrow and then maybe start green-stuffing them.

All my lil' hounds are also having a Fairy Power bath, as they have large gaps in their legs and - guess what - I basecoated them. Sometimes I wish I could go back and have a long talk with my past self about this sort of thing .

Welcome back.

GiraffeX wrote:Welcome back.

Thanks Giraffe! It's nice to be back, been catching up on the various blogs and stuff I've missed while I've been away.

Still working on the Shades and Shadow Hounds, who are all nice and shiny again from their Fairy Power Spray bath. Decided to finally bite the bullet and test it out on some of the Finecast sprue and see if it a) strips the paint off and b) doesn't melt. I shouldn't think it would but you never know...

Mostly just gluing bits back together at this point, though I also dug the old chain around the Shadow Hound "Champion"'s neck off and am replacing it with the more delicate one that I am using on my Greater Daemon. It's nice to re-jig some stuff and I've got what I think are some cool poses considering they're two part metal models and the second part is only a leg. It's mostly playing with the basing and the scenery and the angles they're glued on at.

The Shadow Hounds are all based on the Hounds of Orion, by the way. I bought 5 packs of them ages ago.



Will see if I can get pics of the WIPs and the Finecast test up this evening for your perusal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At last, some pictures of my progress. I've been getting my Shades and Shadow Hounds/Black Dogs (still unsure on the name, what do you guys think?) put together ready for greenstuff work, after stripping them of their basecoat in preparation for being re-greenstuffed.

After a lot of work and gluing myself to various things, I present my first Shades squad, consisting of nine Shades and a Chained one (Champion/model with Bolt of Tzeentch).






And my Hounds, consisiting of nine Hounds and a Chained one (I can't remember what the Flesh Hound's special is for the Champion)







Considering what I had to work with, I think I did a good job of making them look different to each other!

--

My Fairy Power Spray test with the resin went.. pretty well though with a slightly worrying turn.



It looks fine in the solution, and when I took it out after leaving it to soak overnight, the layers of Charodon Granite and Hawk Turquoise came off easily enough, though leaving a dark stain. However, the worrying thing was how supple it seemed after it's dunk in the Power Spray, I don't remember it being quite this bendy. Thoughts?

Well, I've been busy with the greenstuff. Brought my kit indoors and took over the living room for a bit, it looks like a bomb site at the moment but I've done a fair amount.



First of all, the Shadowhounds have been put back together and green-stuffed the joins, doing my best with a vaseline-d craft knife to recreate that lovely texture of the fur. Considering it will be a black dog, hopefully any roughness in the greenstuff work will be easily forgiven on the final model. Filled in a few cracks where the normal putty wouldn't fit with Liquid Green Stuff and used it to soften the join between epoxy and model a little.



Went back to my previous background and inserts method as it did look lovely when I last did it. This time has come out nicely as well.



I also worked on the big girl, the Greater Daemon, based on the Forgeworld Keeper of Secrets. I first of all greenstuffed over the breastplate itself, smoothing it down and letting it harden overnight. Then I sanded down the intricate decoration around the breastplate, before rolling a tube of greenstuff, pressing it as a rim around the breastplate and then smoothing it from the breast shape to the surrounding areas. I left a sharp wrinkle beneath the breast however, to give it the look of a real breast, the skin folding beneath the breast as it sags a little, similar to the other one.



I did a bit of work on the leg as well, sanding flat the decoration on the leg that is holding up the "stocking", and then using a thin layer of greenstuff to smooth out the surface. Also put in a bit on the loincloth to fix a missing part on the model I had. The work on the sword and underneath the leg are all there to fill in holes from the resin casting process. I probably wouldn't have noticed them if I hadn't been going over this model with a fine-toothed comb.

Next work, not sure. Either going to play with the Shades and start getting their tentacles (that's what the wire's for, by the way) done, or flesh out the Greater Daemon some more. She needs another boob job to *ahem* "even her up". Or maybe I'll finish basing the Shadowhounds and basecoat them ready for painting. *gasp*

There is some very cool stuff in here. The ideas are all fantastic, and your execution of them so far seem spot on, this is going to be one impressive army

rodgers37 wrote:There is some very cool stuff in here. The ideas are all fantastic, and your execution of them so far seem spot on, this is going to be one impressive army

Thank you very much! Though if I don't get on (I started this blog in 2010 ) it'll be 2020 before I finish them.

LadyCassandra wrote:

rodgers37 wrote:There is some very cool stuff in here. The ideas are all fantastic, and your execution of them so far seem spot on, this is going to be one impressive army

Thank you very much! Though if I don't get on (I started this blog in 2010 ) it'll be 2020 before I finish them.

Know what you mean, I don't even do anything very creative but just don't get on and do the painting/modelling I need to do. Really I should be painting now, i'm not doing anything else

Well I received my Brown Stuff order from Heresy Miniatures (plus a Drumstick lolly! How sweet ), and got to work doing the big girl's collar. I think it came out fantastically considering it was my first time using Brown Stuff. It doesn't seem all that different from greenstuff, except that it doesn't seem to "sag", in quite the same way. I went back over it again and again as some of the tutorials recommended for getting crisp lines and I think it came out pretty well. What do you think?





Made my own little tool for making gem settings out a toothpick and two small beads that I had in my sewing kits, each of slightly different sizes. I'm going to put a succession of gems on the collar and a larger one where the chains meet, so this should get plenty of use.



I notice I never seem to actually do what I think I'm going to do next, do I?

Looks great, lovely work on the collar.

Ive got some brown stuff winging its way to me atm, even more excited to try it out now!

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Looks great, lovely work on the collar.

Ive got some brown stuff winging its way to me atm, even more excited to try it out now!

Ooh, what are you planning on using it for? And thanks very much, the pictures have shown up a lot of the minor imperfections though. Still, at that scale, it's not so much of a big deal. I'm kind of glad I'm getting most of my sculpting practice so far on an enormous model though.

Actually, I was wondering, you know if you can you sand brown stuff?

Gonna make some true scale marines

es, brown stuff takes to sanding, drilling and cutting far better than gs, one of the myriad reasons to use it. At least afaik, according to tuts/modelling blogs.

Awesome, I'll give it some sanding before I start adding bits on then, see how it takes it. I'd be interested to see how your project goes.

Well its started, though with an absence of brown stuff as yet.

You can see the progress on page 16 of my imperium log (in sig)

Its good to see you working on her again, the collar is looking very nice, will you be painting the gems or adding them after the painting?

GiraffeX wrote:Its good to see you working on her again, the collar is looking very nice, will you be painting the gems or adding them after the painting?

I'm going to be sculpting them onto the collar and then painting them along with the model I think. I'm not going to use the beads as gems in and of themselves, just they are about the right shape to get that nice rounded indentation for the setting . Which, from trying to get it right earlier on the necklace gem, I had a lot of problems with it. None of my current tools had a nice rounded tip.

Thanks for the kind words, it's nice to see people are following along, despite my slow progress. I'm going to try to get as much done as I can before 6th edition comes out. It would be nice to finish my army before then, but I'm not sure that's a sane endeavour.

I like the use of the Orion's hounds as Shadow Hounds (the better term, IMO). Glad to see you working on stuff again.

Well, evened the ole gal up a bit and gave her a stomach. I can now start to assemble the chains and get that sorted out before some work green stuff work. She's really coming together well! I can only work on her sometimes and I try to make sure each part cures before I work on it again. I've started to use my leftover putty just to fill in the gaps on the horrors, who are up next for the greenstuff train.





Think the greenstuff might be getting a bit old though, I've had it for a few years now and it's getting more difficult to push, even straight after mixing.

Very happy to see this blog up and moving again. I've been more or less a silent subscriber for a while now!

Nightbringer / Daemon Princess conversion is definitely what I look forward to most! Good luck!

Cottonjaw wrote:Very happy to see this blog up and moving again. I've been more or less a silent subscriber for a while now!

Nightbringer / Daemon Princess conversion is definitely what I look forward to most! Good luck!

Thanks very much for breaking your silence . And yeah, me too, though now I'm a bit terrified of the sheer amount of work involved in doing the robes in 2:3 scale. At least it's only robes, I guess!

And I'm getting plenty of practice at the moment. Will probably go for a wire armature, Milliput bases and then use greenstuff for the folds and the like and the final layer? Really enjoying my Greater Daemon coming to life though, especially after all the drama.

Greater Daemon is certainly looking much better, and your greenstuff smoothing techniques have improved significantly!

Well, I've been doing some work, but unfortunately my green stuff has definitely gotten too difficult to work with apart from the most basic stuff.



This much greenstuff is now unusable apart from very basic work. Next time, I'm definitely getting the smaller pack! And putting most of it in the freezer, if others don't object to have epoxy by the icecream. Think I might use it to bulk out the Daemon Prince's scratch built robes, since it's not going to be used for anything else.

Now, back to the big girl, my Shadow Walker. Added the chains onto her torso using superglue, which was very fiddly in places. Very proud of getting a half chain to attach to the collar at the front, that will look fantastic painted. Also did a bit of LGS work on the rough parts of the torso and then sanded it down afterwards with P2000 sandpaper to make a silky smooth surface. Did that to her leg as well. Still don't know if I want to just layer a very thin layer of LGS over the entire surface there just to get a nice surface.




Used the bad greenstuff just to fill in the holes on the Shades, including the ones on the slottabases, for a smooth surface for my basing stuff to go on. Filled in any major gaps, arm or horn insets, some of the mouths and such, and the holes in their heads, to make it easier to get the greenstuff to layer properly later.

Some progress for Cottonjaw and other Daemon Prince fans, I used the old greenstuff to finally spur me into making up that armature and using it up to make the bones of the robes. Rather than a very thin robes like the Nightbringer, I've gone for a more natural slight oval, and made it hollow so that it wouldn't be too heavy.



I used medium-width fuse wire as my armature as I could then edit it as I saw fit while it was curing. It's pinned in six places into the torso and into the base, the wire bent and superglued to the bottom for extra strength. More wire was wrapped around in circles for support, a lot like the support under Victorian dresses, and finished off with a touch of Liquid Loctite superglue.

I then wrapped greenstuff around all the joints and allowed them to cure before layering on "sheets" of reasonably thick greenstuff to cover the resulting latticework. There was a little bit of sagging in the centre, but that will be remedied by the final stage of greenstuff work for the base, which will finish the robe's lines.

I got replacement greenstuff tubes from Heresy Miniatures, but alas they sent a nasty-tasting "icecream" flavoured lolly instead of a palatable treat. The greenstuff seems fine though, so far.

This is looking good, love the chain detail