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Morning Gits,

My vote would be to go for the crackling energy across the fist. If it pushes your ability as a painter I say go for that one. I always pictured the energy field of a powerfist being concentrated on the knuckles of the hand up to the first joint... so that a punch would have the field at the point of impact. You could probably bleed that back into the top shield so that the very tip of the shield is included, and maybe include the rest of the hand, so that it is recognizable on the model.

Either way, can't wait to see more

1. I can either do yellow on black... or I can *try* to do the power fist as if the energy was crackling across it... like a power sword. I am not sure I can succeed... but I can try it. So, should I go with the reverse camo, or the energy field?

Crackling power fist means osl as well IMO. If you feel you can pull it off, I'd say go for it since it would add an extra level of cool to the mini, but make sure you know what you're doing; it would be a shame to mess up a good paintjob becasue you messed it up with 'special effects'.

2. No matter which way I choose, how much of the fist should be involved in the design? i.e. just the "shield" part of the fist or the fingers as well? Is it the same for both or is it different for each style?

The way I always understood it, is that the whole fist is sheathed in an energy field, so thta would imply the fingers as well.

Do the reverse camo on the "shield" part

I personally think you should go with the inverted yellow on black for the fist, but think you should use a spot color on the fingers. I would go with red fingers, not bloody, just red. I believe attempting the camo pattern over his fingers would probably cause some frustration and make the power fist sort of disappear in all the camo.
I would stray away from the energy effect as I personally think that the look, even when pulled off right, is kinda of cheesey. Not to mention the fact that a giant glowing blue fist would contradict the point of being in camoflauge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
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http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/12/sneek-peek-ia-10-badab-part-2.html

but I thought you'd appreciate this quote,

"Mantis warriors have a duelling librarian with his own special psychic power and allows for infiltrate"

i would do both why not the inverted camo pattern on the shield and over the whole hand the crackling power? that is what would be most real and it would be awesome and it would be an awesome eye catcher.

Moltar wrote:but I thought you'd appreciate this quote,

"Mantis warriors have a duelling librarian with his own special psychic power and allows for infiltrate"

Oh damn... now I'll HAVE to buy it. Still just a fandex... but it would be fun to read their take & see what they've come up with. Question is... allows him to infiltrate with what? Just by himself? Not all that useful and likely to get him killed. This is one of those situations where you need more info and some context so you can fully evaluate the situation before drawing a conclusion.

Git, I think this is the perfect opportunity for you to try our your airbrush. Airbrushes are great for things like OSL and glowing effects.

What I would do is look at how the fist is positioned on the model, and decide how much light you want coming from it. Since this is an early attempt, I wouldn't have it be a strong light source except very near the fist.

What I would do, based on my somewhat limited experience, is to place the mini in a plastic bag like a Wal-Mart bag, with a hole cut out for the arm. Once I got the arm through the hole, I would tie off the bag behind the mini reasonably tightly, so that the bag won't shift much.

Then I would mask off the arm where I don't want the glow effect. Assuming a right angle at the elbow power-fist, I would mask off the side and back of the upper arm. I would then cut a small hole in the bag roughly where I would expect a glow on the torso. Cover this area with masking tape, then cut out the center of the tape. The masking tape should keep the bag from slipping or puffing out. If it doesn't, consider a stronger tape.

Airbrushing Steps:

1) Before painting, I would run air through my airbrush at around 15-20 psi to check and make sure the tape isn't lifting off of the mini.

2) Then, I would airbrush a light coat of white paint over the entire glow effect area. You don't want a heavy coat, especially at the edges, as you want this to be your transition.

3) Reduce your air pressure by about 5 psig, so you're running 10-15 psig. Use a very light amount of paint, and try not to get the edges (you want white at the edges). Low psi is critical for getting smaller area coverage and avoiding spidering.

4) Reduce the air pressure by 5 psig again, so you're running around 8-10 psig. Use a slightly darker blue, and just hit up the center areas. I would have most of the fist in this color, but none on the arm or torso.

5) Finally, depending on how it looks, I would probably break out a drybrush and drybrush the light blue onto the finger edges and other edges of the powerfist.

Heff, you are pure eeeeevil aren't you? You just KNEW that my airbrush had been sitting there calling to me for the last month or so as I worked on other projects after my one little trial run.


First... thanks everyone for your input... and please, feel free to continue to voice your opinions, I am by no means closing the book on the subject with this post... just giving you my opinion based on current feedback and my own judgement of my own abilities, etc.

As it stands....

This issue with OSL is that I am very new to it and as a result, lacking in confidence. This is shown by the fact that I did not do OSL on Sage's plasma T-vet even though it was a near perfect format for it. Part of the issue is my unfamiliarity with OSL, the other is that there is so much to lose if a screw it up. As you've seen, it takes me so bleedin' long to get these figures that that it's a really hard swallow to think about using a risky special effects technique that might end up setting the project back a week while I try and fix it. Granted, OSL done well is nothing sort of spectacular... but I question my ability to do it well at this point... so it is a big risk with a lot of down side. More specifically, with this figure the power fist positioning is in a poor spot to use an airbrush to accomplish the OSL, especially if I focus the power emanation from the hand and fingers as opposed to the shield of the fist. I would have to remove the arm, do the OSL on the hand and facing leg, then reattach the arm. Not impossible, but incurring damage that would then need to be repaired even if the OSL was successful.

At the moment then, I think what I'll do is the reverse camo on the shield of the fist alone... and leave the hand and fingers yellow (without camo on them). Once that is done, I can freely come back to the hand later if I want, once I have more OSL practice under my belt (keep in mind this figure isn't actually "due" until April 1st) and perhaps add the OSL then. I will also add the discarded helmet on the ground in the reverse camo pattern as we discussed a few pages ago... I think it's a nice touch to echo the pattern of the dread in the sergeant and reinforce the reversed pattern in the head and fist.

I remain open to suggestion or further persuasive arguments... but at the moment these are my thoughts.


On to a slightly different topic:

When I finish the sergeant, it will be the last substantive update to this particular blog for a week or so. I have a couple of other important painting projects for a couple of other important people that need to be finished by a certain date in order to be relevant. (Those of you familiar with my other blogs can, I'm sure... put two and two together.) As these are supposed to be surprises... I can't make any WIP postings... but I will post the final results in the appropriate places after the certain date has passed. The bonus to this effort however, is that I'll be using my air brush to accomplish what would otherwise be a nearly impossible feat of painting (for me anyway), which will pay big dividends in the next stages of the Mantis Warrior project by making me more comfortable with air brushing and perhaps even encouraging it's use for things like OSL.

So... I'll have the sergeant done soon... after that it'll just be the normal chit-chat until other priorities are taken care of. I will of course, welcome critiques on the 'ol sarge in the interim. I will also be working on the Tranquility Pattern tutorial which I'm quite excited about. Lots to talk about in that tutorial (more that I thought when I began it to be sure).

Gits

Wow... How lucky those things must be...

BTW, I sent Brother Tanaerum last saturday... Who knows, maybe it'll reach you on time for a certain date?

That would be swell Yggs! I actually have two other swaps that folks did for me that I'm finishing up the pad or basing on at the moment.... should be able to post those shortly. I'll have a full squad soon! Actually have enough that I'll be able to start on squad #2... which is *very cool*, save the fact that I'm behind in my halves of most of the swaps... but that's the next thing to worry about.

Try something like this

ooooo me likey

That would be a cool effect to try Gits.

I'm still thinking a black power fist w/ yellow fingers would be better (though your model's nice, BBL!)

My vote goes for the reversed camo on the fist shield, leaving the fingers yellow.
The power effect does sound interesting, and does look pretty cool on that chaplain Lucifer posted, but not sure how it would look against the primarily yellow guys. Could you do a trial piece on a spare power-fist for our delectation and delight?

Not my model, Its a part of a commission painted army in the dakka gallery.
I found it a while back

monkeytroll wrote:My vote goes for the reversed camo on the fist shield, leaving the fingers yellow.
The power effect does sound interesting, and does look pretty cool on that chaplain Lucifer posted, but not sure how it would look against the primarily yellow guys. Could you do a trial piece on a spare power-fist for our delectation and delight?

That sounds like an excellent suggestion!

And prudent... which I like as well.

Damn, a prudent AND excellent suggestion from me? I must be slipping

Got MW #3 done. The obligatory reloading marine. Pics.......eventually.

Good to hear WM! Every little bit is a step forward... at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Believe it or not guys I have been steadily working on the sergeant. There has been a bunch of fiddly little things to do and I just got to the point where I've painted the shell of his power fist black. This is compounded by the fact that I've been pretty ill for about 2 weeks now and I've just kind of run out of stamina so the last couple of nights I've pretty much gone to bed the same time as the kids. Still... I sneak in a little painting time each day. Have a friend up this weekend so painting time will be minimal... but will try to keep the process moving forward.

Gits

Take it easy Gits, its christmas after all!

As for the Power Fist "energy field" issue maybe it would be possible to take a look at the animation from Dawn of War II, IIRC it just seems to glow much more than have its own field of energy running across the surface

Power-fist energy field model tut from a mate at my local - if you want to go down that road.

Step one... Gets some wood

Step two... Measure the fist in question

Step three... Drill a 4 to 6 millimeter hole in the balsa-wood with a flat nosed drill bit (or clip/snap the bit to have this result) that matches the measurements of the fist.

Step four... With a fine tool and some modeling files make irregular grooves in the sides and bottom of the hole (think lightning pattern or electrical arch)

Step five... Press Blue tac/Green stuff/clay/whatever into the hole lightly so it makes a general copy of the shape thin it out if needed

Step six... Pour resin into the hole and wait for it to semi cure.

Step seven... While still mostly liquid (most use a fast setting resin and it only gives you a minute or two of play time so time this right) press your GS plug into the hole, this will force out a lot of the resin through the grooves you made and make it really thin. Keep a millimeter or half of one out of the hole (I would place a copper rod in the back so it's easy to pull out).

Step eight... Remove plug and break open the balsa wood, you will be left with a curving open capsule of resin covered in your etched pattern that fits over the power-fist in question
you can then trim this for effect and paint in groovy electrical colours etc.

I've not done this but I have seen the results and it looks good, however it looks amazing if the fist in question is in a motion pose as if the field is flaring up due to the air friction along it's surface, you know like the marine is about to punch out some deserving heretic lights.

Now all that said your could cast the hole so it would be reusable over and over instead of the one use balsa option.

Thanks Santobell, I'll have to mark that process for later use. Do you have any photos of the effect that you could share?


FYI: Special project is going well. Thanks to the airbrush I was able to paint 20 guys in one night (minus detailing). That was 3 layers with the airbrush, a wash, a dry brushing, and a second wash... plus painting the base-color (black) on the bases! And this wasn't a full night as we had company over for most of it... maybe 3 hours painting time at most (including model prep & drying time). I think they turned out really well... even my better half thinks so. Color me impressed. I think my chances of completing my Adepticon army just improved...

pic's?

Not until after a certain date which fast approaches... (see avatar) <----

Gits is a good Dad :-)

It just dawned on me that the reason for my stealth in this is that at least one of Thing 1's friends monitors the blog, and I didn't want him spilling the beans... but they're off from school now so I expect I don't have to worry... so I think it's OK to post some pics. Do you want me to post what I have already, or wait a bit until they're complete? Shouldn't be too much more work as I'm just getting the basics nailed down with these (tabletop standard) to get him over-the-hump with his new army.

TBH, I think it would be better safe than sorry, just in case. You don't want to spoil the surprise by accident.