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Face looks good! Nice job getting depth around the nasolabial fold, especially at this scale. Keep it up, burnout is always just round the corner when some freehand is going well

Quote for the page rollover:

 Geifer wrote:
So it begins:



I decided to start on the organic bits first. Why? The face is the part I was afraid of the most. Trickiest part to get right on a thing that is tricky to get right in the first place.

That's an hour and a half of work and I've been suitably jittery for the next hour after that. But, it's done. I've brightened a few bits of the hair since then because I found a different reference picture that did not have aging damage on that part), but this is it and I'm happy with the result.

I'll eventually clean up around the edges when I fill in red and white banner in the back so the hair is not final yet and the outline of the face is going to change a tiny little bit as well.

Boy, this is hard work!

This is some great stuff. This past year I've been totally into This Is Not A Test and painted up a big collection of wasteland miniatures and terrain.

Nuka Cola Girl approves (One of my favorite minis from my wasteland collection)!

Thanks, guys. I sure hope we'll get a Nuka Girl miniature from Modiphius at some point. I wouldn't mind adding that to my collection.

 Scarper wrote:
Face looks good! Nice job getting depth around the nasolabial fold, especially at this scale. Keep it up, burnout is always just round the corner when some freehand is going well

I know what you mean about burnout. Luckily that's not a concern because real life has a way of interfering so I often get good, long breaks...

I found time for another painting session:



I decided to keep track of progression. I usually don't do lots of WIP pictures, but since this is my first serious freehand it'll be good to have some data at the end to look over. Work time so far:

First picture after 1.5h.

Second picture after 3.5h.

Edit: Now if I didn't forget the actual commentary...

I cleaned up the head and altered the lighting on the left to include a hint of blue as that side has blue lighting in the original artwork. It's not complete yet and only a test. I'll probably go with a little stronger blue, but I want to wait on other parts to get there to get a cohesive look.

I started work on the uniform, but only had time to get two layers of paint done. The shadowed regions aren't a bad start but I have a lot of cleaning up to do.

I think the boots may be a little offset to the left. At least her left one. I'll have to fix that when I get to them, but I think she's leaning back a bit much. But I'll have to see. It might be the sketch of the bottle that's off. Or both.

The Nuka Cola logo will be the death of me. Mark my words!

After 4.5h:



Mostly finished on the painted bits, maybe a little touch-up here and there. It'll be good to get the legs, gloves and helmet done as I'm starting to feel the fatigue...

I've subscribed. Very interesting corner!

Thank you, Wirecat.

So...

I took a tiny break from Nuka Girl. I've painted a couple of regular models that I felt I needed to do. They'll be done tomorrow at the latest so I'll be able to return to the barn quickly, but...

I've had doubts about Andrea, my Fallout 3 character. I put a lot of work into the sculpt...





... but I'm not always as focused as I should be. Occasionally I don't see straight. Or think straight.

The face and head have been bugging me for the past six months. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was sure it needed fixing. Now I'm not prone to taking drastic action on a whim, so I took my time and contemplated her face, the universe and everything.

Well, on Friday I was finally sure that I did a hack job on the face and since I'm not one to let a mistake stand, I cut off the head and resculpted it:



It's way better already, but I need to let it cure and give it a good look over to see everything straight and symmetrical. Taking zoomed pictures helps in that regard. I'm not getting any younger, after all, and neither are my eyes.

Finishing her (again...) is a priority, but after that it's back to the regular schedule.

I've been busy. First up, some more pit fighters, as usual a tiny little bit NSFW.

Persia:


Cathy:


Veronica:


Anaya:


Upon finishing these, something occurred to me. I can put on individual shows, but I need two more to have a proper tournament with a pit champion at the end of the night.

I'll also need to build the arena. Then I need guards. And spectators. So much work to be done.

At least the boss of it all is making progress:



I'm slowly getting there. Most stuff is done and the big item, the missing plasma rifle, is no longer an issue. There are still lots of little bits missing, but this is not bad for two months' work. I usually plan for three to four months for a model like this and it's looking like I'll hit the lower end of that estimate.

Speaking of numbers, continued to paint Nuka Girl. So after a total of 6.5h I have this:

Wow, you got some real sculpting talent, that raider boss looks really good.

Thank you.

Operation successful, face resculpted and repainted.

As always, spoilered for a lack of pants:



I happy with it, and it's not just the resculpt. The paint job is a lot cleaner, too. I changed her expression since she'll form a mini diorama with the slaver boss. I wanted a more benign expression for that. Now that that's done, I can finally focus on my regular projects again.

Last one in my quest for perfection, also spoilered:



So there's actually a serious reason to painting all these (other than that I like pretty, naked girls, of course): painting skin is something I want to get better at. I think I'm reasonably successful at the ends of the spectrum, but I'm having real trouble hitting the right tone in the middle. I never quite consider them right and keep painting until they're either light or dark enough to look right. That's an obvious problem.

I think I got a lot more painting to do before that changes.

Well, at some point anyway. Next on my list is actually finishing the barn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nuka Girl after 7.5h:

And it's done.



That's it. Nuka Girl after 9 hours of work.

For comparison, a picture about the actual size of the freehand:



So, the big one is done. I'll varnish it to protect it from mishaps and then I'll go and wrap up the barn.

Impressive little artwork, looks really good in the actual size

Beautiful mural, and all the more impressive for the size of it. It's a bit artificial having close up photos revealing every flaw considering it's only a few inches high on the tabletop. Did you enjoy painting it? 9 hours is a long time for something on such a small area! Well worth the effort in my book.

There are lots of really cool things going on in this thread I see. Kudos on all the sculpting and the artwork especially. It's great to see when people have their own little pet projects and put a LOT of effort into it. It's worth it though. Cool stuff.

Thanks, guys.

 Scarper wrote:
Beautiful mural, and all the more impressive for the size of it. It's a bit artificial having close up photos revealing every flaw considering it's only a few inches high on the tabletop. Did you enjoy painting it? 9 hours is a long time for something on such a small area! Well worth the effort in my book.

It's artificial alright. I'm always conflicted how to post miniatures because on the one hand, I'm not getting any younger and a nice, big picture of a model let's me see and appreciate every detail. On the downside, as you say it reveals every flaw*. Realistically, you can't even always tell if it's a flaw or a feature, considering the original is that much smaller and the painting may look great on the actual size. It's why I don't envy professional painters who have their work exhibited on the Internet. You either put your best work into making the actual model look great, or paint for pictures and may risk the natural look of the model in the process.

Did I enjoy painting it? Honestly? No.

It's a bit of a depressing flaw in my hobby pursuits:

I don't enjoy painting models.
I do enjoy painted models.

It has led to a rather large, rather unpainted 40k collection because I love assembly, conversion and sculpting, but the painting step is just tire- and bothersome. My Fallout collection has benefited from me getting tired with this and putting more painting time in. And in the end, yeah, the result is worth the effort. But I don't find the process particularly enjoyable.

Which will come to bite me, no doubt. Nuka Girl turned out successful in a way I could not have imagined before. The downside? Now that I know I can freehand, I will want to create more down the line and it will just be grueling But no doubt totally worth it in the end! Yay!


Edit: *I do find it helpful to have blown up pictures of WIP, though, as it helps identify potential problems not easily visible on the model itself. That's a definitely a positive coming out of such apparent visibility.

For instance, I took the picture and afterwards cleaned up the little white splotch between the N and the swipe on the Nuka Cola logo. Didn't catch that in real life and only saw it in the photo.

The barn is finished:

















I have no real idea what to do next, scenery-wise. It occurred to me that a military checkpoint requires a road and a road requires vehicles/vehicle wrecks not just to look proper but also to get lane width right. I have a couple of 1:48 WW2 military vehicles that I mean to put to use in some way, but I think I'm more comfortable waiting until Modiphius releases some car wrecks first. Not much longer until November.

I'm quite the fan of Mantic's Battle Zones kits and have a few, so I may do something urban next. I also ordered some TT Combat MDF so a construction site will happen at some point, too, but probably not next since the order won't ship for a bit.

So, I'm happy the farmstead is finished for now. I'll decide on the next project once I clear my mind and work space of rural stuff.

The slave boss is making remarkably good progress, and I think I'll be able to finish the sculpt this week and have her painted sometime next week. I also still have three more models on my desk that suffered from obsessing with other projects when I really should just finish painting them instead, but that's how it goes. Maybe I'll find the time and motivation for them now.

Other than that I don't have any set plans for the future. Many ideas but not single, concrete one. Maybe I'll finally get around to working on one of those Vault Dwellers I bought from Brother Vinni ages ago. It's a funny kind of Fallout blog that doesn't have a single vault suit it and I may just have to rectify that. But who knows?

Edit: For some reason the barn looks very shiny in those pictures when it doesn't in reality.. No idea why, other than that I suck at taking pictures.

Vera the Slaver Boss is fully sculpted and awaits painting (a little NSFW, as usual):



She'll be the test model for glowing mushrooms. I'm generally happy with my bases and don't want to overload them with stuff, so they are for the most part brown and grassy. That was fine initially, but the more models I finish, the more it looks too plain for my taste. I've added the odd skull to the Slavers because, like Raiders, it looks the part and helps convey the gang's mood. But mushrooms, being organic and growing in places, seem like a good, general addition to go with the tree stumps and grass.

Except for characters which get a more themed, denser base (like with the razor wire wrapped corpse on Andrea's base), I like the idea of having fairly plain bases that fit with each other but have small alterations fitting the faction. I might add bits of scrap to the Brotherhood of Steel, for instance, since they'd be encountered in techy places rather than the rural areas the basic bases portray. Or more wet and muddy ground for Mirelurks, and so on. Got to work that out as I go along. Raider/Slaver skulls really are the first foray into this, and it's why Vera's base has skulls as well and isn't all mushrooms just for the sake of testing the waters.

As for making them, I am quite happy with the small GW mushrooms from an Age of Sigmar basing set. I used a medium sized one as well, but I think that's the upper limit. I'm thinking of sculpting three or four caps of each style (flat and cone), make a press mold that takes green stuff and stick a wire in before it cures. Should work fairly well.

Really impressed with the realistically-hanging stowage you manage to position on your sculpts. It's easy for something to look tacked on, but you have a great sense of weight and gravity. Nice job with the plasma gun too - very faithful to the game! Any tips you can offer on getting such clean lines with green stuff? I'm struggling a bit getting crisp details.

Mushrooms look interesting - I'm not sure how well they'll fit with the character from looking at them, but I'm sure you'll prove me wrong with the painting!

Barn looks fantastic. Nuka girl looks right at home and not drowned by too much other detail. Fantastic work! You deserve more comments.

Nice work
Love the kola mural!

Thanks, guys.

 Scarper wrote:
Really impressed with the realistically-hanging stowage you manage to position on your sculpts. It's easy for something to look tacked on, but you have a great sense of weight and gravity. Nice job with the plasma gun too - very faithful to the game! Any tips you can offer on getting such clean lines with green stuff? I'm struggling a bit getting crisp details.

It's a bit of an obsession of mine and mostly it doesn't even stem from miniatures themselves, but video games. While there are the odd design flaws in GW models (not a jab, I've just spent more time on GW models than anything else) where the inside of a Marine's arm is cut off so he can hold his bolt gun in the desired pose and it has caused the odd raised eyebrow with me, I am fascinated with video game models and which parts designers deem worthy of their own, well, physics and definition I guess, and which things are simply tacked onto the underlying skeleton and merrily stretch out or contract as if the were, say, skin instead of metal plate. It illustrated really well how a model is supposed to move and how gear would get in the way of it without its magic contraction ability.

Plus, I like to imagine myself having to lug around my model's gear, and anything I that bothers me gets tossed.

Sculpting advice? I consider myself terrible at explaining things. I'll give it a try nonetheless, but please tell me if I'm just letting off a confused mess.

Getting smooth surfaces and edges can be as easy or as hard as you choose, in my experience. Look at the whitish surfaces. Smoothed by scraping off the surface with a sharp scalpel. Similarly, you can easily sculpt edges to follow along the general line you imagine, let the green stuff cure and the cut off excess material for a well defined edge.

I realize this might be considered cheating by some (I've had a comment or two to this effect in the past), but I found that if you're building a shape from the ground up, it's nonsensical to limit your tools to just adding and shaping putty. Why not allow yourself to remove some as well? It doesn't look professional, so it may not be an approach for you if you want to show off a sculpt without discolorations, but I don't need that and I simply can't argue with the results.

If you want to get as much done as possible during actual sculpting, let's use on of the thigh pouches to illustrate my approach.

I find the trick is to start out with the right amount of green stuff, which is just a little more than you need in volume. If you have to mix in some more later on, you may end up with ungainly lines that you may not be able to smooth out easily. Not a problem on the lid because you want a line to separate it from the pouch, but on any other surface, it's an unnecessary complication. Picking the right amount of green stuff is a skill unto itself and as far as I'm concerned, just takes time and practice to learn. But it's the most crucial step.

Smoothing the surfaces should primarily happen in a single direction. With the pouch, I have a blob of green stuff. I shape the top and sided to be reasonably where they should be with excess green stuff on the outside and the bottom. I then pull the outside down towards the bottom so the surface is smooth and any excess material is at the bottom. Cutting this off is another tricky part. a simple 90° to the surface will dull the bottom edge because the green stuff follows the knife cut. You want to cut inward (I'm just going to throw out a random 75° angle here). The green stuff will still follow the cut, but you have a little excess material left over that you can push back to get a crisp edge again.

After that, you need to patiently and gently pull out the surfaces towards the edges. Normally you should work with a wet (or greased - I prefer water myself and there's a reason for that, as you'll see) tool to avoid it sticking to the green stuff. To get a crisp edge, though, you really need the pull of the bare tool, so what you want to do is pull the surfaces towards the edges starting out with a slightly moist tool to ensure the green stuff is not sticking to it. Then you'll repeat the motion as often as necessary. At some point, enough water evaporates to get some grip on the green stuff. This is when you can pull it to a crisp edge.

It's helpful to approach an edge from both sides, alternating between each side. As a final step, you should have a pretty crisp edge that you can highlight by pushing in the surfaces around the edge very carefully and very gently. Leave the edge alone and push in behind the edge. This is tricky, though. I do that occasionally, but find it mostly unnecessary because I usually layer so many colors during painting that I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

Technically this should work with corners as well, but honestly I've never tried to get a really pointy corner like that. Way too much work when, as far as I'm concerned, cutting away excess material gives you a more precise method of achieving the same effect.

 Scarper wrote:
Mushrooms look interesting - I'm not sure how well they'll fit with the character from looking at them, but I'm sure you'll prove me wrong with the painting!

I have a good feeling about them, because I chose their position carefully to match their color with Vera's appearance. I painted them in both variants found in Fallout 4, which is to say green (the two conical ones) and blue and brown (the three flat capped ones). The latter should go well with white, brown and light skin which dominates that side, while the former are positioned beneath the more colorful plasma rifle (which has green and yellow and stands out against all the white armor). That was the idea anyway and so far I think it's working out. The real test, of course, is seeing them on the finished base. Without the static grass, the model is simply unfinished any since I lack any noteworthy visual imagination, I need to see the finished model before I can say for sure.

Luckily I've had a very productive day and I will actually finish the model today, which means pictures tomorrow, so you can see for yourself and won't have to take my work for it.

 Scarper wrote:
Barn looks fantastic. Nuka girl looks right at home and not drowned by too much other detail. Fantastic work! You deserve more comments.

My Nuka Cola rep warned me that ground level was contractually permissible but inefficient, and a huge billboard high up in the air would attract more views. Turns out I should have listened to him, eh?

Painting is done. Obligatory post-wide NSFW warning, because she's still not wearing pants.

Standard multi-angle picture:



As I said before somewhere, Vera's pose is meant to go with Andrea's. I threw in Dog, too, because why not?



And finally I didn't paint Nuka Girl for nothing. May as well use her as a backdrop.



And now I'm all out of Orkmoticons.

Yeah, so maybe I'm a tiny little bit tired and don't feel like waffling. I'll let the pictures stand for themselves. Onward to the next project, which as it so happens I have no idea what it'll be as of yet.

Really useful tips with the green stuff, thanks. Always useful to hear someone else's methods and add a few things to your own repertoire. Anyone who tells someone they're doing something 'wrong' when it comes to sculpting or painting loses several points in my book. If something works and produces a decent effect, who cares how you achieved it? I've not tried a lot of cutting away myself, but i'll deffo give it a go for things that need a hard edge.

Can't look at your latest post just now (not trying to get fired on my break ), so will have to check when I get home. Are trousers banned in your fallout universe?

Agreed. At the end of the day it's the result that matters. How you get there is irrelevant as long as you get there.

Pants are really only an issue with these two. Andrea and Vera are the adaptations of my Fallout 3 and 4 (role play*) characters respectively. They're not replicas because sculpting gives me so much more room to personalize a character than in game options ever could, and for instance I prefer the style of Fallout 4 combat armor over that of Fallout 3, so I went with that. But I tried to bring across memorable characteristics. Which is for example why Andrea is all scarred up like that. I spent the first twenty or so levels constantly getting shot, stabbed and burned, always with a crippled limb and half a minute away from death, surviving on chems and my last few bullets and if need be, a combat knife. Vera, on the other hand, spent most of the game in power armor, which is really powerful in Fallout 4 and resulted in no serious injury ever (plus Fallout 4 goes easy on crippled limbs as well), except for that one time I got badly mauled by a Rust Devil Assaultron (if I make a faction HQ terrain piece, there will be a throne constructed from an Assaultron ), and a few nicks from running around without armor.

So what's happened is this. I'm not saying I'm greedy or anything, but I have a habit of skirting the carry weight limit. So I find a shiny new item that I probably won't need and pick it up, then I find another shiny new item that I probably won't need but still pick up, and so on, until I'm over the weight limit. Now, sure, I could just toss it, because I'll probably not need that, But you never know! What if this time, of all times, I need it after all? So I got to make room. Weapons? Need those. Armor? Too important**. Pants? I can just get new ones when I'm home. You'd be amazed how often this actually happened to me. Thus, no pants.


*I did a lot of playthroughs because Fallouts among my favorite games, but I usually have a main character that I role play as best as I can, while others are more for testing different approaches and stuff.

**It worked a little different in Fallout 3, but heavy, worn down armor did me no good, so I rather went with the loot instead.

So after much deliberation I discovered this...



... and I think I'm not over my rural phase just yet. I went out and bought one to build my own farm outlet store.

I like the Perry buildings, but their being 1:56 does pose a few problems with how miniatures keep getting bigger. It's been a concern I didn't fully account for when building the farmhouse. After the sand (that came with its own share of problems) was put on, and after accounting for the base, my tallest miniature couldn't walk straight on the porch without knocking her head against the roof. I try to fluff it as the occasional flood carrying in soil that the fine folks at the farm can't be bothered to shovel away again, but at the end of the day it's an unfortunate mix of working with varying scales and my inexperience when it comes to building scenery.

Now since the store uses the same parts on three facings, and I don't much feel like having such a closely matching building, I'll put some conversion work into the outlet to change its shape (the porch will go and likely be relocated to the store entrance) and at the same time I'll put the entire house on a stone foundation using the same walls (this time the intact pieces) as the chapel's wall, likely painted grey. Not sure yet, but I could see myself painting the wood red. Should look the part. Since the building is still unassembled and I'm going to cut away at it anyway, I'll try to do more and better integrated (repaired) damage on this house than the other ones (which I all assembled at the same time, before really knowing what to do with them).

I intend to split the store sign using the vending machines from Fallout 4 as templates, which is to say make one half read something about milk on a white and purple cow skin pattern and the other red with the Nuka Cola logo and Have a Nuke slogan. Possibly have a more recent "Brahmin" added to the milk side to account for a certain Great War and its repercussions.

I love Fallout 1 and 2 dearly, but lately I've been converted to the Wasteland 2.

That Nuka Girl makes a wonderful backdrop, that for sure! Good luck with that store You've got, weathered wood is not the easiest thing to do!

Thank you.

I've been eyeing Wasteland 2 for some time now. Maybe I should finally bite and buy it. I think - even though I can't be sure - I think I might just be in a post-apocalyptic phase right now.

Since a terrain project takes time and doesn't keep me occupied throughout because of drying time and planning, I broke open a pack of Brother Vinni vault dwellers. I originally intended to work on only one of them, but that has turned into the one I wanted requiring lots of work and so I figured it would be easiest to do the other two first. I'll make a trader out of the girl and vault security out of the guy. They'd make a nice vault caravan, too, if I had a brahmin to go with them.

Which leaves Dave. He'll become an enterprising ex-vault dweller that joins my Slaver gang. And because I don't have any better idea for him, Dave will get a fatman. I'll try to tear up his vault suit a little and supplement it with armor and, I guess, stuff in order to raider him up. It's still pretty hazy. The real fun part will be sculpting the fatman. Until that's done, I'm not really concerned with the rest of the model.

Although the biggest issue with these guys is composition. They're vault dwellers with vault suits and vault numbers and the more equipment I put on them, the less visible their identity will become. It's a balancing act that I have yet to figure out, getting the gear to look right and still having core components peak through.

After a short break to get a C'tan done, I'm committing most of my time to Fallout again. The aforementioned trader is coming along:



I added a Robo-Dog to the caravan since I had one and figured a vault should be suitably high-tech to have one. I also like the image better, having more than one guard for the caravan, even if it's just a dog.

As for the trader, she's in a good place, I think Just a little gear on top of vault standards to show she's getting around, but not so much that it detracts from the vault suit. I'm considering adding a pistol holster, though.

Vault Security dude is taking a little longer because the armor is a bit more work to sculpt. He's well on his way, though, so I expect he's not going to take much longer.

The biggest issue remains the Brahmin or rather the lack thereof. You'd think properly scale resin cows would be easier to come by, but hey...

And now for something completely different:

I haven't had much luck with the outlet store because, well, there are a number of reasons. I had to wait for an order to arrive, which it only did this week. Planning has also been a bit of a pain because technically I want to do a couple of parking spots by the store, which need proper dimensions to fit cars, and there were issues with the roof and post-apocalyptic additions that I wanted to add but had to figure out first. That's all in the process of being sorted out, so I hope I'm going to have a WIP to show in the not too distant future.

More importantly, though, I am easily distracted. Specifically by two things. One of them is the next piece of scenery which I just had to do some prep work for. More on that a good bit later. The second one, well, I had an idea. I'll do an update specifically on that in the near future. Still planning and plotting. So much to consider before it can hit the public.

First look at the outlet store:



I'm going to add stairs to the front and a loading dock to the side. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the parking lot.

I decided against massive damage to the building since I want the rural scenery to look worn but not as war scarred as an urban area. Who's going to waste a nuke on a farm? Well, commies, that's who! Luckily communist economy sucks, so they really don't have any to spare.

I'll limit the rebuilt structure to another walkway (similar to the one the farmhouse has) on the other side of the building with a patched up wall, a new corrugated iron roof and a second story door under the new roof construction. That's the plan at the moment. I'll have to see how everything fits together.

Extra armour on the vault lass is looking great. I agree that less is more with something as iconic as a vault suit, would be easy to overdo it. That being said, I'm looking forward to your security guard, as that's a fairly trademark look as well!

Nice start on the store.

Thanks, Scarper. The security guard is coming along, even if I seem unable to put on the shoulder pads straight.

I should have a picture of him up in a day pr two. Meanwhile, most of the gap filling on the outlet is done and I should start on the roof construction soon. The walkway is a bit hard to work on because I need to spray the inside of the house (that is devoid of detail) black, and until that's done I can't glue it in place. And I need the house itself ready for a mock-up to figure out the base layout. Work, work.