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Let's have no more of that Miss Dee!

Glad to have you still with us in one piece.

Quick update: I airbrushed the power blades in the wee hours this morning. With luck I'll make a bit more progress later today and post a pic tonight.

*Gently nudges the thread to page over*

Quick updates are good updates still! Looking forward to seeing that.

I cant believe I knew this thread when it had one page. From the time I have been away, great progress has been made! hope to see more!

Thanks SMC! (and thanks for the nudge DSS)

Very good day today.
- made progress on painting (re-painting) Thing 2's Hive Tyrant.
- got a bit more work done on Thing 1's land raider
- made more progress on the vanguard marine
- nearly done with the basing on a great GMS marine made for me by BBL
- cleaned the house
- watched the original King Kong on AMC
- got to play another turn with Thing 1 in our ongoing 40k game.
- spent the evening with the boys on my boat on my favorite local lake (Lake Wisconsin), caught a few fish, had dinner at our favorite lake-side eatery, watched the sun set over the water... beautiful!

I'll try to add just a few more things on the vanguard tonight before posting a pic. Keep your eyes peeled!

I am taking a paring knife to my cornea as you speak.

Touche'

:-)

OK, here's the progress on the vanguard. The helmet will be "whitened", this is just the first step. Lots of details painted in, swords of course. The "sparkles" on his legs and such aren't really there... some kind of artifact of the photographic process.

Wow!, that's really impressive Gits, loving all your work so far...and as always looking forward to seeing more.

I am liking the vanguard vet git.

Glad to hear you had such a good day, I spent the afternoon talking to a good friend of mine about 40k while our two girls had a "tea" party downstairs... complete with liters of water all over the carpet

Loving the Vanguard, really like how the elbow spurs have come out.

I really like the vanguard. Those wings are coming along nicely, I think that's the right colour choice for those.

Excellent work.

I really like the blending on both the wings and swords / claws / scythes...

But I do think the wings are a bit "dull", detail-wise... I can only figure it's already a lot of work to model them, but a few details on their inner side would've been welcome, IMHO...

Still an awesome & dynamic mini uh!

Sweet!Thats cool!

Gits i'm still lovin' the smooth blue colour you can get from the airbrush! i'm still having trouble with mine coming out speckly :-( i'm not upset with how it turned out but it'd be nice to be able to lay on a smooth colour gradient like you seem to have become quite the master of lately! well done, he's looking great (as if you didn't know) :-)


Nerdfest09

Loving how the blues are coming out Gits. Now that there's more of it it meshes together better.

I think a lot of us are learning that patience is a virtue!

Yggdrasil wrote:I really like the blending on both the wings and swords / claws / scythes...

But I do think the wings are a bit "dull", detail-wise... I can only figure it's already a lot of work to model them, but a few details on their inner side would've been welcome, IMHO...

Still an awesome & dynamic mini uh!

I actually agree with you Yggs, I'm just not sure what to do about it. Adding "veins" as I was originally thinking is a possibility but I'm pretty sure it would completely destroy the blending effect, not to mention that big, long, straight lined are going to be the devil to paint. The other part of the wings I'm not satisfied with is the edge. The edges are the same green as the body, which looks fine from the back, but the transition to the blended surface looks awkward to me. Some kind of visual break is needed there but I'm not sure what... perhaps gold like the wing struts & conduits on the back.

nerdfest09 wrote:Gits i'm still lovin' the smooth blue colour you can get from the airbrush! i'm still having trouble with mine coming out speckly :-( i'm not upset with how it turned out but it'd be nice to be able to lay on a smooth colour gradient like you seem to have become quite the master of lately! well done, he's looking great (as if you didn't know) :-)
Nerdfest09

I still have problems with occasional speckling... had it on this guys basic paint job actually. I wish I knew for sure what caused it or how I solved it. I did change needles, completely cleaned the brush and fiddled with the PSI on the compressor. Check to make sure the tip of your needle isn't bent. If you look at them the wrong way those needle tips can bend and then you're pretty much screwed.

BLACKHAND wrote:Glad to hear you had such a good day, I spent the afternoon talking to a good friend of mine about 40k while our two girls had a "tea" party downstairs... complete with liters of water all over the carpet Loving the Vanguard, really like how the elbow spurs have come out.

Cool... Is this the kind of "tea party" that involves wet t-shirts and lots of beer?

DarkStarSabre wrote:Loving how the blues are coming out Gits. Now that there's more of it it meshes together better. I think a lot of us are learning that patience is a virtue!

Well, if you're waiting for me to paint a figure... patients is a virtue. God knows some of my trading partners have been waiting for the better part of a year and they *still* haven't gotten their figures.

Might have a little time to work on things today... we'll see.

Gitsplitta wrote:
I actually agree with you Yggs, I'm just not sure what to do about it. Adding "veins" as I was originally thinking is a possibility but I'm pretty sure it would completely destroy the blending effect, not to mention that big, long, straight lined are going to be the devil to paint. The other part of the wings I'm not satisfied with is the edge. The edges are the same green as the body, which looks fine from the back, but the transition to the blended surface looks awkward to me. Some kind of visual break is needed there but I'm not sure what... perhaps gold like the wing struts & conduits on the back.

I think the problem your having is that your going straight from green to blue.

I'd think about possibly painting the edges a colour that seperates the two, as shown by my super-awesome award winning paint.net skills below.

Looks Great Gits, really coming together well.
I think matrim has hit on it, but i cant decide on black or gold.
The helmet looks ghostly, and really mantis-like.
Note: more expansive comments to come, revision still has control over my brain

Hey guys... yeah, that was what I was trying to describe in my post... and I think that black or gold are really the only two options given the color range on the rest of the figure. I keep thinking the edge should fold around onto the underside of the wings a bit to give it a frame of sorts, but that might be tough to paint without screwing up... though I suppose I could mask it to help with my line, or even use a straight edge and a micron pen if I went with black.

Next time I'm doing all of this *before* I glue the wings into place.

I would go with black for the edge of the wings.

Nice work as always.

Epic pose! I love the wing front color. This will make the GMS proud!

UG

Tonight's progress:

- finished white on helmet
- started shoulder pad
- gold edging on wings (to be consistent with color of supports on back of wings)
- basic work on base & mounted figure
- added the rest of the handles for swords

That looks great. I could stop there and it would be my best paint job ever.

Suggestion:

Find a fine mesh to use as a stencil, could be all kinds of things, then use that as an AB stencil on the wings to give it texture and give a combo insectile/tech effect -

Coming together very nicely Gits.

Hi Gits, looking nearly done there! I believe you've chosen the right path with your colours for this guy so far! I was thinking about what MajorTom was saying about a stencil and I think he may be onto something! my friend who I got my brush off does a lot of stuff with fine stencils to achieve carbon fibre look, honeycomb,etc... maybe you could experiment with some small stencil work for the detail, holding it at different distances away to get the desired effect? only thing is picking the material to use? hmmmm my mind is ticking away for you....


Nerdfest09

Gitsplitta wrote:Tonight's progress:

- finished white on helmet
- started shoulder pad
- gold edging on wings (to be consistent with color of supports on back of wings)
- basic work on base & mounted figure
- added the rest of the handles for swords

As the Lucky S.o.B. who gets this miniature, let me just say: BITCHIN!

This is coming out nice. The gold border trim helps offset the blue starkness well enough.

Looks good, but im seeing a lot of speckling on this mini?? Is it just me?

I like maor tom's idea.

I think I saw something like it before, way back in the time of yore (WD early 200's I think). They basically used the plastic mesh bags that fruit comes in (you can get it in different sized mesh, just take a look when grocery shopping) and used it to wrap up a falcon which was undercoated balck. They sprayed it grey to get a hexagon insecto-reptilian look and then painted in the hexes..

Maybe that idea wouldnt work here because he needs to do the opposite of what I saw, but something maybe to consider for the future. doing wings and stuff.... instant veining.