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Ok, then let's continue with more worthy topics: Would anyone really prefer to take the silver base of the hexbuilder as the first color? I think it would be very annoying to create the right amount of rust on it.

I would say the biggest problem with leaving it the original colour would be getting the washes to actually stick to it. I also think it should be darker, currently its a little bit on the light side. I would undercoat it black, then get your air brush on the next colour up and so on.

I also think its important to have a variety of colours across the buildings. If they are one shade it will become boring and repetitive to paint but also to look at. Then of course if you go the other way a rainbow table would look terrible. Some middle ground

Well you got my two pennies worth.

Peter

I agree with PDH about the different colors. You could theme the sections of the terrain with different details and color code the sections. A three inch colom of one color running the height of the main tower for the maintenance/plumbing/elevator/stairs, ten inches of another color for some merchant areas...

I guess a more succinct way to put it is to color code the civic zoning regions of the terrain.

I think that silver color could work as a base, but it depends how well it takes the paint. Also, not everywhere (as per the color coding thing above ;p)

ALSO: THAT IS EPIC!

I can't believe I haven't had a chance to comment on how cool that is. With as much detail as you put into all of your minis it seems like that much terrain might take a year (and be well worth it)!

I would think undercoating it all, then going to town in the standard industrial drab colours, with lots of rust, hazard stripes and metal accents would be awesome.

My mind is pretty much set on how to paint it, I just wanted to hear whether you see the silver base color as an advantage or not.

I'll tackle it like this:
Scorched Brown primer from armypainter
various orange sponge patterns all over the place
hairspray and salt
different main color per building (It'll be colorful in this step, because it won't be much left of it after weathering)
general highlight of main color
washing of the salt
shading with various inks
rust pigments
slight metal shine for the edges
the most time-consuming step I'll have to skip: highlighting every rivet, scratch and rusty patch.

I know you have an eye for detail mate, but highlighting every rivet would be insane! It shouldnt matter in the end, as the figures will be the centrepiece, and the scenery shouldnt be too eye catching imo, just well-painted.

Salt weathering seems a good way to go, relatively quick and looks great when done.

I need someone with a bull whip to get me back to the painting table. That stupid delaque juve is no fun to paint...

wwwwwwhhhhhhssssssskhhhhhh crack

dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun (indiana jones themetune)

get back to work

Thanks for the whip Prototype.

Yesterdays painting session was depressing: I ruined the imo great effect I had achieved on the juves coat, by adding stronger highlights, which looked chalky and somehow had the wrong tone, which is strange. I tried to rescue it somehow, but it doesn't look as good anymore and I'll just leave it like this. It's just a stupid juve and there are so many more waiting for a paintjob.

Scarper mentioned my Delaque leader in his thread and I thought I could tell you about the status of this one. The model has been in the making for more than a year now and got changed over and over again.
Phase 1:
I decided to use what I have and took the normal gang leader, the on with the bolter and stubgun.
First I removed both weapons, then I decided that it would be hard to work with this specific arm position and removed the arms as well.
Since his weaponry was supposed to consist of a plasma pistol, a hand flamer and a chain sword I had to look for said weapons.
I took a IG chainsword and sculpted a snake around the hand guard.
I took several plasma weapons and other bits and build an extra long and ornate pattern of a plasma pistol, that almost has the size of a plasma gun and mounted it on a bare catachan arm.
After removing all ammo belts from the model, I sculpted a holster for the gun with a snake on it from Lacerus's belt to under his coat.
Built a custom flame pistol that was slim enough to be attached to a belt without being in the way.
Next I gave him a second catachan arm that l made look like he's reaching to his back for his sword.
Then I gave him a neckerchief and a cadian respirator on top of it.
The only thing left to do was sculpting the remnants of his cut-off sleeves.

Phase 2:
At least until my strategy for him, and thus his loadout changed.
I bought him a grenade launcher (house rules, weapon reload and BS 5 made it too good to be ignored) and took his plasma pistol away from him.
I started building a steampunkish grenade launcher inspired by the looks of the M79 and had it hanging from his left shoulder, chamber open while he is reloading it with his left arm.
The launcher turned out great but looked more like a shotgun for an inquisitor.
That's where I am now, have to come up with a new launcher and an idea for his right arm and this time I'll magnetize everything, I'm not going to break him to bitz again.

Just found on Ebay:

P.S. mine is better

Baiyuan wrote:P.S. mine is better

True dat.
Looking forward to the Delaque boss.

My heart sank when I read about the painting problem. That is the main reason I don't like going for that last extra layer of highlights myself. At least its only a juve and kinda a test model.

My heart sank a little more when I read the bit about catachan arms. (fingers and toes crossed) I hope they are from either the command or heavy weapon squads. The load out sounds interesting especially the ornate plasma pistol and shotgun g. launcher. The bit I want to see the most is the flame pistol.

As always I look forward to seeing it.

Peter

I'll try to make some photos of his former gear today. Yes the catachan arms are command/heavy.
And thank you for the empathy for my painting misery, I'll try to get over it soon.

I look forward to seeing your paint scheme on the Hive , i am undecided on the silver or balck undercoat discussion , and eagerly wait to see , which works for you, mybe try a tester to see which is best. qoute "mine is better" also true dat +1

sorry about you paint probs matey, but thanks for pointing out the catachan arms , i have been using the heavy weapon sets , and hoped the command were as good qaulity .

command sprues are even way better imo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hhhm, I forgot to take pictures of Lacerus' gear today, I'll try to keep it in mind tomorrow. Not much time for the hobby anyway today, my sister's flat and daily routine again.
I did get to prepare a little something for my pimp my wizard entry, but not as much as I hoped for. I hope my HH: Collected Visions arrives soon, need some references.

Baiyuan wrote:Yesterdays painting session was depressing: I ruined the imo great effect I had achieved on the juves coat, by adding stronger highlights, which looked chalky and somehow had the wrong tone, which is strange. I tried to rescue it somehow, but it doesn't look as good anymore and I'll just leave it like this. It's just a stupid juve and there are so many more waiting for a paintjob.

Why do I get the feeling that a Baiyuan "ruined" paint job is still going to be beter than anything i can do? are you giong to share him with us or is it really that bad?

Having just read up to date on this - o.o Thank you. I needed more temptation to strip and overhaul my Cawdor for Inquisimunda as a Chaos Coven. Really. I did.

Loving the lot. I shall happily keep an eye on this.

Lol at the E-bay "comparison"... yea... gotta say, the modeller did a simple swap, but that's it. Yours has a lot more going on and has to be one of the two models vying for "my favorite" at this point (other being Nanus). Which pains me to hear that it got messed up... I had a moment with my =I= men models... and Vallejo water effect.

I'm only happy you're picking yourself up a bit faster than I did.

Show him to us, I'm sure we'll still be wowed by the model itself.

...and now very intrigued by the leader, seeing as how I don't even know what base model you're starting with...

-Remi (HF Iz)

The last few days were a bit busy, I hope I'll get to converting on the weekend. I'll also try to take some pictures.

The only news I have today, is that I ordered some stuff from Heresy Miniatures and sent them a link to this thread in case they'd like to take a look at how I treated their gangers.
Today I received a reply from Andy Foster aka Big Boris, the owner and sculptor of the company and I'm flattered by what he wrote:

Andy Foster wrote:Love the conversions! Very well done indeed - neatness on that sort of thing is the worst bit and you've made it look easy! May have to steal some of your ideas for future gangers!

Steal away Andy, I'd be honored!

High praise indeed. There cant be much better stroking of the ego when the creator of a mini likes what your conversion enough to use it as inspiration for further models

That is amazing- From the owner/sculptor himself!! LOL, that's almost unreal!

Congrats, Baiyuan!! Huzzah!!

-Remi (HF Iz)

Congrats Baiyuan , Credit where credit is due mate. , btw i have made a big gun today that was very much inspired by your heavy. I didnt intend it to be , but averytime i looked at it , i couldnt help thinking what would Baiyuan do in this situation so many thanks for more cool inspiring minis matey.

Baiyuan wrote:
Yesterdays painting session was depressing: I ruined the imo great effect I had achieved on the juves coat, by adding stronger highlights, which looked chalky and somehow had the wrong tone, which is strange. I tried to rescue it somehow, but it doesn't look as good anymore and I'll just leave it like this. It's just a stupid juve and there are so many more waiting for a paintjob.

What were you using as a highlight color? Were you mixing in white? White mixed with any hue to "lighten" it will almost always cause the paint to look chalky or dusty. You have to use the next hue in the color wheel as a highlighting medium to avoid it.

PDH wrote:I would say the biggest problem with leaving it the original colour would be getting the washes to actually stick to it. I also think it should be darker, currently its a little bit on the light side. I would undercoat it black, then get your air brush on the next colour up and so on.

You could always use a clear primer. Couple gloss coats, some oil paints and a liberal application of thinner, seal it with matte varnish and it'd look pretty good.

Awesome suggestions Ancient, I thought of both points before, but I really appreciate the effort.
I actually almost never mix in white for highlights, I'm using Ivory, but of course the problem can be the same as I experienced/you explained. The danger of becoming chalky/dusty is tripled when working on a very dark color, which is what I did. I didn't think of the workaround while painting, but you are right, I'll try mixing in a different color on the next ganger's coat.

About the terrain, you're right again, one could do that and I considered it when I bought the stuff back then, but I'm definitely going for a less metally look.

In other news, my stuff from Heresy Miniatures arrived today and I have to say, I love the company: High quality, good price, nice contact and most importantly cool stuff!
I bought two more trenchcoat gangers, loads of weapons, the scifi troopers, a sorcerer and two hellhounds and even got some extra heads for them for free! Expect to see a lot of the stuff around soon, especially the new pistols and gangers, they kick ASS!

Had an hour to spend in the workshop today, so I finally got to take the pictures of the old version of my gang leader and also spent some time considering a new approach to my contest wizard.

Here comes Lacerus, princeps of the Serpentes Obscvri, with his initial loadout. Except for his arms and the plasma weapon attached, it's the base to which I'll add more stuff when I continue the conversion.

I also added a pic of his hand flamer, which was originally hanging from his belt on the right side. It's very simple, but I needed a less bulky and eyecatching version in order not to let him look to loaded.

Caution, gakky pics taken with my mobile.

If anyone has any ideas what I could do to him, I'm open for suggestions, my mind is not set yet.

Urgh... of course you would have to be a killer with gs too...

In other news, I don't see how you would need it to be less bulky than even that! As it is, that's pretty tiny compared to... anything in the 40k line. By the way, the plasma pistol looks really cool, I must say, even if you aren't gonna be using it on him.

I have spoken. Kaesar II

Uh am i the only one who thinks the mask + gogles combo make him look like he's from killzone?

Maybe it's the dodgey pics, but I'm having a bit of a tough time figuring out what's going on with the gs on his pants (I had to pick my words carefully there based on the specific location of the gs and the snake sculpted out of it). What is that snake exactly?

Also, is he drawing a back holstered chainsword? Can we see a rear pic maybe?

Always a pleasure!

Rawson

Fantastic as always..

@Rawson: That is a holster for his plasma pistol.

Thank you all guys, keep in mind though, he's not going to stay like that. I just reassembled him and took pictures because somebody was curious how he looked before I started over. Now I need to find proper arms that I can magnetize, build a new nade launcha (I'll be using the old one on my wizard.) and decide what other weaponry he's going to get.

About me being a killer with GS, you're to kind, but I'm afraid it's just a beneficial example, some parts turned out surprisingly good. I'm still having big problems with sculpting. Back in my 40k days I only sculpted to fill gaps in my conversions, I rarely did anything else with putty and it was always an enigma to me. Nowadays I'm just more daring, I still have no clue how to do it, I just keep trying until I'm satisfied. Remember all my complaining when I sculpted the mask on Nanus, that's how good I am. It's just persistence/perseverance. I think with a lot more experience I could become a decent sculptor one day. Let's talk again when I've smothered that whole supreme sorceress in GS for the contest, that will either drive me crazy, or make me better, or both.

Correct, the thing with the snake sculpted on it is the holster for his plasma pistol/gun which disappears under his coat. The idea was that he just drew the pistol for the first shot.

I like both the pistol and the holster very much myself. It's a pity he'll be carrying a nade launcher instead, so the holster will have to go too.

Yes, he is reaching back to grab his back-holstered chain sword, but I didn't complete the holster yet.

Killzone? Helghast or something else? I never played any of the games, I don't know much about it.