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Backstory time.

I messed up on Alarielle's face real bad, kept overpainting it looking for "perfection". So in frustration I gave up on that paintjob and first attempted to chip the paint away with a needle. I actually did, but because there's no primer, as the rest of the model was already painted, the paint wouldn't attach to the plastic. I remember back in the day they used to, but I believe the formula's changed. When it finally did attach, the texture of the finish was a mess and I knew fine detail would be impossible. So I thought I'll need to prime a new head. I just happened to have one spare.

So I tried to rip the head off. Now anyone who's build Alarielle knows how difficult that is, as the chest overlays on part of the head piece, meaning that part wouldn't come off.

And I couldn't find my GW clippers, so I used a crappy cheap one. I did expect a disaster and got one.

First the top part of the head piece came off, which isn't actually glued, it's part of the plastic. Thats how hard I twisted it, the plastic itself snapped. Now there was no going back. Then I tried to take off the head with my hands, no dice. So I clipped it off, it went flying. Left in its place was a jagged mess of plastic. I then clipped a crater around it.

I tried to put the new head piece while it was still on the sprue just to see how it'd fit. But said head has no neck and it didn't fit at all. So I had to clip off most the robes of the head piece. I then primed it corax white. And the new helmet mournfang brown.

Then I stuck it to the old hair piece, which was largely undamaged.

I painted a new face to look like some celebrity, and greenstuffed the rest of the robes. Didn't look like the official model, but a decent conversion. Then I made a critical error. I put too much superglue on the hat to stick it on, so dried glue slipped out onto the forehead, drying onto the eye (or so it appeared) which I had to quickly try to remove in a panic.

I came out of it well in the end, but I'm so glad thats over. That was beyond stressful.





The Everqueen goes nowhere without her Kurnoth Hunters.



These were much easier.

I don't know if you choosed this particular celebrity as a joke, but I find it hilarious.

Great job on saving your model, the end result is gorgeous !

Yeah, that looks decent when you consider the horror story you seem to have gone through.. reading that raised my blood pressure slightly.

What I will say is that you may want to consider your processes.. it seems very haphazard and rushed, which is at odds with the great painting standard!

This is something I'm guilty of myself sometimes.. occasionally I wont plan something well, or if i make a mistake, I'll rush to fix it which can end up making it worse.

Sometimes Its best to down tools, have a good look at the problem. and try to work out a plan.

for example, when you messed up the face, stop and think, could I strip this? maybe mask off the rest of the model and try stripping with an appropriate agent and an old toothbrush?

if the answer to that is no, and the only option is replacement, then I'd suggest investing in some more precise tools than clippers. I always keep medical scalpels handy nearby, aswell as a decent stanley blade. once youve removed the offending piece, do your test fit, adjust, then do your sculpting. personally I'd do this before any painting of the pieces.

I hope I don't sound patronising, as I said I often fall victim to quickly trying to fix mistakes, but I always try to remember, I have all the time in the world.. (mostly) and sometimes a little planning will go a long way.

anyway, you've worked it out and sorted the issue, just some things to consider in the future.

That looks phenomenal. Where did the alt head come from? How much of the 'celebrity' look is the painting and how much the head?

Really, really excellent work.

 Cruentus wrote:
That looks phenomenal. Where did the alt head come from? How much of the 'celebrity' look is the painting and how much the head?

Really, really excellent work.

Thanks. Though all of it is in the painting. Its the same head out of the Alarielle box. I always found it interesting that the same sculpt can look so radically changed just by paint..

for example, when you messed up the face, stop and think, could I strip this?

I did strip it, it's just that gw paints don't attach to the plastic anymore without a primer. I stripped Lelith Hesperax's face many times and started over till I got it right, but that was back in 2013. Now when I tried to reapply the paint with a brush, the amount it took to get it to attach meant fine detail would be impossible. It'd inevitably look worse than the paint job I started out with.

Oh that method was hella haphazard and an example of frustration getting the better of me after wasting a whole week on the first head. No one should do what I did no matter how they are at painting.

But in a way that makes the model more sentimental to me, that it has a story and such a struggle behind it.