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Good job on the camo', looking cool.

and that venting is laughable.

It would take a very different camo to blend in with your wall paper. One I wouldn't wish on anyone.

The finecast that was designed as finecast is...fine. It's the stuff like this that was metal and they just made molds of that is terrible.

That is a piss poor sprue I think my favorite part is that they thin the sprue to put the little letters in right above the damned vents, limiting the flow of air and resin right where you don't want it to happen! Air bubbles are super fussy about any sort of constriction in a vent, and yet they constricted the entire top of it.

I kind of want to get a big piece of silicon from the basement and beat the hell out of their mold makers like in that scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Only the silicon is a properly vented mold, not a 2' dong. Probably.

Hey, wm- thems fightin' words about my walls (though, no... its totally hideous...)


@Wehr: Riiiiiight. "Probably"
Yeeeeeeah, I'd support some beatings for this travesty.

I mean, I know that they're converting over some from metal. I get that. I know that the two materials cast and mold differently... Its just... wow... You'd think for as much as they charge for this stuff that they could show even the SLIGHTEST amount of common sense. It had to have been more effort to do things this way than to have just figured out the molds properly!

[/rage]

Frigging finecrap...

[seriously /rage]


Anywhooo, bit of a question for you guys. What do we think on adding the little "ermine spots" on the camo pattern? Should I give a test on some of the black armor (as thats easiest to fix in case it doesnt look good)?

I found dorito's 40K great grandpa, back before they had legs

I find that picture very disturbing to look at for any length of time...

"We can't bloody well hide the ship in the ocean, but by George we will make Jerry pay for aiming at us!"

Ahhhh Dazzle camo, how I love it!

You know I was thinking of that all through painting the camo, haha! Its no "Turpitz" like what Gits has on his Grot MegaTank, but its crazy enough to look at it

Yeah it's not going to hide anything, but it will make hitting the sweet spot harder.

If I have a vote, I'd leave it as is. Once you do the metals and other details, it would be to busy.

I think you've done an outstanding job on the dread Ramos.

 Ramos Asura wrote:
Should I give a test on some of the black armor (as thats easiest to fix in case it doesnt look good)?

I'd try a little test on the black and see - like you say, easy to fix black, right?

Looks amazing so far!!

Im leaning a little bit towards omitting the gray spots, but its something I have to try just to be sure...

I think I have an idea how to apply them, and it will require a little bit of manufacturing- Specifically, I am going to try to make a little rubber stamp of the shape, as its consistent all through the example pic. Same size, same shape, roughly equally spaced.... Heres to experiments!



Had some more blacking out to do on the Dorito parts, and I put the blues on the Ironclad. Seeing as I had a new method of painting white, I figured I would go back and rework my turquoise as well!

I think I ended up with a winner, as it came out a super saturated, very striking gradient. This is a basecoat of Sotek Green (old GW Hawk Turquoise), then on a whim I started to mix in P3 Arcane Blue. This ended up being the final airbrushed highlight, and I think it complements the base color perfectly!

Love it when an experiment surprises you like this.

That's very pretty. The colour is intense without being lurid.

Very nice. I'v found Sotek green to be really versatile, that shade when mixed with the P3 blue is really nice.

EDC

I love the Camo pattern. What a daring project and out of the box and walking away thinking.

Sotek green is what I use for my AL base.

 Ramos Asura wrote:

Marginally related note:
Years and years down the line, and GW continues to impress with their ineptitude of casting/mold making.



This has to be the least elegant method of venting ive ever seen from any manufacturer... Gates frigging EVERYWHERE. Also, it seems that any place that could potentially have a bubble got these annoying little bits of sprue on them. Whats that? You dont want to spend hours and hours carefully carving out points and edges of the model? Pfft.. screw you we have your money already.

And I know Ill inevitably miss a few- Seriously... I never had this issue with pewter minis. Those were simple as hell to clean, little more than those little hair-like bits of sprue.

My kingdom for metals to come back :/

This is why we call it Failcast, Finecrap, or other derogatory names. I've had some Finecast models turn out ok, but others had some serious issues. I don't especially care for metal minis either. The detail is great and cleanup before painting is a breeze in comparison to Finecast, but it is hard to get the pieces to stay together while the glue dries. I'd be all for a program for GW to replace all the Finecast minis with plastic versions, even if it means no new stuff for a while.

I love the dazzle camo on the Dorito! Makes me think of some photos I've seen of WW1/WW2 ships that had similar camo.

The sad thing is, if they had broken that arm in two pieces at one of the joints it would have been much, much easier to get it to cast nicely without a ton of vents. That should have been job one, as Finecast is really easy to glue together so having things be all one part isn't as valuable as not having a million vents to remove and clean, and a ton of bubbles to fill.

I am filled with semi-professional rage

Im filled with "professional" rage.

I have a PhD, you know.

In rage.


Yeah, I did not have fun at all cleaning these blasted things. Took several HOURS to get everything cleaned out and looking nice, and even through all of that, there are tons of bubbles on the surfaces, so itll be a few hours more to fill in and reclean all of those.

Im seriously considering writing them a strongly- worded email to complain... I've worked with countless other companies, both large scale and single-man ops, and this is some of the most laughably poor casting I've ever seen. EVER. Like Wehr points out, the arm would be EASY to fix. Split them into two parts and it wont take too much more space on the sprue than the extant one.

It would be fantastic to have everything in plastic, I agree with you there, Zerg, but I dont think thats economical at all. A lot of the finecast stuff tends to be unique characters or models you use in limited numbers. Meaning less demand.
I dread the price jump for the "convenience" of plastic, especially for individual minis... Just look at the Assassin models- Assassinorium was like 125 or something for all of the game content, 4 assassins, and a bunch of chaos stuff.
Cut to when they released the assassins individually and the things are 30 bucks EACH. Complete nonsense. A pity, too, as they're pretty cool models. Just not worth a QUARTER OF THE BOX GAME EACH.

I just dont get it... man...


*deep breath*



Anyways. I do have a bit of a brighter spot of news with resin, though this time with FW. Remember how my Dorito had missing feet (variant sculpts), and the Autocannons were crap? Well FW got themselves on my "Nice" list. Full replacements of not only the Autocannons, but also the -entire- Dorito! The feet still seem to be AWOL, but looking at the instruction manual for it, it no longer lists the standing and walking legs. Its only the braced ones now. Pity, but I guess they took them out of the kit.





I continued painting the Ironclad, and put gray highlights onto the Dorito. I then experimented with the drops on the camo pattern. Heres where the journey took me:

In order to get drops of the same size and shape, I decided to make my own stamp. This involved one of my dad's very old rubber stamps (used for landscape drafting) and some patience with a knife.



I cut a piece of foam out of the stamp, then glued a piece of rubber I cut to the proper size and shape. The foam is important in order to ensure even pressure is applied when you stamp it. I then glued this to a piece of aluminum tubing to serve as a handle.



Dip in some paint and here we go!


Not a fan of it honestly (I tried 2 different colors), so I think Ill be omitting it on the final mini. Maybe a thinner shape? ah. I think Ill leave it off. It looks busy enough as is.




Last section of this update: Finecrap cleaned and assembled. Servoharness is magnetized so that one day I can make him a Conversion Beamer.

Looking nice! I agree that the tear drops don't seem to add much, as it is a busy scheme to begin with. After weathering and the like it should have more than enough visual interest. Clever idea with the stamp though, I will have to try that!

A spare Doritos dread body you say... If one were interested in selling it for a good price, I know a fella that would be interested in it. Wouldn't even have to send it to you to paint.

I stick by my original statement of better without the drops. Too busy when it's all said and done.

I think the drops on the camo might look better if they were a lot more subtle. In the original artwork, they are barely perceptible slashes of grey.

Maybe a very thin grey dash? I think it adds a little depth to the scheme, but the drops are just a little too big IMHO.

I like the spots, I feel like a bit of grey rather than just black and white is really nice! I also like it without them, but that is really cool, imo.

I seem to be in the minority, so feel free to disregard

Maybe a really dark grey would work a bit better? Slightly perceptible consciously, but something your brain will pick up on and tell you "Yo, this gak has depth!"

Ill put the other colors on this guy then see where we are. My problem with spots is that I think it would break up the lines of the "Dazzle" scheme. Especially if its a dark dark gray. Remember, the spots would be over white AND black, some crossing over colors. We'd end up losing the sharp angles on a lot of the black areas.

@WM: Ill have to let you know on that one- Im tempted to keep it around, as I really like the mini... But I play so rarely that it doesnt make much sense to hang on to it for myself xD
Will letcha know

Maybe dark spots on the black and light spots on the white.

That would look wicked if I could get it to look like the lines of the primary dazzle scheme are a point of inversion for the secondary camo scheme.

Like this:


Though, I think that goes a little too far from the source... not to mention hideously complex!

Not liking the drops to be honest.

I think the drops would benefit from being narrower, very impressed on how well the home-made stamp works however. It's your call Ramos. The design certainly doesn't NEED the stamps... but it would be the most accurate representation of the original artwork. i.e. it's the coolest

You could do little horse shoes since they are an Ultramarine decendant instead of blood drops . I think the Razzle Dazzle scheme would be fine on it's own, maybe leave one pad the white and blue.

Just cuz it's old doesn't make it cool Gits.