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Would love to see some color pictures of your WIP, too. I don't know why, but true color makes it easier for my brain to comprehend. It looks good so far in any case.

That's easily enough done:


Bathe in the glorious full colour photos... and wonder why some of it is a funny shade of green...

Progress...

...still with a funny shade of green...

...and other colours...

Having gravel-ed the inside of the walled area and then added some more gravel along the base of the wall, I also added gravel along the base of the wall outside of the enclosure. This shows that the wall was installed properly/carefully/purposely.

I then added the mud/rock mixture to the ground outside of the walls. This includes a large rock (a piece of concrete actually, to contrast with the "concrete" walls), a small path (that doesn't actually show, but will hopefully be more obvious once painted), and the start of the plant-life.

You may recognise the plant as one of the experimental pieces I made for the Mantis Warrior a while ago.

I also built up the edge of the crater a little more (this might continue on some more...)


While I had my box of "basing plant-life type materials" out, and particularly looking at these large leftover leaves, I had a moment for how I might base the jet bike, and it now looks like this:


There will be a lot more stuff and plants and leaves added to the base. This just shows the construction.

Very clever use of those leaves...\

Thanks Gits'. Just goes to show that if you wait for inspiration, it will come.

And I've added more to that base and it now looks like this:

I thought about adding more to the base; something for the bike to be turning away from, etc... but I don't want the base to over-shadow the bike, and so, this is it... done... ready for paint.

The UFO crash has also progressed.
I've started adding some of the scattered rubble and thinking about how the whole will come together.

There's some more still to do.

You can see though, the various pieces of the wall scattered about. Mostly along the length of the intact wall as that will have captured those flying pieces whereas the pieces scattered to the other side have been flung beyond the edge of the base.

Also present are 3 boxes. One has been turned over by part of the broken wall falling on it and has spilled it's contents. The one next to it has been knocked slightly and is now askew to the wall (the top is also slightly skewed). And the last box has been completely obliterated and the remaining pieces are laying about (still need to add the scattered packing material for that box).

Outside the wall you can see the plants are growing... except for the one that was a little too tall for it's own good and has been damaged by the UFO (there will be a few scattered leaves added inside the compound from this plant).

There's more plant-life to happen outside the wall, as well as the other things I've mentioned above. Also, the standing walls need their damage added and anything else I think of in the time being...

So, there you go. Until next time.

LLAP

Well what can I say but AWESOME !!!!!!

Just love the bike! Excellent work!

The bike, on the base, is I would say your best work to date. Outstanding chief.

LDD: Thank you for your enthusiasm.

Thanks Gits'.

and Thanks Graven. I aim to improve with each model I do.

On that note, I've added more plant-life to the UFO crash; long grass, not so long grass, short grass, very short grass (hopefully. That's the sawdust that I've spread about. Will have to see how it turns out), some battle damage and damage from the crash, and some vines (wires, foam and individually placed leaves No really, each leaf was selected and glued, one by one).


I had to stop myself short on the tufts of grass, as I realised that it was getting a bit too crowded to fit any models on for (far) future gaming. But if the terrain doesn't get in the way a little, it's clearly not doing it's job. That was when I added the sawdust as short short grass. I expect this to require some more work once I've started painting.

There's a few thin tendrils I still need to add for the vines.

I think I'm getting close on this one...

Looks incredible, Dr H!

"Good enough is better than best."
"Perfection is the enemy of finished."

In other words, the best skill is knowing when to say "this is done."

--B

Even without the craft added this looks great all the little details you crammed into it has really brought it to life, great vision and execution Doc I am more impressed with each update

I have used sawdust on several occasion (used to work in the wood industry ) and found several uses for the abundance of this stuff , if you get the fine stuff it makes a great sand substitute and works great for beach scenes , I also found the fibres stuff made a great stand in for straw piles amazing what you can do with waste.

"But if the terrain doesn't get in the way a little, it's clearly not doing it's job."

You have never played Warmachine I take it? Apparently, those players hate it when "terrain gets in the way." Sad.

That's soft foam (like in cushions) on the trees? The Birch pods work well.

But you forgot one thing... Lights Or have you? It looks very good indeed. The probe is impressive.

Excellent work on the base for the bike, very suitable.

Love the crash site - the detailing has really brought it all together very nicely indeed. Big fan of the flora that you've added, this is going to be a spectacular piece

And just on the subject of pressing sandpaper into plasticard - I think Red hit it on his blog with the idea of a mangle press

Thanks Warboss.

Thanks LDD.
This sawdust came from whatever wood it is that I used for the base (and had to shorten, hence, sawdust) and is quite fibrous, so should work for grass... we shall see.

Red Harvest wrote:"But if the terrain doesn't get in the way a little, it's clearly not doing it's job."

You have never played Warmachine I take it? Apparently, those players hate it when "terrain gets in the way." Sad.

Nope. I've not even played warhammer and/or 40k yet... What I do is more for looks than for playability in both my models/army and my terrain.

That's soft foam (like in cushions) on the trees? The Birch pods work well.

But you forgot one thing... Lights Or have you? It looks very good indeed. The probe is impressive.

The foam is soft, yes. I believe this came from a jewellery box of some kind. I usually use it for small clumps of nondescript plant-life.

The leaves took quite some time to do, not least due to placing them with tweezers but also as I had to take breaks from the fumes.

Lights... I hadn't considered adding lights... hmm... I don't know if I want to add lights. Does it need lights? I would have to scratch-build them as I don't think I have anything suitable...
Ha, maybe if I win, OMN can throw in one or two of his lights and I'll add them later.

monkeytroll wrote:Excellent work on the base for the bike, very suitable.

Thanks MT. Glad you think so.

Love the crash site - the detailing has really brought it all together very nicely indeed. Big fan of the flora that you've added, this is going to be a spectacular piece

Thanks again. There'll be more details (in the shape of posters/signs etc. in addition to the graffiti) after paint.

And just on the subject of pressing sandpaper into plasticard - I think Red hit it on his blog with the idea of a mangle press

It's a thought, but would that produce curved plasticard if your not careful? What you really need is that press at the end of Terminator...

and...

Briancj wrote:"Good enough is better than best."
"Perfection is the enemy of finished."

In other words, the best skill is knowing when to say "this is done."

--B

Very good point, Brian.

and on that note, I think (lights aside), I am done... with the build.

There is something I will try with the inside of the crater once I'm ready to attach the UFO, but I can't think of anything else I need to add (except those lights that Red has mentioned). There's a pretty good spread of detail and any large blank spaces are going to get details in the painting stage.


So, thoughts?
Does it need lights, can you see anything else that needs adding?

Well, it doesn't NEED lights - but you know your audience, we do love us some fancy shenanigans when it comes to models

The overgrowth makes the display.

Neat! I often feel like I don't have much in the way of input except to keep saying, "This all looks great and it is really inspiring." It feels weird to keep repeating myself update after update, but great job anyway, Dr H.

monkeytroll wrote:Well, it doesn't NEED lights - but you know your audience, we do love us some fancy shenanigans when it comes to models

Well, they would be broken/disused lights, if I do add them. I'm going for a reasonably maintained but abandoned (but not for a long time) look to the piece. Hence, the plants haven't fully taken over (see the vines on the inside have been cut away mostly), but no-one has noticed the crashed UFO yet.

Stormwall wrote:The overgrowth makes the display.

Thanks. Glad you like it.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Neat! I often feel like I don't have much in the way of input except to keep saying, "This all looks great and it is really inspiring." It feels weird to keep repeating myself update after update, but great job anyway, Dr H.

I know what you mean. I often don't comment unless I have more to say than "good job". But it's nice to hear that you are still on track. Thanks.

Lights, not a necessity, and if you did not plan for them, please do not try and retro-fit them.

The vegetation climbing the fence are a good touch. The soft foam, never thought to use it.

Re:comments. On other forums, there is a 'like' function or karma function which is a way to say 'Nice work. Me gusta.' without posting a comment. Here, no such thing, so I think simply saying 'Nice work' 'Keep up the good work' once in while when you have no substantive commentary is a good substitute. After all, how do we know that anybody is really looking if all they do is lurk? Cheerleading, for lack of a better term, is a good-thing in moderation.

Plus it allows us to avoid the dreaded automatically appended next post function if someone posts a simple comment.

The only thing I wondered about adding would be either an alien corpse or partial corpse ? but it looks great without it to be honest.

Coming together very nicely. Loving all the extra details you add to your models.

And the flying base is ace

Really impressive work that you've done Dr. H. Just a fantastic diorama. Give yourself a good pat-on-the-back for the work so far.

Red Harvest wrote:Lights, not a necessity, and if you did not plan for them, please do not try and retro-fit them.

The vegetation climbing the fence are a good touch. The soft foam, never thought to use it.

K. When I expand it to fit my future planned modular table (far future) I'll add some lighting of some kind.

Well I wanted the leafy areas to have some bulk and didn't fancy building that up with just leaves (while that would look more realistic), and then I remembered that I use this foam for small clumps of plant-life and that it should work fine as the inside of bushy leafy-ness.

Re:comments. On other forums, there is a 'like' function or karma function which is a way to say 'Nice work. Me gusta.' without posting a comment. Here, no such thing, so I think simply saying 'Nice work' 'Keep up the good work' once in while when you have no substantive commentary is a good substitute. After all, how do we know that anybody is really looking if all they do is lurk? Cheerleading, for lack of a better term, is a good-thing in moderation.

Plus it allows us to avoid the dreaded automatically appended next post function if someone posts a simple comment.

Ja, there is that. I find that I have to build up the motivation to type stuff (as this typing stuff is hard work when your brain doesn't function properly), and then I will blast though all (most... some...) of my followed thread in one go, such as I will once I've finished here. Unless there is something very specific I have to say immediately, I'll lurk for a bit and then comment later.

lone dirty dog wrote:The only thing I wondered about adding would be either an alien corpse or partial corpse ? but it looks great without it to be honest.

Thanks. I did think about adding an alien. But I would have to invent one (and a short one of that if you think about how it would fit inside this UFO) and then sculpt it from scratch. And now there's not really any room left for it (I have also left off the broken off part of the UFO due to space constraints).

Ruglud wrote:Coming together very nicely. Loving all the extra details you add to your models.

And the flying base is ace

Thanks. Those little details are what I enjoy most.

Gitsplitta wrote:Really impressive work that you've done Dr. H. Just a fantastic diorama. Give yourself a good pat-on-the-back for the work so far.

Thanks Gits'.

With that, paint has started...

First, the UFO. I want this painted before I add it to the base (mainly so I can do this photo thing and see if I can excite the believers and I can't do that if it's attached to the crater).
This is with some shading and dry-brushing to bring out the details:

This will be pushed further (I've already done one white dry-brush since this photo) and then the whole thing will get some brown washes
vis;
Then some weathing, final highlights, etc...

I've also started throwing paint at the jet bike.
This is just base coats, just to try out the positionings and what order to paint the colours in with their shading/highlighting.

The underside is all black (and will get some metals) as when racing, you only paint the sponsor colours on the parts that people will see.
The rest is all following the Feisar scheme:

Which varies in colour tones from picture to picture, game to game, so just going with 2 shades of blue, white and yellow.
Still playing with this scheme at the moment, but getting there.

Time to do the rounds, expect comments in blogs...

Looking great so far.

So, gray and dirty UFO and the "Blue Streak" jet bike!

I may go slightly blue with the UFO, now I've thought more about it.

I want it to contrast with the base and therefore look "alien" to it's surroundings. If it's various shades of brown, it won't stand out much from the brown mud of the crater...

But if I add the blue tones that Giger's work is often displayed with, still with brown to black shading, that could work.
e.g. (although most of the better examples I could find are not suitable for a family-friendly website)


See how it's black to brown in the darker areas and then fades up to blues and white at the highlights. We shall see how easy this is to pull off... may give it an all-over blue wash to give it the blue tint and then use directed brown and then black washes into the recesses and hopefully work some kind of blend between the two somewhere in the middle...

Amazing. The folage and details are insane. I'm going to have to try some of these techniques. Inspiring

 Dr H wrote:
I may go slightly blue with the UFO, now I've thought more about it.

I want it to contrast with the base and therefore look "alien" to it's surroundings. If it's various shades of brown, it won't stand out much from the brown mud of the crater...

But if I add the blue tones that Giger's work is often displayed with, still with brown to black shading, that could work.
e.g. (although most of the better examples I could find are not suitable for a family-friendly website)


See how it's black to brown in the darker areas and then fades up to blues and white at the highlights. We shall see how easy this is to pull off... may give it an all-over blue wash to give it the blue tint and then use directed brown and then black washes into the recesses and hopefully work some kind of blend between the two somewhere in the middle...

There's virtually no such thing as a family-friendly HR Geiger painting. Maybe if you mixed a 1:5 black to blue ink wash or similarly diluted you could get a darker bluish color? Also, Geiger always struck me as favoring sepia to all other colors of the rainbow. Just my opinion, though. Still looks great, you ask me.

What a contrast of colours and amazing how the paint job has totally transformed the jet bike totally getting the vibe now

As for the UFO maybe using a slight purple wash might help with the highlight to blue, the transgression from brown to blue might be quite harsh as the purple might work as an intermediary to help subtle the change.