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So, I am working on a custom job for a character I invented for the FFG Rogue Trader RPG. He's the Rogue Trader, Aedan Qel-Drake. All in all, he's actually set to be a very simple custom, starting with a MT Tempestor Prime, both for the carapace armor, which Aedan wears, and for the Salamander-hide coat he wears over it. I will add to it Dragon's Ire, his inferno pistol, which I got from a Canoness (I HATE the "burning musket pistols" OH Inquisitors have), Corsair's Kiss, a Banshee power sword, and that will about wrap him up. I do, however, have a few questions I could use some help on:

1.) Aedan's coat is made out of the same stuff a Salamander's Mantle is. However, the coat is flat plastic, obviously. I was thinking of painting it dark green, and then painting some tiny gravel bits lighter greens, and gluing them on, to give it that "scaled" appearance, and to give it the range of shades (I think Fire Salamanders can come in red and green, at least). Any thoughts on how this might work? Think it might not?

2.) Most of this is sizing up to be simple. My one problem is the head; I can't choose one. Aedan looks young, with long hair, faint stubble, and swagger, rather pirate-like. I sort of thought of Kili from Hobbit, but I can't seem to get one, and his hair is a bit too crazy. Any thoughts on a replacement head would be much appreciated.

3.) Lastly, how might I make something look more like colored metal, and less like something metal coated in paint? Most Space Marines are wearing full metal suits, but they usually wear armor that looks blue, or green, and happens to be made of metal, but not of a metal with a color. I sort of want something more "red metal", rather than a metal thing painted red, for the inferno pistol.

Once I get around to finishing him up, I will, of course, post him for people to see. Hope this turns out well. Have a great day, and thanks for reading this all, if nothing else.

Well for the coat I'd probably take a lizardman or cold one or something similar & cover his coat with greenstuff then let it set for about an hour. Then dampen the lizard & press it into the gs until the whole thing has a uniform scale pattern like your master model. This is what I do for fur because it sure beats sculpting it by hand.

For the pistol try painting it boltgun metal then highlight with mithril silver & then applying a red glaze & highlighting again with your metals.

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Well for the coat I'd probably take a lizardman or cold one or something similar & cover his coat with greenstuff then let it set for about an hour. Then dampen the lizard & press it into the gs until the whole thing has a uniform scale pattern like your master model. This is what I do for fur because it sure beats sculpting it by hand.

For the pistol try painting it boltgun metal then highlight with mithril silver & then applying a red glaze & highlighting again with your metals.

If you pres the lizard skin into green stuff you will get a negative mold first.

it be easier i think to just get some insta mold or that japanese stuff i forget the name. make the negative mold of a lizard skin. Then press into GS on the cloak.

Have you considered trying to get hold of a dark elf corsair for the cloak?

Desubot wrote:

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Well for the coat I'd probably take a lizardman or cold one or something similar & cover his coat with greenstuff then let it set for about an hour. Then dampen the lizard & press it into the gs until the whole thing has a uniform scale pattern like your master model. This is what I do for fur because it sure beats sculpting it by hand.

If you pres the lizard skin into green stuff you will get a negative mold first.

it be easier i think to just get some insta mold or that japanese stuff i forget the name. make the negative mold of a lizard skin. Then press into GS on the cloak.

Hmm, as labor-intensive as gluing gravel sort of feels to me, I've never gotten, nor attempted to use Greenstuff, so I'm not certain if it is a level of customizing/modeling I'm comfortable attempting. Still, it might prove better than my idea, especially if he'll just look doused in glue.

Red_Starrise wrote:For the pistol try painting it boltgun metal then highlight with mithril silver & then applying a red glaze & highlighting again with your metals.

Not sure if glaze is something I've bought. Suppose it can't be as simple as mixing two paints; not even sure what metallic paint will do if mixed with something else. Will look into it (the glaze thing).

Bobug wrote:Have you considered trying to get hold of a dark elf corsair for the cloak?

I went and looked at it. I can't see what the back of it looks like, but I am preferring the idea that Aedan has it in the form of a long coat; that and the carapace armor were the origin of using the Tempestor Prime as a base. If you think it might be good for texture, sort of like what the above suggested, I might look into it, if I feel it is a thing I can actually pull off. 40k is more something I make then get to play, so while I don't spend copious amounts of money on all the trimmings needed to field an army, that also means I get less practice then I might like, and Greenstuff and washes are two things I've yet to tackle. Part of me wants to, for skill improvement, and another part doesn't, since I usually only make things I actually want to, and so messing them up is a bit more irritating then if they were "just some Troop slot deployment." Perhaps I'll buckle down, and see if I can get better/more varied in my skill. Fortunately, no time limit

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. Any others would also be appreciated.

The easiest way to do a scale hide cloak is to roll out a thin sausage of green stuff, let it set for about a half hour to 45 minutes, then cut off thin slices and superglue them to the coat itself. Painting and gluing gravel on will look like painted and glued on gravel.

It can be amazing how quickly a thread on this page can sink to page "no one may see this ;_(

So, I am not an expert with GreenStuff, and I asked Youtube. I found a nice, short video of a guy "scaling up" his Salamanders Dreadnought, which is convenient, because Salamanders is the look I want, even though Aedan is certainly no Space Marine, and the way he was doing it, I think even I could manage, and without copious glue. The author of that video used GrayStuff, and an unpainted Dread chassis. Would GreenStuff stick as well to painted surface? Should I do the dark green or red coat before applying the scale pieces, or apply them to the bare plastic, and hope to get the darker paint into all the little crevasses, and then the lighter green or red over the tops? Even if this isn't much of a thing, it might be nice to finally be getting a little XP in on the modding with GS. Any thoughts would be great.

It is always best to work with a paint free surface when possible when working with sculpting putties. Painting it after should not be a problem, especially if you use some washes to go into all those little crevices.

So, since advice is turning out to be in decent supply, I'll put forward some color questions, and see if anyone feels like giving their opinion on my thoughts for this piece.

So, Aedan is a human character, and the base is, so far, planned to be a Tempestor Prime. I know he's going to wear black under layers, but for the armor, I was thinking of a lightish green, with gold trim. Since the coat is inspired by the Salamanders Mantle, two or more shades of green are going to go into it; I'm kind of thinking of overlooking that Vulkan's Mantle is reddish, in favor of many other Salamander pieces I've seen. So, I figure Aedan's armor will be a complimenting green hue, and the trim will be gold, since he's rich, or some better reason. Red occurred to me, but there are too many other groups in 40k that like red, or red and gold,, plus I'm not sure how that would look with the green coat; silly as it is, someone like a Rogue Trader needs to care about appearances. The red gun is going to stick out, no matter what I do, but that is acceptable.

Thus, green and gold carapace armor, with black other layers, and a rather Salamanders greens coat over the top, complimented by a red inferno pistol, and typical painted old-style Banshee power sword. If I can just hammer out a good head choice, and do a nice job scaling the coat for the Salamander look, all should be nice.


Little Add-on: The head choice proves to be tricky, still. Aedan is a swaggering, upbeat young pirate of a man, and several of those traits are hard to find. "Young, happy, male, with long hair, and no "extra bits", like the eyepieces, hats, or stuff that often grace GW bits, to make them a bit more detailed" was the direction I wanted to go. My first thought was a Kili head from the Hobbit line, but I don't know if he comes in parts, or of it's a one-piece figurine, and he doesn't sell singly, but with two other Dwarves I don't care for, at $40, and is sold out; sort of like they are saying "don't use this head." Option 2 was the head of the Eldar Autarch on Jetbike, but it looks pissed, and might be too obviously Eldar. Some off-brand stuff, but most have hats, or other irritants. Not sure where I will find a good head to round out his little custom mini of mine.

Green and gold works well. so does red. though it seems very.. christmassy.

i would rather see a green clothing steel armor with gold trimming. and possibly a dark brownish or orange redish scally armor. dont go straight red otherwise it will be a walking Christmas pageant

I cant say straight out you will find the right hat. you can always take a existing young guy head and add a patch and hat. it takes work but you can green stuff that kinda thing.

I actually want a head that doesn't have a hat, or an eye patch/cyber eye; just a "plain head" of a young man, preferably with longer hair, is what I was looking for. I think I will go with the V2 Iconic Fighter from the PF game, as the mini is quite affordable, and about what I want.

If I don't go green and gold carapace, yeah, I might go for dark steel and gold trim. Sort of want the green, but it'll have to wait till I decide if I like the look of it. Fortunately, I have the whole box of the Tempestus Scions, if I don't like the look of something. As much as I like fire motif, I'm thinking of dodging the oranges and browns, to avoid the look of Chaos or Fire Dragons. We'll see if i can keep those feelings through the project. He's accompanied by several PA-clad ladies, the Maidens of the Dragon, so we'll see if I fell up to buying them, too. They'll be a light blue, if I choose to do them, along with him.

try looking at the WHFB empire range for the head plenty of heads fit the bill your looking for and readily available on bits sites

So, this might be the last little question in my plan before I actually start painting/building Aedan's model; just waiting for the model with his head on it to arrive. In the long list of things I've admitted to never having done much of, in custom modelling, let's add inking. When doing this, is it going to coat more like a thin paint, or is it going to be more a see-through layer that will give the gray plastic a slight green tint? Do I want to base coat the jacket, before I ink it (though after I stick on all the greenstuff "scale" bumps and bits), or put the ink on bare, gray plastic? I'm sorry for the noob questions, but this is me getting out of the painting comfort zone, to improve my skills, I hope, and while the box the coat came in has plenty of extra bits, it only has ONE coat, so it's sort of a choke point where the whole project can get another box of Tempestus Scions more expensive.

Any other advice on inking, compared to base coating, detail painting, and what not? Thank you very much everyone for all of your input.

you should base coat the whole model before applying any paint, inks are a way of adding shade to a model so paint it a green colour then brush over the green ink it will run into all the recesses and shade these areas

Ah, k. Here's hoping the little brush will get the paint down to the coat, through the greenstuff bits; sorta liked the idea of ink just "getting in there", more than having to get thick paint in there, and the greenstuff will go better on bare plastic. Meh, if it wasn't a little work, it wouldn't be a fun hobby.