The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Now up on CMON

I've had a chance to figure out my camera a little better, recently, and the stompa got a fresh pair of batteries in it, so I thought now would be a good time for some photographs. I have thrown said photographs up on CoolMiniOrNot - you can view them here. Here's one of them, just for comparison:

Photo finish

So, it's about time for pictures of the final product make their way up onto here.

It's taken me far too long to get it to this point, but at least it's reasonably finished. I entered into Gamesday Baltimore 2008's Golden Demon and made it to the finals, but didn't manage to place - there was some excellently painted competition, and the GD is after all a painting contest. I'm waiting for the day when GW opens up a conversion category! Anyway, I've been keeping photos of the finished product hidden until after its Gamesday debut, so now is as good a time as any to post them up.

The general theme for the model, as it always has been, is a 'giant walking scrapheap', cobbled together from bits and pieces of what was lying around over time into this bolted-together, rampaging thing. To that end, most of it is rusted, dinged, dirty, and grimy, with the occasional plate 'lifted' from another source such as a downed imperial vehicle. Much of this is simply done with washes, though as I've mentioned in previous posts about the model I also used chalky pastels to help really get some weathering on it.

Let's get to some pictures.

 

The back of the model's got a pretty reasonable amount of detail going on, so it was one of the more complicated areas to deal with while painting. A lot of work went into this area.

 

Next up is the base, which is now attached to the model through the grounding foot with the help of two screws and a pair of nails leading up the leg into the frame of the body. I quickly discovered these were necessary after I attached it to the base the first time and the whole model snapped off at the ankle - it's a lot of weight for one small area to be supporting, so I took advantage of the fact that the model was broken and added excessive amounts of internal bracing to the leg. I could probably club someone with it now and it wouldn't break, though I don't have any plans to put that theory to the test. The guardsman came out okay - I am terrible at painting human skin simply because I've never done it before. The guardsman's uniform is based on the scheme a friend of mine uses, since he was nice enough to provide me with the model that is being stepped on.

 

In hindsight, I probably should have painted the base a grey/concrete color so that it didn't blend so much with the rusty browns of the gargant itself. In my defense, I didn't exactly know what color the gargant was going to be while working on it.

This is a pair of detail shots that show the grot pilots, as well as the torso area. A lot of people I talked to at Gamesday didn't even realize these little dudes were in there!

 

The eyes do still work just fine, but these photos were taken outside, so they're not as bright as they might be on, say, a gaming table.

So there you have it. The diorama base is not yet done being painted, but I don't know when I'll get around to that - it's apparently too big to be allowed in Gamesday's Open Category, as it's longer than 18", so I've not got too much motivation to work on it right now.

It's a nice feeling, having this painted. I should try it more often.

What is this brush doing in my hand?

It's been a while since I've touched this thing's base, but I found myself in the right mood to give it a go, so I have some new photos for you guys.

 

So, there's a few differences. The barrel on the gargant's actual base is now orange, based on the recommendation I got from a few people. I do agree that green did not look right. Also, the tiles in that demolished corner are now white, instead of a strange tan color. I did this so that I could put a different color over them later, but I can't figure out what sort of color looks good there. I really want to get some sort of appearance of maybe marble on them, but that's harder than it sounds. The entire board got drybrushed with slightly lighter colors, too, and a few washes here and there.

The grot's been painted some, but he still needs a lot more work. The guardsman has not yet gotten the attention of a brush, and won't for a little while.

It's moving along, but there's still a fair amount of work left. I think I might want to paint darker stripes across the grot to match up with the footprint, but I like it's sunken in muddy appearance compared to the rest of the base, as it makes it stand out a bit more.

Focus on the feet

After painting one of the panels blue and sketching a rough ultramarine icon out on it, I tried colors out on one of the feet. It looks sort've silly. Too many colors concentrated in one place.

I think I might just go with black and red alternating - it's simple enough, though it might be too uniform for orks. I don't mind the look of it so far, but it's easy enough to change.

These are obviously all base colors before I beat and weather the pastel-ish colors to hell. God bless the Foundation line, though - they make this easy.

Body painting

I started painting the body up a bit today. It's getting a bit easier now that I've figured out a method of mellowing the original rust primer down to something more bearable. Gave the thing a decent drybrushing with boltgun, washed it down with scorched brown, and applied rust liberally. It's hard to get a decent photograph of the metal tones in this light (I have one very bright light that washes a lot out), but you get an idea from the pictures.

 

Couple questions for you guys:

The feet. I blacked the spikey bits out in anticipation of painting them. My initial feeling was to make them all red, but the thought of making them various colors popped into my head and I'm not sure what to go with. Part of me wants to do random blues and yellows and reds on the toe spikes, but I don't know if that would look too colorful. What do you guys think I should do?

Also, I'm trying to pick a few plates out on the body for coloring - like a solid blue or green armor plate with a space marine decal on it to suggest it's freshly looted - but I can't figure out which plates are a good choice for the treatment. I don't want to do it on the head at all so it doesn't get distracting, but two or three good spots on the torso should do it. Any thoughts?

Back to Painting 2: The Paintening

This painting feels kind've sloppy, I'll be the first to admit, but at least it's coming along, right?

... right?

 

I toned the colors on the browns down a lot, did a bit of a black ink wash, and started picking out some of the cabling on the top of the head, which the photos probably neglect. I also did that really messy vertical checkered stripe thing.

I'm up for any advice you guys offer as I blunder forward, here!

Back to painting

Don't know what came over me with this, but I finally got in the mood to paint something. I wouldn't count on this continuing for too long, given my previous track record, but I think I'd like this project done.

 

Only just started, really. Going to do the eyes up in the same red as the teeth and then I have a lot of details to pick out. When all is said and done there'll probably be a lot of red on the face, but I'm hoping it draws attention to it, rather than overwhelms it. I'll probably put some checker lines on it like my battlewagon has too.

Heavy metal

A bit more progress has been made on this thing!

In my endeavors to try and break up the solid colors, I have been picking out the parts that I thought might be more metallic - namely the hydraulics, a little bit of the joints, and the claw - and going over them with boltgun again, followed by a bit of Vallejo smoke ink to knock down the ridiculous brightness of Boltgun.

Afterwards, I tried a new trick - I have drab colored pastels that are surely not intended for this, but they seem to do the job!

Grabbing a drybrush, I would dip it in a container of water and then rub it on one of those long chalky things. The pigment would come off, and as I brushed it onto the model, it would pool around things like rivets. I did this with the bright orange one - using a lot of water to make sure that it didn't powder the model too much - and let it dry. It looked awful when it was all dried off as it was all powdery residue, but then I hit both sides with a diluted black ink wash which evened the whole model right out nicely and got rid of a lot of the problems with the powder.

 

So, now I've got two reasonably distinct shades of metal on this thing. In the course of painting it up, I've hit it twice with Testors Dull Cote - the washes I use tend to make the whole thing really glossy. Plus, I figure that I never, ever want the paint to flake or chip off this thing, so repeatedly sealing it can't be a bad thing, right? It takes paint overtop really well, which I don't believe would be the case with Gloss Varnish, but you need to be mindful of how you use it as inks and washes don't go on over it all that smoothly.

Up next is hopefully that time where I start picking colors out. I was thinking I'd do that big, thick cable up in a yellow color, pick the wires out in random shades, and add some orky glyphs or two to it, though I'm not certain where there's room yet.

Final straws

I give up!

Ever since I finished building this thing, I've been asked so many times about it.

'What ever happened to that ork titan, Ein?'
'Did you ever finish your gargant, Ein?'
'When are you going to paint the stompa, Ein?'

A man can only take so much! I concede defeat! And thus, I begin anew on this project, hopefully for the last time. I figured I'd paint it in the order I built it. I don't know why, it just seemed like the right thing to do... So, I started with the claw arm.

I began by trying to drybrush boltgun over the rust primer, but I really didn't like how it was looking. Admittedly, I think I might have gone a little too heavy with it.

Following that, I proceeded to hit it with a wash mixed from Vallejo Smokey Ink and Scorched Brown to try and tone it down a bit. I think I might have succeeded in doing that a bit too well in the following few steps of painting, as I have a mostly uniform rust color now that extends across the entire claw. While I do like the shade of it, it's a bit boring.

 

The colors, as best as I can tell, are a little bit off in these photos, as the gargant looks a very vibrant orange when it's not really that strong in person. Having natural light would have aided in a bit of true color immensely, but I've been trying to assemble a somewhat reasonable photo studio out of the corner of a room, and my lighting tends to be inconsistent based on time of day as it is located right next to a window. Come tomorrow morning, the sunlight should help me take more accurate photography of it, I think. Though, I doubt it'll be looking all the much like that!

I'm trying to come up with decent ideas for coloring it. Obviously the cabling gets picked out in distinct colors... The claw should also probably look like it is used and worn, I think, as it would take the most beating of any part of that arm. Chipped metal in abundance on the talons is probably appropriate. I'm thinking of going over the armor plates on the arm with boltgun as well to try and accentuate them. I was also thinking that big, thick, chunky cable would look good in a yellow color, which would be fairly easy to execute thanks to the Foundation paints.

I want to put checkers on it somewhere but the opportunity doesn't seem to be presenting itself with the particular architecture of the arm. Maybe I can get away with a few gyphs and dags here and there.

Give me feedback on this thing! I'd hate to ruin it with my novice painting, but it apparently needs to be done.

Sincerest form of flattery

I have to say, this gave me quite a surprise. Apparently, one of the guys from CoolMiniOrNot has built a gargant directly inspired by what I've produced. And in three days, no less. You may have to scroll down a bit, as I don't appear to be able to link directly to the post.

It's actually pretty cool.

In completely unrelated news, I've been playing around with my new camera and I think it's going to work out pretty well. It's an SLR, which is one of those serious business cameras with separate lenses and all. Here's two of my better shots while learning the ropes with the new camera:

I think this camera represents true colors a lot better than my old one - it looks less like chocolate and a bit more orange and rusty.