Salamander Drop Pod

Here is the one (and only) plastic drop pod I will ever attempt to paint.  After this one, my wife and I said "Never Again!"

It was almost comical to see the two of us attempting to glue this thing together.  No amount of dry fitting could have helped us, as it turned out.  I believe there were 21 different pieces painted individually prior to assembly.

Trying to glue all the pylon pieces together with the engine and the body was insane.  We were each holding pieces of it, putting pressure on one side or another.  These doors are just not made correctly, and I spent hours shaving and filing down those doors to make them fit.  Grrr.

Anyway, here are the pictures!

Tomb Kings Khalida diorama: Sculpting process

As promised, here are the images showing the process of sculpting this piece (see the finished product images in the "Finished Images" post from Saturday).



I started out with the basic white sculpey, as it is an ideal medium for carving elaborate designs once it is baked.  The other versions of sculpey (sculpey III and Super Sculpey) are too hard to carve.  White has that perfect balance that allows just about any carving tool to create that weathered look.  It is more fragile than the Sculpey III, but when the columns are this thick, you don't have to worry too much.

These images show the clay after baking, but prior to the carving process:





Now we begin to carve.  You can see a few of the tools nearby...






Here we have the carving mostly complete, and all the pieces glued in place...





The top of one of the fluted columns (this was very fun!):




Then it was time to plan where the painted figure would go..


That meant that it was time to start painting!






Here are some completed views:




Again, the thread immediately after this one has about 17 images of the painted version!

Tomb Kings Khalida Diorama: Finished views

This mass swathe of images is a project which I did back in 2004-05.  My apologies for the less than spectacular images... this was a long time ago, and at least 2 cameras have come and gone!  Also, my painting technique has changed and evolved in almost every way.

At least they give you an idea of what the finished product looked like :-)  I will be posting a host of WIP images later on Sunday.  I used baked sculpey to create the broken columns.  Once they were baked, and chopped away at them with knives and carving tools.  The glyphs were also done with the same carving tools.

This piece came to mind recently, since I am currently working on my Tomb Kings army furiously for Armies on Parade.  In fact, I have done a whole batch of new and updated versions of those broken columns for my Carrion. :-)  Yes, I promise to start putting up those images as well!  Get ready for a deluge...