Thursday, June 13, 2013

One more big bird!


The snowy owls finally came into stock last week, so I had a few rushed here!  Time to get them put together very fast!!!  So , I started out by cutting those thick plasticard pieces to make bases.


Here are the parts...


After filing and washing, it's time to glue them together, using the "glue-green stuff-glue" technique.


This is very helpful on figures such as these, where the pieces are usually not going to line up very cleanly.


Not only does that fill the gaps automatically, meaning less work later, but it makes the joint a lot stronger!


This was very helpful on the wings!  The ring of green stuff mixed in with the glue, and make a shaky joint rock solid from the start.  Also, it means you don't have to wait for ages holding the part in place waiting for it to dry!  The green stuff does it for you.


The pieces are all in place.


Now it is time to work your way around the bird on the inevitable gaps.  I start out with the ones on the underside, so that I am way less likely to stick my fingers in those as I move to the areas on the back!


Working my way around.  The most difficult areas are the ones on the underside, since they can be hard to get to, and so are the gaps by the larger feathers.  You have to sculpt a few feathers of your own in those places to keep it from looking odd.


You can see one of those areas here...


All gaps filled, gravel added to the base, and a bit of the brown craft paint as primer!

Time for painting!!!













Something for human flesh...


While I realize this is not a 'human' figure, I needed something for the human flesh tone video.  I ended up using one of my Raging Heroes Sci-Fi Blood Vestals because I was curious to see what they would look like in a color scheme different from the one I used for my army. :-)

It was actually a lot of fun to paint them in more 'natural' colors, so I am glad I did that.


Besides, there was plenty of flesh showing, and the face is not hidden with too much hair, or feathers, or fur, which usually end up on barbarian style figures that I had considered.


So, moving ever forward!!!


Not a complete wash out...


Well, on a night where just about every electronic device was shut down and unplugged with all the crazy impending storms of doom, I had to wait to get this posted.

Kind of like waiting through 3 OT's for the Hawks to get that winning goal!  Most of the guys on the ice looked a lot like me at 5am :-)

Anyway, these images show the complete set of Secret Weapon washes.  You have been seeing me work these into my techniques more and more.

I tired to break them down into 'families' here... or are they line shifts?

From what I have tried of this batch, you have some very intense, or 'staining' colors.  Cathy sorta found that out when she had a little fumble getting some of the drying blood on her palette.


This group is very interesting, in that you have some opaque washes included.  You have seen me use the armor wash a lot in recent posts.  I certainly look forward to the parchment wash.  That will go right in with concrete for some fun opaque light glazes!


I have not tried any of these, which will be very helpful on my terrain and basing.  


This batch has seen a lot of action for me.  You know all about the concrete, and how I like to use both the hard and soft body blacks.  Now I get a chance to see what Storm Cloud can do.


I have used the Algae and blue black on my metal surfaces, mixing them in with the hard and soft body black.  I am very eager to try the cool grey mixed with concrete for some metal surfaces...


Get your sunglasses ready, because here are the bright washes.  Obviously very highly saturated.  These will probably take the most testing to figure out the best use.  Right off the bat, I can see them being helpful to get some washes on colors that you want to remain high chroma, or saturated, even after a wash.

I will have to see if any of these have that same opaque quality.  I hope so, since that could mean some very fun effects!

Once again, many thanks to the folks at Secret Weapon for coming up with some very nifty products!!!!!!