The totem rises

I was finally able to get the totem painted for the box art of the DVD!

I attached some of the same vegetation that I used on my Lizardman army.

I would still like to make one or more of these a terradon aerie.  When I finish off the other one, I will try to put some nests on it!

I might still add some snakes to this, just to get a wee bit more color.

Still, it was nice to see it with the flock!

I have some static grass that I will probably add as well.

It's always fun to make terrain!

It should be a blast to play some games with these. :-)

Playing in the mud

Here are the rest of the Weathering and Battle Damage video images.

I had to get all the painting finished in advance, so that as much time as possible could be spent on doing the various effects.

So, the shading and freehand work is all in place...

Then it was time for some sample effects on a piece of board.

Using the sample vehicle, I did the same paint chipping and cracks that had been done on a slightly larger scale.

Armed with another painting guide, I went to work on the second vehicle.

Time to add some rust!

And streaks...

As I mentioned before, I did half of the vehicle in paint...

And the other half with Secret Weapon weathering powders.

Mud!  So messy :-)

Time for a car wash!

Rust, streaks, paint chipping, scorch marks mud and dust all in place.

And a completed vehicle!!!

I was very glad that I had as many freehand designs as possible, since that enhances the effect so greatly.  Making the additional armor skirts was a great success.

And they look nifty as well.

Preparing for war (or weathering)

I shot these images as I was working on the freehand for the Weathering video.  There is nothing that works in such a mutually supporting way as freehand and weathering.

When you combine the two together, each effect becomes somewhat more realistic.

This is where is gets started, blocking in the design.  You can see that I was working from one of the large bases from the Sisters Army.

The blocked in designs are refined with some more shading, more colors, and some text.

Refining begins in earnest, adding some of the torches and flames as well.

Additional designs, such as the numeral, as also added.

Can't forget the other side.  Some fun lettering!

More lettering and some safety stripes.

Just about everything ready to go for some weathering!!!  Stay tuned.

Using those extra pieces!

OK, here we go.  I spent about 8 hours filing and prepping stuff today, so I worked in some of the terradon conversions.  I put together the Rippers, carefully trying to keep the left over terradon bitz close at hand.

If you remember the previous post, I had 3 terradons that still did not have a fully sculpted face or rear legs.  I had hoped back in the day that I could sculpt some different legs for these which would extend out from the body, instead of being flat against it like the original sculpts.

I was also hoping to save a lot of time on sculpting by putting the terradon faces on the bodies as well.  I somewhat hesitantly chopped of the half sculpted heads, and hoped for the best!

To my shock, the legs were the exact size and shape that was needed!!  That is amazing, since these things were first sculpted about 3 years ago!  Wow.

With just some rough trimming, I was amazed to see how my tin foil and Apoxy Sculpt terradons worked with these new plastic pieces.

I then proceeded to do this on each figure.

The pieces fit just fine, even though each of my sculpted poses was quite different.

The next challenge to overcome was getting the flaming bolas to fit on my regular skinks that I was saving for things like converting skink characters.  A snip here and some glue there, and it worked!!

After I worked on some other prepping for a few hours, I went back to do some more trimming and filing of the neck joints.  I will be doing collars, feathers, and other decorations that will easily bury any irregularities. 

As I moved on to each terradon, I became more excited as I realized that this was going to work far better than I could have hoped.

There was one last anxious moment.  Would the skinks fit on the backs of these new terradons, and could I make one of the arms be at such an angle that I could sculpt a rope or reigns of some kind to attach to the collar.

Sure enough, they were right on schedule!

This was making me very happy!  I needed that, since it has been a brutal couple of months.

I have some green stuff work to do on other projects, and more basing.  So, I will try to add a few bits of that on the terradons here to keep them moving along.  Then I will add all sorts of extra bits that I have saved and gathered.

I used the special character figure on one of the terradons that had the most dramatic pose.  He was the only skink that would have even come close to working.  To my surprise, once again, the plastic sculpt fit almost perfectly, looking very natural!

Since the rocks hanging from the legs have an empty socket for the plastic mount, I will be able to pop these back and forth between my terrain pieces and their normal bases.  It just gets better!

The final group shot

Here we go!  The last group picture.

A very interesting squad to paint, to say the least.

A very fun little project.  As I have mentioned before, painting 'neutral' white on anything is a massive rarity for me.

This makes a fair amount of White Scar marines that I have painted thus far.

Drivin' along...

Comin' right at you!