Broken Paintbrush

Just finished the second Obliterator.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It has been a good step in learning how to sculpt, hopefully I will eventually be able to sculpt all the parts. Until then I have boxes full of bitzs to use.

I also put together a stage-by-stage picture, I think it is pretty inspiration for me, especially as I’m about to start the third, and last for now, obliterator.

click for larger picture

until next time…

I was able to get some paint done on the second obliterator. It is amazing what a bit of primer can do for a sculpted piece…

Next up was the base coat. This was mostly to block out the colors and give a base coat to the follow up colors. Ugly at this stage is ok…

After a black wash to deepen the shadows I focussed on the flesh, both the daemonic as well as the human(ish). The skin was a mix of ice blue, space wolf gray, grave yard earth, and elf flesh. The blue was a mix of ice blue, space wolf gray and mordian blue. The blue was then highlighted with a mix of blue and mithril silver to blend it into the actual metal.

Next up is the metal areas and then the robe. As always, comments and suggestions are appreciated.

As promised, here is some build up shots of my second obliterator. One of the things I wanted to change on the second guy was adding more bulk to the body. I wanted it to look closer to a full terminator suit rather than a scarecrow with a robe. I started with bending a couple paper clips to create the wire-frame with proportions of a terminator, including the width and hight of the square body section. I added the arm bits and the head. The coper wire was used to hold different paper clips sections together.

I then started to bulk up the wire with blobs of green stuff. I added in some bitz around the head from an extra terminator front (from the lord box I think). I also added some exhaust pipes to the back using some plastic tubes. The daemon claw hand was cut and bent to close it up a bit, gs was added to fill the gaps.

After letting the first layer of green stuff dry more was added to the legs to create a bulkier area for the robe to rest against including a small flap to help shape the robe. Daemonic flesh was also added to the flamer and the back.

Finally, layers of Procreate Putty was used to create the worn and tattered robe. To create the robe a rolled out a chunk of putty until it was fairly thin. This was then super glued onto the model where I wanted it to connect. I then used a pick to pull out strips and create folds. The next section of robe was then added and blended into the first. This was done over a few separate drying stages, keeping the extra procreate in the freezer to help it keep longer. Some extra flesh was added to the claw arm to tie in the other daemonic flesh.

I wanted to the robe to look almost alive and flowing with the movements of the obliterator itself. I attempted to do this by pulling the tatters in the direction of movement and letting them dry. This is a great advantage of the Procreate over green stuff as it can be moved into place and actually stay there without sagging down.

As you can see in this shot I added a lot of bulk to this obliterator over the previous one and it has nearly the same outline as a terminator.

Next up is primming and painting! Hopefully I can get this finished over the new years weekend!

Comments and criticisms are always welcome

With some nice time off from work I was able to finish the Obliterator that I had sculpted. Paint wise there wasn’t much left to do, just some touch-ups and finish the base.

I had also started the second obliterator a few days ago while waiting for some paint to dry. For Christmas my wonderful wife got me a package of Procreate Putty which I have to say is a fantastic alternative to green-stuff. The procreate is not nearly as sticky as green stuff is but adheres very well to the model. It is also stiffer than gs which made creating the robe much easier as I didn’t have to ‘paint’ super glue onto the end of the tatters to keep them in place.

Here is a quick teaser shot of the two of them together:

I will be posting some more pictures of the second WIP obliterator tomorrow with some of the steps I took to build him up.

So it has been a while since I picked up the brush… well continuing on then.

Did some more details on my Obilterator which brings him to a nearly finished state. I still need to finish the base and perhaps something more on the robe, but not yet sure what.

I had thought about adding the XIV to the shoulder plate but remembered that oblits don’t have an allegiance and just fight for who ever pays them the best. Instead I opted for the yellow chevrons on the chain blade to tie in with the rest of my army.

I was struggling with separating the sash and robe since they are supposed to both be red. I have tried using different temperatures of red along with the yellow border to separate them. The sash was highlighted and shaded with cooler shades of red, the highlight was almost more blue than red actually. The robe used warmer shades of red to highlight and shade. I’m not sure if I like how it turned out, but perhaps it is just that the robe doesn’t look “finished.”

Any ideas?

Spent some time painting the Obliterator. After priming it black, it is amazing how all the details (and mistakes) pop out.

I then did the base coat of all the colors to block it out. Mechrite Red for the robes, Mithril Silver to the steel, Dwarven Bronze for the piping, and Ice Blue for the metallic flesh. The whole model was then washed with Devlan Mud.  The blue ended up looking nasty, dirty bubble gum, but thats ok since I will be repainting it anyway.

Which I did next. I wanted to try a blue, lava-like texture that blends into the metal. Not sure of the result, it looks too shiny. Any ideas for fixing it?

Next up is the red robe, which will the much more difficult piece to paint as I am hoping to do some freehand trim.

Got some more work done on my Obliterator sculpt. I filled in more of the front foot by adding pistons to each of the toes. I also added the upper robe and shoulder blades from the Fantasy Chaos Knights box.

The ball on the end of the gun will shortly become an eye ball. Also need to add the wiring from the arms to the back.

I also photoshop’d the image to get an (rough) idea of what the coloring will look like. I’m not sure how I’m going to paint the flesh-metal but it will probably be a dark gray or purple, any ideas would be appreciated

So I’ve developed this habit: when I try something new, I go all out and skip to the hard stuff. See my Mentor Legion post when I wanted to try painting white armor. See my WIP (kinda dead-in-progress right now) Scratch built Titan.

Well the newest thing I decided to ‘try out’ is sculpting. I’ve done some green stuff work to fill gaps and create some honor badges for my Iron Warrior Chosen, but I haven’t done any true sculpting.Well after scouring FTW, The Painting Corp, and Massive Voodoo for how to sculpt and digging through the Chaos Codex (all three editions), Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, and Iron Warrior for ideas I grabbed my tools and got to work. Below are some very rough WIP shots of the first Obliterator (eventually I will do three).

Obviously, there is still plenty of work to do on the upper half, but eventually the robe will continue on his upper half, including a draping hood.

The left arm (the one with the chain blade) is not attached so I can finish the cloak. Once the cloak is done and the arm is attached I’m planning on adding pre-heresy style shoulder guards.

The empty sockets on the chain army and gun will have more guitar wire coming out and attaching to the back (see the scaring on the lower back).

As to why I hate green stuff? It seems that there is a natural attraction to any tool I try to use to place additional green stuff to the figure. I’ve been using vaseline to keep the tools from sticking, but the green stuff still seems to prefer to stick to the tools than the model itself. I’ve resorted to using a small dot of super glue where I need more green stuff to attach and pressing a blob into it. Once the glue dries up a bit I am able to work the putty around a bit. I did have a small snafu when I got some super glue on my silicon clay shaper that hardened and damage part of the tip. Any one out there have a better way of attaching additional pieces of green stuff?

Any comments would be most welcome as this is my first sculpt ever and I have two more obilterators left to go.

Finished the third and final (for now) Rhino for my Iron Warriors army (see the first and second here). This one I tried a few new things. The first is the scratched metal. I tried using an old, tough brush and splayed the bristels to create parallel streaks. I don’t think they all work out well, but it is something to build off of.

The second is the free-hand Chaos star on the top hatch. I took the design from one I found in the 4th edition Codex showing the dual rings and 3d shape. I don’t think I pulled it off how I wanted, but for a first attempt, I’m happy with it.

For this tank I decided to put the stripes on the outer faces of the smoke stacks. Keeping it simple was needed too keep the tank from becoming too busy with the start, chain and skulls and havoc launcher.

And here is all three in their finished states (click for bigger picture!).

I have a couple random projects I want to do next (one currently in progress) before continuing the completion of my Iron Warriors or traitor guard. stay tuned!

Finished up the details on Rhino #4 which mostly entailed the stripes and spot light. After the last Rhino’s attempt at doing the strips freehand I decided to cheat a bit on this one and mask the black areas off with scotch tape.

I started by taping all the area around where I wanted black so I could spray it. I then took some clear masking fluid and sponged it into the area. This way I could take an eraser to it and uncover the metal area underneath.

I then sprayed it black, waited for it to dry and then covered it with scotch tape. After marking out each stripe I cut it apart with the handy knife and removed the tape where I wanted the yellow. After painting up the yellow I removed the tape and washed the whole thing with sepia wash. Once that was dry I rubbed off the clear masking fluid to finish the worn effect.

Overall I’m happy with how the stripes turned out with this technique, which is good because it was very tedious.

And here are the two finished Rhinos together. Work has started on the last Rhino of this group  and will hopefully have it done latter this week.

-Update: Finished the last Rhino here

As always comments are welcome and appreciated!