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Wick Does 54mm

Started by Alyster Wick, July 13, 2014, 10:43:23 PM

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seaglen

I must confess that I have completely and utterly stolen the Finari model conversion you have done - it i genius.
My girlfriend wanted me to make an Inquisitor and when she saw this model she totally went in for it!

Apologies for the absolute shameless plagiarism, but I couldn't not do it (the powers that be basically said "i want one like that one")






I am just in need of a Necron arm now...

P.s - can anyone help identify the gun I have used on this - think it's Eldar?...

RobSkib

A fusion gun of some sort? I'm no filthy Eldar expert (*spits on floor*) but it looks like something the Fire Dragons would be equipped with.
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

Alyster Wick

#32
Quote from: RobSkib on January 14, 2016, 11:42:56 AM
*ebays Necron Deathmarks*

There's some great stuff here - it seems like I go away for a bit and everyone gets much better at painting! Tell me, what is your Ordo Xenos Inquisitor's gun made of? I can't place the bits...

It's a Death Mark rifle, just with the middle bit cut out. Rather than a rifle I wanted something that looked more like an alien SMG. Cutting the weapon down did the trick!

Quote from: seaglen on January 14, 2016, 12:10:36 PM
I must confess that I have completely and utterly stolen the Finari model conversion you have done - it i genius.
My girlfriend wanted me to make an Inquisitor and when she saw this model she totally went in for it!

Apologies for the absolute shameless plagiarism, but I couldn't not do it (the powers that be basically said "i want one like that one")

...

I am just in need of a Necron arm now...

I'm flattered! I quite like your version. Looking forward to seeing it completed!

On that note and in regards to the Necron bitz, PM me, I'll send you a boatload of them (well, maybe not a boatload but I have spares I'm definitely willing to barter for).


Moving on, I'm going to work on finishing up the paint job on Finari and her companion today/tomorrow. In between painting I'll be working on GSing some of my Redemptionist warband. Some of them will have to wait for Borak's beautiful sculpts to arrive (yay!) but I've gotten Marta almost completely together. By a show of hands, should the right arm be up, or across the body? See options below. FYI, once the arms are on she will be getting some appropriately 40K shoulder pads.

Up:



Down:



I'm pretty happy with her. I tried an experiment with a strip of GS across her eyes to make a Judge Dredd-style visor, but I quite like the combination of the bionic and natural eye. It gives a little bit of humanity to her. I'm going to depend on the paint job to tie her into the rest of the robed nutters, but that shouldn't be hard. I'm going to try going be black armor (maintaining her personality before she joined w/ the redeemers) with some red detailing here and there (to show that she's down for the cause but hasn't totally given herself up to them).

Also, I'm super happy w/ the shock maul and shotgun, thought the maul is a bit on the heroic side versus the more realistic shotgun, so I dunno if they imbalance each other. PS I'm going to try GSing on a grip on the front end of the gun to show the pump action. Sidenote, I actually went all out and gave her the proper # of shells visible on her body to represent all of her reloads, which is a big step for me into WYSIWYG territory.




Alyster Wick

#33
Okay! Good amount of work done with the painting, some of it experimental. Turned out I'm much better at doing white on armor rather than cloth (then again, my cloth game is pretty weak in general). I've never done metallic metals on such a large surface area, so I'll say that I'm pretty happy w/ the results.

The duo together:




More shots of the Inquisitrix:









So I was trying to give her a white facemask with black around the mouth and eyes. My first attempt at the black was a total failure so I had to redo the white and may just redo the entire thing as the white got a little messy.

The biggest outstanding piece w/ the Inquisitrix is the gun. There are blue-ish grays in a couple different parts of her armor and I was thinking of doing black metal w/ blue-ish gray tron-style highlights on most of the gun with a few different parts being gun-metal. There would then be some blue ambient light coming from a few different sources. That said, while the blue would match well with the overall aesthetic, part of me wants to do an alien green glow that is totally mis-matched to emphasize the other-ness of the weapon. With the black metal w/ blueish highlights it'd still mostly fit in. I could also try doing something completely different, maybe having the whole thing in a tau-style tan ceramic color scheme and green or purple light. I'm very torn.

For the mutant, I'm considering adding some glowing purple writing into his otherwise boring (and, I'm prepared to admit, ham-handedly painted) robe. Rule-wise it'd confer some bonus to his psychic abilities (maybe an added layer of protection, or "Heroic" if he's using a psychic power that turn. I wasn't planning to make him a very powerful psyker, so an ability like that would make him much more practical).


Inquisitor Vale

#34
Good grief man, ham handed! He has the cheek to say ham handed!  ;D I think they're my favourite pair of miniatures I've seen on the Conclave as they look as if they've stepped out of a John Blanche painting. Utter genius.

Is the base head Cherubael? I think the hand is from a Dark Eldar kit and I'm not sure about the gubbins at the waist.

Note to Self: Stop inquiring about a dozen projects and get three done!
Inquisitor Ollanius Sabbat Vale, Ordo Hereticus (Amalathian)

RobSkib

Awesome stuff - like Vale said, it's very Blanche-esque. I'd stick with that colour palette for the gun too - avoid blue if you can.

On a related note; are you planning on tidying up the rims of the base at all? It'll make the whole composition look much neater.
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

Alyster Wick

Quote from: Inquisitor Vale on January 18, 2016, 08:09:54 AM
Good grief man, ham handed! He has the cheek to say ham handed!

Ha, thanks for the compliment! The back of the robe is really the part I have mixed feelings on. I'm going to try my hand at a purple Endless Knot in the center of the back and (if that goes well) do a diamond-ish chain pattern around the border. It'd be the most ambitious freehand I've tried yet in terms of scale, so we'll see how it goes!

Quote from: RobSkib on January 18, 2016, 11:41:21 AM
Awesome stuff - like Vale said, it's very Blanche-esque. I'd stick with that colour palette for the gun too - avoid blue if you can.

On a related note; are you planning on tidying up the rims of the base at all? It'll make the whole composition look much neater.

I think you're right. Blue would look too busy. I may go with a more subtle purple to match the mutant's robe. Color-theory-wise it should work out (or so says the googles) and if I keep it low key enough it shouldn't take away too much from the Blanchian-feel.


Anyway, nothing to report back on the painting front, but I did get a burst of creativity with sculpting. Here is the WIP of Brutis of Golgath. The base of the torso is actually the torso of my old Imperial Decreeist (emperor rest his soul) which was 100% scratch built, so I can legitimately say I sculpted the entire thing:





The back is so flat because he has a backpack going on to fuel his burning sword/torch. Work has begun on those parts, but I'm keeping the drama and will reveal all once it's complete  ;D


On to Marta, whose shoulder pads (while simple) make me quite happy. Together these two are my tests to make sure I can do different torso components. They aren't perfect, but I'm gaining confidence that I can get a full mini together that doesn't look like garbage.








Now for the last bit. Folks may recall that some time ago I got a cheap press-mold kit and did up a bunch of heads. Facial detail was quite good but things went a little off the rails where the two halves of the head met. I actually had a lot of success just cutting away those pieces, but as I kept having left over GS from other projects I slowly started playing around with adding detail. I'm quite happy with the four heads. They aren't all complete, but they're getting there.



Before I get into the rest of it, I'll just say that the biggest challenge I've found with sculpting isn't the detail, it's getting the proportions right. You could make a beautiful head of hair and fantastic cheek bones, but if the eyes aren't set right or the mouth is too big it all look terrible. Thus the quickly molded heads are a godsend in terms of practicing the small details, but the real challenge will begin when I try it from scratch.

From the left working right:

The first guy needs lots of work, but I've gotten the hardest parts (teeth and nose) and the rest is just minor variations on skills I'm already quite comfortable with. The goal is to end up with something akin to Skeletron from Turbo Kid (a fantastic homage to childhood, exploitation films, and the 80s. avoid the trailer and just watch the movie) http://turbo-kid.wikia.com/wiki/Skeletron

Next is my attempt at a military balaclava. I want to use it to create something similar to a picture from the rulebook. I can't recall the page, but there's a piece that has a bunch of shotgun wielding black ops looking dudes in dusters descending from a flying transport in a gunfight with mutants. I'm going to pair it with the armored torso from Borak's parts-pack and some trench coated legs. I'm looking forward to this one as I've wanted to riff off that piece of artwork for YEARS!

The next I want to use to make a friend of mine's character. He's a minor psyker and full time cult leader. I want to add some scarring to the bare side of his head to go with the wires and general baldness. I like the asymmetry.

Last is perhaps my favorite, or at least best, conversion. He was initially meant to be a ratling for another friend's warband, but that character has been abandoned/changed, so now I have a fun bearded head and no character to go with it. I'm sure I'll find a home for him eventually.

That's it for now! I hope to get some more work done early tomorrow since my work trip this coming week got extended. If I don't post tomorrow it'll be a while before I find the time.

KaptiDavy

Nice, that death cult head fits perfectly with the arbites body - and Brutis seems like he's going to live up to his name too
But: Mart's gun is rather fiddly (or how should I say this??) I'd reattach the different bits, until it gets straight enough

Do you plan to make moulds of those heads? Maybe you should...

Lord Borak

Those Sculpts are looking very nice indeed. I especially like the head with the beard and goggles! There's not enough decent beards in the 41st Millennium. The arbitess looks nice as well. The HEad works really well but gives her that sinister feeling that perhaps you REALLY don't want her interrogating you.

Alyster Wick

Thanks for the kind words!

Quote from: KaptiDavy on January 23, 2016, 09:29:01 AM
Nice, that death cult head fits perfectly with the arbites body - and Brutis seems like he's going to live up to his name too
But: Mart's gun is rather fiddly (or how should I say this??) I'd reattach the different bits, until it gets straight enough

It's mostly the barrel. The grip and gun itself line up quite well, I think it's a trick of the camera. The barrel is definitely a bit dodgy, but I didn't know if I was being OCD. Since you spotted it straight away, I'm going to have a go at reattaching it.

Quote from: KaptiDavy on January 23, 2016, 09:29:01 AM
Do you plan to make moulds of those heads? Maybe you should...

You know, I had originally wanted to only cast up bits that were 100% original, but I am liking these. Just in case folks were curious (though it may be obvious), the base heads respectively are Covenant, Eisenhorn, the alternate Arbites head, and Slick Devlan.

Onto the fun stuff, I did some painting and here are the results!





I'm super happy with the freehand, beyond the fact that the darn thing is so off center. It's essentially a blanket wrapped around him, so I can certainly justify it by saying that he just isn't wearing it in a centered manner, but it still irks me. At this point there are other projects on my bench so I'm not going to bother redoing to freehand and a giant chunk of the robe just to appease my compulsion.

For the Inquisitor, I swear to you all that the gun actually looks quite good and the picture is just awful. I swear to you, there is lots of subtle shading leading up to the light spots (for that matter, the spots also have much more shading to them then is evident from this photo) and there's actually a nice build up on the purple.

They're both done enough for the time being. In the future I may continue the mutant's knot pattern as a single chain around the edge of the robe. For the Inquisitor I would want to do her eyes a different color than plain white and add some "make up" to her mask (I want black eye liner and around the lips, like the Crow) and I'd also like to add some text to the various pieces of parchment (including a nice big =I= on the front one). But again, I have lots of undercoated minis to paint and half-assembled minis to convert (plus the wonderful stuff from Borak).

Anyway, that's it for now!

MarcoSkoll

I love that knot pattern. It's got me wondering which of my incomplete projects I'd planned some freehand for...

Quote from: Alyster Wick on January 23, 2016, 02:55:01 AMBefore I get into the rest of it, I'll just say that the biggest challenge I've found with sculpting isn't the detail, it's getting the proportions right.
That tends to be a stumbling point for a lot of people (whatever the type of art). A lot of modellers who can sculpt in detail will always sculpt over another model (often leaving little to none of the original detail showing) and never try tackling faces.

Good news is it's not actually that hard to start to learn an artist's eye - even if it takes a lot of practice to master. See the old anecdote about: "But it only took you five minutes"; "No madam, it took me my entire life".

(The bad news is there's a lot of terrible art teachers out there who utterly fail to explain the psychology and observation of art to their students and instead expect them to repeatedly draw bowls of fruit and discarded boots - which is utterly useless unless you understand why it doesn't look right).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Inquisitor Vale

Really good stuff, Mr Wick -- I look forward to seeing the Church of the Red Redemption painted.

Marco -- that's very true, in my experience. I cannot draw and was told, politely, don't come back, in S2 (14, I think) from art class, but I never recall being taught how to draw -- you were given a bottle or a boomerang and told ''draw it''. which is about as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot. Very galling as I have a fairly potty imagination I should like to put on paper.

Sorry for digressing -- Alyster ''keep 'em coming''. The gun looks much better in purples that it would've in blue -- I'm not a fan of bright undulled colours.
Inquisitor Ollanius Sabbat Vale, Ordo Hereticus (Amalathian)

Van Helser

Delighted to see the colour theme for your models continuing and improving with each one. Great freehand on the Scarn conversion.

The judge conversion is great. The assassin head works very well there - the smaller heads from the Inquisitor range do look out of place on many of the other base models. It gives a good spec-ops look to the model. I am sure the shotgun will look right when its painted. The jarring of metal and plastic together in weapon conversions always tricks the eye a little I find.

Going way back up the page, Seaglen's conversion has an Eldar flamer for her weapon, from the depths of the nineties.

Ruaridh

Alyster Wick

Got some updates here, just to show that I haven't abandoned everything for the community sculpting project :)

The backpack for the massive flaming sword is ready! I've decided to ditch the torch part that I included in the rules for Brutis. There was a great brutal bit that would have looked spectacular spouting flame from the backpack but it just wasn't coming together with the clean look that the rest of the weapon has. Rules-wise I'll probably cut down the ammo that the backpack carries (it looks a bit more modest) and I may just have the sword carry all of the special rules load (as it's turning out to be more impressive than I had originally thought).



And here's the sword itself, complete with some crude MS Painting to show how the handles will fit into it. Overall the kitbashing turned out very well, though I do need to straighten out the blade and I may redo some/all of the flames (or I may just add some more, placed strategically to make it more interesting/make it look more organic).



Sidenote, I hope that one day our two flame-sword wielding champions will meet, Van Hesler. A Redemptionist versus a Xanthite, probably on some catwalks in a dark factory with the primary light source being their weapons, would be epic indeed. :)


Van Helser

Quote from: Alyster Wick on February 16, 2016, 12:24:00 AM

Sidenote, I hope that one day our two flame-sword wielding champions will meet, Van Hesler. A Redemptionist versus a Xanthite, probably on some catwalks in a dark factory with the primary light source being their weapons, would be epic indeed. :)

That would be quite the scene. Perhaps one day one of us will get to cross the pond for a game!

For sculpting flames, I would cut back the areas closest to the blade, so that there's a nice smooth transition from the blades surface and into the billowing flame. They look a bit lumped on there as it stands.

Ruaridh