Wicked Willie WIP

[Brother_Brimstone]

Well, i'd posted the rules/story for wicked willie, now here's the model. He's assembled and basecoated, the weapons he's holding are a sawnoff double barrelled shotgun and a flaming molotiv cocktail. The sawnoff was modified from pieces of an ork shoota, with the barrel taken from damian bloodhound's shotgun, cut down and turned on its side so its double barrelled. The molotov is (my first item) designed from scratch - including the fire (made with bits of toothpick and lollypop tube + a heathy amount of greenstuff).









On a slightly unrelated note - it appears Zophar isn't too small for Inquisitor at all - he looks about right compared to Devlan/Damian. Although i think Devlan/Damian is both hunched over and a short-ish model. Nevertheless, i'm happy with the scale.

[Alyster Wick]

That's amazing, he's actually scaled almost perfectly.  I had no idea, that opens a whole new door with smartmax (love those minis, very characterful all of them are).

Looks good though.  As a matter of taste I think it would looks better if he appears about to hurl the molotov.  As it is, Willie just looks like he's hanging out with a shotgun in one hand and a burning molotov in the other.  If he appeared as though he were throwing the cocktail then one could picture him raising the shotgun and grasping it in both hands with one swift action.  Other than that he's a solid (if not slightly minimalist) Devlan/Bloodhound conversion. 

[DapperAnarchist]

Zophar's head is a little small... But whatever.

That is an excellent looking Molotov...

[Brother_Brimstone]

Thanks for the comments and compliments.

As for the hurling the molotov thing, i did actually experiment with that while I was building him. However, when I posed his arm in a hurling action, there was just something very unsatisfactory about the way in which his arm was bent - i can't quite describe why, but it looked rather unnatural. It was bent in a way that was possible, and plausible for a hurl, but it just looked...wrong.

Perhaps this is me making excuses, but with his pose as is, I was quite pleased because he's meant to be a rather ponderous and calculating character (he has a fairly low I to reflect this). I imagine in this pose, he's seen something (an enemy? an opportunity to raid a building?) and he's weighing up his options. He's readied the shotgun and the molotv, he's just mentally readying himself for using them. However that may just be my pitiful justification for my lack of ability to get a decent alternate pose 

With regards to Zophar, because I've never stood him next to an Inquisitor model before, and i took those pictures a couple of minuites ago, this had been MY first chance to compare him to a standard inquisitor model. My only problem would not be hieght as much as thickness - he looks very skinny compared to damian. However, Zophar is described as being particularly scrawny in my fluff, so its not really a problem.

[Robert_the_damned]

I like what you've done with your slick devlan, I'd imagine when you posed him throwing it was more the fact his body isn't in a throwing pose that made it look wrong rather than the arm itself. Good to see the smartmax mini next to an inquisitor figure, he does look rather slender but I think its well within the limits of human variation.

[MarcoSkoll]

Although i think Devlan/Damian is both hunched over and a short-ish model.

He is. He's one of the shortest models in the range. If I were to put him against say my Sgt Gillmore model (admittedly, a fraction taller than average), Slick would come up to around Kai's shoulders.

As far as actual bulk, you'll find that models which aren't to the same heroic proportions as GW's models will be less bulky. However, this is less of a problem than a mismatched model height.

Nice start, although I have to say that the black spray paint doesn't exactly make it easier to work out details.
Personally, I would have been tempted to actually put pistol grips coming out of the holsters rather than leaving them empty, but it is of course your model.

[Brother_Brimstone]

Sorry, I had some other pictures up, but i wasn't happy with the face, so i re-did the face and replaced the old photos with some new ones.

The thing on his base is meant to be a tripwire nade booby trap. The problem is that the tripwire seems a bit short. Does it look alright, or a bit silly?

[Myriad]

He's got a certain nastiness to his look, fitting with his background.  All in all, a nice model.  I quite like the pose with molotov in one hand and shotgun in the other - looks like he's getting ready to throw the bottle and follow up.

The booby trap doesn't quite convince though, I think partly because he seems to be trying to trap himself.

[Brother_Brimstone]

The odd thing is, I think what adds the 'nastiness' to his look was mostly unintentional; his face has a very malevolent look to it - a kind of permanent sneer, and that was simply a quirk of how his mouth and eyebrows turned out.
   
I agree about the trap though - i may well remove the grenade and string and just leave the rock as a bit of scenery.

Thank you for your comment.

[Alyster Wick]

The paintjob isn't bad, but Zophar looks far better done in every regard.  Like I said, not bad, but I think you've shown you're a capable painter and could give him a bit of a brushup. 

Though the face does have personality (as you mentioned), so I'd leave that be.

[Brother_Brimstone]

Having looked back and compared zophar and willie, i agree - zophar is much better than willie. I decided to re-jig the paint scheme and have given him another shot. I think this time it is a lot better.









IF you still think its worse than zophar, feel free to tell me. Any specifics would be greatly appreciated, as I'd like to grow and improve as a painter.

Thanks for the advice.

[Brother_Brimstone]

Thread necromancy! and a double post! Please, don't excommunicate me where I stand... I bring pictures as repentance....

About two days before the Spring clave, I was giving my models a final brush up and quality check, and I decided that Wicked Willie was my least favourite model. Zophar and Severin have such strong character to them, and in comparison willie seems a bit plain. The only thing I really liked about him was the molotov. I also decided that under principles of WYSIWYG, it would be unfair to imply he had all those grenades. I'd always planned to give Willie a backpack, but when I first made him, my modelling skills were vastly worse than they are now, and my backpack attempts failed, so I gave up (Inquisitor has been brilliant from my modelling skills - with each model I feel more confident and capable).

Thus I decided to try and upgrade Willie, to make him more characterful and more equipmentally representative. Those at the Spring clave will have already seen his upgraded form, but for those who weren't I thought I might as well up some pictures. You'll also notice his base has changed - i prefered Severin's base to both Willie's and Zophar's so I rebased both Zophar and Willie with the more industrial, hive style bases.

Anyway, enough with the rambling... may the pictures commence!











Comments/criticisms welcome

[kierkegaard]

The backpack is a big improvement. What are the big red cylinders (Ork gun barrels) on the sides meant to be?

[Brother_Brimstone]

I imagined them to be home made demolition charges - a container that big filled with some kind of futuristic super-high explosive would in my mind be a decent representation of a home made demo charge.

The idea of using it for a grenade wasn't my own, however. Kaled showed me how he had used them for Ogryn scaled grenades, and i thought considering their size they'd make good high explosives for a regular szed person.

[Kavey]

I really like that backpack, it adds a lot to the model. Ork parts are fantastic for inquisitor, I like the use of the gun barrels as demo charges.

I enjoyed seeing Willy in action on saturday, explosives characters are very fun to play with.