Commitments

As I'm writing this when I said I would be at the colossals release event, it may not be surprising to learn that I'm not actually there.
"Why?" I hear you cry. "Why after busting a gut to get ready and rush a paintjob on Hyperion are you now not in attendance Lofty?" Work. Plain and simple, I'm not going to go into it because frankly I'm not in the mood, but I've had to work both days this weekend.

I'm going to take this chance to write the post I had planned to further dissect my painting process for Hyperion.

The first and most obvious thing is that I did absolutely no work to the model after I had bought it. I suppose there are a few reasons for this:
- A lack of impetus due to lack of games, which was solved by the deadline of an event to paint to, despite this being far less notice than I would expect from an organised event (different pressganger).
- Airbrush woes, which I've mentioned before meaning that i needed some new kit before I could get started.

The base was an experiment in how I usually make water effects, and quite honestly I think it looks spectacular. I hate to blow my own trumpet but I'm very pleased with the way it looks with snow + model. A success

I originally intended to make the 'jack weathered and battle damaged, but I far prefer the clean look I managed to achieve so I don't feel like I've chickened out of trying this technique.

The line highlighting looks really good I think. After the pre-shading I tried didn't work, I think the alternative of line highlights on the panel edges, and strategically placed shading look really well together. Part of this is that the airbrush gives such a smooth basecoat as well.
I'm disappointed that the airbrushing didn't really work out (I would have liked to try it for some OSL on the power nodes etc as well) but I'm please that I've 'learned' a new technique as it's something I will be trying to carry forward. The Destors and eVyros have large armoured areas on the horses, and I think this will suit them well.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how the big man turned out, despite everything that has happened, I'm proud to have Hyperion standing on the speaker next to my monitor.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

With Time to Spare

Here he is. No explanation necessary ;)
I'll add a bit more in depth post about the big man next week at some point, after the tourney write up.

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

Rocky Road

No, not the ice cream flavour. I'm talking about my experiences painting Hyperion.

The main thing I've learned is that I should have started painting before I knew about the event I'm getting ready for, and given myself far more time to spend on such an awesome miniature.

That said, it really has been a journey to get it to the stage it is at today. I've tried out some new techniques this time around, some of which will be visible when I post up completed pictures.

The first of which was pre-shading. I discussed this in a post a week or so ago, and to surmise, I decided that airbrushing detail really wasn't going to work for me.  I'll revise the technique & my method after a total strip down of the brush and a clean, in case this was affecting flow etc and see how I get on painting bog trogs.

The second method I've adopted that I haven't really done before is line highlighting. I had the intention of trying to blend my highlights a lot more on the large armour plates on the colossal, but I really haven't left a great deal of time at all for something like this, more 's the pity. Instead, I've been pretty satisfied with applying a reasonably fine light of a highlight colour to the edges of each section as a highlight, and a similar method to shade selected areas.  I also tried some edge highlights which came out pretty terribly if I'm honest, and I hope they won't stand out too much on the finished article.

I've felt pretty overwhelmed by the project over the past ten days or so of work, and it was only last night, when I was adding the glow to power lines etc, and had the base snow added that I felt like it was going to look great when completed. I'm taking tonight off to avoid burning myself out and not wanting to finish, but I ahve the afternoon off work tomorrow, and a late night planned to get the finishing touches (and Ravyn finished for hat matter) done and dusted. I've learned the hard way that the night before an event is a bad time to be waiting for paint to dry in order to pack models into cases, so Saturday will also be a hands-off day (busy during the day).

I'm confident that I'll be done in time, and confident that the final product will at least look half decent, as well as being fairly excited about getting some table time with the model :)
Definitely disappointed however with the rush I've imposed on painting such a great model, as well as a little bummed out about my visions of airbrushing being un-realistic.

A bit of a bitter-sweet post today, but I hope to be able to lighten the mood with completed pictures of Hyperion either late Friday night (early Saturday morning) or from the event on Sunday.

Until then, thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Sleep on it

Managed to get Hyperion pre-shaded & Zenithal highlighted yesterday with the airbrush, and the mask works perfectly, so I will be doing plenty more airbrushing in the future.

At first, I was a little scared that I had 'ruined' the areas I was trying to shade, with a steady hand and not great control of the airbrush requiring me to go back in with a brush and tidy up some areas with the grey primer colour, and the white which I was spraying down from the top didn't really seem to have coated too well. This was assuaged a little this morning though once I opened my drawer to inspect my handy work. I feel a lot more confident now that it will look ok once I have painted on the mid-layer. Hopeful it will pick out the shades and highlights too. If not, I have  a plan to re-shade with a mix of the darker colour and the mid-layer through the airbrush.

I'm reluctant to show any WIP of this process to be honest as it really doesn't look great so I'd rather show the finished item, if I need to fix a load of stuff, or even start again if the methods used haven't worked.  Once the armour is painted though, I'm going to add battle damage with a sponge, paint the metallics, and then try to OSL the power channels and orbs with the airbrush.

I think this may be a little ambitious for my first real use of the airbrush, but I'm pretty sure I'll love to tell the tale :p

Ravyn and the Arcanist are being added to whenever I get a moment between Hyperion layers, and I also finished Calabans base, and eVyros' base as well. Calaban shown below.

I'd like to add in a link here to a forum I found recently which is an amazing resource of guides and tutorials for painting miniatures and bases.  I spent an entire evening/night pouring through these well-written articles, and I really felt like I learned something. Despite the focus on Warhammer fantasy, there is a lot to be learnt here, so I suggest you go and at least have a look even if you feel you don't need any help :P

Hopefully some progress with Hyperion mid-week

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Committed

As I mentioned in previous posts, I have things coming up which I've committed to with the amateur theatre group that I stage mange for, and of course I have literally zero time at the moment for hobbyisms.  It's all hands on deck until Sunday morning, including not getting home at all after work & rehearsals 'til gone 10/11pm.

It's not all bleak news though my friends, fear not!
I've two 'missed delivery' slips from the postman, so I'm hoping that my copy of Gargantuans is waiting at the post office, along with my respirator.
Which leads me nicely on to the fact that I will be airbrushing like a man possessed in order to get Hyperion painted. I learned recently (Tuesday) that there is a Colossals release event at my LGS in two weeks on Sunday. Pretty short notice if you ask me, but no-one did. Of course, me being me, I went into panic mode and started trying to cram on the new rules, and on casters and tactics etc... Where as what I think I'll be concentrating on is painting.

All I need to complete is Ravyn, an Arcanist who are both at around 80% and of course Hyperion.
I do have a plan of attack on how to approach the big man, involving pre-shading and weathering/battle damage, so we shall see how he turns out.  I suppose I can always go back and add to the model if I feel like it needs it at a later date.

The only thing I have literally no idea about is lists. I will be using pVyross and Ravyn, but other than that I've no real clue what to field.  I won't have time to get my Destors assembled for Ravyn unfortunately, but I've never really played her before so I'm stuck for other options.

Can you guys help suggest anything for these two casters at 50 points? The only Ret models I DO NOT OWN are;
Vyre 'jacks
Houseguard uints
eEiyriss
Sylys

Radio silence for now then, but hopefully I'll be back to it on Sunday with something to show on Monday late on.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Last Minute

Managed to get a few minutes work on my base today, so here's a very quick update in amongst getting ready for many and various client meetings tomorrow

I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking so far, and I think it'll look pretty good even after some coloured washes etc.

Hopefully have some time in the week to do some more work

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

Overflow

I don't usually like to post on consecutive days, but I'm really pleased with tonight's progress, and how things are shaping up against my original plan;

I've added a load of Polyfiller to the area where I will be putting the water in order to simulate the flow of water in the stream. I think it looks great at the moment, and will only improve with paint and water effects, so I'm really pleased, and wanted to share the progress with you all :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Up Stream

Made some major progress with Hyperion today (I finally remembered to buy some glue..) I did manage to go through nearly an entire tube of super glue however making the base, I think I need a hot glue gun to do this kind of thing more effectively.

Anyhow, Hyperion is now green stuffed where necessary, and the shoulders are fully assembled, awaiting posing in order to be added along with the arms.

I asked you guys last post for inspiration regarding a base, and one response to the blog, and one verbal response confirmed the same idea - an ice crevasse type thing.

I really like this idea, and have had a blast making this today. I started off with a circle of card the right size for the inside of the base, and marked a rough design & blocked out the stance.

After that, I started building up the layers, and shaping the cork;

Once this bad boy id painted up, water effects will just be the cream on top, I think it'll look fantastic. The only drawback is that the next two weekends are pretty much fully booked so I'm not sure how much time there will be for hobby stuff. Ho-hum, I suppose that's life eh?

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

Titanic

Today's post title works on a couple of levels
- Hyperion is a Greek titan.
- Ice sunk the Titanic, and I'm considering doing an ice themed base.

Weak pun? Of course. Worth it? Not really. Am I ashamed? Never.

As I mentioned Hyperion in the opening few lines, you may have guessed what I've been up to this weekend. That's right - more house sorting! I'm only half joking, family birthday took up Saturday, and Sunday was housework, and putting stuff away ( I have too much stuff - 1st world problems right?), but I did manage to bust out my box o' crafts and get Hyperion washed, and the legs assembled.  The plan was to assemble up to this stage and then be able to gauge the stance in order to be better prepared to take on some basing.

However, me being the Muppet that I am managed to get the feet on the wrong way round, and end up arguing with skin>resin>superglue for a good twenty minutes or so. I manage to sort it all out, and I currently have the pelvis down assembled, as well as forearms.  I also managed to get both halves of the top hull assembled, and will be searching for some fine grit sandpaper this week to gap fill (Khador gap eh? You ain't seen nothing till you've seen Hyperion).

I'm quite glad I didn't get so far as mocking up the base though to be honest.  Whilst frantically Googling images of the model (with feet semi-glued to my hands typing is no mean feat (feet - PUN that one's for free)), I saw some pretty spectacular work done to bases of various PP Colossals, and I felt siginificantly daunted by the project I was undertaking. My initial thoughts were to have the model standing astride some kind of icy crevasse, but I'm thinking something more detailed might be in order here.

Which, dear readers is where I turn to you.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a suitably epic basing theme/project for my mighty colossal?  I'd like to put a fair amount of work into this based on the price & size of the model as I feel it deserves something stand out :)

Let me know your thoughts, I'd like to maintain the snow/rock theme of the rest of the army but with something special about it:)

I've also been puzzling out plans to move forward with the trench templates I'm making.  I've been sent a mock up diagram of the requirements and will hopefully be able to get something together sometime this week to check with the client before I proceed with the build(s), so stay tuned for WIP & results.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

On Call

I've been given a laptop from work and I'm on call all weekend :( maybe I'll have time to start assembly next week