Modelling: Gems bursting from armour

[John Thompson]

Hello guys and gals,

 

As I've gotten quite a few questions about how I did the gems bursting from the armour on of my old Emperors Children army, I thought it was time I did a small tutorial for you on how to do it.

 

Unfortunately I only found out my lighting sucked by the time I finished the thing, so the pics are nothing to boast about.. :P

 

The subject is the upper leg of a (chaos) marine that I'll be using for a tutorial on how to paint pink! Meet Mr. S:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/base.jpg

 

Step 1:

Put a small ball of greensuf on the place you want the gem to be. The ball I used in this picture is actually about 1,5 times as big as what I actually used..

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/step1.jpg

 

 

Step 2:

Flatten the edges of the ball with the round part of a GW greenstuff tool-thingy. Smooth out the edges to make a nice bump in the armour like so:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/step2.jpg

 

 

Step 3:

Take a sharp hoby knife and draw the gem in the greenstuf with the (moistened) tip of the knife. Hold the knife at an angle from the center of the gem outwards. This will give the gem a more rounded shape and you press the edges of the armour upwards a bit.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/step3.jpg

 

 

Step 4:

Now use the knife to make some cuts in the armour to make it look more burst than melted:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/step4.jpg

 

And a better pic of the finished gem-fro-armour-thingy:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Bursting%20Gems/Finished.jpg

 

Next up is painting the mini..

Hope it helps!

 

John

[Tyrannicide]

Thanks alot, that is a fine tutorial. The finished result really comes out clean. Also can't wait to see the mini painted.

[Jokersminis]

Thank You, Sir!

 

A simple, consise tutorial; for an extremely effective technique.

[The Angelus Sanctus]

Thanks for the Tutorial John :tu:

 

Not to be TOO nit-picky, would it be possible to get some lighter pics for steps 1 to 4? I just noticed with some of the natural shadows of the mini, its hard to see some of the details within the GS. If not, thats ok though, as i said, i was being a lil bit nit picky. :)