BCK's Thread of Stuff: Maybe not eldar...

[Bryan Blaire]

Liking the hair work!

 

Going to add grenades to that band? (And will they keep moving around each round he's active on the table?)

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Yep, tried twice to make some grenades for the bandolier and haven't been that successful. Unlike T2,the number of grenades will remain constant. ;)

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

We've seen the test mini and Fat Bobby for my Orlocks, but now I have the other 8 to show off. 

 

3 gangers:

 

 

1st guy has a combat shotgun but it's just a normal shotgun for now. 

 

3 more gangers:

 

 

Obviously stealing from my GSC sprues for these guys. 'Cause, you know, futuristic rednecks with machine guns need some variety. And I didn't notice the left arm slip on the shotgun guy until I got these in Photoshop. 

 

And two shots of the leader with the second champ. 

 

 

I wanted to show off my Frankenstein bolt gun that I made from an upper of a Phobos pattern bolter and a lower of the Orlock-specific autogun. This is the second attempt because I cut the Phobos at a slight angle on the first try and ruined it. It's not perfect and still needs a bit of clean up, but I like it and it turned out to have a very close feel to the FN Minimi with 200 round soft ammo pack that inspired it. 

 

A shot of the Minimi from World War Z:

 

 

And with Tom Hardy as Twombly in Black Hawk Down:

 

 

In total it's 4 autoguns, 2 autopistols, 2 stubguns, 2 shotguns, 1 grenade launcher, 1 heavy stubber, and 1 bolter for the gang. 

[hushrong]

Orlocks are looking solid and I love the champion's bolt gun.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Forgot to post an update in here, but I finished all the final assembly stuff - a few tweaks, some missed mold lines, a few spots of greenstuff clean up, etc, and got them primed yesterday. 

 

 

Got the leather base coated on the other 9 minis today. 

 

 

Kind of a big deal for me to get that much progress in a single day, especially considering how many coats of Sanguine Base it took to get good coverage. I bought a cheap hair dryer last week and it sped things up quite a bit. 

[hushrong]

Nice progress on the painting front!

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

All the shirts are painted grey and I originally thought I'd paint the shoulder pads in the same dark color as the gloves and boots but a test showed it blended in too much with the rest of the model and needed more contrast to pop. While I had a brush loaded with the same grey for the shirts, I gave it a try. 

 

 

I think it works well. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I think it works well.

I agree. The dynamic pose looks great. The head reminds me of Damon Baird from the Gears of War games, though- did you choose it for that reason?

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

No, I've never played any of the GoW games, but a Google search does show a resemblance. Quite frankly, I don't like many of the Orlock heads (including a couple I had to use), but I thought that head looked OK and also reminded me of actor Kenny Johnson as Herman Kozik from the SoA Tacoma chapter. 

 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Along with an update on my Orlocks, I want to talk a little about color theory and color harmony and how it can possibly help you make some decisions if you're having trouble coming up with a good paint scheme.

 

Color theory is a very complex subject that you could spend hours and hours reading about, but it is essentially the guidelines for the art and science of color in the effective communication of a design on both a visual and psychological level. We've all heard how certain colors are supposed to evoke or represent specific emotions, right? Like how the colors of prisons and mental health institutions are painted a certain way to help keep the inmates calm? Sounds pretty heavy, but the flip side of that is color harmony, which is a combination of colors that is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. All of this is based on the color wheel that is divided into 3 primary colors, 3 secondary colors (mixing 2 primary colors, y+b = green for example), and 6 tertiary colors (mixing a primary and a secondary to get a two-word color like yellow-green).

 

There are a number of theories or formulas for color harmony using the color wheel, and I like to use this website to help me when I need some help with the color harmony (I use the RGB instead of the RYB mode by the way). That site uses six different harmony formulas which are:

 

Complementary: Direct opposite of your chosen color on the wheel

Monochromatic: Using different values of the same color and you can click the Add More option to get up 4 values

Analogous: Three adjacent colors on the wheel

Split Complementary: Your chosen color and two adjacent tertiary colors of its complement on the wheel

Triadic: Three evenly spaced colors on the wheel

Tetradic: Two complementary pairs of colors based on your chosen color 

 

For color schemes with minis, I prefer the tetradic harmony because it gives more aesthetically pleasing options to my eye, versus the harsher contrast of the triadic. Time for some examples!

 

Here's where I was with my Orlocks when I went to the site for some help:

 

 

A dark red color that I wanted to find a good contrasting color to use on loincloths and maybe another spot color to use. I estimated the color as best I could on the color picker and got this for the triadic:

 

 

I liked the blue, if maybe a bit too saturated, but I definitely didn't want to put a green color on top of red no matter how complementary it might be. On to the tetradic harmony!

 

 

That Sons of Horus-y seafoam green has some potential, as does that dark ochre color. Let's put some paint down for a test. 

 

 

The colors are a bit different in person than in this pic, but it gets the idea across. I thought the blue-green color was too close to the cool grey color of the shirts and shoulder pads so I decided to go with the ochre and a darker yellow color of paint for it:

 

 

Having some experience with this, I can definitely tell when GW makes use of it for their paint schemes. My younger brother recently bought a box of Van Saar to join me and my friend in some Necromunda shenanigans, but hated the "hideous" paint scheme. Want to see something interesting about that scheme though?

 

 

Using the dark purple color as the base for the tetradic harmony, we get this. 

 

 

They use a more saturated hue for the blue-green, but all four colors are in the scheme. 

 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Started on the bases for these guys but I get to the basing stage so rarely, it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do (bare metal was never a consideration). 

 

 

Bottom row is a few thin washes, top is the sponge paint chips in progress. 

[Dosjetka]

The bases look fantastic so far. :tu:

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

Hell yeah, color theory.

[Elzender]

It's always nice to read your insights into modelling and painting, Brother Chaplain Kage, and I will certainly try to make use of the colour wheel website, so thank you for that! The colour scheme is looking nice, maybe you could add the dark red colour in the protrusions of the shoulder pads to give them a bit of contrast and still having the colour in them? Edited June 23, 2019 by Elzender

[Tyrannicide]

That was an awesome read of color theory. Getting into the thought process of our fellow hobbyists is the best way to learn and then apply new concepts. Great stuff, Kage!

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

It's always nice to read your insights into modelling and painting, Brother Chaplain Kage, and I will certainly try to make use of the colour wheel website, so thank you for that! The colour scheme is looking nice, maybe you could add the dark red colour in the protrusions of the shoulder pads to give them a bit of contrast and still having the colour in them?

 

I was considering that or maybe black for the raised areas on the shoulders.

 

That was an awesome read of color theory. Getting into the thought process of our fellow hobbyists is the best way to learn and then apply new concepts. Great stuff, Kage!

 

Thanks, brother! If it helps even a single person, it was worth the time to write it up. 

 

On to the updates! Chipping done on all ten bases now. 

 

 

For the duplicate bases I decided to focus some heavy weathering in different spots on each so they wouldn't look identical and the final weathering washes and effects will go a step further in setting them apart. 

 

Since my airbrush is out of commission and I've never done much of the sponge chipping until now, I was having some problems with finding a good consistency for the paint last night. At first, I was using some black straight out of the pot but it dried really quickly and after the time spent dabbing off the excess, I'd barely get any work done before I had to do load it up all over again. I then tried some of my Vallejo Air black paint which is already pre-thinned, but it wasn't thick enough and left very faint and small chips. 

 

Today, I tried some of the cheap acrylic paint you get from the craft stores in the 2oz bottles and it's a bit too thick right out of the container, but thinning it just a tiny bit got me a very sweet spot for paint chips. 

[Marshal Rohr]

The tetradic harmony breakdown is pure gold. Must file that for later.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I recently discovered that a Hobbytown USA near me now stocks the Vallejo Mecha paint line and I grabbed a few of the weathering washes to try out on my 'Munda bases: Light Rust, Dark Rust, and Rust Texture. I wanted some stronger color contrasts with rust tones to tie into the warm colors of the gang's paint scheme and also the look of the board tiles that came with the boxed set and damn are these washes nice. Even being as careful as I can be with the GW washes, there's still plenty of tide marks or splotches, but these Mecha washes can still be moved around after a short time without leaving tide marks (I was using one brush to apply the wash and a second damp brush to move them around, same as the GW washes in the above pics). 

 

Here's a before and after comparing duplicate bases. 

 

 

To get the effect I have on these, I very lightly thinned Light Rust and lined the crevices where moisture might accumulate and then used the damp brush to blend it out into the surrounding area so it wouldn't have a sharp transition. I did the same with Dark Rust, but since it's quite a bit darker, I blended it out less and kept it closer in on the crevices. The Rust Texture I used sparingly in specific spots like corners, on the left base I stippled some of it onto the round plumbing looking thing with the pipe leading away from it, and more heavily in the lowest spots of the the areas that look something like a stepped grate because water would sit in those areas the longest. 

 

I plan on trying out some more of their washes, but give high marks to the rust colors. 

[Bryan Blaire]

Damn, those look fantastic!

 

Really like the sound of these washes.

[Soldier of Dorn]

Those are stunning, man.

[DuskRaider]

Welp, you've convinced me. Ordered all three via Amazon.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Damn, those look fantastic!

 

Really like the sound of these washes.

 

Those are stunning, man.

 

Thanks!

 

Welp, you've convinced me. Ordered all three via Amazon.

 

Now if only I were getting kickbacks from Vallejo!

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Bases done!

 

 

I didn't realize just how similar a number of these Necromunda bases are until I started in with the rust washes and struggled with not making them all look identical. 

[Dosjetka]

Regardless of how similar their designs are, the work you've done on them looks terrific. :)

 

I'll have to see about getting my hands on some of those washes...

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I picked up two more washes today - Desert Dust and Oiled Earth, but I was little unhappy to find that they have no idea when they'll be getting the black wash re-stocked. 

 

In other news, I'm working on this old conversion again for my Necromunda Conversion Contest:

 

 

Feels so good to be making some progress on him again.