Old Schooler New to Lizzies

[FavoredoftheOldOnes]

Simply amazing. Everything from your conversions, your paint scheme/skills all the way to your very own sculpts. Can't find anything I didn't like. Keep up the good work!

 

[dictator]

First off, it's great to see you back. I understand the needs of life compared to the hobby. I'm glad to see you are still working on teaching your son a bit of sculpting. I'm sure if he keeps up with it he may just surpass your prowess. I look forward to seeing how you will attach the arms. I've usually seen the wire base formed completely except for the head. The reason you didn't was because you want to be able to cast the arms separately? Either way, awesome work. I look forward to seeing the progress.

 

[T`hinker`er]

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words and the welcome back I hope to be able to post semi-regularly again as I've manged to wrap up a few cases, get on top of and put spring gardening chores behind me and the campaign is now heating up so I need to get busy fielding another 500 to 1000 points over the next 6 months!

To answer your question, I usually don't do arms or tails until I have the torso firmly under control as these things tend to get in the way. I have a good enough handle on anatomy, I feel, that I can get away with adding the arms in later and making them look seamless (planning ahead with back and chest muscles, shoulder width, etc.) And yes, dong those parts separately will make casting these a lot easier too!

So here's an update, mainly working on the heads and faces:



The idea here is to sculpt a face that is part way between the old Kroxi (of which I have 3) and the new GW Krox models (of which I only have 1). That way they will fit in equally well with both 5th edition and 7th-8th edition stuff. I suppose mine are the evolutionary missing link...

Still a lot of details missing, and I think I need to carve some of the "baby fat" off the guy on the left - his cheeks look a little pudgy to me

 

[dictator]

I would just like to see some more jaw muscles. The face looks good to me. I understand the need to get the trunk of the body correct. Did you start with the feet or the head?

 

[T`hinker`er]

Krox sculpting continues (along with 10 other projects), and I hope you don't mind me jumping around a bit here, but I am really excited getting back to my Chameleon conversions. You may recall, these photos from earlier in this thread:

(yes, those are my fingers)

I have about 10 of these made now, and in addition to the curly tails I've sculpted some googly chameleon eyes and proper looking chameleon heads. I've also used both the original body pose (above) and the newer pose with the head up and mouth open (below).

Here are sample photos of where I'm at with these guys as of right now:





So I have plenty of blowpipe arms left over from my skink box, but I needed left arms and wanted them to be specific to the chameleons. I ended up making one holding a poison dart frog and the other holding a blow gun dart:



I made the mold for these arms last night...when I get home from work I'll see how it came out and hopefully I can start casting tonight. A lot more work to do on these guys and more photos to follow!

Dictator - I always start from the feet and work my way up. Just a habit, I guess, but it does help to keep the model solidly planted on it's base as I'm working. The Kroxi faces were significantly improved last night but I had them in the cooker so I didn't get new photos taken. I'll post some soon. Also working on the Kroxi weapons at the moment. I want to at least have their wire armature arms on them for my game coming up on Sunday...

 

[Lord Cedric]

Wow! Just.. simply.. wow! I am very interested in seeing more. Where did you learn how to do that? What materials do you use? Im just very impressed!

 

[T`hinker`er]

Hey Cedric, lots more photos earlier on in this thread, including detailed info on the materials I use, etc. I'm self taught and been fooling around with Warhammer since about 1996 or so. Basically "cut my teeth" with Play Dough http://www.google.com/search?q=play...DDeWn0AHlqJ2nAw&ved=0CCUQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=679 which was my favorite boyhood toy

 

[Lord Cedric]

Very nice! Thanks for the information. In all my time with playing Warhammer.. i've never messed with green stuff. Which is quite interesting considering, like yourself, I too played with "clay" and "play dough" as a kid.. extensively - with my green army men and Gi-Joes. I think it would be well-worth the time to do a couple models, cast them, and paint to produce a very unique army that fits your theme.

You sir, are ever the inspiration. I am thinking about giving this a try sometime. I am a HUGE miniature gamer starting with Dungeons and Dragons (waaaaay back in Basic edition, which I still have that light-purple book and dice you need to crayon-color in and some of the original boxed LEAD miniatures). I can only see positive things come from this.. aside from not relying on a unique model for any game system, but the sense of accomplishment.. just.. inspiring!

 

[T`hinker`er]

Hey Cedric, I have those same dice - I even think I have the crayon that came with them somewhere! My son, who is eleven now, is just starting with D&D and I'm running an adventure for him using the AD&D first edition books (which are the only D&D books I own). Loads of fun

So I managed to cast enough arms to finish up a unit of Chameleons in time for my game yesterday against the High Elves (I wiped them off the table, btw - wooo-who!)



I might make 5 more before I start painting the Chameleons in my army. I have a game coming up against the Dwarfs soon and I think having 3 units of 5 would be a good idea for warmachine hunting...

 

[strewart]

Those skink arms holding the frogs are fantastic! Very cool looking. If you are casting them, any chance you would be willing to sell a few to me?

 

[Sikeron]

Thats some really nice scultping and casting you have done for your Chameleons... especially the casting is very well done. At least I couldnt spot any trapped air bubbles... considering the pointy scales without any air channels on the back of the Chameleons which easily lead to some kind of difficult to cast areas. Any hints or do you use some air pressure/ degassing device?

The kroxigors definetly have the GW touch/ style, although I am not a big fan of the current design, I like your version... Just some gentle scraping with a scalpel to smooth some areas, some scales on the back and you are almost done...

 

[T`hinker`er]

Strewart - I'd be happy to sell you some castings of the froggies, but they are proving to be very hard to cast well. I tried 4 times on Saturday and got one semi-decent frog out of it, and even then I had to pin it together and greenstuff the bubbles and gaps (take a closer look at the photo). I was painting and basing about 35 minis at the same time, getting ready for a game, so I didn't have more time to play with the mold and get it working better. I may go back to it later if I decide I want another unit of Chameleons at some point. I currently have 10 now (including 4 GW metal figs), and field them as either 2 units of 5 or one unit of 6-7. If I need more interdiction beyond that I'm likely to spend my points on Terradons.

Sikeron - not using any air pressure/degassing device. My technique is to use low viscosity resin and after I pour it I bang on the table a lot and jab a pin into the pour-hole to get as many bubbles out as I can. I also cut a fair number of air-escape channels with an x-acto knife. After I de-mold I do quite a lot of cleaning and seam hiding with greenstuff. It is fairly time consuming, but well worth it to me.

Looking forward to painting this unit before the next campaign game on August 21...taking on the Dwarfs for the first time ever with my new Lizard army <gulp!>

 

[FavoredoftheOldOnes]

Man I wish you could give us like lessons on how to work with green stuff and shaping and casting and all that. I've only just helped my girlfriend fill in gaps on her dark elf hydra and even then after I primed it you can still see where I used the GS . Of course, that was my first time ever using the stuff and I gotta say despite it not being seemless and perfect it was a lot of fun!

Anyway, enough of my rant. Let the favor of the Old Ones be with you so that you may crush them stubborn Dwarves!

So says the guy who has never played Dwarves and also can't seem to win a game to save his life

 

[T`hinker`er]

Like painting, the use of putty improves with practice. Don't give up. Often the secret is just breaking it down into bite sized, manageable smaller projects, letting the putty cure in between goes.

To change the subject to painting, here's where my Saurus were at before this past weekend's game:







Still lots of detailing to do, and those bases, but the stripes are done finally and the blending is to my liking

And here are the skinks:



What do you think?

 

[T`hinker`er]

No one wants to comment on my painting? Huh...

Well, back to sculpting then. Here are some photos of the Kroxigi, faces mostly done now. Just need to add some scaly texture to them, which I won't both with until I have the arms and tails on so I can do the finishing work all in one go:



And some close-up shots:

Mine:


My Son's:


Going for a "crocodile crossed with a t-rex" look on these guys...

 

[Lord Cedric]

I admire your artistic talents! Your saurus warriors are painted really unique. Not my style, but definately done pretty nice! However, your skinks.. yeah - awesome! :-D (again, not to take away from your saurus, just more my style).

On your krox sculpting.. simply amazing! I think you achieved the look you were going for. Great work!

 

[dictator]

Airbrush fun! I enjoy your Sauri models. The only thing I do wish I could see done on the models is the smaller details. I see they don't have the loin clothes complete or the rope holding them up. I can't complain besides the tiddly stuff. I just can't stop looking at the models.

The Krox are coming along too. I like the facial features. I have to admit that I like your sons work a bit more than yours. Don't be sad about it but he makes a mean looking face. I'd make sure to start paying him so he doesn't go find someone else who will pay!

The chameleon skink molds are worth the trouble. The frog looks great and sometimes you can't put a price on personal work. Keep up the work.

 

[FavoredoftheOldOnes]

Sculpts are coming along very nicely. Love the saurus models, but definitely love the skinks more. The spots on them are just fantastic!

 

[T`hinker`er]

Thanks for the comments guys, just back from 2 weeks visiting Iceland and lots to catch up on today. I'll post some more photos soon

 

[DanBot]

That is some awesome sculpting. I've been lurking around this thread for a while. I plan on doingnsome very minor conversions. And i was wondering what tools you use and what you would subjest for a newb. Cuz whatever you are doing, you're using i want to be using.