Skink
Dancing with Saurus
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Hello!
Firstly, I don't profess to be a very good user of green stuff and there are clearly some amazingly talented sculptors who visit this site all of whom I'm convinced could do a better job than I've done here. My rationale for writing this post was that while a lot of GW products are pretty expensive Chameleon Skinks seem outrageously priced when a) you can get 24 normal Skinks for £20 b) they aren't huge models or a particularly powerful unit and c) the models just aren't that good.
With that in mind and inspired by the following thread …
http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2511&start=20
I decided to give converting my normal Skinks into Chameleons!
These 6 Skink took less than 2.5 hour to convert and once painted should look fairly decent.
Step 1 - Mutilate those Skinks:
Select your victims and cut their tails off at about the 2/3 mark and remove the crests. To remove the crests I just crudely chopped them off with clippers and then used a modelling knife to shave the remains off the head - trying not to cut my fingers.
Step 2 - I rolled a small piece of green stuff into a long sausage shape. The greenstuff in the photo is all of what I used (I even had a little bit left over to make some little snakes for base decoration). The sausage is roughly skink tail in thinkness.
Step 3 – Cut a piece off the ‘greenstuff sausage’ to use for the tail. The photo showed how little I used.
Step 4 – I took my piece of greenstuff and rolled it between my forefinger and a hard (non sticky) surface placing additional pressure on one end to create a tail/cone shape.
Step 5 – I attached my ‘new tail’ to the skink. I found the greenstuff sticky enough that glue wasn’t required.
Step 6 – Roll the tail up on itself to create the ‘trademark’ chameleon tail. You can make the tail densely curled or looser. I chose a mix of both. At this point it’s probably worth stopping and letting the greenstuff set. I didn’t stop but as I moved onto the eyes I found I kept squashing the tail accidentally.
Step 7 - The following picture shows how little greenstuff is required for the eyes. I would actually cut this ball in half to create to new eyes for one skink. I just pressed each hemisphere over the existing eyes.
Step - Using a pencil I poked a pupil into each new eye. If you wanted some texture you could probably us the end of a cocktail stick to make some dots are the eye.
Step 9 – The one cool thing about the GW models is the dead frogs that adorn them. My attempts at the frogs where half-hearted failures so I decided to create a hat of sorts from the greenstuff. I rolled flat the remaining greenstuff and cut out a diamond shape. I would place this on the head of the skink and position it how I liked. Sometimes I turned up the ‘earflaps’ and sometimes I stretched out the back the diamond to cover the neck. I used a modeling knife to add some leaf-like texture.
Step 10 – Add the arms, blowpipes and hand-weapons.
Step 11 – Paint.
I hope someone finds this useful. If anything I hope it shows how simple it is to make some passable chameleons out of greenstuff. Lets face it for the £30 pounds you could spend on 6 GW chameleons you could spend on 24 skinks and a pack of greenstuff.
Good luck,
DWS
Firstly, I don't profess to be a very good user of green stuff and there are clearly some amazingly talented sculptors who visit this site all of whom I'm convinced could do a better job than I've done here. My rationale for writing this post was that while a lot of GW products are pretty expensive Chameleon Skinks seem outrageously priced when a) you can get 24 normal Skinks for £20 b) they aren't huge models or a particularly powerful unit and c) the models just aren't that good.
With that in mind and inspired by the following thread …
http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2511&start=20
I decided to give converting my normal Skinks into Chameleons!
These 6 Skink took less than 2.5 hour to convert and once painted should look fairly decent.
Step 1 - Mutilate those Skinks:
Select your victims and cut their tails off at about the 2/3 mark and remove the crests. To remove the crests I just crudely chopped them off with clippers and then used a modelling knife to shave the remains off the head - trying not to cut my fingers.
Step 2 - I rolled a small piece of green stuff into a long sausage shape. The greenstuff in the photo is all of what I used (I even had a little bit left over to make some little snakes for base decoration). The sausage is roughly skink tail in thinkness.
Step 3 – Cut a piece off the ‘greenstuff sausage’ to use for the tail. The photo showed how little I used.
Step 4 – I took my piece of greenstuff and rolled it between my forefinger and a hard (non sticky) surface placing additional pressure on one end to create a tail/cone shape.
Step 5 – I attached my ‘new tail’ to the skink. I found the greenstuff sticky enough that glue wasn’t required.
Step 6 – Roll the tail up on itself to create the ‘trademark’ chameleon tail. You can make the tail densely curled or looser. I chose a mix of both. At this point it’s probably worth stopping and letting the greenstuff set. I didn’t stop but as I moved onto the eyes I found I kept squashing the tail accidentally.
Step 7 - The following picture shows how little greenstuff is required for the eyes. I would actually cut this ball in half to create to new eyes for one skink. I just pressed each hemisphere over the existing eyes.
Step - Using a pencil I poked a pupil into each new eye. If you wanted some texture you could probably us the end of a cocktail stick to make some dots are the eye.
Step 9 – The one cool thing about the GW models is the dead frogs that adorn them. My attempts at the frogs where half-hearted failures so I decided to create a hat of sorts from the greenstuff. I rolled flat the remaining greenstuff and cut out a diamond shape. I would place this on the head of the skink and position it how I liked. Sometimes I turned up the ‘earflaps’ and sometimes I stretched out the back the diamond to cover the neck. I used a modeling knife to add some leaf-like texture.
Step 10 – Add the arms, blowpipes and hand-weapons.
Step 11 – Paint.
I hope someone finds this useful. If anything I hope it shows how simple it is to make some passable chameleons out of greenstuff. Lets face it for the £30 pounds you could spend on 6 GW chameleons you could spend on 24 skinks and a pack of greenstuff.
Good luck,
DWS
