May 23, 2013

Hoffman's Crew done ... mostly

I've managed to get everyone in my initial gang done :) Now just need to get the mobile toolkit and the claw guy done. Here they are:

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I think I overdid the rust spray on the smokestacks on the Peacekeeper so I'm going to give it a black wash and a bit of metal drybrush to tone it back.

May 22, 2013

Painting Wild West Bases

I got a lot of comments about the bases as I've been painting my Hoffman crew so I thought I'd write up something about what colours I use as I do up the next couple bases.
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The starting point is a few bits of broken coffee stirres, some rocks, a couple plastic cacti from Pegasus Hobbies and a heap of sand.
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This was given a spray of undercoat, in this case Army Painter undead flesh but white would do.
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All the ground was basecoated with a nice earthy brown and the cacti with khaki. I actually used a sample pot of house paint for the brown since I had used it for my big base board for my Western town.


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Drybrushing: a sandy yellow over everything including the cacti.
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Next a very light drybrush of off white on the larger rocks.
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Next washes: a bit of Army Painter Soft Tone painted around the rocks and cacti to give a bit of depth. Also a bit here and there on the cacti.
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Next some Thraka Green wash over the plants.
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Now some Strong Tone washes over the wood planks and a bit more defining around the rocks..
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Using a warm light grey I picked out the planks a bit for that weathered look.

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Now using grass tufts I give the bases some foliage. It's a good idea to have the minis on the base when you do this so you don't get the grass obscuring the figure.

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All done.
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Finally paint the edge whatever colour you like, I've gone classic black. Now I just need to get the minis finished.

STRANDBEEST!!

The unusual plastic kit I mentioned in my last post was a mechanical kit of a Strandbeest.... what in hell is a Strandbeest you will likely be asking yourself. Let Adam Savage explain in the video that made me go searching eBay for a kit



Strandbeests are the creation of artist Theo Jansen, they're very weird but also quite cool. The fact I really like multi legged walkers made me want to build one so I found one kit at around the $20 mark amongst the the $80-90 ones. Turns out it didn't have the magazine with it but did have instructions in engrish which at least made life easier to make sense of it.

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At this point you may well be thinking OMG WTH etc. I took my time clipping off all the parts and cleaning of the snip bits while watching Game of Thrones.

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All the parts neatly layed out of "knolled" as Adam Savage says.

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After about a half hour or so construction after some confusion at the construction of the 1st pair of legs it went together incredibly fast. It's a really idiot proof kit in that the joints can only be built the correct way. It's just at the bit where they connect to the crank shaft that gets a bit confusing if you don't reread the instructions for that one stage.

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IT'S ALIVE!!!!

It walks very well as it strides sideways across your desk.

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It's just such a bizarre complicated looking thing but it walks so gracefully that it doesn't look mechanical as it does it. I'll shoot some video later.