FULL COMPLETION

 When I posted up my Rancor pit recently, Jeff mentioned it wasn't really complete without Malakili, well not to leave this section part done, I've built the missing character.

Above is one of the reference pictures I used to build the model from.

Above is my rendition, made from greenstuff, and some plastic rod, tried to get the colours as close as I can, and have used some washes and glazes to get the grime you see in the reference picture.

I've also got a Gonk Power droid done, it started as a Wizards of the Coast model, which I then sculpted on top of to get it closer to the original one seen in a new hope, on the Sandcrawler.

Next time I will be posting up the Season of Scenery summary, I've been waiting to see if Azazel had any more submissions, if he does I will post a separate posting for them. Now next month is normally Zomtober, but not seen anything on if this is happening, so thought I might do a challenge that will fit in with this called Apocalypse Me ! The idea behind it is whichever type of apocalypse you choose you can do survivors or antagonists ( Zombie, Post Apocalyptic, Alien Invasion, Natural disaster, or any other you can think of), you can do a single model, or a group entirely up to you, and if you really want to go all out, why not convert a model to represent yourself in your chosen apocalypse, thinking about the type of weapons or equipment you would need to survive. If your interested in this idea and want to take part let me know in the comments below. The challenge will run from the 1 st of October until the 31st.

That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

AN END IN SIGHT

 While I had the toxic colours out I managed to finish off the last 3 Grotesques I needed for the unit of 10, I'd already done the conversions a while back, so just needed some paint on them, I had run out of blades from the Plastic Talos kit, so had to make 3 from scratch.

With these completed I realised that other than painting some of the bases I only had 3 models left to paint to finish my court of pain, this involved 3 original metal Talos, now one just needed the blades and weapons repainted in my silver recipe to tie in with the rest of this army. this is the most standard of the 3, and only has the addition of the back blades and the angling of the top blades.

The next one had a different set of blades added and the top blades blended into the structure, I also put two claws as front weapons and then leaned off all the trophies from the front carapace, and put a full skeleton as a trophy instead.

The last Talos didn't come with a front carapace, as it was gifted to me, and they'd used that part, or lost it. So this one was built with plasticard, and I painted the court of pain symbol on the front instead of putting trophies on it. The claw started off as a top blade, which I modified to look like it could open and close. 

This last piece has  a story behind it, when the metal cauldron of blood came out, I picked one up, I used the witches from it as Dark Eldar Wyches and the cauldron on one of my raiders. This left some wheels that went into bits boxes and the statue of Khaine, as a joke I said to my friend who was an Eldar player, perhaps I should turn it into a Dark Avatar, you can imagine he wasn't enthralled by the idea. I played with the bits over the years to change it's stature from a static statue to a moving piece, I also changed the bleeding heart into a guard trooper being crushed, and gave him a spear from the wood elf Orion model. For the painting I've gone with a Khornate colour scheme, which was another in joke.

Gaming wise I could use it as a Talos proxie, or maybe one of my opponets would let me use it as an Avatar ! LOL Don't think that will ever happen. That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

BACK TO BUSINESS

 Over the past two years I haven't done a lot of new releases for the business due to first the house move and renovation, then the pandemic, now we are showing signs of coming out of it ( I hope !) I really need to get some new pieces done. The first bits I wanted to do are for an apocalyptic setting, and I've created some new toxic pools.

The first one is a smaller pool than the one we already have toxic-pool on our site, my daughter came up with the idea of having a sign melting into the pool, and as I like irony I painted it up as the warning sign, you can see the posts that it used to stand on in the front of the pool, I thought of it as the toxic fumes corroded the posts and the sign then fell into the pool.

This next one has a barrel that has caused the pool it sits in.

For this one I wanted to show the toxic fumes eating into the wheel and melting the tyre into the pool.

The last one, is a simple skeleton that could have been a body dump, or a luckless adventure who fell in.

These are all cast in translucent green resin, to aide the painting process, and I have done a little step by step below to show how I did it.

Step 1 turning the pool upside down, I start with a wash, especially if I want to show rust leaking into the pool.

Step 2 As I have an object sitting in the pool , I put a layer of the base colour into the pool area, so when you look above, you can see some of the object in the pool.

Step 3 I then added a light colour to help show shallows, now you you may notice the paint has pulled back in a random pattern, there are two ways you can achieve this, first add more water to your paint, or wipe your fingers over the area before painting, as the grease in your fingers will act as a inhibitor ( I use the second method as I like the randomness)

Step 4 Next I added the first shade of green I wanted to use, you can see how the paint has pulled back again.

Step 5 I added a layer of the second shade of green, again the paint has pulled back again, but in a smaller area. If you want to increase the paint at any point, wait for this coat to dry and then add another coat of the same colour.

Step 6 I then added a coat of the darkest green I wanted, and made sure to get a full covering.

Step 7 Once the underside is fully dry, turn it over, this is when I start adding washes and glazes to the top, first I added a yellow wash around the edge of the sign.

Step 8 I added a green glaze over the main area of the pool, and once dry then cover the pool in gloss varnish. Now obviously this is not the only way to paint these, as Mick showed recently when he painted one of our large pools, and did a great effect on his.

Hope you have found this useful, and would love to know your thoughts on all of the above, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

MAN THAT'S A BIG DOOR

 One of the main features of the Rancor pit, has to be the door that separates the two areas. It is so thick that I decided to make it differently to normal, and started with a piece of insulation foam cut to the right size. Then I added a skin of thin plasticard each side to give the smooth texture required. For the details I needed multiple levels in areas, so the bottom detail was made with 2 layers of 0.5 mm, where as the uprights were made with 1 mm card. To get the large rivet heads that were sunk in, I drilled holes then filled with greenstuff, and made an edge recess so as to define the two sections.

I included the recess in the wall that Luke tries to hide in.

Below are some more scenic pictures with models to show the scale of everything.

Below are the two different doors that give access to the corridor.

And just for fun one of the keepers finding the Rancor's latest deposit, in the movie Luke actually has to run right past a huge pile of dung to get to the corridor door.

That's all for this post, don't know what I'll do next, so will be a surprise for all, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

THIS ONES FOR YOU !

 While I was building Jabba's throne room, several other bloggers were mentioning other rooms in his palace, and wondering if I would be tackling those as well, for once I can't blame Roger, but Ivor, Dai, and Jeff instead. Now saying that this would be like pouring petrol on a fire would probably be an understatement ! LOL

So which of these areas to do first, well I've gone with the Rancor pit, as it directly effects the throne room. It's been carve out of the heavy duty insulation foam, which gives a great rock texture.

So far I've been working on the area the victims are dropped into, and have got the basic wall structure done, and the textured rock faces. I used the colour of the foam, as the base colour, so only had to do a wet brush of brown, and a dry brush of bone to get the areas painted

I've also got a sliding shutter done for the trap door entrance, and included a skull that I found was sitting in one of the fissures of the rocks.

I'm currently working on the big door and the Rancor enclosure, and I hope to get everything finished before the end of the challenge.

One of the things I did get to do on the bad week was catch up on some watching of series, and got through three seasons of Mayans, it's a spin off series from Sons of Anarchy, which is all about outlaw bikers or the 1% and covers some very topical agendas that was going on in the US at the time.

I also sat through two seasons of Scream Queens, now I started to watch it as it starred the excellent Jamie Lee Curtis, but I found it was a poor rip off  of many of the 80's style slasher movies, and the main difference was in the originals there were characters you wanted to see survive, the main characters in this series are so obnoxious I found myself actually hoping the killer would knock them off sooner rather than later, but they have so far managed to avoid that for two series. So why am I sharing this, because I thought I would save anyone who hasn't seen it the time of sitting through it ! LOL

That's all for this post so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

THE WEEK THAT WASN'T !

 Since finishing Jabba's palace, my health decided to give me a real beating, but not to let it win I decided to finish a model that would still count for the Season of Scenery but has been sat around for far too long.

I actually started painting it earlier in the year for one of Ann's challenges, until I ran out of paint half way through, I had ordered the paints straight away but took over a month to arrive, and by then I was working away on lots of Star Wars stuff for other challenges.

Of all the models I've ever bought from Forgeworld, this was the worst in quality, as ever panel was bent or twisted and had to be straightened with heat before putting together. The model design itself I thought was brilliant and turned the ugly duckling that is the Storm Raven, into the super sleek and aggressive looking Storm Eagle. Normally I have thee legs retracted and mount the flyer on a flying stand, but for once I thought it would be cool to have the legs out so I can use my landing platform. Painting wise I've stuck with my normal colour scheme for my Space Marine chapter.

I've kept with Iain's advice and made it look individual with chipping and named the craft in a similar fashion to pilots during WW2. I've also added heat bloom on all the engines. Normally I put the chapter symbol on the tail fin, but as these were aa lot smaller, and not very flat I went with the symbol on the side doors, and sculpted the hawk and moon before painting.

Hoping this week my health levels back out and can get back on with creating some scenery from scratch, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave 

STRIKE UP THE BAND

 Yes I have indeed finished Jabba's throne room ! Felt like I'd never see the end of this project at some points, but got there in the end.

Above are a couple of shots of the whole set up with all the sections sat in place.

Last time I mentioned there were a few details needed around Jabba's dais the first one was this weird vent on the wall at the back, after watching the scene for far too many times I spotted this bit, and thought I better add it for completeness.

Another piece I needed was Jabba's frog snack bowl, to make this I made a template out of greenstuff and plastic rod, then took a instant mould of it, I also made a frog to fit in the bowl, then I poured some translucent green resin into the bowl with the frog in it. once I fitted the securing ring and painted that bit. I coated the resin bowl with gloss varnish to give it a suitable shine.

The last bit needed was the gargoyles on the front of the dais I made one from greenstuff, then took an instant mould and pressed out the rest.

Above are a couple more scenic shots with figures in place, including one of the creatures I made for Monster May(hem) this year.

Don't know what I'll work on next, so it will be a surprise for you and me alike ! LOL So until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave