Miniature conversion using green stuff

Woo-hoo ... I managed to finally complete my first miniature conversion as well as use Game Workshop's green stuff for the very first time. Taking them for what they are i.e. maiden attempts, I am fairly happy with the results and it gives me the confidence to do better next time. As a start, I decided to try something not too ambitious and limited my conversions to simple modifications. For now, I plan to place this fallen Ultramarine on the same base as the Word Bearers Helbrute that I am painting.

No guts no glory - intestines were sculpted in a slightly enlarged size to simulate bloating (Nurgle at work here)

Realised that I had no decals for the Ultramaring tactical symbol so that had to be drawn free-hand

Shot through the primary heart while armour show signs of battle damage

Why a fallen Ultramarine for the mini-conversion project?
Well, the idea behind this mini-conversion was to have a victim for my Word Bearers Helbrute and what better Adeptus Astartes chapter to use than the Ultramarines. Granted that the Helbrute is carrying a multi-melta but the story behind the unfortunate soldier is that he was shot through his primary heart by a Word Bearers Space Marine and as his secondary heart tried to cope, he lay down on the rocks to recover. Who happens to trudge by but a Helbrute who decides to gut him with his power first. So there you have it, a fallen Ultramarine who is at death's door (if not through it).

This particular Ultramarine's blue armour is slightly darker than what I usually paint my boys in blue - the direct result of having a heavy wash of Badab Black to portray a battle-worn armour. Other battle damage effects that I tried to include were scratch marks from bolter rounds and blood splatter. His head is not totally inclined as his secondary heart has not completely given in yet.

First try at using Green Stuff

A warm-up before sculpting the actual green stuff

As this was my first experience at using the green stuff, I decided to practice first by using a rubber mastic adhesive or more commonly known as Blu-Tack. In this case, I used Selley's Ezy-Tack which was white instead of the traditional pale blue colour. I guess the muscle memory gained from a childhood spent playing plasticine was still intact as I managed to shape the re-usable adhesive without fumbling too much. For this project, I used the smallest sculpting tool in my set of cheap plastic tools.  

Green stuff for miniature conversion

Of course the adhesive is different from the green stuff in two key areas:
(a) It is less sticky; and
(b) It is softer than the green stuff. 

Nonetheless, it gave me the chance to test out my ideas before settling on the final result that you see on the left i.e. some leg armour to reposition the foot; some bloated intestines and the stump of his torn-off arm.

Based on my experience, the biggest thing to note about using the green stuff is to always keep it moist while sculpting. Don't worry about getting it too wet, just keep dabbing water on the green stuff as you sculpt to prevent them from sticking to your hands.  

Just to be sure, I left the green stuff to cure over night before spraying a white undercoat on the whole miniature prior to painting it. Well that's it for this post, thanks for reading and happy hobbying!

Ultramarine Terminator Squad

Well, I finally finished painting the Ultramarine Terminator Squad from Assault on Black Reach. It was meant as a mini-project to inject some variety into my painting schedule. But unfortunately it has taken more time than I intended and set me back on my Chaos and Ork army progress.

 

 
I tried using the simplest painting technique I could think off to finish painting the squad in the shortest time possible. Here's what I did.

1 Basecoat

 

For the basecoat I painted a thin-layer of Regal Blue for the main armour; Boltgun Metal for the metal bits; Chaos Black for the sword blade; Scorched Brown for the leather armour; Scab Red/Graveyard Earth for the Purity Seal; 1:1 mix of Scorched Brown:Shining Gold for the iron halo and bullets; Astronimican Grey for the white parts; and Bleached Bone for the skull.   

2 Wash

 

Badab Black wash was used on the armour/metal bits while Devlan Mud was applied on the skull.

3 Midtones & Highlights

 

For the Midtones, a 1:1 mix of Ultramarine Blue:Regal Blue was applied to the armour; successive thin layers of Skull white was painted on the white parts; Shining Gold was applied on the iron halo; Blood Red/Bleached Bone (purity seal); a 2:1 mix of Scorched Brown:Bestial Borwn (leather armour); Dwarf Bronze (bullets); and 2:1 mix of Chaos Black:Boltgun Metal (sword blade).

For the highlights, Chainmail was used on the bolter and sword blade; 1:2 mix of Mithril Silver:Shining Gold was applied on the iron halo; and a 1:1 mix of Space Wolves:Ultramarine Blue was used to highlight the raised areas of the armour. Details such as the wording on the chest area of the armour was done using a pigment pen (thanks to help from a local forum.  

First attempt at painting a miniature face (human)
The Terminator Sergeant was my first serious attempt at painting a human face using Game Workshop techniques so they turned out just ok with plenty of room for improvement.

Basecoat of 1:1 mix of Vermin Brown:Scorched Brown

1:1:1 mix of Dwarf Flesh:Vermin Brown:Scorched Brown leaving deep recessed areas in basecoat colour

Pure Dwarf Flesh on raised areas + Wash of Orgryn Flesh

Finished off with a 2:1 mix of Dwarf Flesh:Skull White

Guess I no longer have any excuses to put off painting my Chaos and Ork armies.
Thanks for reading!

Working with metal and painting better whites

Chaos Obliterator

Working with metal miniatures for the first time has been anything but a pleasant experience. I found it extremely difficult to glue the small minuscule weapon pieces to the Chaos Obliterator's arms. At times it felt like a hair-pulling exercise in frustration. Thankfully most metal miniatures are being slowly replaced by Game Workshop's Citadel Finecast. Nonetheless, it was good to work on the Chaos Black Legion army again having neglected my Chaos army for quite some time ... even if it was just to assemble and undercoat the model.

Chaos Obliterator ... my first and most likely last metal miniatures

Gluing the weapons on both arms was frustrating to say the least

With some modifications - most likely in the choice of colours - to the cool painting tutorial at Glued My Fingers, I hope to get both Obliterators painted as soon as possible, in between work on the Ultramarines and Orks.

Painting better whites

Based on advice by bloggers such as limp, vuel, snake88 and ron, I decided to alter the white painting process slightly to improve the smoothness of the whites and reduce chalkiness. Using Astronomican Grey as the basecoat, then washing it with Badab Black before painting Skull White in a couple of thin and watered down layers resulted in better looking whites.

Painting whites: First try (left), second try (right)

Painting more whites: First try (left), second try (right)

There is room for improvement, but that's solely due to my lack of skill. With three more Ultramarine Terminators to paint, I won't be short of practice so hopefully I will get better at painting the whites.

Other Ultramarine Terminators in various stages of completion

Progress on the Orks

Only managed to basecoat three out of the five Ork Nobz I have assembled from the Assault on Black Reach (AoBR) set and that's simply not good enough. With free time at a premium, I have to somehow find a more efficient way to paint up my son's Ork army faster. Short of 'sleep-painting' (heh heh ... wouldn't that be a sight for sore eyes), I am hoping experience will equal faster painting.

Front view of Ork Nobz - basecoats only

Back view of Ork Nobz - basecoats only

Outside of the AoBR Orks, I have 5 Ork Burnas and 5 Ork Lootas being lined up for assembly. Budget constraints seem to be turning the emerging Ork army to an infantry heavy one. Oh well, unless our local hobby stores start accepting Ork Teeth as payment, I guess it will have to do until more moolah comes my way.

Assault on Black Reach - First painted model

It has taken a long time but I have finally finished painting a miniature from the Assault on Black Reach (AoBR) set. While better late than never, I do have mixed feelings with the end result.

Ultramarine Terminator (Front and Back view)

Ultramarine Terminator (Side views)

I was reasonably happy with how the blue armour turned out, but I kinda messed up the whites. Based on the pictures shown in the AoBR manual, the Games Workshop team painted such smooth looking whites. One reason could be that I did not follow the advice given in White Dwarf No.359 which suggested layers of a mixture of Space Wolves Grey and Graveyard Earth before ending with pure Skull White. As I am in a hurry to paint as quickly as I can (before AoBR becomes yesterday's starter set), I just went with Skull White --> Badab Black Wash --> Skull White.

Does anyone know of a quick way to paint smooth looking whites? Any suggestions are most appreciated. At least I have three more Termies to practise on before I attempt to paint the Ultramarine Terminator Sergeant.

Other progress on the AoBR set included assembly and undercoating of the vehicles i.e. the Ork Deffkopters and an Ultramarine Dreadnought.

Deffkopters and Dreadnought primed for paint.

Book of the Week - The Red King
Taking a short break from Black Library books to indulge in some Star Trek sci-fi stuff I have had in my collection for a long time.

At the moment, I am trying to reconnect to the Star Trek reading materials by jumping in to the series in a chronological order. At the moment, I am at Star Trek Titan - The Red King by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin. I am a fan of the authors' earlier work i.e. Star Trek Excelsior:Forged in Fire.

As always, thank you for reading and have yourself a good week.

Preparing Ultramarine Terminators for paint

It has been a slow week hobby wise. Most of my free time was spent glued to Steve Parker's page-turner i.e. Rynn's World i.e. the first in Black Library's Space Marine Battles novel series ... a book about the Crimson Fists Space Marine Chapter that I bought two-years ago! Having just got around to reading it, I haven't been able to put the novel down long enough to do any proper painting.

Reason for an unproductive hobby week.

All I managed to do was to add to the number of Assault on Black Reach (AOBR) miniatures undercoated so far, i.e. five Ultramarine Terminators has joined the ranks of five Ork Nobz and 10 Ork Boyz that were painted with a black undercoat quite sometime ago.

Fresh off the assembly line

Skull White undercoat ... check

AOBR Ork Nobz that were supposed to be painted together with Ghazghkull Thraka

Ork Boyz still in their undercoats

So technically, I have three armies on my plate namely the Ultramarines, Orks and Black Legion Chaos army. While this will definitely slow me down in terms of getting an army up and running, it will however make the painting sessions less monotonous. That can only be a good thing in the long run ... I hope so anyway.

Khorne Berzerkers are ready for war!

After what seems like forever, the Khorne Berzerkers are finally finished. Highlights comprised Blood Red for the armour, Chainmail for the metal parts and Burnished Gold for the gold parts. Weapon tassels were washed with Thraka Green (on top of a Mechrite Red basecoat) and highlighted with a mixture of 1:3 Scab Red:Fortress Grey. Basing was inspired by GameWorkshop's Warptainted Lands colour scheme while a Black Legion decal was applied to the zerkers' left shoulder.

Can the zerkers be improved upon? Most undoubtedly. But for now, I guess I will leave them as they are. A wash of Devlan Mud was in the works but I decided against it at the end. A detailed 'How to paint Khorne Berzerkers' as well as colours used for the base will be posted in an upcoming blog. 

View from all angles

A detailed look

 With these new additions, the Black Legion army was soon looking for trouble. 

Courage and honour?

Ugg and Ogg in trouble?

Well, based on that last picture above, it seems like the lovable Ugg and Ogg  are in serious trouble. They need help. So I will need to start my Citadel Finecast project soon and get Ghazghkull Thraka into the fray. I plan to use 'Heavy Metal's Masterclass guide to help paint this massive Ork Warboss. 

It has been a crazy week hobby wise ... but I am loving every minute of it.