Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Wizardry in Progress 2/28/18

February is over and Adepticon is now less than a month away and the pressure is on!

I am now on to the last 4 Kastelan Robots. So that means from here on out its all robos all the time. Over the last week I've managed to finish one and get a decent amount of progress on the next one too. Also I finished the vats in a mad dash to get them done before the tournament on Saturday.

Let's take a look!

Orange Kastelan Robot
Thursday night I started on the 3rd Kastelan Robot, using the green eyed robo head.

The original plan was to paint him with bright red armor plating and grey replacement parts. With that in mind, I decided to make Mephiston Red as the base coat and for some reason I grabbed Wild Rider Red as the first highlight color.

I painted the armor plating Mephiston Red and then washed it with Agrax Earthshade, as I normally would. I then layered on more Mephiston Red and started working highlighting with Wild Rider.

That's when I realized that the jump in color may have been a bit much. But I stuck with it and blended the two together the best I could. and layered on the Wild Rider until I was happy with  coverage.

I highlighted that with Troll Slayer Orange and that's when I started to realize that the bright red I wanted wasn't going to happen, instead I inadvertently created burnt orange armor.

At first I was slightly disappointed, but as I finished more and more of it I began to like it quite a bit and now that it's finished I wouldn't have it any other color.

The head, chest plate and codpiece were painted with Dark Reaper, Nuln Oil, Neutral Grey and White.

I started with a base coat of Dark Reaper and then washed it with Nuln Oil and then worked it up to white edge highlighting in much the same way that I painted the orange panels.

I always get nervous while painting these robo heads, because I don't want to accidentally get paint on the visor.

I couldn't decide it I wanted any battle damage on the glass and in the end I chose not to do anything fancy to it. The green eyed head was the most accurate recast, and I wanted the eyes to be fully visible.

Out of all the robos so far, this one is my favorite.

I recorded the entire painting processes for him as well, so expect a Let's Paint video to show up soon.





White Robot
After the orange robo was finished, I got to work on the next one. For this one I went with a bent knee pose with him aiming to the left. He will be my 3rd shooty robo, alongside the black and orange one, when I go to Adepticon.

For the base I glued a piece of cork to it and then a skeleton propped up on it. I then used some green stuff to build up the transition from the base to the dunes.

After a quick primer coat, the ground was laid down with Martian Ironcrust and left to dry.

I decided to challenge myself a bit with this robo and went with white armor plating.

So far, its proven to be a test of patience and sometimes involved incredible frustration.

To achieve the look that I am going for, I knew I needed to make him mostly grey with white as the highest highlight.

Unsure on how to start, I base coated the entire thing with Vallejo Neutral Grey and then a wash of Nuln Oil.

It seemed like it would work out really well, but I started having problems achieving the gradient that I was going for.

That said, I ended up using Dark Reaper as the shadow color and working it into Neutral Grey and up to White.

The result is better than the original attempts, but the white likes to go chalky very easily. Its a slight problem, but not anything super major.

Of course, the plan from the get go has been that this robo will be oranged rusty and dirty white paint. So in reality, I am probably just being too picky.

The leg that is painted black will be his replacement part.

I wasn't sure what color to paint it, so I left the decision up to the universe and found a random color hex code generator and went with the first color that popped up...

Purple.

It's funny, because purple was one of the colors I was tossing around in my head too.

Apparently it is fate.

That's pretty much it for now, tonight I'll be working on him some more and hopefully I can knock out the rest of the white on his leg, backpack and right hip. 





Slime Vats
The vats are now all finished!

I stayed up until 2am on Friday night working on them, as I wanted them to be finished for Saturday's tournament at the game store.

The red was a base coat of Rust-O-Leum spray paint and then covered in Agrax Earthshade.

From there I drybrushed it with Mephiston Red and Wild Rider Red.

The patch panels were painted with Leadbelcher and then painted with either Castellan Green, Macragee Blue or White/Black checkers. These were then washed with Agrax to dirty them up.

I sponged the entire thing with Leadbelcher to give it some paint chips and the top sections were also sponged with black and Stormhost Silver to give the ma more corroded appearance.

Once that was done, I then took Typhus Corrosion for added weathering and splotched it on the banding, above the welded plates and around the botttoms.

After that was all finished, I drybrushed it all with Ryza Rust dry paint to help give the model a nice orange rusty appearance.

The goop inside them was painted white and then covered in Moot Green. I then mixed in Caliban Green and started working out from the middle with it.

To give is a fluid appearance I worked wet on wet and let the paint mix together as I swirled it around.

I added some Flash Gitz Yellow to Moot Green and added it into the outer edge. I also used this mix and dotted all of the bubbles. The bubbles were finished off with a dot of white too.

Finally I put some Martian Ironcrust on the base and washed it with Agrax and Reikland Fleshshade to make sure it matched my army a bit better.

I took them with me to the game shop on Saturday and they were a huge hit. I think I may make a couple more so we can flesh out an entire industrial board with many pipes and vats!


That's it for now, lots of progress this week!

Check back next week for another update, but until then you can see up to date progress on Twitter and Instagram, and as always thanks for reading!