Elysian Tauros Venator C+C please

[nels0nmac]

My entry for the UKGD 40k vehicle catagory was a Tauros Venator. When I first saw it on the FW site I just loved it and straight away I knew how I wanted it to look on a scenic base. That being the Venator tearing down a dusty dirt track kicking up dust as it turns a corner. The model itself was pretty straight forward but working out how to do the dust proved to be a bit more difficult. I did think about modeling it in solid material but I wanted a more realistic approach rather than the comic book style that would come from sculpting it. In the end I settled on cotton wool which I tinted with chalk pastels. The wool was superglued to the wheel and then teased into shape with a sculpting tool. It's fair to say that it could do with some improvement but as a first go at this new technique I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

You can see the pics here -http://www.coolminiornot.com/289102

and here - http://www.coolminiornot.com/289103

Any thoughts on how it can be improved or what you like about it will be greatly received.

 

[freakinacage]

not sure about the wool. i know a lot of people hate it. i think it looks brill from some pics, not so from others

 

[Dragonsreach]

not sure about the wool. i know a lot of people hate it. i think it looks brill from some pics, not so from others

I'm in the same boat as Tim here, not sure about the cotton wool.
For my 2p'sworth I think that using something like cotton wool doesn't work 'cos we still (subconciously) see the scale variation between the model and the attempted effect.
However how to simulate a semi transparent Dust cloud, or Mist is still something well out of my reach.

 

[nels0nmac]

Thanks guys. I know what you mean about the scale thing, but it was the closest I could get by using cotton wool. I had a good hunt around the net to see if it had been done before but I didn't find anything which means that either it can't be done or that at least no one has managed to achieve it yet. I was hoping for the latter. Any suggestions to improve the look?

 

[Russian Roulette]

I would like to ask though:

Where did you get that wire mesh for the roll cage? The scale is perfect with the steps on the side...

 

[freakinacage]

i think the ones that look best make it look like the wool is sweeping up from the ground with the tyre before trailing behind kind like ¬( if you catch me. the less effective ones look like it's just coloured steam coming off the tyre

 

[nels0nmac]

I would like to ask though:

Where did you get that wire mesh for the roll cage? The scale is perfect with the steps on the side...

I think that particualr mesh was from a previous job and was a custom design that just happened to fit nicely with the model. However if you are in the UK a shop called 4D Modelshop (London) stocks lots of brass etch mesh that is probably very similar in scale.

i think the ones that look best make it look like the wool is sweeping up from the ground with the tyre before trailing behind kind like ¬( if you catch me. the less effective ones look like it's just coloured steam coming off the tyre

Ah the less effective ones being like what I did. The ref pics that I used did show most of the dust coming from the point where the wheel touched the ground but it did also show that some dust takes longer to leave the wheel and comes from further up. This is what I was trying to model. I guess in this case the true to life approach would not be as good as a more stylised one. It's what people expect to see rather than what actually happens. Maybe back to a few more tests to see if it's worth altering the model.

 

[supervike]

I think the cotton wool is a very cool effect!!

It works really well, but like the others say, at times the illusion is broken, and it makes it look odd.

 

[marjedi]

The wool is not my thing. The tauros is lovely painted thougth, and it is a killer model. Although it all looks too similar. Some color variations between the crew and the tauros would look good i think.... but ace man, im just nitpicking

 

[JayeL]

Like most of the others I think the cotton wool doesn't really work, I think your paintjob is top notch but unfortunately the cotton wool detracts from it.