Introducing Cang the Improbable AKA Glowing Moorwen Dragon of Dooom (TM)

K

kittykat23uk

New member
Hi folks,

She's finally finished, Cang the Improbable (also known as Cang the implacable) Coolminiornot's enormous dragon of doom!!!

So I was inspired by Outlander's Moorwen in painting this dragon. and found some interesting UV reactive paints. For those not familiar with the film Outlander, this is a Moorwen:

lethal-types-of-aliens-moorwen.jpg


not to be confused with a moorhen:


moorhen by kittykat23uk, on Flickr

moorhen by kittykat23uk, on Flickr

Like deep sea angler fishes, the Moorwen is an alien species which utilizes some kind of bioluminescence to attract unsuspecting victims. In the film it is seen to glow red, and occasionally blue. Especially when it's about to attack someone.

I wanted to give Cang the same sort of effect. So I went with an OSl effect for general daytime, but she really comes alive under black light. So first a few piccies under normal illumination:


cang 1 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr


cang 2 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr


cang 3 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr

And now for the glowy goodness!!


cang glow 1 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr


cang glow 2 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr



cang glow 3 by kittykat23uk, on Flickr

Hope you like her! :)
 
kathrynloch

kathrynloch

New member
Nicely done kat! The glow is impressive but I want to see a close up of the wings under normal lighting. I think you knocked it out of the park on the veining.
 
gohkm

gohkm

Active member
Wow, Kat, that's some bad hat right there! The glow is pretty good - it's quite creepy.
 
TrystanGST

TrystanGST

New member
Without seeing it in person, it is hard to appreciate how truly massive this figure (can't bring myself to call it a mini) is. Well done!
 
marjedi

marjedi

New member
That screams pure awesomeness.....very well done and very characterfull!!

Could you shed some light as how it was to assemble? I am thinking about getting one, but would like some details about parts fit, warpage and gap filling issues etc.

Just a little bit to get the impression if it was OMG!! Or this looks challenging but fun?
 
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K

kittykat23uk

New member
marjedi said:
That screams pure awesomeness.....very well done and very characterfull!!

Could you shed some light as how it was to assemble? I am thinking about getting one, but would like some details about parts fit, warpage and gap filling issues etc.

Just a little bit to get the impression if it was OMG!! Or this looks challenging but fun?
Click to expand...

Expect to swear.... a lot!!!

Here's how I approached her. The model has a lot of surpless resin "tags" that take a lot of sanding down, in some case I even took a junior hacksaw to the pieces. Then I drilled and prepared the pins. The trouble with this model, is the way it is attached to the tower. If one part is flush, another part will be gappy, a slight deviation anywhere and you will get pieces not mapping correctly. I ended up putting it together like a giant 3D puzzle, or maybe more like putting together a dinosaur skeleton. I drilled right through the centre of the lower body where the legs are and halfway into the upper body and a good portion of the tail. The I took a metal rod (you know those hollow aluminuim ones?) and basically threaded the body pieces on. The arms and wings, and where the legs and arms attached to the base and the upper body attached to the top of the tower were also approached in the same way with two aluminium rods connecting each piece where this was feasible, or thinner wire where not. In the end I had it locked together using this armature and pretty stable without any gluing or filling with greenstuff. I also altered the wings to give them spines where the wrists are.

Then I took it apart completely and washed it, based it and painted it in bits, tested the UV reactive effect painted the tower and base as one piece, the two piece tail as one piece, and the body pieces, head (in two pieces - you'll have trouble getting to the palate and tongue if you assemble it first) and wings all as separate pieces.

Once I had completed as much as I could unassembled, I then glued her together, filled all the (somewhat massive gaps) and touched up the paintwork.

I first glued the head to the body, filled that, then the body to the lower body, arms and tower (this is very tricky to get right because you have to try and position several pieces at the same time. The the tail was relatively straight forward to glue on, just had to make sure that the rod hadn't shifted though. Finally the tricky issue of attaching the wings, these were very gappy, despite soaking them in hot wather to reposition them which is why I used quite thick rods to give a stable platform from which to fill. I found that epoxy resin was not a good choice for glue. I ended up resorting to superglue instead. I used a pin mounted on a piece of cork to sculpt the scales/skin where I'd filled in.

With the paint job, Ian and I was talking about what colours to do her in. I didn't want it to look like a giant iguana, which could have been an issue with the way the head is sculpted. I think Ian originally wanted me to paint it pink (LOL as a joke of course!). Then he suggested making it glow for real, like a Moorwen or deep sea angler fish and I looked into other examples of real glowing paints used in minis. There were basically two options, glow in the dark or UV reactive. After doing some research, I decided that, given that red glow in the dark paint is apparently not that good, I opted for a selction of coloured black light reactive paint. This way, you get the OSL effect from the daylight colour but as you can see she actually emits red light under UV. =) So I went back and watched Outlander which has the Moorwen for inspiration. I was conscious that I didn't want to overdo the effect, I just wanted to show off her outline, which is why I have tried to keep the body black, except where it is reflecting the night sky and the red off the glow.
 
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marjedi

marjedi

New member
Tyvm for the rundown. This helped alot in deciding not to get it lol. As much as i love complicated models i think i will stick to my original plan of Warhound titan.

Makes the work you did on this even more impressive.....10 thumbs up!
 
K

kittykat23uk

New member
Thanks, yeah these big kits take a lot of work. But I have form, I've assembled a few big dragons in my time. Including a forgeworld fire dragon and Ral Partha's "the Conflict".
 
marjedi

marjedi

New member
Forgeworlds firedragon is huuuge and a lovely model.

Most of my big model experiences have been with mechanical stuff. A few revenants, a few super heavies and that Phantom i built last year. That wasnt easy either, but in a good way....in a non swearing way.

Hence the warhound, familiar teritory. Ill save the next big resin thingy for that trollblood mountain king they just previeved.....immin live with the trollblood faction, have been for some time now.
 
kathrynloch

kathrynloch

New member
kittykat23uk said:
Expect to swear.... a lot!!!



With the paint job, Ian and I was talking about what colours to do her in. I didn't want it to look like a giant iguana, which could have been an issue with the way the head is sculpted. I think Ian originally wanted me to paint it pink (LOL as a joke of course!). Then he suggested making it glow for real, like a Moorwen or deep sea angler fish and I looked into other examples of real glowing paints used in minis. There were basically two options, glow in the dark or UV reactive. After doing some research, I decided that, given that red glow in the dark paint is apparently not that good, I opted for a selction of coloured black light reactive paint. This way, you get the OSL effect from the daylight colour but as you can see she actually emits red light under UV. =) So I went back and watched Outlander which has the Moorwen for inspiration. I was conscious that I didn't want to overdo the effect, I just wanted to show off her outline, which is why I have tried to keep the body black, except where it is reflecting the night sky and the red off the glow.
Click to expand...

Wow! That's a ton of work, Kat! Well done! And the iguana thing is my biggest issue this figure (Trystan is right - can't call it a mini ;)) It's really cool but every time I see it, I think of a bearded dragon. It's so pricey I don't have the guts to CM it. But you did a fantastic job with her! And I really like the effect you achieved with the UV paint. Hey, would you mind if I came up with a project that incorporated the UV paint? I was just thinking of what kind of trouble I could get into with it and my pigments. :devil:

Ultimately, an excellent job on what was obviously a huge project! Really impressive work!!!
 
K

kittykat23uk

New member
Hey I don't own the patent on glowy models girl so you knock yourself out! LOL. The vallejo fluo orange glows a sickly pastel orange by the way. I haven't tried the other colours in the range but the main paint I used was Zuper Acrylic pink and red paint from a seller called Killabitz on ebay. He also sells purple, blue, green and yellow. And you can also get these in pigment form. One thing I found with the paint, it doesn't flow that well if you try to water it down so I tended to us it neat out of the pot (it's quite liquidy as it is) and just wiped off the excess on the back of my hand. I started with a black primer, and built up the base coat with black and scab red, then gradually adding a bit of VMC red, then sunset red, then the zuper pink, and then the zuper red, so acually you get a slightly two tone effect with this scheme. Finally I highlighted with a base coat of white, and then the zuper red mixed with a bit of the Vallejo fluo orange. The areas lit by moonlight were highlighted with a mix of german grey, fortress grey and dark prussian blue.
 
kathrynloch

kathrynloch

New member
Cool kat! Thanks! lol! Yup, I was definite checking out ebay and I saw that pigment. I'm thinking of getting some just to try.

Now here's a question, did you seal the paint? Pigments I gotta seal or they come off. Sealers usually have some sort of UV rating...or am I remembering that wrong....okay, time to go back and read some labels. lol!
 
K

kittykat23uk

New member
I haven't sealed it no. Actually thanks for pointing that out, I normally use a matte varnish spray but I don't think I will risk it in light of what you have just said. To be honest I find resin takes the paint better than white metal and is less prone to chipping. So varnishing it is not really that necessary.
 
S

supervike

Super Moderator
AHHHH!! I really love what you did here, and the black light effect seems ground breaking to me.

Well done, and certainly worth all the effort you've put into it!!
 
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