Operation

[Mosch]

OK, so I got a Typhus mini today from Chaoskilla, a friend of mine. He wanted me to repaint it to a better standard. Eventhough I suck. He\'s a brave, brave man.
That Typhus mini has been mangled pretty badly. The hands holding the scythe broke off, the base was completely plain and the paint was as thick something pretty thick.

So, my current project is to turn this:

Into this:

I started by removing him from the base (I could simply pull him off, the glue was incredibly weak) and stripping him. Sorry, no pics for that. First thing I\'m going to do now is the base.
Next post after the next stage

EDIT: Where did the rest of my topic title go? No \"s allowed in there?

 

[supervike]

cool!

This is just like one of those complete MAKEOVER shows, without the boring part!

 

[Itchy]

Hmmmm... my advice.

i\'d start with a dremel and end with the super glue... oh, wrong operation? Did i mention, i sawed off a finger once?

Cool... keep us all abreast of the operation. (that\'s for you MT)

 

[Chaoskilla666]

Come on....on the picture the mini does not look so bad as it does in rl. I didnt glue the base at all. I just put the mini in...
And i MUST be brave, cause you are a friend of mine.

EDIT: oh and i forgot to introduce myself. hi everybody.

 

[Mosch]

And here he is And he\'s actually right, the mini looked a lot worse in real life. I was a little surprised by that, but I scratch it up to my new full spectrum bulb.

Here\'s Typhus after a refreshing swim in pure acetone. He should be used to stuff like that, he\'s a nurgle dude after all.

I was pretty unsure how to attach the scythe (the parts don\'t fit on each other at all....) so I first took a go at the base. I am goind for a desolate wasteland here, with a stream of greenish-yellow goo under his feet. There were to be some tentacles burrowing out of the ground too, because I just saw that kind of thing on steeldog\'s homepage and thought it would fit him.

The base is made of Milliputt (Superfine White) pushed around until it formed some lumps. The stream bed was sculpted in by drawing a needle (with handle fitted on it by me) through it and then using a sculpting tool to push the edges upwards. It looks like a strange cross of crack/river bed which I really dig. Very unnatural. Imagine that one filled with greenish ooze. Yeah.
The hole on the smaller part of the base was made so that the peg under his foot would fit in there to allow a firm grip on the base - after all, he might sometimes be used in a game, although I admit the chance is pretty slim
The hole for the tentacles was done by pushing in a sharpened dowel (pencil would have worked just the same, I suppose) and rotating it a little, than using the pushing method mentioned above to build up more volume around it. Then I added cracks by simply drawing the needle through it, decreasing the pressure the farther I got from the center of the hole. I used a putty knife to deepen the drack more towards the middle.
Then I textured the base by stippling with a very stiff cheapo brush (6 brushes for less than 1€ and you know they suck, but they\'ll keep your good brushes from being used for stuff like that ) for five minutes or so.

I let it dry for about half an hour which I used to greenstuff the joins between Typhus\' head and his armour and between his.... fungal backpack looking thingy and the armour. As I said, nothing fits anything well. I did not yet glue the scythe though, I fear I\'ll have to sculpt him a whole new arm.

I went back to the base and added tentacle made of green stuff. Basically, they are just small pieces of gs rolled between my fingers and pushed into the hole, then I bend them until they looked OK. I kept them a little thicker to convey the \"bloated nurgle-y tentacle\" theme.

The base gets this night to dry thoroughly; tomorrow the herald will be attached, primed (or is it primered?) and I will lay down the first few coats of paint. Well, probably not, because sakura will keep me from doing that, but you know, the will exists

Oh, I forgot to mention: I also sanded the scythe blade with some rough grit and then parts with some very smooth grid sandpaper to get some microscratches - gotta get this one to look well used, it\'s not a decoration after all

 

[Ogrebane]

Didnt the yanks do a show about this. Where 5 top mini painters crash someones house and repaint all his crappy minis. Oh wait thats just a dream I had last night. Dont worry if the bits dont fit. Hes nurgle you can do anything to him and it will look right. Just a thought tho. Any chance of NOT painting him green.

 

[Einion]

Mosch, you\'re a funny man! Thanks for giving me another good laugh lol

Einion

 

[Mosch]

Orginal gepostet von Ogrebane
Just a thought tho. Any chance of NOT painting him green.

Depends. Does \"olive\" count as green?

Ahem. Well. So, I kind of neglected my work, but I did some this week and here\'s the result:

I decided to paint his belly part, then attach the scythe, then paint the rest. That is because the scythe will cover his belly in such a way that I will not be able to get my brush in there - but the whole area would still be visible.
So that\'s the basecoat, Yellow Olive over a white primer that has ben heavily washed with black ink. The colour is suitably dark, but still obviously green, and looks a little oily, I feel. When I see this colour, I always get the feeling it would feel strange if I touched it. Yeah, I\'m rambling, I\'ll cut to the point, sorry.
So, I will be going for a more cartoony look - I know Warhammer is supposed to be dark gothic stuff, but I figured he\'d be cool looking like an anime type antagonist.
The bloody organs are painted with Tamiya Clear Red layered heavily directly over the primer. I like the clear colours, by the way, you\'ll see me using them some more on this mini Some of the red was \"spilled\" onto the surrounding area in a manner which I hope looks OK.... the little scratches and gouges in his armour are painted with Tamiya Smoke, another clear paint. I started to put the first highlights on the parts that I thnk should be hit by the light - it\'s not really prominent in this picture, but squint a little and it can be seen
I wanted to give most of the depth by shading ad heavy blacklining (yes, black, not dark. Anime look, remember ), so when hightlighting to the first stage I tried to take care not to overdo it:

I highlighted using cayman green and going into another green (can\'t recall the name at the moment, ahem.) over several stages. Then I refreshed the red on the gore, by the way, that\'s why it looks a little deeper on this picture It was hard to decide on a colour for the cables, but in the end I thought blue would fit into my whole \"painted anime character\" theme and I could use a nice triad kinda colour scheme thingy (I should copyright this expression): green, red and blue. chose a very \"primary\" blue to get a contrast to the drab green. I testpainted magic blue onto the cables/hoses/whatever, and I like it.

So.... any ideas for what is to follow?

 

[Ogrebane]

More of the same I recon. I think the highlights should be higher but thats just my tastes looking good so far.

 

[Wolf Fang]

should be able to bend and twist the sythe into position fairly easily

 

[Sand Rat]

Looks good so far Mosch

 

[Ebonbuddha]

Looks good so far. But one of the pictures didn\'t load. I don\'t see the anime fell you are talking about. It still looks dark and could pass for gothic. But I will wait for the end result.

 

[Mosch]

Orginal gepostet von Wolf Fang
should be able to bend and twist the sythe into position fairly easily

Unfortunately no. One part of the hand is missing completely so I will have to sculpt a new gauntlet.

Ebonbuddha: That\'s strange, all the pictures load for me. Which one is it and have to tried right clicking -> show image?

 

[Sanitarium]

well if you\'re able to sculpt a new gauntlet you should be able also to add some more details to make the mini really unique

However an easier way would be to simply cut off the hand os a plastic marine/terminator and attch it, then cover the molding with green.

About the additions I mentioned before:
-You could add some WH fantasy plastic marauders\' flails hanging from his back and from his shoulder pads like some kind of chain mantle (just an idea...)
-Skulls are always handy for chaos (eventhough zombie heads would be more appropriate for a nurgle character).
-More entrails falling out from a las cannon hole in the gut plate armour (he\'s so thought he doesn\'t actually care about a 8\'\' hole in his stomach)?