Size000Hero's Work And Progress

[Size000Hero]

Hey, all! Welcome to my WIP! I'm a bit of a noob and would appreciate any and all advice you could give. I lack some skill in the painting department and I am more of a technical oriented person, so this WIP will probably be mostly full of painting advice. I hope you stay awhile, and I hope you enjoy your stay! Welcome, all!

 

[Size000Hero]

I have recently run out of minis to paint, due to my chemical experiments involving the melting point and reactivity of pewter and a school project that involved lead/tin Latin curse tablets. Essentially, I flattened a mini that I wasn't enjoying painting into a thin foil, which ended up work-hardening and ended up shattering. I lost access to the electrical powerhouse that would have allowed me to make a proper sheet of pewter (via plasma) due to my mom's concerns for "safety" and "lethality" of shorting out a microwave power transformer on purpose to create arcs of 1000V plasma. Doesn't she know that it's no more dangerous than the power that comes out of the wall? *sigh* People really need to read up on the pain index of high Voltage. (Get it, because there isn't one!) In any case, I was very inspired by SaintToad's recent success with painting scenes with no real mini to put on, and have started to create a scene as a result. The attached pics have no artistic quality to them, and they look like garbage at the moment. I tried to drill a 2 inch hole in a ~2.5 by ~2.5 inch block of wood to accommodate the plan I have in mind. The glue in the composite wood didn't allow the hole to be drilled, because of it's low friction coefficient. As a result, I attempted to chisel out the hole, but the wood split into six different pieces. (You may be able to see the cyanoacrylate glue that keeps the wood together.) I have been shaving off pieces wood on and off for about 3 days now, but progress has been slow because 1). School's a Bitch and 2). Sanding large quantities of wood takes forever. My plan for this base is to create a wooded scene, with a cave scene underground. I hope to incorporate some mushrooms (hopefully phosphorescent, if I can find a way to put luminol in paint), trees, moss, the whole shabang. I would love your comments and ideas on how this should be executed. Thank you all!
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[SaintToad]

Really cool start to a project. Double decker vignette, nice! Sorry about your mini shortage... gotta get some new minis for painting (not for science experiments, that is).
Are you shooting for roughly 28mm scale or, since you may forgo figurines, something else. I think you could quit shaping the wood and cover up the rough bits with various construction layers (soil, rock, moss, etc.). I'm interested to see where you go with this, but I do think you should start inside the cave rather than on the top/exterior layer. You probably came to that conclusion yourself, but it seems fairly important for access for building/painting both layers. Good luck!

 

[Thri Keen Priest]

Hi, Size000Hero,

This looks like an interesting vignette! I've got a few ideas for you, since you asked for suggestions on getting the effect you want:

There is glow in the dark paint, but I'd advice against it: You wouldn't really see the scene, only the shapes of the mushrooms in the dark. A better idea might be to use fluorescent paints on the mushrooms, and mount a UV-light LED on the ceiling of the "cave", out of sight from the viewer's perspective. This way, in low light, the mushrooms would appear to glow. You might also lay some fluorescent color around the scene nearby the mushrooms, suggesting a bit of OSL ambiance. With a resistor and a watch-battery (and maybe a toggle-switch?) stuck into the bottom of the display-housing, you'd have your luminescent mushrooms and underground scene. This would be *AMAZING* for some kind of dark elf diorama! (So cool, in fact, I might do some version of this myself...)

I'm guessing you want to finish the outside with stain and varnish, which will look gorgeous. If you're not attached to that idea, this would be much easier to fabricate out of putty and a small box.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing this progress. More pics, please!

 

[Size000Hero]

I love that idea Thri Keen! Integrating some UV LED's into the cave scene would be stunning. I would be quite the feat, and I own some momentary switches and various wires, so I'm seriously considering it! I have tried using a blacklight on the Vallejo paint I use, and the color travels to the purple/blue spectrum. If i could, I could put the Led's behind some crystals, but the most plausible solution seems to be putting the Led into the crown of a mushroom. Thank you very much for the Idea! I'm sure to stain the base as well!

 

[Captain927]

I wouldn't be too concerned with a perfectly circular hole. You would have areas of flat ground, rocky outcrops, stalactites, stalagmites, and any number of things breaking up the circle. Use the jaggedness of what you currently have and you'll likely find that the shapes will more easily define your plan.

The same goes for roots as trees. A really gnarled root gives a creepy feel.

Great idea and can't wait to see it develop.

 

[Size000Hero]

Got a little bit of progress today, and admittedly, I have been procrastinating quite a bit. I stained the wood and added a strip of 100 grit sandpaper to create the illusion of stippled stone. In addition, I added some Green stuff to fill in the gaps. I'll definitely sculpt some shrooms and add the trees and roots tomorrow, so look for that!
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[Size000Hero]

A bit more of progress. I've elected a dead bush as the tree and a dead boxwood as the roots. It's pretty obvious that the woodstain didn't soak into the Green-stuff well, so will have to paint over it, which I would have done anyway. I have ordered some wide angle UV leds, which should arrive Saturday, but other than that, the electrical is ready to accept the led. In an attempt to save Green-stuff, I sculpted the majority of the forest scene with aluminium foil and tape. Progress has been slower that originally predicted, so I have not yet sculpted the shrooms. I have one question to ask you all. How do I produce more gnarled roots? The dead boxwood is quite stiff, and soaking the branches in hot water to soften it was a fruitless effort. Any ideas?


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[Thri Keen Priest]

Nice to see this coming together. Bonus points to you if you use a toggle switch, and sculpt a boulder, (or maybe a gravestone?) on top of it. Click the gravestone; mushrooms glow!

 

[Captain927]

For roots and trees, the best and most realistic medium is the roots of real trees and shrubs. If you have a woody shrub in a pot somewhere that just died, or if you dig around in the garden, you should be able to get some decent root stock. Make sure you keep the fine little roots on them too as they make more convincing branches. As regular roots tend to curve, twist, turn, and be straight, you can get very interesting looking trees that suit whatever scene you choose to do. Check out Saint's WIP. His last mini scene tree was used with tree roots.

Using the branches of shrubs and trees as trees in miniature tend to be vastly out of scale and unconvincable in shape and structure.

Look ok forward to seeing the LED working. Good luck.

 

[Thri Keen Priest]

Also, if you put the LED *inside* the mushroom, you can forget about the UV-light, and fluorescent paints. I'd still go with a cowled UV LED..

 

[Size000Hero]

A lot more progress incoming! With no major assignments for quite awhile, and with the Goliath of that 13 page, 2378 word Chemistry report tackled, I found myself with a significant increase in my free time. Progress has been slower than predicted, but nevertheless, I have sculpted the mushrooms, rocks, stalactites, stalagmites, and underground road. Everything is a big heaping mess now, with epoxy putty drying, and wires everywhere. I used some aluminium tape to hold the shroom in place that should be the button, and fingers crossed that it is a success! For the mushrooms, I attempted to make a cross between a morel and a toadstool, and ended up with something like a wrinkled peach mushroom. I quite like the effect I've achieved, and I hope I enjoy them painted as much as I enjoy them right now. The first couple of pics demonstrate the process for making the characteristic domed shape of mushroom caps. I took a glob of sculpting putty and placed it on top, spreading it around to ensure the thickness of the cap was uniform throughout. Having done this, (you may notice the sudden increase of my participial English, all thanks to Latin) I pressed the butt of a paintbrush into the cap, creating dimpling. The resin the screwdriver was made out of was such that the putty did not stick to it after curing. The roots of the tree are salvaged from microwave parts (thick gauge solid core wire), as the rootstock I had was too hard to shape. I forgot to include a picture of it, but rest assured, the UV works.
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[SaintToad]

Needs more dirt. This is an increasingly weird project, which I really like. I love that big bopper toadstool with the gills visible on the underside of the cap.

 

[Size000Hero]

A tad more progress. As in real life, the roots have become the structure of the ground. All the layers of aluminium foil, tape, and an inner structure of wires left the top portion of the scene very floppy. As a result, I have added some putty (I'm not entirely sure where it came from, but paint sticks to it :curl-lip:) to increase the structural integrity. Primer and flocking should arrive soon.

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[Size000Hero]

As promised, flocking and primer have arrived! I mixed too much cyanoacrylate with some of the dirt, which unintentionally made a cool mycelium effect. Paint should be coming soon!
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[Size000Hero]

Hey guys, sorry for the LARGE gap in my posting... I was MAD busy, between vacations, SCHOOLWORK, other personal commitments, and other hobbies. Bad news: I have decided to abandon the scene in the above posts. I was testing the waters to see if I preferred scenes over miniatures, and over the course of making it, I found myself enjoying the podcasts/music I was listening to while working more than making the scene. Reflecting on how shit 2016 was, I remembered the period of time (circa Halloween) when scary clowns would hide in the woods and terrorize neighborhoods. Inspired by this, I got myself a couple of minis for Christmas, one of which was Bonzo The Killer Klown from Reaper. I was thinking about how I would paint this for awhile, and I settled on a Pennywise/Joker color scheme. In addition to the figures, I got a soldering station to test a theory I had. The theory was that soldering the appendages to the body of the mini would be better than any glue.... and I was right! The only cleanup required is a bit of sanding. You may notice a bit of sloppy soldering in the pictures (circled in red), I apologize, It's only been my first couple of solder joints! I'm sure I can sand them down more, sculpt around them, or paint them to look like scars. I wanted to get some ideas from you guys, so please refer to the pics of the primed figure. Hope to get a response from you guys! :disapointed:

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[Size000Hero]

I'm starting to like this clown more and more! Although it is a person, I don't have to do any flesh tone, just white! I may add a bit of flesh tone around his wrist (holding the cleaver) and face (where he would wipe his brow, or where the face paint would wipe off) to give the impression of frantic and sloppy makeup. I sculpted around the joints to give him a more muscular and beefy neck. I'm a huge fan of how the color of the pants and the slight bit of shading turned out! It's looking like a good project!
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[BloodASmedium]

As you increase your skillset (which there is no question you are ) there are things when I visit someone's page ill try to suggest these points and tips on your current project to execute and then from that point on ill hope you'll include these tiny additions from here on in. Every mini gets these things , like blending,like color choices etc.
What I'm saying at this point is giving your models much more conviction by adding small light catch points in the eyes- the pupil is where they are needed. I've given a selection of diff sized models that you can zoom in on and see that I do this myself. Look at the tiny white dot in each of the pupils both eyes that give the eyes a more fixed and deliberate gaze.View attachment 54344View attachment 54344View attachment 54345View attachment 54346

 

[Size000Hero]

Hey BAM! I really appreciate your advice! I tried for the past 7 hours, but to no avail. I kept on trying to paint the pupil glints, but my grandma hands took over. I shake quite a bit when I'm tired or stressed (usually the latter) and am unable to paint fine details as a result. I tried my damn hardest, but ended up having to strip the clown because of all the paint that built up. My dad's side of the family has mild motor Tourette's (usually in the face region) but the Tourette's hit me where it hurts the most, my right hand (my dominant one, and more importantly, my painting hand) and my legs. If SaintToad is reading this, he may be able to attest to the fact that I often sat in very uncomfortable positions in his class (legs double crossed, sitting on my legs, etc) to restrain and prevent people from knowing about my shaking. I'll try again tomorrow, but I should really try (I say try because my body is highly inefficient at synthesizing melatonin, despite me eating tryptophan-rich foods constantly. [i.e. dairy products, eggs, poultry, etc] This, in combination with how fucked up my sleep schedule is [falling asleep at 4:30am and waking up at 10am] has really destroyed me and everything in my day-day life) to fall asleep, and I'm much to flustered and shaky to paint anymore for today.

Me all flustered: https://youtu.be/GreB8zKi_e4

 

[Tee888]

Hi Size.
Sorry to hear about the shakes. I get them also. I found if I rest my arms on the desk it seems to help me alot.
Also if I start getting tired and they start shaking more. I just call it a night. I had a few minis I was really happy with until i messed them up by pushing myself too far.

tee