RUST LOADER

Just a quick test of some paint effects in between some of the bigger figures.

The rust was painted with various washes of brown and then dry brushed in steps from very dark to quite light. I also spatterd some Vallejo Orange Rust on the final pass.

Browns, Oranges, Ochres, Dark Browns, Reds and Purples were used in various quantities to get the (albeit quite basic) effect. I tried to keep it random in order to make it look more natural.

I added some sand to my washes to give the rust a bit of texture. Top coats were then painted atop a layer of hairspray so that it could be removed later.

My cast pieces were also carved into with a dremel tool in various ways to give the figure more of a worn/abandoned look.

adding sand for texture

Finished Figure

The stone wall is sculpted from DAS air dry clay. It took quite a while to dry!

DOTA - SPIRIT BREAKER

Spirit Breaker was a fairly quick sculpt that I just hammered out so my progress photos suffered a little bit... what few there are of the sculpting process follows below!...

Tin foil face.

I made a conscious decision early on to use real fabrics in the final piece rather than try to sculpt them on - a vinyl leather effect table cover was used for the hard-looking leather bits and a rough nylon cloth was used particularly because the edges could be frayed.


For the shoulder armour I sculpted around some steel wire mesh for extra strength. As these pieces curved around I was able to bend the mesh to the right shape before sculpting.

To get a duplicate for the other shoulder a one part mould was made with tin-cure silicone.

These were then slush cast in stages until the right thickness was reached - I wasn't worried about a totally smooth underside as this would later be covered with fabric.

Then then it was painted in two stages with Vallejo model air. The first stage after priming was a base of light sand, then a coat of hairspray to seal and then the brown top coat. With the top coat dry I brushed the whole thing all over to show the undercoat. (The hairspray technique is great for weathering - I mentioned it before on my Strider build -but there are many far more qualified perspectives from people on youtube!)

 

Holes were drilled into the FACE!! Ugghh! and shoulders to provide mounting points for the many many extra bits and pieces.

Base blues were added first - mixtures of Model Air light sea blue and Model Colour light sea grey and varying tones in-between for depth.

What's the difference between Model Air and Model Colour!?!?!

Model Air is pre-thinned for airbrushes, model colour isn't - but you can thin it yourself with alcohol based thinners or water.

Fabrics were added including a little sash with a brass ring (which I think is the hoop of a shower curtain) and glued together with a fabric glue.  The leather-looking vinyl was scratched with a wire brush first to wear it a little.


YAHWHHN I hear you say, hold on there's a bit i've never done before coming up!

Flashing things!

I didn't want a flash I wanted a magical glow - I had no idea how to do such a thing and spent a long time looking initially at programming an arduino, having a custom IC made, researching pulse wave modulation all these things I didn't understand.

The solution - happily - was fairly simple in my case - it involves some basic electronic bits and most importantly a 555 timer chip.

The tutorials on the Instructables website was a great help here and I found exactly what I needed. All I did was make some alterations to resistor and capacitor values and change the amount of LED's

The speed on the dimming is controlled by certain values of resistors and you can make it faster or slower until eventually it's so slow it doesn't dim at all.

To house the electronics a channel was routed into the base. The LED's would spread along this section and the entire assembly would form a horseshoe shape. It looks like a mess of wires because it is.

A clear plastic sheet was sanded to frost it and was added on top of the base to diffuse the light.

To create the rocky ground - mounds of tin foil were glued to the surface.

Car-body filler was then coated over the whole thing - being sure to leave cracks for the light to shine through. After a few passes the surface was sanded to create a more rock-like surface and look less like a muddy swamp.

Then it was painted in various charcoal greys and dry brushed in light grey and white.

To see the dimming in action - see this video on my facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/handmadebyradish/videos/vb.673822205971111/1015989021754426/?type=2&theater

Final Figure

Thanks for looking!

WIPEOUT RACER

The race-hover-ships are cool looking things - especially with all the artwork from The Designers Republic covering them. I've only ever played the demo of the original game for the first Playstation - but seeing some of the newer race ships in the more recent games inspire me to make my own and improve some of those more hard-edge model making skills.

This entire thing was made from scratch over the course of a few weeks - here's how I did it.

 

PLANNING

A great help to the project was stumbling onto a 3D obj file of the ship I wanted to make (a lucky find). As with before in my Halo Hunter build I used the 3D component of Photoshop to take cross sections.

Using the 3D file I was about to take cross sections as specific points and then mark their position on the plans. These cross sections were used to build the main frame.

BUILDING

A frame was built out of styrene using reference to get the size right. The frame was filled with insulation foam and covered with car body filler. The whole thing was sanded until the styrene frame started to show though. 

The whole thing was sanded until it was the right angle - I check the angles with a contour gauge to make sure both sides were symmetrical.

Styrene panels were added onto the main body and the cockpit area was carved out.

Styrene sheets of varying thickness was used to give more interesting panel lines and make the whole thing a little less flat.

I struggled with the cockpit for some time as I wanted it to be fairly detailed but I'd also have to make it up myself - as I couldn't find any reference for what the cockpits actually look like! In the end I used various recycled pieces - in particular a seat left over from the model car I used in my Strider build.

The rear section of the ship has more complex geometry than the front - something which stumped me for some time. The 3D files were a great help here.

For grills like this I used mesh from a kitchen sieve.

With everything together it was time for a test fit.

PAINTING

 

In order to do the white stripes I decided to paint the whole thing white first. I did fine mist coats to keep the surface as smooth as possible. On the last past I gave it a quick rub with 1200 grit wet and dry to remove any imperfections.

The red is Hycote Mars Red. To get the masks straight I used the full width of the masking tape. The masking wasn't perfect but this would work well with the weathering (....hide the crimes)

The stickers were tricky. I didn't want to use water slide decals as these are too delicate - plus I didn't have to capacity to print white or find anyone who could. In the end I found a place (diginate.com) which could print clear vinyl stickers and print them full colour and in white!

FINISHED FIGURE

 

Thanks for looking!