Nutsplanet Viking Shieldmaiden

[Bigmick]

Well I've gone and done it, I bought the shieldmaiden,

Along with the Berserk and a couple of other figures. I think this is the lesser of the evils as it's only got 8 parts to the kit, but the sculpt is incredible, I hope my paint job does it justice.

As always, anyhoo, opening the box you first come across the shield,

it's a biggie,

then under the foam are the main torso,and arms,

under the next layer of foam are the hands, one holding the axe and the other holding the shield handle, sword hilt, shield strap.

The torso it'self is lovely, the detail is amazing

and almost a dead ringer for Katheryn Winnick who plays Lagertha Lothbrok in the tv series Vikings, draw your own comparisons.

The seams are minimal but some are quite awkward to get to, especially between the folds of the leather sleeves,

I had to use a mix of scraping with a number 10 scalpel blade, sanding sticks, sanding needles and my old faithful of a half round needle file.

The results of this afternoons labours are the torso cleaned up, removing the casting blocks are no real hardship, the resin is quite soft, only a few strokes of the razor saw removed them, cleaning up for me involves a coarse sanding stick, then a finer one (thank you Ultimate Products, they're excellent), scraping with a No.10 then 1200 wet and dry, I then drilled out the locating blocks and fitted brass pins to reinforce, the fit is such that the arms and hands can be painted separately then assembled, the joints are incredible.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Bigmick

[Antoine]

Impressive!

[giemme]

Impressive!

Indeed! Magnificent sculpting, and you a great cleaning job. Looking forward to how you paint her

[Grayson]

That looks exquisite. Not usually a fan of busts or figurines, but this I will watch as you build and paint her.

[Finnthedude]

I'm also looking forward to this WIP, that looks a fantastic sculpt. I've never seen The Vikings, although that looks like the inspiration for this bust. However the first thing I thought of when I saw the box picture was Skyrim.

Now, where's my Skyrim disc... must have another playthrough.

Finnthedude.

[Bigmick]

Thanks Finn, I know, when are they going to release some Skyrim figures, this guy couldn't wait.

https://youtu.be/qfAZf1AcahE

[spruecutter96]

That looks seriously cool....

Cheers for sharing with us.

Chris.

[Bigmick]

A bit more done today, it might not look like it but there's progress, honest.

I warmed the shield strap with boiling water then stretched it a bit.

Before.

After.

A dry fit of all parts, pinned with brass rod, the seams are night on invisible when the parts are joined.

Only thing I did find was a couple of "blebs" in the hair, air bubbles or small bits of resin from the last cast, small bit of scraping sorted it, might add a bit of Mr Surfacer.

After

Everything trimmed sanded and primed with Mr Surfacer 1200.

Found a few more blips, hair in the corner of the mouth, bit of flash in the hair line and a sculpt mark on the left eyelid, Mr Pernickity

Regards.

Mick.

[Eludia]

Better to spot them now than after painting

[Bigmick]

Made a start on the shield, summing up bravery to start the face tomorrow.

I'm using the Vallejo leather and wood paint set, there's a "how to" guide inside so I'm using that.

Initial paint is the base colours, I used some Vallejo paint extender and Windsor and Newton flow enhancer to level the paint and lose brush strokes, don't know why as lines resembling brush strokes when doing wood are the effect you're looking for.

Well this is my table, when people aren't sat round it eating.

Initial coats of paint, Vallejo Japanese Uniform and Flat Earth.

The boards were then given a wash, water and paint at a 50/50 mix, flat earth 983 for the lighter smoke 939 and woodgrain 828 for the darker, when this had dried I gave it another coat.

I'll do a bit more later, adding woodgrain and an overall wash to consolidate everything, then use the leather colours to do the shield rim and work out what metallic paints to do the shield boss.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Bigmick

[Mitch K]

BigMick, any reason forthe varicoloured shieldboards?

[Bigmick]

My reasoning is that different woods were used, as swords and spears have been unearthed showing signs of repair it stands to reason that a precious item like a shield would have been repaired over time, I might be completely wrong, the paint guide that comes with the paints uses different paints to show different wood effects, looked cool so borrowed the idea

Edited May 24, 2015 by Bigmick

[Bigmick]

The front of the shield will be painted and hairspray chipped, so you'll barely see the board colours, still deciding between two paint schemes

[Bigmick]

http://phone.todayonline.com/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_image_lightbox/public/16205004.JPG

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3a/bd/77/3abd77b9e3a3f5f356918f63ceefcc5e.jpg

[Mitch K]

Strictly speaking, the front should have an ox hide cover over the boards,but what the heck, it'll look great.

[Bigmick]

Absolutely right Mitch, stretched wet hide over the boards so when it dried it shrank, added some torsional strength and gave a nice canvas for some cool knot work paint, I'll go with the easy option as the film prop crew did and paint the boards

[Mitch K]

What are you going with for the shield rim? Leather or metal?

[Bigmick]

A few more step by steps, the boards had the wood grain added with a fine brush, then a wash of smoke, then a final wash of black heavily thinned with water, the boss and metal fittings were done with gunmetal grey.

The shield rim I decided to do in a shade close to rawhide, I'm happy with it.

Finally the metal parts had a wash with thinned black then once that was dry a wash with Humbrol rust enamel.

I also made a start on the face, eyes first as normal, whites painted with white and grey (no ones whites are white), then made a charcoal grey to shape and locate the iris, this then has lines and dots of two shades of grey/blue, then some random dots of brown around the pupil, (althought the actress Katheryn Winnick has the most gorgeous eyes I prefer the colours of singer Hannah Spearritt, she of S Club 7 fame) then the pupil which again wasn't pure black but a very dark grey, akin to NATO black, then dots of white for highlights and a wash of heavily thinned red.

I was happy until I added a drop of Tamiya X22 clear, which seemed to dissolve the paint and fog it, which is what I said, or something close.

Finally I added the first flesh tone layer, all I managed today.

More to come.

Regards.

Mick.

[Bigmick]

This is with clear on the eyes and first layer of flesh.

[giemme]

Her eyes are .... real!

Ciao

[Col.]

Those eyes are stunning

[Paul Alan Bardell]

Great work on her eyes - that's stunning panting.

looking forward to the rest of this build.

and yes, she is a dead ringer for the woman in the Vikings series.

[gunpowder17]

Fantastic stuff.

[Mitch K]

My reasoning is that different woods were used, as swords and spears have been unearthed showing signs of repair it stands to reason that a precious item like a shield would have been repaired over time, I might be completely wrong, the paint guide that comes with the paints uses different paints to show different wood effects, looked cool so borrowed the idea

Evidence suggests shields were pretty ephemeral (except for the boss), and were expected to be replaced regularly, at least by people who fought frequently. The ordinary Saxon common ceorl probably cobbled his back together, though.

[Bigmick]

Excellent, thank you Mitch, I've looked at shield designs and construction and know it's all "Hollywood", the real shields as you say would have been covered in leather or hide as the planks aren't joined, I love the concept of cheese glue, as for decoration I might yet do a pinwheel design in some natural pigment colours like ochres and black but as it's a true fiction character I might do the bright turquoise, I think the knot work would give me a migraine.

Regards.

Mick.