Jump to content

Will Vale

Gold Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,135

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Will Vale

  1. Will Vale
    Wow, I missed heaps of progress. Looking good, still much bigger than mine! It's weird seeing all these familiar shapes forming out of the raw stuff of creation. Will
  2. Will Vale
    That's great, I have recently acquired one of those as well, after admiring it for aaaages. Partly spurred on by the Namarti archer as they go together. Look forward to seeing yours in due course, lots of potential for crazy fish schemes Cheers, Will
  3. Will Vale
    Hi all, Finished my orc-in-progress, only the one picture at the moment but I'm hoping to make a spinny video when I get time. A fun thing to paint but I keep being surprised at how much detail there is. At least it's nicely sharply moulded - I was even able to highlight the lower eyelids which are usually a disaster for me. Cheers, Will
  4. Will Vale
    Very cool!
  5. Will Vale
    Painting in all the metal bits is always more work than I think it will be, and they tend to be very hard to read especially if you work in the evening. In the light box the different paints show up quite clearly where I didn't blend them, whereas in person the "glint" will hide that. Which is to say there's probably some smoothing required. The small, softly molded bosses on the armour are particularly tricky. Pretty happy though! I need to do a bit more weathering to tie things together and then call it a day. Cheers, Will
  6. Will Vale
    I developed the metallics on the base, building up highlights with lighter silvers and then knocking it back with some dark brown lining and dust. The water has had a coat of X-22 with a bit of Warp Lightning (green) swirled through it, and then another coat after that for extra shine. Will
  7. Will Vale
    Gradually closing in on "all the bits have colour on" as I've painted the base. This is to go with the "sulphur swamp" ones I did for the hobgoblins, although there's a big moulded piece so I didn't add much. I did spread a bit of texture paint around to get some fine gritty surface over the slightly odd-looking moulded "earth" lumps. The dead Stormcast has had some basic colour - dark steel and a mix of Nuln Oil Gloss and Agrax Earthshade over the top - but I won't add any detail until I've done the flat varnish as it'll kill all the metallics. More excitingly, I painted the shield. I like the yellow option from the rulebook and then realised it might clash with the base rather. I thought about changing but decided to stick with it. Lots of fun to paint! The blue-green bits will be metallic, so they're also waiting for varnish. Cheers, Will
  8. Will Vale
    Thanks for the kind words folks. It's a hard choice with the underwater elves - some people paint/base them as though they're underwater, with corals and caustics. But they're supposed to be able to come out of the water and bring a sort of magic "ghost of the sea" with them so their fishes work properly. I'm not sure how to show either of those so settled for "on a beach" 😕 W
  9. Will Vale
    Thanks Ross I used to be quite sniffy and dubious about edge highlighting but I seem to have adopted it wholeheartedly over the past few years. I did a whole round of neatening of the highlights and detailing the leather: and last night spent an hour (ish) on his face, skin, and nails. All twenty! There aren't any moulded details for the nails but I think it adds a slightly creepy touch so I tend to paint them in on orcs and goblins and the like. Cheers, Will
  10. Will Vale
    I've not been very good at posting WIPs recently, but as I'm on a bit of a roll of starting things and finishing them, here's one: It's a random Killaboss from the Dominion box that came out last year for Age of Sigmar. Tall thin orcs with stumpy legs that live in swamps and are cunning and such. The paint is based on lots of drybrushing with glazes over the top, both for speed and to get some natural texture/untidiness in the skin and cloth. I previously painted these hobgrots/hobgoblins with similar techniques but a warmer finish on the skin: I'm not quite sure where the Killaboss is going yet, but hopefully it'll work out. Cheers, Will
  11. Will Vale
    Gorgeous, I like the older models with lovely new paint. The bases are pretty too. Will
  12. Will Vale
    Thanks The shading on the face is mostly from the wash, I didn't have to darken anything after that, just build up the mid-tones and highlights. The colours were inspired by the GW Briomdar scheme, I really like it. The bow is mine though, based on the Spindle Drones I did a while ago. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/Namarti-Reavers-2018 I think if I ever get around to doing some of the fish, the pearl will look good on the howdahs and saddles and things? Cheers, Will
  13. Will Vale
    Hi folks, This month's free mini from Games Workshop was a Namarti Reaver - they're elves that went wrong (with no soul, hence no eyes) and went to live in the sea rather than being destroyed. They come out of the ocean to steal souls from coastal communities, and the lack of eyes makes them easier to paint (click for bigger) The skin is thinned contrast glazed with regular paints, and I used similar techniques for the cloth as well. The mother-of-pearl bow and weapon details are done by dotting glazes into wet medium so they spread and create very soft blends. I think she came out quite well and at three evenings' work rates as only moderately time consuming Here are the elf factions I've touched so far. I don't have any of the tree ones (apart from a tree-man I guess!) Cheers, Will
  14. Will Vale
    Cool paintwork and project. You and Andy are making 3D printers look very desirable. Will
  15. Will Vale
    Made some drone bases last night, gluing cut down flying stems onto normal 32mm bases. W
  16. Will Vale
    Herewith some closeups: I still haven't figured out the best angle for "sarge" W
  17. Will Vale
    Finished five Fire Warriors now, the style is a bit more like how I usually do things (matching the drones) rather than the fast-and-loose original subject of this thread. Quite a lot of work in the end, the steps aren't that complicated but 5x anything always makes a difference. And then the Shas'ui's head and his glowing tricorder thing (full, no doubt, of widdly-wee) took a while on their own. I've got some pictures of the individual figures but haven't processed them yet. Cheers, Will
  18. Will Vale
    Thanks folks I've admired them too, especially since the newer battlesuits came out. But I couldn't ever commit as my daughter is a big fan and I feel obliged to wind her up about the greater good being a propaganda job, etc. etc. Quite glad I finally took the plunge although she's been very smug about my conversion... I know what you mean about too many armies, I wish GW would slow down a bit as I get tempted by almost everything they do. Will
  19. Will Vale
    This is so great. It's really weird because I'm painting a squad (well, half a squad, 5 models) of Fire Warriors at the moment and it's so funny seeing the tiny details like the hand armour replicated in ginormo-scale. Love the face, it's amazing. As is that hand, which must be one of the hardest things to sculpt. For the shoulder armour, I think the one with the curved cutouts at the top is for the Breacher Team members - they have slightly different helmets and shotgun-looking weapons rather than the long rifles. Your compromise version looks nice, it captures the angular Fire Warrior armour but keeps the nice notches that make it look less like a bin-lid [edit] Looking at the pics above again, I think the prototype pad (2nd version) was a bit too flat - the sides should be quite deep relative to the ends, so it ends up having a more 3D shape and sits over the shoulder and upper arm rather than along the upper arm. They are weird, you can imagine them banging into the backpack, helmet etc. etc. as you usually end up with limited scope to place them on the model. The pic of the shas-ui (red pad) here shows the shape quite well, as do the 3D spinnies: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/Tau-Empire-Fire-Warriors-2017 NB: the T'au insignia on the miniatures are moulded in 3D, i.e. they don't just have relief but also curvature. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, I suspect that a flat version would look more stylish especially in the larger scale, and also looks more like functional armour? Cheers, Will
  20. Will Vale
    Sorry, missed this! I've seen them but wasn't really tempted. They're a little bit "thin" if you know what I mean? I think it's to do with the process of making realistically-proportioned characters from the very unrealistic 32mm proportions. Nice details though. And the joints are pretty obvious so if that bothers you you'd need to fill them. The Necron is mostly harder vinyl, the skin is the only flexible stuff. For the Battle Sister I think quite a lot of her clothing is flexible? But so far I haven't had any problems with paint cracking or anything like that. It's not like it's flapping around, but you can bend it if you want to. I've just bought the Ymgarl Genestealer which is *awesome*. Nice and chunky and lots of texture so should be easy to paint, although there's a good bit of work required to fill the joints and blend some of the segments together. (It's this guy, but less smol!) NB: I'm meaning to get back to this but distracted by T'au at the moment. Will
  21. Will Vale
    So the "first one's free" thing worked perfectly and here I am painting a T'au combat patrol box. I started with some Fire Warriors and drones, haven't finished the Fire Warriors yet but here are the drones plus a turret and homing beacon. From left to right the drones are shield, guardian, missile, marker and a second shield. They're painted in a less impressionistic sloppy style than the Fire Warrior and are maybe a bit too clinical as a result? They match the aircraft quite well though, down to using Insignia White as the base. I like the turret a lot, a little dustbin full of missiles with a beady eye peeking out under the rim. The drones could do with bases, they're on flying stands at the moment which are a) wobbly and b) not very attractive. I think I'll probably end up using the flying stand stems with the standard 32mm bases (which have shoulders and aren't made of scratchy clear plastic.) I'm not totally sure about the basing scheme, or at least the execution here - I think the teal-and-orange is a reliable enough idea, but the blue-green moss isn't amazing. Hopefully it'll look better on the figure bases. Cheers, Will
  22. Will Vale
    This is tiny compared to Hunter Rose's sculpture - January's mini-of-the-month was a Fire Warrior and I got mine built and based a week or two ago, but didn't find time to paint until yesterday. I primed it with decanted Mr. Surfacer 1000 Mahagony (dark brown) which was really nice, then drybrushed and shaded the cloth areas before painting in all the armour with 2-3 coats of white airbrush ink applied by brush. This gives a nice finish, albeit not a bright white, but because it's so runny it gets into the panel lines and fills them up really easily. I probably spent more time repainting lines than anything else! After about 3 hours work I was a bit disheartened, but weathering and trying to sharpen up the details has helped and a couple of hours later I think it's not a bad effort for the time spent? The scruffiness certainly adds some texture to the white surfaces. NB: The paint scheme is based on the current GW studio T'au army from Vior'la Sept, and goes with the small-scale aircraft I did last year. They were painted down from light grey/white and ended up a lot tidier. I think the white/red is a really cool scheme and fits the sci-fi militarism of the T'au rather well. Cheers, Will
  23. Will Vale
    Thanks! I stole an hour to paint yesterday and was able to refine the glow a bit and finish the basic skin colours. I tried to brighten the half-occluded eye a bit, and added a trompe l'oeil inner edge to the skin that sits over it, since it's moulded to avoid an undercut. I think that's a bit better, it's still hard to get the relative brightness of things right though. I "highlighted" the outer skin edge darker too, since the light has further to travel to get there, and I think it looks more like a translucent material? I also got a couple of coats of Dullcote onto all the brush painted areas. I'll probably bring the skin sheen back up a little bit with Contrast Medium to distinguish it from the armour, but that's still to come. Cheers, Will
  24. Will Vale
    Some nice precise clean-up work there Andy. The mouldings look like a mix of stunning and pretty good, some of the close-up detail is approaching Bandai levels. My other half finished with what she wanted from Disney+ and hasn't renewed so Boba Fett ran out for us after episode 3. It's been a bit patchy so far. My daughter and I *loved* the lizard, that was so unexpected and cool. Whereas the speeders and really everything about the Famous Four was jarringly out of place. I enjoyed the chase itself though, just for the overplayed mugging of the majordomo and his rather cool speeder that seemed like a perfect hybrid of Star Wars and Big American Barge-car. I think we've laughed at as much as with it though so far, so maybe no great loss. Still unsure how I feel about the Mandalorian, but very happy to be able to joke about Part Man, Part Delorean, and how his armour is made of Best-Car (stainless) Steel 😛 W
  25. Will Vale
    That would be a different take for sure! I did a bit more last weekend but then was straight back into work and haven't had time to post, so catching up with that now. I painted up the carapace following the same recipe as the cartouche, but a bit brighter, and roughed in the skin. It had a thin coat of Flayed One Flesh on each piece (I felt I had to use that colour!) which looked really patchy and showed some of the steel through, but after washing with various contrast flesh/grey mixes I think it's ended up a decent base. The skin on the shoulders has had some glazes and highlights and things, the skin on the face I'm still working on. I really like the idea of the eye glow shining through the skin like a torch through a closed fist, but I don't think it's quite right yet. Sadly nothing further has happened this week but I might have a little bit of time today (Sunday) so we'll see about that later. Cheers, Will
×
×
  • Create New...