Mila Kusanagi Firereach Commander

[Knikki]

Going to be ambitious with a 2nd build/paint and consider the last figure I did it took me from November to February to complete you can see why.

Anyway this is Mila Kusanagi from Andrea's Dark Nova figure set. As far as I can work out these figures are not part of any war gaming scenario and oddly enough they are all slightly different sizes. Mila is 65mm in size and compared to the Scale 75 Templar I have just done she does seem tiny.

Here is a box shot

Parts shot, I have already started to clean her up and was hopefully going to paint her in bits, but even dry fitting I have found that the head is going to have to be attached before I paint her as I will need to use a little filler to hide where the body and head join.

From the above you can see from the far right that there is a base but I do not like it so while at the Crewe Model Show last sunday I picked up 4 bases from Dark Star stand. I think they are aimed at the gaming fraternity but the one top left is the one, I think, I will use.

[Will Vale]

Cool beans. She looks like she might be an unlicensed copy of Nova (from the unreleased Starcraft Ghost.)

[Knikki]

Funny you should say that as I was wondering around the web, like you do when you should be working , on painting tips for Mila and found a site, that I think Andrea had commented, on saying the inspiration or painting of the box art, for her was Sarah Kerrigan from Starcraft Universe.

She later became the Queen Of Blades, you will need to Google it as it is a long story.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Knikki

[D1fuN0]

Veryyyy very nice.... this looks like something to follow.

Steve

[Will Vale]

Kerrigan was a ghost too, before she became Queen of Blades, but the sculpt looks a lot like this cheesy image of Nova;

http://wallpup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Starcraft-2-Wallpaper.jpg

I guess they must've both had a similar uniform, but Kerrigan had red hair I think?

Will

[Knikki]

From the image I have seen of Kerrigan, including a couple in Blizzards Art Of book yes she did have red hair.

"cheesy image of Nova" ????

I like that image

Edited February 27, 2015 by Knikki

[Will Vale]

It's fun but it is totally typical "impractical fantasy armour for women" fare. And her head is twisted rather far around in order to get her face and bottom both facing the camera.

That said, I've seen worse - anything by Rob Liefeld I forgot his name just now and amazingly he's the top hit for "that terrible comic artist".

This is a bit sweary but it's very funny: 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings

Thread-jack over, I promise! I really like the figure and look forward to seeing the paint job

Will

[Knikki]

Thanks for that Will it was an entertaining read and I will look at 90's comics in whole differnet light

Well build does not start for another day so Hi-Jack the thread as long as anyone likes

Edited February 27, 2015 by Knikki

[Dermo245]

She's got a big gun, in fairness...

Is she metal or resin?

Dermot

[Knikki]

Big gun and she would not sink in a storm either

She is all metal but the base I am going to use I think is resin.

[Knikki]

I have made a start

The image above (sorry slightly OOF) and below have been primed with light grey I then went over the figure from direct above, with white, to try and pick out where the high lights were going to fall, although to be fair it is fairly obvious where some of the highlights and showdown will be

Now still need to think of colour theme, currently look through various book, The Art Of Blizzard Entertainment, The Art Of Dead Space, Peter Jones Solar Flare as well as Starcraft Ghost concept art around the web but I have just got the Vallejo Non Metallic Metal paint set so I think that will be the main starting point.

I primed the base using Scale 75 black primer and it is very nice, idea is to do a couple of washes either with greys or mix of grey and gun metal then dry brush some aluminium over it to pick out the detail.

[philp]

Have you seen this one?

https://scontent-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/p480x480/10405400_905510826179690_5548751597280788186_n.jpg?oh=e49bfdbd9fa11c1532671ac3eaf80fc1&oe=558C11AE

[Knikki]

Thanks for the link

Mass Effect?

Played all 3 of those games but did not get on with the 3 one and did not finish it.

But I am now off to interwibble some Mass Effect images

[Knikki]

Well all colour bets are now off.

I started to mess around last night and put a very thin coat of yellow on the armour and alien purple on the suit and I rather like it so I think I may well develop this more.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Knikki

[Knikki]

Things just not going well.

Having primed in Light Grey and then started to do yellow armour, I decided I wanted the colours to look bright and more alive and so dull like as I was getting. Out with the Power Spray, scrubbing away and drop the figure, off rolls her head and her left arm also comes off ~sigh~ so much for super glue. I know I should have pinned them but there is not a lot of space to drill holes and I do not have wire thin enough (something for the shopping list)

Well it took blinking ares to get the head and arm back on and still the fit was, not great, and with a bit of Mr Surfacer 500, I managed to make the head and should joint look apart of the figure.

Fine.

White primer all went on OK, or so I thought . Used a hair dryer to speed up the process, all OK, then later started to apply the yellow paint.

Two coats later and I am going to stick a third coat on when I notice on the left lower leg armour that a whole pile of paint had come off. No idea why, I assume my cack handedness, anyway tried to cover up but it look

She is now back in the Power Spray

I am away now for a few days so hopefully get my head back together on it and tonight I am going to run a round London 1884 and sort a lycan infestation out

[Knikki]

Update

Changed again.

The main uniform had a base colour of Carmine Red and the armour had a base Yellow from the Andrea Yellow set these were originally brush painted on, one coat very thin.

Let that dry and I got hold of some Vallejo Liquid Mask, which is water based and nicer to use than the Humbrol stuff, placed that around the armour and then sprayed Carmine Red one, then mixed in some other red I had to try and make it lighter and give some depth, then tried to spray high lights with white.

Did not quite go to plan, as I do not think I thinned the paint enough or used wrong pressure, things to learn.

Where did I get this mad idea from?

Well I bought a book by Angel Giraldez, Vallejo Paining Miniatures from A to Z (Vol.1) and he paints wargaming figures, most of which are 25 - 45mm (at a guess) in size and he uses an air brush and get some spectacular effects using and air brush. OK so he has several more years experience using an air brush, but I thought why not go for it.

Upshot?

I need WAY more practice and now I need to break out the brush set again.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Knikki

[Will Vale]

The red and yellow are nice and strong, maybe a neutral or blue-grey would be a good colour to add to some of the hard trim stuff?

I found when trying to airbrush figures that it was very hard to get the paint thin enough to give smooth blends, and then not get runs. I've tended to just use the airbrush to preshade on a fairly large scale, and then switched to brushes to finish.

I've seen some really weird airbrush technique watching figure painter videos, like blipping the air trigger and effectively painting in little spurts. Maybe that's the secret?

I've *also* seen a lot of airbrush figure painting (usually when the figures are for sale) where the painters post their work at such low resolution that you can't see how rough the results are! And don't get me started on the fashion for airbrushed light glow effects which look like the figure has had e.g. its eyes attacked with a spraycan

Will

[Knikki]

Blue-grey for the hard trim stuff?

Thanks Will I was wondering what to do for the straps and things maybe even the foot ware as well.

Have seen some "interesting" air brushed figures while wondering around the web.

[Knikki]

An Update

Well after taking Dr Dazz's medical advice, watching anime and drinking coffee/rum mixtures I managed to stave off the cold for a while to have another go at Mila.

Last week, I had painted her completely red, held the figure at odd angles to try and get some darker reds into the shadow areas and it sort of worked.

However I found that the reds lacked "brightness" because most of the paints I have are aimed at the military side so have a dull matt finish to them which is not what I wanted.

Does not help looking at all the various art books I have, which shows various space people in a varity of wonderful suits all with bright colours, think Chris Foss, Tim White etc.

Went to the Cosford show, bought more paints (can never have enough paint) and have Fairy Powered sprayed Mila (again 3rd time I think) and going to try a differnet method.

Basically spray thin coats (if I can work out what a "thin coat" is, question in the Paint bit of the forum) of black primer from below.

From above spray light grey primer followed by smaller areas of white primer.

Once done the her Armour will be Red but this time try and build up a more intense and brighter red than before,

Her jump suit will be blue and again if I get the under coat right ( ) then that should also be brighter.

[Knikki]

Update and Change Again

The following two images show her undercoated in black then grey primer and then white over the top. The primers were diluted with a mix of Vallejo airbrush thinner and flow improver, which worked rather well but you can still get some drying/blocking while painting so don't think I have the paint/thinner mix just right at the moment. However a handy cotton bud with water or thinner on it usually solves the problem.

The next couple were with two coats of Vallejo Blood Red colour on her, it is getting close to what I am after so I may put maybe one or two more thin coats on.

I am hoping to put another darker red black red or hull red round the back of the armour to try and give it some depth.

The start on the jump suit but guess I will have to mask off the red areas first.

[Will Vale]

That red is lovely and rich, it was worth the repaint to get there.

[Hunter Rose]

Yeah agree with Will, its much more intense

[Knikki]

This may interest Will, as well as other, reference to the coversation about this figure on the other page and ref to Starcraft

http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/7175

From Putty and Paint site, wish I had the abilty to mod a figure like that

[Knikki]

Making progress……….slowly

Have painted the jumpsuit with a base of dark prussian blue then tried to dry brush over the top with a 50/50 mix of prussian blue and blue green. Shadows been added to the armour plus some of the armour studs picked out with Mig Gunmetal although it looks more silver than I thought, maybe because of such a small amount used.

Need to try adding glaze to both the jumpsuit and armour to blend the colours more and also pick out bits and pieces of the jumpsuit.

Face has been "fun" and after the fun and games with the Templar I decided to try and limit the colours used so she has and undercoat of Vallejo basic skin tone then over painted with sunny skin tone, both airbrushed on, kind of like it but needs more work, I am going to try and glaze more colour into the cheeks and shadow areas under the chin.

All a bit of experimentation but learning as you go along

(have bought another one of these figures and may well try either a orange/yellow combo or a Terra Nova style colours)

Edited April 28, 2015 by Knikki

[Hunter Rose]

Lovely work on that blue, the finish is really excellent, it has an almost leather patina look to it.

Top hole Knikki!