OneBoot's Bones 1 Kickstarter Figures WIP (picture heavy)

[OneBoot]

Thanks for all of the advice, everyone!!

 

@Cash - I honestly didn't think about a wet brush, I tried to scrape it off real quick with my nail (which I don't think I'll be doing again, it wasn't until later that I realized I could have scraped off more than the spot! ) I'll try that next time, but part of the problem is that it's super duper dry where I live, meaning paint dries super quick. Plus, my painting station (aka computer desk) is directly across the room from our window air conditioner, which I currently have a love-hate relationship with. It keeps our shoebox of an apartment cool, but makes paint dry EVEN FASTER. It's visually dry in a second or less, aside from the initial coat right onto the Bonesium, which takes a little longer.

 

@Krule - Ooo, that's a spiffy set of pictures. It never even occurred to me to use a different color entirely as a highlight, very cool!

 

@Corporea - You've been so helpful, thank you!!! And thanks for starting that thread about shading and highlights and intensities with blue, I've picked up a lot already! Also, thank you for telling me how to shade/highlight metallic paint; I've been at a complete loss trying to figure out how to do that without using straight paint, which would end up making the bronze less shiny overall by simply covering it, defeating the purpose of the metallic paint in the first place!

 

~~~~~~~

 

Lots of little stuff yesterday, but some big steps! I'll start with Tanya, since I didn't do a whole lot with her.

 

I painted her holster and random pouch on the left side of her belt in thinned Muddy Brown. I'd forgotten that this particular paint was already on the thin side, otherwise I would have probably skipped adding water altogether. I also painted the random digital thingummy in her right hand with thinned Pure Black, and picked out the snap on her holster in, surprise surprise, P3 Molten Bronze.

 

I originally painted the butt of her pistol in Pure Black, but it sorta got lost against the shadows. Then I said to myself, "Self, she's already got a (rifle?) made out of bronze-colored metal. Why shouldn't her pistol be the same way?"

 

 

Following Corporea's advice regarding taking pictures under a strong light to see where highlighting should go (it's on her Ode to Blue thread, I highly recommend checking it out!), I had fun snapping a few pictures. Yes, those are 1-up mushrooms in the background.

 

 

Aha, so that's why the highlighting on her helmet looks odd! Apparently, there should be a shine all the way down the back as well. Also, while her stomach and shins do get much less light, it looks like they shouldn't be completely done in my shadow color, like they are now. Yay!

 

Next I'll cover what I spent the majority of my time doing - finishing Etune's weapon swap! :D

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention one other little thing I did. The numbers are pretty much rubbed off of several of my first dice set, and I realized, "Hey, I've got metallic gold paint! I can fix it!" I used Antique Gold, followed by some Glass and Tile Medium to seal it in. Can you tell which ones I touched up?

 

Edited September 7, 2013 by OneBoot

[OneBoot]

This is what I'm most excited about, I've been so nervous about doing my first conversion, and on my favorite PC mini to boot!

 

I removed the sword from the kobold's hand without too much trouble. The blade itself came off pretty smoothly, though my cut ended up being a little concave (a blessing, it later turned out). The hilt was more tricksy, and the first one I sliced off ended up bouncing away somewhere and even after nearly 10 minutes of searching, stubbornly remained lost. I appropriated a second hilt from another kobold , and made sure to be veeery careful with this one! I know, I know, I probably could have sculpted one pretty easily, but, well...doing it this way made more sense to me. I can't even explain why.

 

 

Oh man, I'm so close I can almost taste it!

 

 

Next came the pinning. I decided to pin from the bottom up, so that I didn't wreck the point of the sword, which means that I got to try and get the pin through the center of the tiny hilt. It was off to one side the first time, but with some careful guidance with my nail, I was able to get it in the center the second time.

 

 

Now for her hand. Creating the hole from the top of her hand to the bottom allowed me to double-check that the angle of the sword would be correct. Nailed it perfectly in the first try!

 

 

I then removed the pin, reinserted it from below, and had all sorts of fun trying to shove the sword on correctly. The darn thing kept wanting to tilt to one side or another, but after much wiggling and twisting, I finally got it just how I wanted it. The fact that where I'd cut it was a bit curved meant that it seated ever-so-nicely against the top of her hand.

 

 

Looking good! Here it is from tabletop distance!

 

 

I proudly showed it to Husband, who looked at the pin sticking out of her hand in some confusion, and asked if I'd done that because her sword was bent. When I told him that the sword was actually from another mini altogether, his eyes got wide, and he looked at it more carefully. He almost didn't believe me! I then trimmed a bit around the bottom of her hand to try and get the hilt to seat more cleanly. It worked pretty well.

 

At this point, I confess that I got a little TOO excited, and ended up gluing the bits in place before removing the pin. This was a very very big mistake; I'll explain why in a bit.

 

After gluing, I hunted through Husband's tools to find something to cut off the pin with. He kindly explained the difference between wire cutters and tin snips to me when he saw the tin snip I came back with (tin snips aren't as hard as wire cutters, apparently) so I wouldn't ruin his tool. He was also very kind when, after cutting off the pin, I told him that it had dented the wire cutter a little. While the wire cutters did the job, they are apparently NOT meant to cut sewing pins. I totally owe him a nice new tool now.

 

So, back to why gluing before cutting was a baaaaaad idea. I now have no way of pushing the little nub that's left sticking out up into the sword to hide it.

 

 

Either I'll have to try filing it down, or else I'm going to have to try and find something that's hard enough to cut pins. But! It looks awesome! I'm so excited with how well it turned out!!!!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

Edited September 7, 2013 by OneBoot

[Corporea]

If you have a bit of green stuff, you can make a little ball and use it as a gem/stone/fancy thingy on the end of the sword that will neatly hide the end of the pin. This is one reason I use jewelry wire rather than pins to "pin" for little stuff. It's not as strong, but it's a lot easier to cut. Nice work with the sword!! Congrats on a successful conversion!

[CashWiley]

A tassle would look cool, too.

[buglips*the*goblin]

That's a good-lookin NOVA, Boots!

 

 

You know, one thing I've noticed about newer people who've come along in the past year... not only do their painting skills improve rapidly, but there seems to be a much stronger will to perform conversion and buildwork than there used to be. Cassu and OneBoot both immediately come to mind as starting out with a bit of trepidation and then next thing you know they're performing surgeries.

 

It's neat. I'm still far too cowardly (and lazy) to jump into that side of stuff, but the reciprocal effect of WIP threads is also showing in my work. Like with Janan, who got extra highlights and pushed me over the edge to try demi-metallics next mini... despite being a "quick paint".

 

"How can I do this easy and lazy" is being replaced with "how can I do this better?"

 

Y'all are a bad influence.

[falstius]

Lineman's pliers are great for cutting wires and other metal things that are too big for you average soldering kit wire cutters. I've done chain link fences with mine. Every house should have a pair. Or, as Cash said, its a good start for a tassel. The sword looks great.

Edited September 7, 2013 by falstius

[Baugi]

I finally got caught up on this thread, and I must say I'm super impressed with how far you've come so quickly!

 

Also, apparently I need to print off some backgrounds, because dang those make a difference!

[smokingwreckage]

If you get something hard to use as a makeshift thimble, you might be able to press that little bit up into the sword from below. And I use bolt-cutters to cut pinning material... probably not the tool for your job there.

[OneBoot]

I could try to make a tassel, and if I don't like it I could just not use it. Sculpting is not a skill that I'm very good at (the potter's wheel was always my thing in ceramics), but I could give it a shot. A big round jewel would suit Etune better, though, she does like shinies!

 

@buglips - I think it's because Bones are so stinkin' easy to modify. If this had been a metal mini, I never would have even considered any of this. I simply don't have the tools. For a metal mini, I'd need a drill, pinning material, a strong adhesive (don't know how well super glue works on metal) and sculpting putty to fill in the cracks. However, with Bones, all I really needed was an Xacto knife and super glue; the pin was just because she's going to be seeing a lot of use. Plus it's so easy to cut through, it made turning her shield into a bracer really pretty simple. The other factor is cost. Even if I had access to all the tools to do metal conversions, I'd be a lot more hesitant to get creative just because if I messed up, that's a lot of money wasted. With Etune, I knew that if I epically failed and ended up destroying her arm, she's only a couple dollars to replace.

 

@falstius - Thanks for the recommendation. We stopped by Lowe's today and picked up a shiny new heavy-duty cutter made by Kobalt. We looked around for Lineman, but that store doesn't seem to carry it. These say that they're "drop-forged chrome nickel steel," whereas the ones I used before just came in a Crescent set with mostly screwdrivers.

 

@Baugi - Thank you!! :D I got the backgrounds from http://corvusminiatures.blogspot.com/2010/04/cloud-backdrops-for-your-miniature.html'>this site right here. Don't worry if they look a little pixelated after you print them, mine are pretty bad but they look awesome as backdrops. :)

 

@smokingwreckage - I tried with both my thimble and one of my needle files. The problem is that there's really nothing to hold onto while pushing. It's also glued pretty solidly in place, I wanted to make sure it, er, didn't go anywhere.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[unidentifiable]

> . We stopped by Lowe's today and picked up a shiny new heavy-duty cutter made by Kobalt.

 

ChannelLock!!!

 

Seriously. I love my channellock tools. They cut or crimp like no one's business, and they last for more than a lifetime. You pay a premium though ($25 vs $8). I have a full set of CL tools bought on sale, and they've been run over by 20-ton trucks and used as makeshift hammers, yet still function fine. Their diagonal and straight cutters can clip through stuff that other cutters like your husband's would just whimper at. (Seriously, wire cutter that can't cut a needle? Bad cutter!).

 

Linesman pliers are a type of pliers, not a brand. Technically you should be fine with any tool so long as it's made from High Carbon Steel (HCS).

 

You'll pay more up front, but you'll love that they actually cut when you feed them a wire, or needle, or even thin pipes.

 

Y'all are a bad influence.

 

Likewise sir.

[CashWiley]

I do a bit of electrical work, so I use linesman's pliers for most of my wire cutting.

 

The tassel was just an idea that might be cool to try, Corporea's suggestion of a pommel gem/knob will definitely work and be a lot easier :)

[Doug Sundseth]

Sewing pins and needles are usually hardened steel, so you need the right tool to cut them. Unfortunately, that tool isn't cheap. But it's way cheaper than buying 4 sets if dikes (diagonal cutters) and then buying the right tool. Ask me how I know this.

 

Although I now have the right tool, I almost always use either brass rod or paperclips (which aren't hardened and can be cut pretty easily by most dikes) for pinning. If you have a bench grinder, it's pretty easy to put a point on either of those, which is useful either for pressing them through PVC or for making spears or arrows.

[smokingwreckage]

It's also glued pretty solidly in place, I wanted to make sure it, er, didn't go anywhere.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

Oh, in that case forget it! :P

[OneBoot]

@unidentifiable - Aha, my ignorance shows! I can use tools, but I don't always know the proper names for them. So, ChannelLock linesman's pliers are what to look for, got it. I'll see how the Kobolt ones do first, since they're here, and they've got a replacement guarantee on them, so if they can't handle quilting pins, then at least we'll be able to get a replacement pair.

 

@Doug - What is this right tool called, so I can put it on my "would like to get someday" list? I considered paperclips, but the ones we have were simply too big for this tiny job. For a bigger mini, I would totally use them, though. A bench grinder would be lovely to have, but given that we live in a teeny apartment, it wouldn't be a practical purchase right now. Someday...

 

~~~~~

 

So, I tried making a tassel, but not only were the results laughable (not only were they way too big, they looked like fuzzy gumdrops (I only had my fingers and a toothpick to sculpt with)), I kept squishing them when I tried to attach them to her sword, regardless of how gentle I was. I realized belatedly that, duh, I should have let it harden and then glued it on, but oh well, I'm not terribly bothered.

 

I made several tiny little balls of Apoxie Sculpt (I haz no GS ), each one smaller than the last, and tried various sizes against the hilt. Once I found one that looked about right, I squished it on and delicately tried to shape it back into a sort of ball-shape with my fingernails (I really need to go dig my ceramics tools out of storage...) I ended up instead with a sort of rectangular blob, which actually looked kinda close to the size and shape of the hilt, so I just shrugged and poked and prodded and smoothed until I got this:

 

 

I'm pretty happy with it. It certainly doesn't look very jewel-like, but it doesn't look as awkward or strange as I was afraid it would be, and once it's painted I think it will look just fine. :) And with that, I'm calling this conversion DONE!

 

 

This was a triumph

I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction...

 

(lol sorry, I simply could not resist )

 

Next will be more painting on Tanya!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Corporea]

It's perfect! Great job!!