Kaladrax In Seven Days! Buglips is Crazy! WIP

[aku-chan]

Wow, I really like how that base has turned out!

 

I want to paint mine now, but I've got too many half finished Bones hanging around already.

[buglips*the*goblin]

The end of the base approaches!

 

 

 

 

So I finished all the vegetation. I did the two layers as described previously, and then after about ten minutes I took my MSP Highland Moss and threw the nearest yellow into it. Some Coat D'Arms Yellow. Yellow, probably. Bright yellow? Sunlight? I don't know, it was there and yellow so I didn't read the label.

 

With this I put a top highlight on all the greeny bits. So this... sort of looks right. It looks okay, anyway. The green provides good contrast with the stone, and more or less does the job it has to. I think it looks suitably overgrown, and is probably a better result than I would have had trying to make it look like gravelly bits.

 

There's one small patch left just above the head near the skull. In the pic of Martin's paintjob it appears to be painted in as vegetation. Could go either way, really. So probably I'll take care of that before I'm through, but really I could probably just leave it and nobody will know. Well, you will now that I've told you - but that doesn't count.

 

So this leaves the skulls and some treasure around the back. Some rather large treasure. Must belong to Yephima, and Kaladrax is just holding onto it for her.

 

The skulls will be a challenge, they have very little detail. So the next update will focus just on them, to see if I can come up with some steps to cheat your way around the soft details.

 

Remember! Accentuate or disguise! Knowing how to cheat is important, for just this sort of occassion.

[OneBoot]

Wow, the base has turned out fabulously!!! The drybrushing really looks nice, and the rich but muted colors of the generalized vegetation serve to highlight the stone areas, rather than detract from them. Very cool, I'm looking forward to your plans for Big K.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Teskal]

At first I was thinkin the big head should be look like jade, but I'm not sure I if can paint it.

 

I like that you painted the stones as vegetation. Good idea.

[pocketcthulhu]

Heya bugs I'm fairly impressed by your stone work I'm going to steal some of that for my nethermaul I'm working on, One thought for you with stonework as large as that face did you think about doing some discolorations from water running over it?

Edited September 8, 2013 by pocketcthulhu

[KruleBear]

Grrr. Had a very intelligent response that i accidently deleted, so i will give my typical mediocre response.

 

I actually liked the vegetation better without the yellow highlight. Maybe go back with the greens to knock it down or add some dots of red to represent red cap lichen. Either way (and do not tell Martin this), but i like your interpretation of the base better than Reapers version.

 

Battle on!

 

-mike

[Dadcubed]

This is looking great and the seven day thing means it changes so fast!

 

The green really sets off the stone nicely. Like this a lot :)

[Thes Hunter]

Go Buglips go!

[Shogun]

What a stunning base and indepth wip.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Heya bugs I'm fairly impressed by your stone work I'm going to steal some of that for my nethermaul I'm working on, One thought for you with stonework as large as that face did you think about doing some discolorations from water running over it?

 

I've not only though of that, I have done it. I'm not sure how well it shows. I originally thought this was because my photography setup is poor, but when I was surfing this thread earlier on my xbox it showed up perfectly colorsynced on my TV. On my laptop, it doesn't. Now I do know the TV settings are default and my laptop settings aren't. I spend more time staring at the little screen, so I probably have it a bit desaturated. That said, I don't know if my TV settings count as correct monitor settings.

 

Bottom line, I don't know how much each of you can see. But anyway, it's there if a bit subtle. It's very easy to overdo that kind of thing, so I only gave it a quick bit of highland moss green and thinned brown liner to make it look sort of right. But just for you, since you asked about it, I took a closer picture of The Big Giant Head to see if it might show better:

 

 

 

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about the skulls. So, fresh from my string of victories I was all pumped up to go in, tackle these boney bruisers, and show how awesome Buglips can be.

 

Instead, I have my first fail on this model. So here's the grisly deets:

 

I selected one skull to serve as an example. Now, before I begin I have a couple of things to say about these skulls.

 

1. They are not good.

 

2. They don't really bother me too much

 

These skulls are pretty bad, and they will definitely be a source of complaint from some people. How much is dependant on the individual. I'm not especially happy about them, but my overriding priority with all Bones models, regardless of size or complexity, is to use them for gaming. So I'm willing to accept considerable compromises as I work on them. This is my own, individual, view. It is equally valid to be very unhappy with these skulls. I have a hard-earned reputation as a Reaper Fanboy, and I am, so I will attempt to show these as impartially as I can. Throughout, please bear in mind some of what looks bad may be due to goblin error. Hopefully the pictures will be clear enough for people to make that determination.

 

So on to the gory bits.

 

Here's the skull I selected, and you can see he doesn't have much detail. This is top right of the head, crammed in between some stone.

 

 

I cleaned up his basecoat (shot was out of focus so not included) and then proceeded with bone triad Aged Bone. This was a more extreme transition than I anticipated, and I underthinned at first. I tried to clean it up with a wash of Bone Shadow, then a thinned highlight, and soon it began to dawn on me that this battle might be futile.

 

 

So I went around to all the skulls, see if any could be salvaged.

 

Here's the one on top of the head, looking dismayed:

 

 

The collection to the left of the head, which are the best of the lot:

 

 

This sad little guy under the chin:

 

 

This poor fellow on the far right of the front of the base:

 

 

This one guarding the treasure:

 

 

And this one behind the big giant head on the back:

 

 

 

I don't know if this soft skull issue was because of his accidental enlargement, but I will say that IMO it's a small price to pay for Bigger Dracolich if it is. I only want to make people aware of them, so that you can plan around dealing with them.

 

For my part, defeated, I gave them all a top highlight and called it a day. I'm not prepared to spend hours messing about with them, clock's ticking. So here's how that looks:

 

[buglips*the*goblin]

Grrr. Had a very intelligent response that i accidently deleted, so i will give my typical mediocre response.

 

I actually liked the vegetation better without the yellow highlight. Maybe go back with the greens to knock it down or add some dots of red to represent red cap lichen. Either way (and do not tell Martin this), but i like your interpretation of the base better than Reapers version.

 

Battle on!

 

-mike

 

I thought it was too extreme, too - but after looking at it for a while I decided that overall it adds colour to it. Rather than mess around trying to fix it, and risk ruining it, I figured it would do as is. It should look pretty good when he's back on display. We'll see. If not, or if I change my mind, it's all accessible even after he's attached anyway.

[Corporea]

(obligatory peanut gallery: Tick tock tick tock...)

 

The base looks great! Whoo!

[OneBoot]

I didn't pick up on the water stains from the bigger pictures, it looks quite realistic in your close-up pic! Also noticed from the close-up: Wow, that statue has some in-tense eyebrows.

 

I think your skulls turned out just fine, personally. Even if they bother you, once your draco-lich is perched on top, not only will a lot of them be in a bit of shadow, but I highly doubt the first thing someone thinks will be "Man, I really don't like those skulls." I mean, that's not what I'd think. My first thought would be "Holy cow it's a freaking awesome draco-lich on a killer base!"

 

But that's just me.

 

As for the shape, they all seem to be sort of elongated in general. Maybe Kaladrax makes his home on an island inhabited by hoomanoid creatures?

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

Edited September 8, 2013 by OneBoot

[buglips*the*goblin]

All that remains on the base now is the treasure and a little bit of green. So that's what I decided to tackle next:

 

 

I painted the treasure chest all in brown liner, and noticed it has no side detail at all. So I'll try to paint some, I guess. The coins I did with a mix of reaper chestnut brown I threw in with the leftover brown liner.

 

 

 

While that was drying, I decided to move on to Kaladrax's head. Now I had paintstakingly painted him with two coats of Bone Shadow - which I discovered doesn't cover very well - and then gave him a wash of coat d'arms black. A very thin wash. But CDA black is the antithesis of all light, so even thinned 6 to 1 it still gave me this:

 

 

Now I still wasn't sure where I was going with these boney bits, but I knew I had to undarken that. So I decided the best thing to do to restore the basecoat was to drybrush some Bone Shadow back over. I dampened the brush and thinned the Bone Shadow very slightly so that, together, they should give a smoother look than I got on the stone.

 

 

Then I got to thinking while doing that, that really since the dark wash turned out so black anyway, and the Bone Shadow doesn't cover very well, it was probably as well to just paint all the bones black to begin with and drybrush the basecoat on than to get the same result from several unnecessary steps.

 

And then, since the paint had behaved so well in this stage, I got to thinking maybe highlighting with my tiny drybrush might be the way to go for all of him. In any case, it was worth a try to see how it might look. I wanted Kaladrax to look more natural than the shocking white he is in Martin's version. It's a very lovely job Martin did, but Kally looks a bit polished. I wanted mine meaner. The gritty reboot, if you will.

 

So I used Bone Shadow mixed 50/50 with Aged Bone and proceeded to get this:

 

 

I thought that was nice. So I threw in some coat d'arms white (like the black is the blackest black, this is the whitest white) and did another highlight layer:

 

 

And I'm thinking that's looking pretty spot-on. It needs to come up a bit more, probably all the way to white, but it's going the right way. I think it looks more natural.

 

It wasn't my intention to make Kaladrax a lesson in all the possibilities of drybrushing (and there will be some layering in some parts), but I guess now he is.

[Girot]

go go go go go go go!!