Popular Post Jordan Peacock Posted August 21, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted August 21, 2015 Reaper Bones #77100 Vanja, Fire Giant Queen (Conversion): A friend of mine is preparing to run an Iron Kingdoms Unleashed RPG campaign, and I've been working on painting up a few warpwolves and other warcritters for him, but upon reading up on some of the background fluff, it sounds as if there should be female variants on the creatures encountered (and yet we never see any as models). I happened to notice that the "Vanja" model was very close in size to the Privateer Press Warpwolf, and it was a nice price for such a large and detailed figure (alas! I did not get it during the Kickstarter) so I thought it might be fun to grab it to do a conversion. Alas, the double-headed spear was a bit bendy, and resisted my repeated efforts to give the figure a hot-water bath to straighten things out. I ended up snipping off both weapon ends, boring holes into the haft segments, and inserting wire, then reattaching. There is no particular reason for the fact that I ended up swapping the heads opposite of what was originally on the figure; quite simply, I forgot which one went where. The base was considerably warped, such that the bottom surface was concave, and even cracked. I haven't run into that with any of my other Bones figures. Fortunately, this was not an issue, as Iron Kingdoms is a very base-specific game, so I had to put this down on a 50mm round base anyway. I trimmed and shaved the base a little, used some two-part Apoxie Sculpt epoxy putty to gap-fill the remaining gaps under the base, and then disguised the edges (and the non-digitigrade feet) by nestling the base in a sculpted set of roots, along with several Circle Orboros-style rune-engraved stones. I also used putty to add pointed ears and a "warpwolf stalker" style of muzzle (which was conveniently much easier to sculpt than to try to blend a doggy muzzle onto the fire-giantess's face). "Fur" is painted on with various shades of grey and blue-grey (Granite Gray, Graphite Gray, Blue Denim, Snowflake, and White) in little stippled strokes, going a bit darker for the "skin" areas, and lighter for the hair/mane areas. Leathery areas were first painted tan, then painted with a watered-down deep brown (sort of a semi-wash), then highlighted again with tan. For smooth surface areas such as the armored knee pads and the breastplate, I painted with "Kelly Green," trimmed with copper, highlighted in "Inca Gold," and with shading lines in "Graphite Gray." For some of the shadowed metallic areas, I have a "Metallic Brown" I picked up, which works very nicely for shadowing for a dark bronze effect. Vanja's elaborate jewelry makes for wonderful points of colorful contrast from the greys and browns that dominate most of the figure. I also made the main blade bronze with inlaid areas of green, to try to echo the typical "Circle Orboros" look, although I don't know that any of the Circle Orboros figures has a BRONZE blade in the art. I just liked the look. Alas, for the base, I supplemented my supply of paints with a trip to Wal-Mart. It seems that a great many of the regular paints are being replaced with "gloss" varieties, which I've learned to be wary of -- but at Wal-Mart it seems like most of the non-gloss Apple Barrel paints were labeled as "Multi-Surface." This seems to translate into "goes on thick, lumpy, and shiny," and the lumpiness especially shows up on otherwise smooth areas such as the base lip. I'm not sure why the move to eliminate (?) non-glossy basic colors of Apple Barrel paints at my usual sources (I can't get non-glossy large containers of Apple Barrel basic colors at JoAnn Fabrics anymore, as of my last visit), but it's disheartening. :( And it's not as if I can just "stock up" on the paints I do like, because the Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints have a tendency to go "sour" after a while (becoming very watery, smelling funny, and defying all attempts to mix it up to achieve anything resembling its original consistency). Such is the drawback of going for the cheap crafty paints. 23 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarsemina Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I love the detail work on the spear head! Excellent! And to eliminate some of the problems of lumpy paint and things you might want to look into getting Reaper paints. Yes, they are more expensive but, they are so totally worth it. I used to paint completely with apple barrel so, I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Whoa! Interesting concept and converting. Looks great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruunwald Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 That's a great idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan Peacock Posted August 22, 2015 Author Share Posted August 22, 2015 I love the detail work on the spear head! Excellent! And to eliminate some of the problems of lumpy paint and things you might want to look into getting Reaper paints. Yes, they are more expensive but, they are so totally worth it. I used to paint completely with apple barrel so, I know. Yeah, one of these days I'm going to have to invest in a set of serious paints. One trouble is that none of the FLGS in the area carry Reaper paints (miniatures support in general for anything that's not "collectible" and pre-painted has taken a nosedive around here), and it's just so much easier to swing by JoAnn Fabric on the way home (it's on the right-hand side of the road for me, even, on the way home ;) ) after hunting on the site and finding myself a coupon. (That store so often has "50% off one item" or "40% off one item" or "30% off your entire order (regular-priced items)" coupons that I will pointedly NOT go unless I've checked for coupons first, or I'll feel like I'm cheating myself.) However, during my recent trip, I couldn't for the life of me find a single bottle of white -- just WHITE -- acrylic paint in any of the regular craft lines that wasn't "glossy" or some other undesirable type. The closest I could find was "snowflake," which seems to be a sort of super-light nearly-white blue-grey. Wal-Mart was worse. So once I get through my current stock, I might really have no choice but to get some serious paints via mail-order. I've sort of gotten a feel for which Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints are more opaque, and which ones are more translucent (i.e., white, pink, antique white, light grey tend to be very opaque, and can be painted on a dark surface without having to do multiple coats; solid colors tend to be more translucent and really need an undercoat of either white, or something in a lighter compatible hue -- such as light yellow underpainting going with a solid green over it). Still, I know that for really BRIGHT colors, there wasn't anything that would compare to, say, Blaze Orange from my friend's collection of Citadel paints (if provided with a good underpainting of white first). I suppose I'll have to learn my way around the Reaper paints in due time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pingo Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Target, of all places, seemed to have a line of matte acrylic craft paints in the stationery / office supply / party supplies and crafts area (I assume all Targets are laid out about the same). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Chaoswolf Posted August 22, 2015 Moderator Share Posted August 22, 2015 Very nicely done!! I though you had sculpted the fur onto her up until I read that it was painted. Cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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