Posted in News

Happy new year!

As 2019 comes to a close, I’d like to thank everyone for their support of me and my channel over the last 12 months.

I haven’t counted up how many builds, videos and streams I’ve done this year, but it’s been a few. Hopefully next year will be as successful!

The last thing I finished this year was the weirdnob, so I managed to get a fairly decent picture of it to finish the year.

Thank you all again, have a great end to 2019 and an even better 2020. See you online!

Posted in News

The results are in……

And I am overjoyed to announce I won!

The orange dragon I have spent a couple of months painting live on Sunday evenings during the Warhamster stream was entered into my local Warhammer stores November competition “Monsters”. And it managed to rack up an impressive number of votes. In fact, enough to win.

As it was the first time I have ever entered any of my work into competition I am very happy, and even amazed at its success. It was a public Facebook vote, people just had to “Like” the picture of the model they, well, liked.

It meant I came home at the end of the month with a “Golden Grot” and as far as I can tell, the chance to call myself an award winning model maker. 😉

Thank you to all who voted, I didn’t get a chance to read my prepared speech when I collected my prize this morning but rest assured it would have been epic.

I shall enter again later in the year, when the category and the store are ready for the massive Baneblade project. And after I have finished it!

Posted in News

Time off

After a busy week of models and partworks I’ve taken a few days off of Modelmaking and gone back to the xbox.

I’ve finished the new Star Wars game, and just started ‘Control’, a similar sort of thing but grounded in the real world. Although it’s a real world with some sort of alien invasion/ paranormal/ superpower thing going on.

I’ll be playing that for a few more days and will get back to the bench at the weekend. Honest.

There’s still “An Evening with Everyone” on Thursday, come join in when I post the link on my Facebook page just before the show!

Posted in Builds, News

Baneblade!

If you missed last nights premier, where were you? It was fun! I do occasional premieres on my YouTube channel, it’s always nice to be able to chat to people as they watch for the first time.

The video is still available to watch HERE, although you won’t get any reply if you type anything…..

The video is the first in a new series of making the Warhammer 40k Baneblade. A huge tank thing. Of course I’m not going to paint it in normal, boring colours. As a Warhamster thing it has to be basically orange. And I may have made a mistake in suggesting it would be interesting to have a try at digital camo…..

Keep an eye on my channel for the series, I’ll be releasing videos throughout the build!

Posted in News

ScaleModel World!

The weekend is fast approaching!
Apparently the biggest model show in the world is happening this weekend in Telford. And I’ll be there on Sunday!

I’m not in any competitions or groups, I’ll just be wandering around looking at stuff (and probably buying a thing or 2…)

If you’re there on Sunday and you see me, come say hello! I’ll have some stickers with me too……

I plan to be around the entrance around midday for a while, so you can probably catch me there, if not I will be wearing the brightest orange hoodie I could find, probably partially covered by an eModels jacket (depending on temperature!) wandering the halls from opening until late afternoon.

I’ll be getting some video and lots of pictures on the day, so keep an eye on the Youtube for a show video next week!

Posted in Builds

The dragon, finished.

As promised, here’s the post about the actual dragon base.

I started the base with red, then swirled in some yellows to give a more organic look.

I built a plastic wall around the outside to hold in the next part: PVA

I layer of pva, probably 5 mm thick. I left this to dry for a day, and got: well, not much change actually. I left it another day and again, not much. I think the pva was drying at the top, and I’d made the wall too well so it wasn’t actually letting any air through at all. I removed the wall, and let it dry for another day…..

Some of the pva was absorbed into the tissue, but I could see obvious signs of drying! I left it again…..

And it worked. I decided to give it a little dry brush of orange, to mix it up a little more.

Then came the interesting bit. Crackle.

This was done on the Warhamster stream, “Slapping it on” and using a hairdryer to dry it quickly.

This was immediately after drying it. I knew from the test piece it would continue to crack some more if left alone, so I did.

That’s the “finished” base. But not quite complete.

Paul did suggest “Object source lighting” on the rock to add a little more realism. As I hadn’t done any of that before, I thought it would be an interesting experience.

It doesn’t show up much in pictures, and isn’t that obvious in person, but I added some red and yellow to the underside of some rocks to imply the light from the lava lighting upwards.

I have a little more touching up to do to the model, but it’s basically done.

Watch on Sunday for the finished dragon, and the start of a new build that my patrons are voting for!

Posted in Builds, News

It’s all about the base…..

If you’ve been watching my Warhamster streams on sundays, you’ll have seen I’m getting close to finishing the orange dragon. I’ve always intended it to have a base like cracked lava, so I thought I’d better practice.

I am using citadel paints, and they do have a good range of what they call “Technical” paints. These are usually used for effects: things like blood, snow, mud, and some have a special ‘crackle’ property as they dry.

I tried a couple of different ones and decided on Mordant earth as my black lava type top.

The dragon, on a tree, on a rock that’s going to be coming out of lava.

I have been told of a method for getting the best crackle, so I followed it and we will see how it comes together.

To begin, you need a good base colour. Obviously for lava that’s going to be red. Over that you need some yellow/ orange to make swirls and a visual texture. The tricky part comes next: PVA. Pva is a white glue, that goes transparent when it dries. It also shrinks quite a lot.

I didn’t take a picture of the base, but you’ll be able to see it when the pva goes transparent!
After about 24 hours, the underlying colour comes through.

The yellow was just ‘Slapped on’ to see how it could come through. I know lava doesn’t look anything like that.

The mordant earth, applied thickly.

The next trick I was told about is not to let the technical paint dry on its own. Using a hairdryer to quickly dry it gives more cracks, and makes them bigger.

I thought I’d gone too thick, so I added a thinner layer.

The thick paint didn’t crack much, so I added a thinner layer (closer to the camera in the picture). I sort of wanted something between the 2 finishes, so I thought I’d have to get the thickness of the paint just right. Except…. when I came back to it the next day something wonderful had happened.

It had continued to crack, getting almost exactly the effect I intended!

I’ll post another page about the actual base shortly. But suffice to say, it didn’t go quite as planned…….