Monday, August 16, 2010

Mud and leadership

This weekend was mostly spent at Run Amuck. And by that I mean mostly cleaning myself off afterwards. Being caked in mud gave me some interesting realizations. For instance ever notice how we (and by we I usually mean the royal we) paint something standing in the grass or dirt but their lower legs are unmolested by the ground they walk on?

For example, high elves in their ridiculous white robes usually do not have a spot of dirt on them! Naturally I intend to change this but that is an endeavor for another time. First I need to paint the buggers!

Last week I put together my prince on foot. I did not use the head pieces from the hero box because I think the big HE helmets are a little on the outrageous side. The wings/dragon helm looks neat but at the same time ridiculous in its size. Instead I found one of the extra heads from the white lion chariot kit. The hair is coiled and blowing in the breeze, the face is angry and he appears to be shouting in rage. I gave him an axe and left his right arm free. The pose is simple, he is gesturing with his axe and shouting a command. The look will go well with the white lions. I may even go as far as putting a white lion cape on him furthing the look and feel of a prince from Charce (or is it Charace? Wherever the white lions hail from).

The rest of the hero kit is going to be composed of the mounted battle standard bearer. Again, I don't intend to use the head-piece but everything else, including the lavish pre-made banner will be used. I wanted to do something different for the base so I took some spackle and using my fingers globbed some on the base and then pulled away creating a swept look to it. This created a jagged rocky appearence. After letting it dry I placed a little Elmer's Glue on as a seal. I know it isn't 100% consistent with the rest of my model's look for the base but I wanted to experiment a little. We'll see how it turns out once I mount the model on there.

Pictures to follow later today.


This week's goal: complete the wireframe for the phoenix (great eagle) and order a clear flying base for it. Additionally I may have miscalculated my army list so there might be room for 2 eagles. We shall see!

2 comments:

Brewmaster said...

I love that you are making your own Phoenix for your army to represent Great Eagles. What materials are you going to use to make it? I am a bit curious because I have never really contructed a figure by using a wireframe as a starting point.

J said...

The problem here is I am making a new model without a pre-existing base.

So instead of adding modeling clay to an existing model I need a base. So what I am going to do is use a soldering iron and piece together paperclip bits to make the basic skeleton. Then I'm going to use the softer FIMO modeling clay to add layers and sculpt as I go along.

Ultimately I would like to mold one that I like and then cast it using clear resin. Then paint it with inks. Even more awesome would be adding a LED light or something inside the body so it glows through the resin and inks.

Until I try resin though I'll just make the model.