David's Workshop

Its ALIVE!

2012-02-24T14:41:00.001-08:00

Work on the Land Raider is almost done! I'll have a full post soon, but until then, here are some pictures to enjoy while you wait.

David

Progress On The Land Raider

2012-02-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

I have made some progress on the Land Raider since my last post on it. Lots to cover.

And this is what it looks like before I even add the weapons.

First of all, this thing is cool as hell. The photos aren't perfect- getting a camera stand, some decent lighting and whatnot is on my to do list- but even if it doesn't look bad ass in the pictures, it is when you look at it in person. This thing just kind of grows in aspects and areas of coolness as it is assembled and painted the way a town in the old game SimCity does. At first, its just look little piece of this, cool little part of that, then it gets bigger, and you're like, hey, I'm cooking now. And then you do a little more, and its three times cooler than it was before. And you do a bit more work, and suddenly, its twelve times cooler. And before you know it, you've spent six hours on the thing and you have an airport and a sports stadium and no crime and 100% fire coverage and the best road and mass transit system going ever and you look down on your little creation and you think, damn... I made that!

Instead of a door, there is a space marine supply
cupboard in the door frame here. Um... Why don't
they just keep all that stuff inside the Land Raider proper?

Right now, I'm nearly done with the color blocking of the outside. I used a thick brush to get the big sections of things with two layers of ultra marine blue, and need to go in with smaller brushes to get in the nooks and gaps. I am going to do a separate entry on some stuff I picked up assembling the thing. I learned a lot in the process, and I'll cover that later. But for now, here is what I have.

I have the sides built, top on, treads added, and obviously, have the interior done. I built the model so that the doors open so you can see the details I painted in the interior. I thought I would be half done when I was complete with the interior walls section of the model- everything else looked like it was just big, wide, flat surfaces that would easily be painted. It was the details that were going to take all the time, and those were all on the inside, right?

Yeah no.

Port side door closed!

I really discounted how much work painting the treads would be. I'm also not using an air brush to paint the outside, which would probably save me a ton of time. In any case, I now consider myself about halfway done. I will need to do detail work on the exterior as well as get the weapons assembled and painted... but we'll see. I figure I'm probably on hour ten or eleven on this project. Will I be done at hour twenty or twenty two? We'll see. And if so, how cool will it be at that point?

So what do I have going on here? Well, first, as I said, I have it set up so the doors open and close. You can build your Land Raider so that all the doors are glued shut, but I knew I was planning on painting the inside details when I started that project, and just had to hope the doors were cool.

Port side door open! And you can see the computer station
inside the Land Raider itself!

The doors are very, very cool. The port side doors slide back and forth. There are blocks to keep them from sliding too far apart and blocks in the middle of their track, both on the top and bottom, that make the doors come together in the center. It looks cool. The *really* cool door though, is the main hatch up front. Again, you can glue it together. If you don't, there is a little turning lever assembly that connects to the posts that the the front doors are attached to. The way the assembly works is that as one door is opened, the other door will open as well. It is *really* cool.

I put some close combat knife bits on the rack inside the
forward hatch.

The Land Raider doors are too small for any space marines to actually stand inside of. You could slide them in horizontally. And the cool thing about the Land Raider is that it actually looks like it is tall enough for some Space Marines models to fit inside of the thing. Some one who wanted to do a *really* awesome interior could get a few of them standing inside, receiving final orders and assembling their gear. Or someone could put a little map table inside of a Land Raider, as the cable is completely empty. It being empty does make it possible to see the details painted on the walls through the doors, however.

You can kind of see the engine wall in the back of the
Land Raider cabin in this shot- hard to get enough
light in there AND get the camera lens in the right place
but I think you get the idea.

I still need to finish the following steps to complete this project:

Finish the exterior paint blocking.
Paint the door covers
Paint and assemble the weapons

forward chain gun
side guns (I'll be doing the hurricane bolters)- two sets of these.
top mounted multi melta

Paint and assemble the other bits

portal covers
smoke can launchers
flood light
communications array
etc.

detailing the exterior

paint all the rivets
clean up detailing
etc.

I am not planning on doing weathering right now. I want to practice on another model first, and then apply it to this one. I could do it right, but I don't want to risk screw this up. So the weathering step is on the to do list. Like getting better photo resources.

And that is where I am right now. I'll write again when there is news to post.

Until next time,

David D.

Spray on Primers For Less Than 15 Bucks A Can...

2012-02-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so back in December I mentioned my frustration with looking for hobby grade primer. I grumbled a bit about dropped $15 for a can of Games Workshop Citadel primer when there is primer at Walmart for about $3 a can. At the time, I was told by a game shop owner that the walmart stuff is good if you are working on your car, but you could end up melting the plastic because of the chemicals used in the cheaper stuff.

Ever since then, I have been on the lookout for less expensive but still decent quality materials.

That search has born results.

Behold! The Army Painter line Base Primer Matte Black (can size: 400 ml, $13.00 at a local gaming shop) and... Armory Black Primer, by Alliance Games, (can size: 12.0 oz/341 g for $5.95 at my local gaming shop.) $5.95!!!!!

Lets say that one more time.

$5.95!!!!

For comparison my Citadel spray paint is 10 oz/292 grams/400ml. The cans for all three products are themselves the same size.

But how does Army Black do?

I used the Armory Black on my Land Raider, and I like it. It is actually gritty, as real primer is and Games Workshop black spray paint is not. Games Workshop black spray on paint (at $15.00 a can, mind you) isn't really primer but just another Games Workshop* licensed product that is meant to make us think it is better because it has the Games Workshop logo on it. Armory Black isn't as black as the GW black spray on paint, and is kind of a half black/half charcoal color. It isn't as light as I consider charcoal, but it does have some speckles of gray in it. It also goes on thicker and gritter than the GW paint does, which again, is because Armory Black is actually primer, not paint.

The Army Painter stuff is also good. It is very black, which is cool, and also goes on a bit thicker than the GW black paint, but it doesn't seem to be as gritty as the Armory Black. It is nearly as expensive as the GW paint. If you really want to buy something that is black AND a primer, and feel uncomfortable going with the less expensive Armory Black on your high cost hobby figures, I totally understand. You aren't going to get burned if you buy this.

I'm a beginner, and my view could change with more experience, but I think these are both options are absolutely viable alternatives to the GW black or white paint when used for your primer coat.

Also note- Primer can be dangerous stuff. If you are a youngster (and with the extension of adolescence in industrialized nations, this can mean up to your late 20s now**. ;-)) know that spray paint and spray primer fumes are REALLY bad for you, that you NEED to use a paint mask when you apply spray paints/primers, and that you NEED to apply them in places with lots and lots of ventilation. Also, the stuff is super flammable, so don't play with it and fire, because actually getting hurt or having someone close to you hurt no where near as exciting or interesting in real life as it seems like it is in the movies or on TV. I promise you.

*I actually love Games Workshop despite their high cost stuff. I just would rather spend less money if I can on the things I can spend less money on, which will allow me to stretch my hobby budget. ;-) Nothing but love for ya, GW!

** One of my professors mentioned this week that he read an article over the summer that had a really interesting theory on why we are seeing extended adolescence in industrialized nations. In the article, about 50 12 year old males from industrialized cultures in the Americas, Europe and Asia were studied to see how many hours a week they spend with their fathers, as were 50 12 year old males from tribal cultures in Africa and South America. It turned out that the average number of hours a 12 year old male spent with his father in an average week in industrialized cultures was 2, and the the average number of hours a 12 year old male spent with his father in an average week in tribal cultures was 20. Very interesting stuff.

Anyway, more on the Land Raider soon. Its really coming along! It looks cool as hell.

Until next time,

David D.

Learning those paint shades!

2012-02-12T11:22:00.000-08:00

My business cards are so useful for so many
things besides their intended purpose.

So here is a cool little exercise that I engaged in this week. Prior to painting the engine block, I noticed that three of my paints, Citadel's mithril silver, boltgun metal and chainmail look really, really similar. In and out of their containers. So what is the difference between these paints?

The painting guides usually call for painting metal items boltgun first, then highlight in chainmail and then just add a bit of mithril silver on the edges of the chainmail. But why? They look so alike. Sometimes when I paint I can't even tell after the work is done what parts have the highlighting and what don't. What is my eye looking for? Is it brightness? Finish? Are some of those paints matte, and some more shiny?

So I decided to do a little experiment. I took one of my small brushes and painted a bit of each paint on the back of one of my business cards. Since the surface is a solid, uniform color, I figured I should get a good idea of what I am looking at. And voila! The difference became quite clear. Boltgun is by far the darkest color, followed by chainmail, and then mithril, the lightest. And ding! It all makes sense. Layering paint is often all about putting lighter colors on top of darker ones- hense, the older the guides suggest you put down the paint. I also noticed that each color is about as shiny as the others. They are metallic paint, so it makes sense that they would all reflect some.

The picture does not quite show this because the light was coming from the right side of the image- making the chainmail reflect more of the light, and hence, looking lighter than it i in general, but you get the idea.

I can (and will) use this technique again on other colors to see exactly what order I want to use them in when I am working on other laying projects. There are a lot of paint shades that look close to alike both in their containers and on the work piece. Even when I'm a doing a model more or less paint by number, which is where I was and am just starting to mess around with a little creativity, knowing the 'why????' of the logic behind the instructions I am following is useful for me to become better at my craft. This is one of those situations where a I can read something in a book, but I don't necessarily get the concept until I play around with it a bit and make it mine. And that's a useful skill in a lot of different situations.

Until next time,

David D.

Land Raider, cont'd...

2012-02-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

Left side!

Work continues on the Land Raider. I've probably put another 3 hours in on this guy, bringing my total up to 6 thus far. I have the two interior side walls more or less complete. My painting skill isn't going to win me a Golden Demon award anytime soon, but I'm pretty happy with how everything is looking. Here is what I have going on.

Here you see the left side. You can click on the pictures to make them appear much larger, which helps to the smaller specifics. I apologize in advance for the imperfect focus.

In any case, moving from left to right, here is what I've used for the painting. All these paints come from the Citadel paint line (I have really sold my soul, or rather, hobby money to these people. But this path to perdition is paved with pleasure.) I've got boltgun metal on the rack in the front with chain mail highlights, chain mail on the metal bar running top to bottom with mithril silver rivets and highlights. The conduit and light are boltgun metal with chain mail and mithril highlights. The red light it blood red beneath red gore. The compartment door has a tallarn flesh foundation below bleached bone. The edge around it was washed with badab black to make it stand out. The seats are calthan brown as a foundation with bestial brown on top. The footlockers (and all of the rivets over the background, which is shadow grey) is spacewolves grey. The alarm light on the top of the middle column is boring blazing orange over the black primer. The cross speaker is shining gold washed with ogryn flesh, a brown wash. The computer screen is black with a scorpion green freehand graphic of a guy and text around him, which is actually my favorite part of this section. The data jack is boltgun metal with chainmail highlights. The center of the data jack opening is blood red with red gore on top. The second set of seats is the same as the first.

Right side!

The right side is also pretty cool. From right to left, I've got computer keys painted in dark flesh, (I needed a new color for computer keys and it looked good. The left and right arrow keys are blazing yellow, and the button between them is boltgun. The conduit data jacks below them are boltgun metal with mithril silver highlighting. The metal bar is chainmail with mithril silver rivets and highlighting. The conduit and metalic box is boltgun with chianmail and mithril highlights. The compartment door is identical to the one of the other side; tallarn flesh foundation below bleached bone for the skull, and badab black wash on the edge. The seats on this side are the same as the other side. The alarm light is also orange, and the cross speaker and skull are the mirror the other side. In the little alter, I've got talaran flesh for a foundation, dwarf flesh and then skull white. I also free handed some black script to look like a blessing. On the sides I have two candles with shining gold and mithril silver highlights, and the candles are golden yellow and little flames have been plaints on top in blazing orange. The rest of the side are identical to the other.

So that's the yield of another 3 hours of work. And we're up to six hours total on this project.

Until next time,

David D.

Starting work on the Land Raider...

2012-02-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Here we go!

Ok, I've done a total of 27 space marine infantry figures thus far. That is sanding down mold lines, priming, assembling, gluing, holding while the glue sets, painting, second coat-ing, washing, detailing, and second coat detailing, over two dozen little guys. And I still have more to do. But I needed to do something else because I have gotten really, really, REALLY bored worked on little people. Good thing I had a land raider crusader/redeemer sitting on the shelf waiting to be worked on, because it is exactly the kind of thing I was up for working on. So I am. I figure this is going to take me about 20 hours to do, which means it could take me two or three weeks to finish, depending on how busy I am. I would love to see my complete kick ass looking land raider right now, but its a labor of love, and the more time I spend on it during painting and construction, the more I'm going to get out of it when its finished. And here on the blog I'll document the progress of the project.

Ok. The Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer is one of the biggest models there is in Warhammer 40K, and possibly the biggest model for the entire space marines army. It clocks in at 124 parts- the Storm Raven Gunship for the Blood Angle Space Marine faction, which is probably the vehicle closest in size to the land raider, has 116 pieces. In game play, the Land Raider Crusader gives me 12 Strength 4, armor penetration 5, twin linked (meaning you get to roll twice to hit) shots from the side mounted storm bolters that shoot 24 inches. The top mounted assault cannon gives me a 4 strength 6, armor penetration 4, twin linked shots. It can carry 16 infantry figures who can assault on the same turn the disembark. It has armor of 14 all the way around. Right out of the box, before you add any additional weapons such a multimelta to kill other vehicles, this thing is fast moving, enemy infantry shredding, moving fortress bar none. I plan on throwing my terminators inside and just demolishing the armies of my foes. Hordes of cheap orks or necrons? Bring 'em on. But first I need to build the thing.

Its gonna take me a while to get this all put together.

As I said, this thing has a *ton* of pieces. Here are the sprues untouched, just out of the box.

Yeah. That's almost as many items as were in the entire Assault on Black Reach Warhammer 40K starter kit. I love seeing all these pieces though. It reminds me of when I was a kid and got the Lego Blacktron Message Intercept Base for my 9th birthday. There were sooooo many little bags of lego pieces to put together. That thing was HUGE. I remember that it took me 5 hours to put it together. I *loved* that toy.

Well, as my mother always said, "the bigger the boy, the bigger the toy."

This thing isn't going to be done in 5 hours.

First step, wash off the sprues. Its a pretty standard step. I want to get all of the oils and whatnot off of the plastic before I start going to work on it. I want the primer and paint and glue to go on without any problems, and I don't want any little bumps or ridges screwing up the pieces or the fittings between them. Little soap, little water, little kitchen sponge action, little drying off, we done. There were a few parts with little crevices where water had beaded up and I couldn't reach it with a towel, so I let the sprues air dry for about an hour before I applied the spray on primer.

I've done enough blogging about my priming and I think you all get the picture. It took me a while to prime everything, flip it over, and prime it again, and let it all dry. There are six separate sprues in the package, and my spray paint box was only big enough to spray two at a time, so I would spay them out, wait ten minutes, flip the two I was working on over, do them again, wait ten minutes, take the finished ones off and put the new ones on, and repeat.

A detailed section of the inside of the Land Raider.

Based on my work on my rhino space marine transport, I have decided to work on several pieces of this project while they are still on the sprue instead of cutting everything out and working on them seperately. I decided to do this for a few reasons. First of all, it makes it much harder to misplace any of the pieces. With 124 parts, and some of them very small, its easy for something, such as the instructions, a painting book, the paper towel I use to clean of my brushes, etc, to cover up a piece, which results in my wasting time looking for something, and its kind of a buzz kill. Second of all, keeping the pieces on the sprue makes it very easy for me to paint the pieces and move the 'em around to get the bast light and painting angle without ever having to touch the piece itself. Less smudging is better. Third, it cuts down on items getting knocked around, scratched or otherwise banged up. So hey- I'll see how it goes. I know it'll mean that I need to repaint the places where the pieces connect to the sprue after I sand down the connection spots after I clip the pieces out. I'll have to see if it is worth the hassle.

One last pic before I end this entry. This picture shows a computer counsel that will also be on the inside of the land raider. The instructions call for constructing the land raider from the inside out; its pretty much impossible to paint the interior once the the model has been constructed, so I need to work on detailed parts like this now. The rest of the model, while big, isn't especially detailed, at least not in comparison to the interior of the raider. I bet at this point I have put in about 3 hours of out and out work, not waiting for something to dry work, on this thing. And I keep working on it. I'll have more photos soon.

Until next time,

David D.

Customizing 40k Space Marine Terminators

2012-02-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

Claws? Coool!! Sword? Not so cool! Lets fix it.

So! I'm new to Warhammer 40k, and I'm also new to customizing stuff. But I found a great project that hit on both.

In the box set that Games Workshop makes to act as a starter set for Warhammer 40k, Assault On Black Reach, 5 Space Marine Terminators models are included. The models are armed not with hammers or claws, their awesome melee weapons, but with a big pistol and a big gauntlet which are ok, or basic sword that looks cool, but in game terms, is actually a pretty basic and unimpressive weapon. I don't want to spend points on Terminators if they aren't going to be tearing stuff up. Seriously, they are called Terminators. They SHOULD be tearing stuff up.

On the other hand, if you buy the Terminators Close Combat Squad box set, you get pieces to make 5 terminator models but enough weapons to arm 10. You get 5 of their hammers and 5 sets of claws. I grabbed a box, and thought, hmm... I wonder if I could get these claws to work on my Assault On Black Reach terminators? The trick is, the Close Combat Terminators weapons do not come on fully built arms- you need to either use Green Stuff or some other sculpting medium to build shoulders on those arms, or cut the claws off of the half made arms to go on the arms of the AoBR Terminators. And you'll need to cut the the gauntlet/pistol/sword hands off of the AoBR Terminators to create a space to place the gloves.

Time to get that aggression out!

So How Did It Go?

Not badly, as a matter of fact. Even with my lack of experience, I didn't screw it up. I used the Games Workshop hobby saw (I nicknamed it "Sharp Tooth") to chop up the Close Combat Terminator claw arms right where the claw gauntlet connects to the arm. There is a little hose that also connects to the gauntlet, and I cut that where the hose connects to the back of the arm. The lines are pretty straight, so it wasn't too difficult to cut anything with the Sharp Tooth, which was nice, since the thing is not a scalpel. Fine incisions is not what this thing does.

I repeated the process with the AoBR arm pieces. I cut just where the arm fit into the gauntlets, but this time, I tossed the gauntlets (tossed them into my scrap pieces bucket, not the trash. They could still come in handy) and kept the shoulders and arm. For about half of the pieces, I ended up doing a little sanding with a hobby file to make sure the angle of the arm connected with the angle of the clawed gauntlet, but the good news is, a little hobby glue and the two pieces stuck together like they had been built that way. Check it out!

Worked out just fine! Only 18 arms left to go.

It took abut a minute or two of careful sawing per arm. I was glad to have Sharp Tooth- my xacto knife would not have done very well at this task. Before going to the store to buy the saw, I tried with the xacto just to see if it would work, and yeah no. The plastic used by Games Workshop would take forever and a day for an xacto knife to saw through. Maybe with a smaller, finer, blade the line would have looked nicer, but it looked plenty nice with Sharp Tooth.

I had some Green Stuff on hand and did use it in three cases. In the first case I used it to connect an arm to a claw glove where the angles just did not work and I needed to fill in a gap. In the other two cases, the hose from the glove did not connect with the shoulder of the new arm, so I created little green stuff hose extensions that did connect from the end of the hose to the top of the arm. I haven't painted it yet, so I don't know how it'll look when its done.

Yeah.... we look a lot meaner with these claws
than we did with pistols. ::snicker:: Pistols...

All in all, this project turned out pretty well. Everything looks great at this point and is structurally sound. My biggest question now is how the painting is going to look, since I primed the terminator models in black before I started this project and primed the arms from the Close Combat Terminator kit white. I'm not sure if it'll make too much of a difference since its going to be ultramarine blue in general, and UMB is pretty opaque, especially after a few coats, but I'll have to see. I'll tell you how tings turned out in a later post.

Until next time,

David D.

Spraying On Primer Fast And Easy

2012-02-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

This post is just a quick demonstration of the technique I use for priming anything I am working on, be it Warhammer minis, action figures, vehicles, etc. First I set up everything in my cardboard box spray enclosure, and then I place everything I am going to prime on a square cardboard scrap I've cut from a cardboard box. I spray everything head on at an angle as close to horizontal as I can, and rotate everything by turning the square scrap 90 degrees, and repeat the process. Turning the square makes sure I don't touch I'm working on while it is wet, and makes everything go plenty easy.

Everything ready to go, before any primer is applied.

Primer applied to the front.

Rotate the card to the left 90 degrees...

Spray the objects on their left.

Rotate the card to the left 90 degrees again...

Spray your stuff from the back.

Rotate everything to the left 90 degrees one more time...

And now you're good to go.

Until next time!

David D.

The first squad thus far

2012-01-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

I know, I know... I'm late with an update and I didn't even have the courtesy to do a "sorry, going to be late" post. Apologies. Its end of semester for J Term, and I had two papers due this week. I've got a ton of pictures of 40k stuff I have been working on between reading passages, taking notes, and putting my papers together, and will get some of those up hopefully this weekend. In the meantime, here is a picture of what the army that I started painting in the last post looks like at the moment.

Until next time,

David D.

Enter the Ultramarines. Or, how I learned how to apprecaite brush sizes

2012-01-16T12:05:00.000-08:00


You can find us at your local gaming store! But not at model shop. Holy moley, model shop owners take umbrage at even the question of "do you care 40k minis?" Or at least the ones near me do. Learn from our mistakes. Model shops carry MODELS. We (despite looking and seeming a lot like models) are GAMES. Not MODELS. Never make this mistake again.

You know, we just don't get the new Joe action figures up here in Minnesota. I can see pics and reviews of each new wave of figures on the 'Net a good month or two or more before I ever see any of them in my neck of the woods. Over the weekend, I did a little run through various Targets, Walmart, and today, even a Toys R Us that was near a place where I had a meeting this morning, and the view everywhere is the same. Not only do I not see any of the new figures, all I see are piles of the previous wave still sitting on the shelves, holiday toy rush over, probably doomed to be there, like the snow drifts, until the snow thaws in April or may.

That is, if we had any snow in Minnesota this year.

Its kind of freakish- we have had a total of about two or three inches of snow total this winter. Usually, we'd have about five or six inches on the ground right now, easy. But hey- I'm not complaining. Less snow means easier driving and less snow shoveling.

Anyway, the lack of Joe stuff has led my eye to wander, and land it has on the Warhammer 40,000 game franchise.

There is a lot of overlap between 40k and action figure customizing.

1. All 40k figures come unpainted and thus, *require* painting.
2. All 40k figures (and vehicles) come assembled and need to be put together, often with xacto knives, files, rotary tools, clippers, and all the other cool little tools used to customize action figures.
3. Military/fantasy theme going on in both places.
4. Neither hobby is gentle on your wallet.

Yeah. Anyway, my wife's cousin, his wife, his friend, and a few other folks I know play 40k. I've seen their stuff and it was cool. I've always wanted to play, and now I've got the funds (although, not really the time) to do it, but what can I say? Fools rush in.

My spray paint station in my heated and ventilated porch
full of space marine parts getting their primer coat.

I did my first batch of painting these guys last week. All I got done was the priming step and the first color blocking step. The army I plan on playing (and painting) is called the Ultramarines, and their main color is a dark blue.

The nice thing about 40k miniatures is that you can really focus on your technique, because the company that makes them, Games Workshop, does a lot of the creative work for you. You don't have to follow their guidelines, and many people don't, but it is nice just to focus on one thing at a time. What I learned this week on the painting front is the key to the different brushes.

Using the right tool for the job is obvious, but not always so when you are in the moment. In the picture at the top of this posting there are 3 distinct types of models- 10 space marine figures, a walker called a dreadnought, and parts of a transport vehicle that, when assembled, will be called a rhino. I was painting the largest sections of the figures this week, and thus, didn't need the tiniest brush I had, although when I started painting, that was exactly the brush I was using. I have, check this, an 18/0 brush. (thank you, thank you.) for those of you not in the brush size know, that is a really, really tiny brush. And I was using it at first to paint my guys. Needless to say, it was taking me about 15 minutes to paint a single shoulder pad of my guys.

Here is how brush sizes work. Big brushes have high numbers. Like 10 or 15. Small brushes have little numbers. Like 1 or 2. Really small brushes have 0 numbers. Like 0, 00, 000, and 5/0. 5/0 would be the same as 00000, but its easier to print "5/0" on a brush then all those zeros. 10/0 brushes are meant for fine detail work like one would do on minis like these, such as work on painting eyes, mouths, etc. I looked at my brush and thought, 'man, there must be a better way'. So I worked my way up the brush sizes.

I ended up painting the shoulder pads and most of the other "large" surfaces of the figures with a size 2 brush. 2! It was about 10 times the size of the 18/0 brush. I didn't have any problems getting paint anywhere I didn't want it, and it saved a TON of time on going back and forth between my paint tray and the minis as I used up the paint on my brush. I used a 5 brush to paint my rhino.

I also learned that those tiny jars of Citadel paint that Games Workshop sells for its models actually goes a long, long way. I did one coat of paint on each of my 10 minis and dreadnought, and two coats of paint on the rhino, and I still have paint left. You can water the paint down and it makes it go even longer, but going by the advice of my wife's cousin, Abe, who is an artist and a graphic designer, I found out you don't really need to water down the paint that much. Games Workshop does a really nice job of formulating the stuff so it has a good amount of coverage, coating, and control right out of the bottle. So that's pretty nice.

Next up for the space marines is detail work for the minis and some washes for the rhino and the dreadnought. I have printed out the digital camo stencils I am going to use for the clipper project, and hopefully, will have something to show you there in the next week or so.

Until next time,

David D.

A Mythic Interview

2012-01-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Hey folks. One of the coolest things about this hobby is the awesome people I have met through it. One of those people is Mythic, a gifted custom artist over at Hisstank.com. He gave me some advice on my last project, and I asked him if he would be willing to let me interview him for the site. He was cool with that, and with no further ado, here is the transcript of the discussion.

Spec-Ops Scarlett.
Custom and photography by Mystic

David Draper: Thanks for taking time out of your Monday night to chat.
Mythic: sure.
David Draper: So Mythic- how long have you been making or customizing custom action figures? Or anything else?
Mythic: That is something of a two-parter.
David Draper: Ok.
Mythic: When I was little, I used to unscrew my Joes and make new ones by mixing parts.
David Draper: Nice.
Mythic: I made a few I still have today.
Mythic: More recently though I started seriously customizing about two years ago.
David Draper: What got you into it two years ago?
Mythic: To be honest, my dad had just passed away and I needed a distraction. I had bought a lot of VvV Joes and found my paints in a box I unpacked and just started playing around.
David Draper: No kidding. Wow.
David Draper: I'm sorry to hear about your father.
Mythic: Thank you.
David Draper: Were you an artist before that, then?
Mythic: My first customs were using the older construction with the rubber band hip joint.
David Draper: Ok.

Custom PoC Kamakura.
Custom and photography by Mystic

Mythic: I have always been kind of "artsy", but never considered myself an artist. I painted Warhammer and 40k minis and have always painted and such, and then got into Photoshop about 10 years ago.
Mythic: My mom always made sure there were markers, pencils, paints, clay and crayons in the house, so we were all encouraged with art.
David Draper: That's really cool. Did you ever study art, so to speak, or are you pretty much just self taught?
Mythic: My last art class of any sort was somewhere around 7th grade.
David Draper: Gotcha. That's about where I am too.
Mythic: I taught myself Photoshop as well as photography.
David Draper: Did you grow up in Arizona?
Mythic: AZ? Noooooo. I was born and raised in San Diego. I moved to AZ about 7 years ago.
David Draper: Ahh. How did you pick up Photoshop? In school, for a hobby, etc?
Mythic: I have always been a tabletop gamer and wargamer. And I wanted to manipulate some images to suit locations and NPCs in some games I ran so I got photoshop.
Mythic: I have done a lot of digital photorestoration as well for friends and family.
David Draper: Very cool. So you're kind of in that professi-amature creative type.
Mythic: I have always been a better writer than anything else.

POC/Battle-Ready Crimson Guard Immortal.
Custom and photography by Mystic.

David Draper: And a writer. no kidding. Do you have a website or blog?
Mythic: Kind of.
David Draper: I am looking at your gallery on Hisstank and its impressive.
Mythic: I used to work in advertising, doing ad layouts, scanning images and so forth.
Mythic: Thanks. A lot of my commissions work is not even on there.
David Draper: Is there a place online where people can see your work besides the hisstank gallery?
Mythic: I look at my [Hisstank] gallery now and really see how I have improved myself. I would be ashamed of some my first customs if I made them today at that level. Hehe.
Mythic: The 'tank is about the only place I post. I will have a Deviant Art page properly functioning soon and I have considered a blog. Right now it is just an issue of time.
David Draper: Ok. When did you start taking commissions?
David Draper: And do you advertise?
Mythic: I have been open to them from the beginning and my first commission was very shortly after I started posting on the 'tank and got some exposure.
Mythic: My posts on the 'tank are my only ads.
Mythic: heh.
David Draper: Very efficient.
David Draper: What has been your favorite project so far?
Mythic: Hmm... That is a tough one. I would have to say the "battle-ready" line of figs I have been doing.
David Draper: I'm flipping through the “battle ready” posts of those right now- what is the inspiration behind them?
David Draper: just making them look badass, or something else?
Mythic: Mostly I just enjoy updating characters while still keeping their classic feel.

POC / Battle-Ready Tomax and Xamot.
Custom and photography by Mystic.

Mythic: Here is my view on it:
Mythic: if you do a custom, people should be able to tell who it is of without an explanation.
Mythic: If people do not recognize the character, then you did too much.
Mythic: The PoC line was a good part of the inspiration behind then battle-ready figs.
Mythic: I saw the more cutting edge tech route they were taking and went with it.
Mythic: i.e. Reactive Impact Armor, Jungle Vipers' optical cammo and so on.
Mythic: PoC has more of a very near future feel to me.
David Draper: Sure.
David Draper: Your are a very skilled painter for someone whose last art class was in 7th grade.
David Draper: Do you have any advice for people who are just getting started painting and customizing their own figures?
Mythic: Aw thank you. That was my last class, but I have painted more than a few Warhammer 40,000 minis in my time.
David Draper: Joes seem to me to be much easier objects to paint than Warhammer figs. What armies did/do you play?
Mythic: ((I'll get back to advice in a sec))
David Draper: Apologies for typing the questions in so fast! No problem.
Mythic: Actually, Joes are harder to me
David Draper: Really?

Nightshade (OC Cobra sniper)
Custom and photography by Mystic.

David Draper: Why is that?
Mythic: You can get away with some things at the smaller scale.
David Draper: Huh. I would have thought the tiny details of Warhammer minis would be a lot tougher. Interesting.
Mythic: Essentially, the bigger the thing it you are painting, the better you have to be.
Mythic: The eye will easily note all the mistakes on a large piece.
Mythic: On a small piece, they are harder to see. Hehe.
David Draper: Gotcha gotcha. Interesting. I'm just getting into 40k, and thought the joes would be easier since they have such larger, smoother surfaces. I guess not.
Mythic: I learned to paint figs through painting 40k armies and Blood Bowl teams.
David Draper: What is Blood Bowl?
Mythic: Blood Bowl is an American football game set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting.
David Draper: Cool. So it uses Warhammer figures?
Mythic: It uses figs made by Games Workshop, but made for Blood Bowl.
Mythic: You can adapt figs though.
Mythic: I probably learned the most in painting the treemen for my bother's halfling team.
David Draper: What did they teach you?
Mythic: I have never even used a wash before or drybrushed and the guys at the shop were amazed at what I -did- pull of.
Mythic: then I learned about washing and drybrushing. a way to do the same thing I had done but in a fraction of the time. lol.

Rikka Seferis, Mandalorian Death Watch Member.
Custom and photography by Mystic.

David Draper: Nice.
Mythic: I did the treemen by just layering color and then glued in lichen and such to add a 'living' quality.
Mythic: The funny thing is, before I started customizing, I had not painted a single fig in about 10 years.
David Draper: Wow. no kidding.
David Draper: Your skills really are great- it must be kind of like learning to ride a bike.
Mythic: Kind of, but I still learn all the time.
David Draper: What advice for aspiring painters who would like to be able to paint like you?
Mythic: 1) There are great tutorials and the like out there. Check them out. I always do when I see one because you never know when somebody has a better way of doing something or a technique you had never thought of. I am always learning.
Mythic: 2) THIN YOUR PAINTS! I add a few drops of distilled water to my paints to keep them a little thin. They go on better and allow more control. A few thin coats is better than 1 thick one Mythic: 3) Practice with washes and drybrushing. They are two of the most basic techniques that will get you a lot of return.
Mythic: and 4) Use the right brush for the task.
David Draper: Where do you look for tutorials? All over? on HissTank? on YouTube? Elsewhere?
Mythic: Nowhere in particular. There are a lot of great ones on the 'tank. Some 'tankers post them on youtube as well.
Mythic: That is not to say I agree with every tutorial I see. Some people just find a different way than I do things, that works for them. Hehe.
David Draper: That makes sense.
David Draper: How long does it take you these days to do a custom figure? On average?
Mythic: That I really do not know because I am almost never working on just one.

Firefly.
Custom and photography by Mystic.

David Draper: Ahh. ok.
Mythic: I usually am working on half a dozen at a time.
David Draper: Wow. You are busy.
Mythic: I go back and forth between them, letting things dry and so on.
David Draper: Do you have a favorite custom tool in your collection?
David Draper: er, tool that you use in your customs?
Mythic: My fave is my dremel. It is a tool that you do not need often, but when you do need it, you REALLY it. The tool I use the most often though (aside from paint/brushes) is the xacto knife.
Mythic: A lot of tools in customizing are like the dremel. You do not use it much, but they make certain tasks much easier.
Mythic: My main tools are dremel, xacto, hair dryer, hot glue gun, snadpaper/files, toothpicks and super glue.
David Draper: What kinds of paint do you use? Do you have a favorite brand or line, or do you play the field?
Mythic: I use mostly Citadel paints (mainly because I know them from painting 40k figs). But I still have some Ral Partha and Vallejo that I use from time to time.
Mythic: I also mix a lot of colors myself from Citadel paints.
David Draper: Slick.

Chop Shop.
Custom and photography by Mystic.

David Draper: I want to let you go pretty quick, but before I do, if someone sees some of your work and would like to ask you to do a commission for them, what are your rules? Do you do minis and actions figures? Do you do any other work? How should someone get a hold of you?
Mythic: Anymore I do Joes (including vehicles) mostly. I can do dio stuff too. The best way to get a hold of me is through the Hiss Tank or eBay.
David Draper: Ok. what is your ebay name?
Mythic: akilles626.
Mythic: I usually have links to my auctions in my signature for my posts on the tank as well.
David Draper: Ok- good deal. Well Mythic, thanks very much for your time! I really appreciate you agreeing to this interview.
Mythic: No problem.
Mythic: if you have any more questions, just PM me.
David Draper: will do. Thanks very much!
Mythic: Catch you later!

(interview conducted via Yahoo Messenger on Monday, January 2, 2012 and ran from approximately 8:10 pm CST to 9:00 pm CST. )

First Custom Action Figure Complete

2012-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

New Year is a time for many things. Resolutions. Hangovers. Actually getting some snow in Minnesota for the first time this winter. And new beginnings. Which means its time to be done with the First Custom Action Figure Project.

Applying the clear coat.

As I write this paragraph, I am waiting for the sealant to dry on the figure so I can reassemble it. While I wait, I'll reflect on what I did well and what I didn't do so well in this project.

What I did well.

1. Got a clue. I wanted to do some custom painting, but I didn't know jack about how to actually paint. I read some forums, watched some youtube videos, and found several great tutorials, but the problem with that was that most of them assumed the reader/viewer had at least some background with painting. I didn't, so I bought some books aimed at beginners. This was a good move.

2. Fully disassembled the figure before I began painting it. Yes, it took time and was irritating, but it made painting everything much, much, easier.

3. Rotary Tool down the rub zones. Again, this took time, but I think it was the right way to go, if all of the folks on the internet who know what they are doing are to be trusted.

4. Priming the figure. Some people do not prime their work pieces before they paint. Those people are taking the quick and easy way. That is the path to the Dark Side. If want are taking the time to actually customize a toy, take the time to do it right. Primer makes the paint adhere to the object being painted. I don't know about the rest of you, but I expect my customs to be family heirlooms that David Draper XXXVCII hands down to his children. That means I want them to last. That means I prime my damn figures.

5. Come up with a color scheme before hand. This was a very good idea. I knew what I wanted. That made it possible for me to not second guess myself when I was painting, which was good, because at my beginner level of painting I need to be able to concentrate completely on the actual painting, not on doubts I have about the choice of paint.

What I didn't do well.

1. I didn't know my paints. Just because something looks one way in the bottle does not mean its going that way when it is applied to a surface. That's a grade school mistake. I ended up making swatches of all my paints, but I should have done this before I started. It won't happen again.

2. I painted myself into a corner. By painting details like eyes and ammo onto my figure, I made it impossible to paint a wash onto the figure without screwing that stuff up. Washes are watered down mixtures of dark paint that fall into the recesses of a model and give the illusion of shadows and depth. I could repaint, but eh. Now I know the correct order to paint a model (once it is primed) is:

Apply the base coats.
Apply wash.
Apply details.

I won't screw that one up next time.

3. I didn't layer my paint. When I started the project, I incorrectly thought the idea was to paint dark colors onto the object first, then lighter colors because the darker colors would show throw the lighter ones. Yeah. Not so much. Lighter colors are painted on top of darker ones so the lower, more recessed areas of a model look darker, which, like the washes, helps give a sense of depth and and shadow. I get that now. I didn't when I started this project.

Ok- I think the clear coat should be dry now. I'm going to go get everything from the porch and try to reassemble the figure. Through the magic of blogging, you won't even notice the gap of time between when you read this paragraph and the next, even though the next will will be written minutes to half an hour after this one!

...

PEG! GET INTO THAT SOCKET!!!!

Ok. This is the project that will not die.

All I had to do was reassemble the figure, right? How hard could that be?

Ha ha ha! Funny! Ha ha ha!

These are the joys of doing something for the first time. Surprisingly long and rather frustrating story short: the little pegs that go in the joints did not want to go back into the joints. At all. No matter how hard I pushed, they only went in about half way. So I had to come up with a plan. Here is what I did.

Fire it up! Fire it up! Fire it up!

1. Use a hair dryer to heat up the joints and make the plastic nice and flexible.
2. Insert peg.
3. Use my little desk vice with rubber grabbers to CRUSH THE *&^% JOINTS back together.

And this worked great, except for one thing.

THE *&^%^$^%#$ &$^%$#%^_)(*(*$&# vice rubbed the paint right off the pegs!!!!!

So some touch up work was needed.

I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH THE PAINTING PHASE!

Talhk, you Svine! Vee haav your friends in Astreeah!!

Yeah.

Not so much.

In any case, things are back on track now. As I type this, the second coat of paint is drying on the ends of the pegs viable from within each joint. I am very happy that I had my little desk vice here- without it, I would have never been able to get those pegs back into their sockets. If and when this phase of the project is complete, my little desk vice is getting the MVP for this inning of play.

I really was not ready for the pegs to not pretty much slide right back into the joints. Sure, I figured I would need to heat the joints up again, but I thought that they would be soft enough for the peg to fit back in, but it became pretty clear pretty fast that this method was not going to work. Thank goodness for the vice. Too bad the paint came off.

Enough stalling... I think the paint should be dry at this point (my paint dries in about 20 minutes, and I only needed a bit, so it should be good now.) Be right back.

...

Ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you, the NEW and IMPROVED Kinji "Rain" Shinto, of The Corps. First a quick run back down memory lane- here is what he looked like fresh out of the package:

From the front.


From the back.

And here is what he looks like now!

Woo hoo!

Yee ha!!

Alright!!!

WE DONE!

I'm really happy with how this turned out. I learned a lot of stuff from this project that I will be able to apply to future work. And it ended up looking pretty good. I'm pretty stoked right now.

Yeah baby!

This is a good time to mention I could have never finished this project without the support of many people, including most of all my wife, who was nothing but supportive of me spending so much of my free time here in my workshop putting this together. I would also like to thank Mystic, Numbers, and all the rest of the folks who had supportive comments and advice here on the blog and in the threads on HissTank.com.

I had a great time with this project, but I am also glad to move on to the next one. It is going to be a vehicle. Alpha class. I think you know what project I am talking about. If not, tune in next week at the latest to see.

Until next time,

David D.

Head Shot

2011-12-27T23:17:00.000-08:00

The figure is looking pretty good.

I was not looking forward to painting the head of this action figure. The way I saw it, heads means details. Details like eyes and eyebrows and irises and hairlines and all that good stuff that you need pretty good technique to handle. And until a few hours ago, I didn't really think I had the skill to do any of that stuff.

The good news is, I should have had more faith.

But I didn't know that when I started out this evening, so I avoided work on the face by doing touch up work on all the other parts- used the tiny brushes to really get the lines down on the rest of the pieces to get my ready to work on the head. When everything else looked pretty good (and there was really nothing else left to do... at all...) I decided it was time to attack that face.

Hair is Folk Art 479 Pure Black by Plaid.
Skin in Elf Flesh by Citadel.

The first thing I did was give the face two good thin coats of Elf Flesh paint, from Citadel. It was recommended to me by Mythic on Hisstank.com when I asked if anyone had any suggestions for skin tones to use for Japanese characters. Mythic is an *amazing* customs artist and I think the advice turned out well. The skin tone was great for what I was looking for. Painting the skin and carefully edging between the hair and the skin wasn't too bad. That mean it was time to work... on the eyes.

Time to man up and get to it.

Eyes over painted!

I had read a really good post on painting eyes somewhere that I can no longer remember* [update: I found the reference. This is discussed on page 35 of the free MiniWarGaming ebook that I discussed here. - Dave] that recommended over-painting details on the face such as lips and eyes, and then covering the excess up with the skin tone again. That seemed like an easier approach than just trying to get the eyes painted just right, so I completely over-painted the eye area with white paint using my two smallest brushes. I used a second new technique here as well; instead of using short, smooth brush strokes over the eye area, I just tapped the area with the very tip of the brush almost like I was tapping in Morse Code. I used just a dab of white on the brush in order to paint from landing anywhere I did not want it to go. Using this 'tapping' technique was really nice, because it made hitting spots I wanted to hit easy, and made putting the paint where I wanted it much easier than it would have been if I just wiped the paint on with my normal brushing technique.

Eyes cleaned up.

Next I went over the edges of the white that had spilled over the actual eyes themselves with the skin tone again. And again, I used the 'tapping' technique to put the brush exactly where I wanted it. It worked great, and in very little time, I had two pretty well shaped eyes. I liked how things were going; the eyes, which I thought were going to be a pain, were going well. It had a lot to do with the techniques I had picked up from watching plenty of you tube 'how to' videos and advice I received from folks online, but I should give myself a little credit too. Even with the advice, I didn't think I would be able to hold my brush steady enough to paint the face, but it was actually much easier to accomplish than I thought it would be. Next would be the real challenge though- painting the irises.

The face is looking not too horrible.

I tried using the 'tap' technique to get the dark spots in the middle of the eyes a few times, but I just was not getting enough paint exactly where I wanted it to make much of a mark on the eyes using my paint brushes. The dots were very, very light. Over the white eye paint, they looked like faint grey spots that practically blended in with the rest of the eye I didn't want to tap the brush too hard, because I thought it would end up making a black spot on the face which would undo everything I had just accomplished. But then I got an idea- how about putting paint on the end of an unbent paper clip? I grabbed a paperclip out of my desk, pulled it straight, and popped it into the paint.

Guess what?

Paper clips make excellent iris painting tools.

Hobby tool of the day: the light up magnifier.

For the rest of the face, I ended up using a tool I picked up at a hobby shot a few months ago but had not used until today. It was a folding 2x magnifier with built in LED lights, and made painting the eyebrows and soul patch a breeze. Again, I used the tapping method, which took a lot longer to do on the eyebrows that I thought it would, but minimal touch up was required. And hey, whatever works.

So where I am now is this figure is pretty close to done. I want to get some rest and take a look at it tomorrow to see what touching up may need to be done, and then I need to reassemble the figure. But for my first try, I think this thing looks great. Sure it could be better- I could have come up with some additional colors for the face and done some layering. I may also do a dark wash to add some shadows, but I'm not sure. I'm so happy with how things look at the moment I think I may decide to quit while I'm ahead and try those techniques on the next figure painting project. You'll see what I decide soon.

Until next time,

David D.

Unplanned Christmas Update

2011-12-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

I was not expecting to have an update today, but I found something I had to write up. On my quest to become a better painter, I've been doing a lot of research on the internet. I've done a lot of lurking and and a bit of posting, and this morning, I found miniwargaming.com. Its an amazing store/forum/youtube video producer/community that all about crafting. There are plenty of amazing things going on at this site, but the one I'm going to discuss in this short update is the FREE FREE FREE ebook they give you about painting minis (or anything, really) you get when you sign up for their forum.

Fifty nine pages of amazing painting related
descriptions, techniques and advice.
For FREE.

Free. For signing up for their online forum.

But how good could a free PDF be? Let me put it this way. If you follow this site closely, you know that for the last two or three months I have been spending lots of time finding the best hobby painting sites, books and guides on the web and off. And there are some really, really good guides, books, and forums out there. There are plenty of helpful people on the net. But in terms of a one stop manual for painting mini figures or action figures, this one

IS THE BEST I'VE SEEN.

Its even better than the Games Workshop guides for painting figures, and that thing was 25 bucks. And unlike the games workshop book (which is very good) this guide does not push one paints and other products from one specific manufacturer.

That's how good. Its 59 pages long. Full color illustrations. Fantastic writing. It is written by hobby painters for hobby painters. This guide could be, nay, should be, something people pay something for to pick up. Its an amazing guide. And all you need to do to get a copy is sign up for their forum.

I need to get back to the family, but I wanted to put this up there. Happy holidays, folks.

Until next time,

David D.

Happy holidays

2011-12-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hey folks-

I am in Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia with my wife and her family for the holidays. I'll be back home late Monday, and I plan on having a real update on Tuesday. Its been a wonderful year for myself and and family, and I have high hopes for the year to come. I wish you all the best, and hope your next year is fantastic as well.

Happy Holidays.

David D.

Know your paints

2011-12-19T14:55:00.000-08:00

Ok- I'm back from the conference in DC, which was very cool, and am at my painting desk. I made a pretty big mistake last week in assuming what my paints would look like out of the bottle. I had planned on painting the armor, gloves and boots of my figure a gray, and the rest of the figure black. My black paint looked fine, but my highlight shade of gray paint looked like chalk; it was way, way lighter than I had expected. Back to the drawing board.

You landed on boardwalk, sucker!

This was one of those times that educators call a "teachable moment". I should have had an idea of what my gray paint was going to look like. I figured I could make swatches of each of my colors, and made swatches today I did. I painted a bit of each color on the backs of old business cards. I also threw the name of the color, the manufacturer, and the product ID on the card to make I can easily buy more when I'm out. They came out looking like deeds from a Monopoly game, but they serve their purpose.

Another thing that I had not thought of but should have is the finish of each paint- besides the colors themselves, a few of my paints have a very glossy finish, and the rest are pretty matte. I figure knowing what is what on the finish front is also pretty useful. Figuring this out is an unintended benefit of the project. Yay for unexpected results!

Now that I know what colors I have, there is a dilemma: I could paint medium gray over the old steel gray paint, not knowing how that is going to turn out, or I remove all of the paint and start again from scratch. If I start again from scratch, I'm going to need a good way to remove the paint. I know there are ways to do this, but the methods I know involve buying more supplies, and I'd rather accept that this is a first try and that it isn't going to be perfect.

So- time to get back to actually painting the figure. More soon.

Until next time,

David D.

Figure Painting, Part 1

2011-12-12T00:21:00.001-08:00

I found myself with some extra time this evening (now yesterday evening) after getting home from a family holiday party, so I decided I would get to it and start painting. I wasn't expecting to have time to do get started with the actual paint step until at least next week, so this was a pleasant surprise. I've been both looking forward to this and dreading it for a while; it is time to just get started.

black coat over black primer, white dry brushed, and
now a few layers of medium gray paint over everything else.

I began by putting a black base coat over the black primer I previous applied. That step was no problem. I then did some dry brushing of white paint onto different surfaces, because I understand that painting over lighter colors can impact the intensity of the paint that over over it. It was my first time dry brushing, and I think it turned out alright.

I wish I had taken more pictures of everything as I was doing it, but I was too engrossed in the act of painting to step back and stop to take pictures of each phase. Next time.

After I got done with the dry brushing, I moved on to painting a darker gray onto the areas of the figure that I meant to end up gray- the body armor, gloves, boots, pockets, etc. That went pretty well. I am using Folk Art acrylic paints from Plaid. I use their paint because it comes in a ton of colors, its super inexpensive ($0.79 per 2 ounce bottle) and it seems to be good quality stuff.

One principle I saw in practice while painting the gray was color vs. coverage. This idea is covered on page 50 of How To Paint Citadel Miniatures, and the idea is this: when it comes to paint, there is a trade off between the brightness of colors and their capacity to cover a surface in a single coat. Some paint is made to cover objects in one or two coats. In this case, the colors tend to be dull. On the other hand, paints can be formulated to have bright colors, but in order to achieve these colors, several coats may need to be applied, as each individual coat is relatively translucent. The former type of paint was the factor with the gray. After two coats, it didn't look very impressive, but after four, it looked amazing.

on the left we have the medium gray, and on the right
we have steel gray on top of the medium gray.
Steel gray is kind of like barely dirty mob bucket water gray.

However, I do fine myself stuck at the moment. I thought that I would use a darker color gray (medium gray) to be the first color layer of the armor, and then I would move to lighter colors of gray to give the sense of definition, shadow and high lighting to the figure. Everything was great until I added the next layer of gray, which was steel gray. On figure, the steel gray looks almost white. The pictures here don't really do it justice; I need to learn how to white balance my photos before I upload them, but that's something for me to learn on another day.

The darker gray does give the illusion of shadows in the folds and recesses of the shape, but the really light color of the gray doesn't look good at all; it really isn't what I want. I'm not sure at this point what to try next. Maybe I should repaint the parts where I used the steel gray on with the medium gray, and try to find a gray paint that is closer to medium gray in darkness but still a little bit lighter than the medium gray.

I am looking at the Plaid colors online as I write this, and it looks like there several grays in the spectrum I could purchase, and the steel gray swatch on the website looks much whiter than the bottle I have here. That makes sense. I think my next step will be to run to the store when I can and grabbing battleship gray and dark gray, and doing some experimenting with dark gray, battleship gray and medium gray. Based on how those look, I'll make a choice about what paints I want to use going forward.

Ok- so that's the plan. Find those other colors at the store and report back to the workshop when I have time. More news as it happens.

Until next time,

David D.

Custom Figure Color Schemes

2011-12-09T11:42:00.001-08:00

<rant>Ok, I gotta say, the "free" wireless HP printer/scanner/potato peeler my wife received when she bought her Apple laptop a few months ago from the Apple Store is NOTHING but a pain in the ass. You want to set it up to talk to your computers? BOW DOWN AND BEG, MORTAL! BOW DOWN AND BEG HP SAYS! And what is that? You want it to actually scan and send the images to your computer??? SILLY FOOL! SACRIFICE UNTO ME YOUR PRECIOUS TIME! SACRIFICE UNTO ME YOUR BELOVED FREE AFTERNOON! BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!

I have wasted more time at the HP website reading forums, downloading updated drivers, restarting computers and printers, etc. than I want to admit. I think I could have redawn the images I wanted to post today in MS PAINT in less time than it has taken to get this stupid scanner to operate correctly. "Cannot connect to the scanner check to make sure the scanner is on and the network is functioning correctly" my ass. SCREW YOU, Hewlett-Packard!!</rant>

The colors the colors the colors!

Ok then! We're back. Thanks for coming by. I've got some cool stuff to cover today. I made some drawing of potential color schemes for the action figure to try to get an idea of what I like and what I don't before I actually start putting the paint on. The idea is to have a plan I like before going to the trouble of painting the figure and working through my issues with brushes and ink, only to find out that an idea that I thought would look cool in my head actually would turn out looking like crap in reality.

I used a page of graph paper to come up with the images you see here. If you are a real art person, (which is not me, as you can tell with the quality of my chick scratches!) you will notice that the characters are not dawn to proportion- a correctly sized adult human male should be 9 heads high, not 8, as seen here. This is true. But know what? It turns out that 1/18th scale action figures don't seem to be correct in the human proportions department. I did a proportion drawing on another piece of paper using an art book image as a guide to where the proportions should be, and then traced an action figure and found out that the figure was only 8 heads high, not 9. I traced a different figure to see if I got the same effect, and yup, that figure was only 8 heads high too. Where was the missing head height?

Interesting- in both cases, it was in the shins. It turns out our action figures seem to be missing some height in the shins, between where their feet should be and their knees. Everything down to the knees is pretty proportional, both in GI Joe modern era action figures and in The Corps action figures. Check it out. You never know what you'll learn by surprise, huh? Real adult males tend to be taller than the action figures made to represent them. I'm sure there is a reason for this. I don't really care to get into it here, because I've already off topic.

Images 1, 2 and 3.

Lets dig in. The first image (I started on the top left, worked my way right, and then did the bottom row second, again, working left to right) is actually what the action figure looked like out of the package. We had peach colored skin, black armor, black crotch, white legs, black boots, black gloves and the details (holster, armband) were black. I think we can do better than that.

The second image doesn't fully represent what I was thinking of. Basically, I waned to do black/clothing with red on the edges of the armor, to give it a kind of a black with red highlights look. I decided in the end I didn't actually want to go that way, because I don't think my skills with a brush are there yet to make this work.

The third image starts the trend that I end up going with, which is basically flat colors on different sections of the figure. When I actually paint, I plan on doing some layering, so the colors won't actually be the sold in each section, but I wanted to get an idea of what it would look like. Here I have black top armor, red under armor, no sleeves, red legs, silver belt, red arm band, red gloves, black boots and red pockets/holster. I thought this looked a little too much "Alucard the Ninja"-ish, so I didn't stop looking here.

Images 4 and 5

Images 4 and 5 were inspired by specific ideas. Image 4 is clearly a batman rip off. We have black over armor, gray under armor, gray limbs and black accents. I even threw in the yellow utility belt and yellow for the medal on the guy's left pectoralis. It isn't a bad look, and I could go with it. But there is space left on the page, so I continued to experiment.

Image 5 is a rip off of some alternate art for this action figure found on the box art. The box art was very cartoon-y, and I wanted to see what it would look like here. We've got the medium blue on the focus areas, gray limbs, black accents. Also not bad. As this guy is a warrior in a Solid Snake-esq sneaking suit, I really like the idea of him in darker colors; I think he should look like he could blend in to the shadows, but I also want to do something that is interesting to look at. A full on black figure just seems boring to me. I know that with enough skill, someone could make mostly black pop, but again, I don't think my skill level is there yet and I think there are more interesting things I could try.

Images 6-8

Images 6-8 is me messing around with gray, plus me seeing what this guy would look like in a Marvel Comic's Sentinel color scheme. In image 6 we've got light blue focus areas with light/dark purple limbs, and black accents. The medal looks out of place; maybe it would have looked better in purple. This guy looks like he could sneak around, but he doesn't look as cool as I thought he might in this color scheme. I'm really glad I tried it out on paper first.

Next, I tried something similar to image 5, but with the light blue marker instead of the medium blue marker. Its ok. Not horrible. It has possibilities. If I was making a few of this guy, I could definitely see trying one in this color scheme.

Trial 8 was a lot of fun. How about different shades of gray? THAT'S HARDCORE. Well, it is in my head. It isn't horrible when I see it on paper, and yeah, what I have on paper isn't exactly what it will look like painted on the figure. I think this one has possibilities, but it isn't the kid in the classroom throwing his hand up in the air saying 'me me me! pick me! pick ME!!!'.

Images 9 + extra image

Image 9 was the last one I did, and I think it is the one I am going to go with. Gray focus with black limbs. I think I can do this figure. He looks like he would sneak around well, and I the gray makes him more interesting that plain black does. I just realized as I was typing this that number 9 is actually just reversing the color scheme from image 4, and I think that shows the benefit of me going through this little exercise; things can be close to what you want, but sometimes they need to be tweaked a little before they speak out to you.

I really like this look. It says Solid Snake to me, it says not too crazy day-glo flashy, and it seems like something I would like in the real world. When I look at this color scheme, I think "I can do this". So I think I'm going to use this. If everything goes to hell and it turns out like crap, I still have another one of these figures to mess around with. I can try a different color scheme from the ones I made up here or can come up with different ones then.

Ok- I've got a plan. I am actually going to be out of town for much of next week. I'll be at a conference in DC, which means I'm not going to have much time for actual work on the project, but I do have a mini update unrelated to this project planned. In two weeks, you will (hopefully) see some actual pictures of me applying paint. Jeez I hope I don't screw that up.

Alright folks. Thanks for checking in. If you think I'm making a huge mistake on the color scheme, feel free to comment or email me or post in the thread over at hisstank.com.

Until next time,

David Draper

Primer Applied

2011-12-05T12:03:00.001-08:00

Ok- here is what everything looks like after I applied the black spray-on primer. I used the ultra expensive Games Workshop Chaos Black, which sells for $15.00 a can at the game shop, as opposed to the stuff I can get at Walmart or the hardware store for about $3.00 a can. I want to see if there is any difference. (I'm guessing there isn't, but I want to know for sure.)*

I mentioned in my last post that the book I am using as a guide for this project, How to Paint Citadel Miniatures, suggests putting anything you are spray painting on a card and moving the card instead of handling the pieces when you use spray primer. I used that suggestion, and it made spray painting the parts super easy. Yes, some things moved around somewhat when the spray hit them, especially the joint pins, but it was much easier to rotate the card than it would have been to rotate each individual piece. I still had to flip everything so I could get the back and front covered, but the card made painting much easier than it otherwise would have been.

I know the picture makes things look like there is white on the parts, but this is just the reflection of the light and the camera itself. These pieces are actually as black as charcoal. Thanks to the layer of primer, their surface is about the same consistency to the touch as charcoal as well. Next step: the first layer of paint.

However, before I paint I'm going to post a few color plan drawings I whipped up when I was trying to figure out a color scheme for my figure. That will be my next blog entry.

Until next time,

David D.

* Update- I got more information about this. It turns out that the solvents in the primer purchased in hardware stores is pretty intense on plastic, including styrene. Styrene is used to make many kinds of action figures. Depending on how much primer is used and the state of the plastic, the work piece can melt down after an application of regular hardware grade spray on primer. I'll keep looking around for info on plastic safe primer for less than $15 a can and post again if I find anything. On the other hand, metal products (such as the metal minutes made by Games Workshop) shouldn't be negatively impacted by regular primer.

I didn't make this.

2011-12-05T06:01:00.001-08:00

I grabbed this off of Dark Lord Dungeon's blog, (which has great toy and custom news, btw) and it looks like he got it from Just Capshunz. I am not trying to take credit; I just wanted to pass it on. Enjoy, and happy holidays.

Action Figure Painting Project: Everything Prior to Actually Priming

2011-12-04T16:19:00.001-08:00

Ok! Well, finals were over this week, and this weekend, I've had a chance to get back to work on my hobby. How To Pain Citadel Miniatures says that you can go with either a black or white primer. According to the book, black is good for making the painting process go faster, while while is good for master painters and makes bright colors show better. The black makes shadows look better.

I went with a black primer base primer. I could be wrong, but I think it'll be easier to get the shadow effects I would like on the finished product if I start with the black, instead of painting it white, than doing a dark second coat and THEN painting the real colors I want on top of that dark coat on top of the primer. According to the book, I can also get a good shadow effect using dark washes over the final layer of color, but I am trying to keep this first figure relatively simple. I'm ruling out washes for this project.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets step back.

Before you can put on the primer, you need to disassemble the figure into its component pieces.

Check.

Next you need to sand down potential rub spots so that once you put your paint on the figure, the paint won't run itself off.

Done.

Note. According to the book I should have also performed a check of all the mold seams on the figure pieces. If I found anything that I could detect by running a fingernail over it, I needed to sand it down. I did not actually end up doing this step thoroughly, and yes, after I sprayed on my first layer of primer, I did notice several huge plastic seams.

Agh!

Oh well. But what I want to get to is the painting phase. Looking forward to actually painting has been what has got me thought all the pages and pages of papers I have had to write for my finals last week. Its my first figure that I'll be painting since getting a clue as to how to do it. I'll let the seam thing slide.

The clean water burns! It BURNS!

After you check for seams (should you decide to check for seams) you need to wash your prices off to get rid of any oil or other substances on them that could keep the primer from adhering smoothly

Ah-ha!

Best get cracking on that one!

So I did. With the use of standard hand colander, I got the figures good and rinsed in the kitchen sink. I didn't want to risk the joint pegs getting lost down the drain, so I didn't bounce the pieces up and down in the water- I just smoothly moved them around under the water to get everything nice and soaked. I couldn't see any residue on the pieces to begin with, so I wasn't worried about very aggressive washing. Next I put the pieces on a towel to dry on the porch. We have a door between the porch and the rest of the house, so I didn't need to worry about our two cats, Boots and Dora, getting to the pieces, deciding to knock them around as they do everything that isn't bolted down, and making sure my dream project ends up a nightmare.

So close to the painting step I can barely stand it.

I should talk about the spray painting situation a little bit here. Right now, it is winter in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I live. It is about 29 degrees Fahrenheit outside (about -2 for everyone else in the world that goes by Celsius). We have 4 inches of snow on the ground.

According to the spray paint instructions, you need to paint in a place that is well ventilated and where the temperature is at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit/10 degrees Celsius.

What I did over the summer is spray paint stuff out in the garage, where there was plenty of fresh air and air flow when I had the doors open. We live in a house built in 1947 or so, and the garage is detached. Thus, there are no problems with fumes getting into the house.

Now that winter is here, I want to use the porch as my spray paint studio. Its a good 3 season space. One of our home's previous owners installed a nice heater there, and there are windows that open to let in the air from outside. My plan was to spay paint the work pieces using the cardboard spay paint enclosure I built for previous projects while I had the heater on, and after 75 minutes or so (the amount of time it takes for the primer to dry) open up the window and get the fumes out. This seemed to be a great idea until my wife looked at the warning label for the primer.

The new mask.
::hooooo-pah:: ::hooooo-pah::
What is thy bidding, my masta?

It turns out, the fumes from this stuff is really, really, really, really, really, really bad for you. I think I have mentioned on my blog that my wife is a family practice doctor just about done with her final year of residency, and among other things she said after seeing the paint instructions is that she wasn't interested in spending her hard earned dollars after years and years of intense education education on chemo meds for her husband anytime soon. She *ahem* encouraged me *ahem* to buy a really serious painting mask AND that I do not use the door between the house and the porch, that I go out the back door, walk around to the front of the house and use the front door to the porch there.

Because I am a smart effing husband, I said "Yes Dear" and ran to the hardware shop, where I bought a really, really hard core, professional grade painting mask. I put it on and looked in the mirror. I look like something out of a Hollywood movie with this thing on. I need to incorporate it into a Halloween costume at some point. Anyway, I grabbed the mask and sealed the door between the house and the porch. I turned on the heater to get the porch warm enough to paint the pieces and waited for the porch to warm up.

This cardboard once package a toy. Soon, it will find a new
use as a platform for items to be painted to be place upon.

Another thing I learned from the book is to not just put the pieces down in your painting enclosure, but to put the work piece(s) on a section of cardboard that you can rotate without touching the pieces themselves. This may be a 'duh!' suggestion to people with more experience in this area, but this was useful advice for me. I still had the box from the Bravo Team M3A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle in a pile of boxes to be put in the recycling, and cut the box into a bunch of cards.

At this point someone could accuse me of ceding all decision making authority on this project to Rick Priestley, author of How to Paint Citadel Miniatures. Those people would be right. I absolutely have. I am not just my wife's bitch, or as I like to think of it, a smart effing husband, I'm game workshop's bitch as well. But I am cool with that. When it comes to painting figures, I want lots and lots of instruction until I know what I am doing. At that point, I'll start doing my own thing.

The spray enclosure. Don't spray paint anything without one.

I am not at that point yet. Sometime soon I am going to write a more in-depth blog post about my feelings on using a book which is absolutely a $30 advertisement for Game Workshop products. I think its a topic worthy of a write up. But I want to get done with this post first.

In about 10 minutes, the porch heater got the porch warm enough to paint. I got the paint enclosure set up, put down one of my newly cut cards in the enclosure, and put the pieces on the card. I spray painted two light coats of black primer on the figures, and things look good so far. Moving the card to adjust the angle at which I could spray the work pieces worked out fantastically. I took a few pictures, but it is dark at this point and the lighting on the porch is bad, so no pictures of that is going up yet. I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them then. I'm happy with how things are going so far.

That's the logical conclusion of this update, so I'll call it quits here.

Until next time,

David Draper

Papercraft Computer Console

2011-12-01T10:32:00.001-08:00

My computer space is not as cool as this little set up.

One of the aspects of my job as a child life skills worker is that I am on the phone plenty. I probably spend almost as much time talking to parents, social workers, group home staff, case workers, case managers, and teachers as I do with my actual clients.

I often take calls in my car as I drive from appointment to appointment (I do inhome work) on my little bluetooth hookup. When I am lucky, I have phone meetings in my home office, aka, David's Workshop. During these meetings, I can have my computer on, check appointments on Google calendar, pull up client notes and reports, take notes during the conversation, etc. Its much more convenient for me to chat on the phone from the office. My schedule doesn't always permit the privileged, but its nice when it does.

In my office, my back is to the door so anytime my wife
walks in, she can see exactly what I have up on my screen.
It keeps me honest.

A few weeks ago, I found a new activity to do while at home and on the phone when my hands were free. I could slowly construct paper furniture for a future diorama. Most of the time while I am on the phone, I need to be writing things down or using the computer, but sometimes I get a moment here and there.

I got the idea after visiting www.joedios.com and saw all the amazing ready-to-assmble, all-you-need-is-a-color-printer-a-scissors-and-some-glue, templates in the file section there. I pulled up some PDF files hosted at thesite that were made by JoeDios member Tracker. Tracker has made a bunch of really outstanding stuff. If you are looking for some ideas or items for action figure dioramas of your own, check out the pictures and files sections of JoeDios. Its a treasure trove of cool. I printed some images out on regular printer paper, and when I had time, cut them out, carefully folded the parts, and glued them together with regular school glue. The pictures in this update show the little chair and computer set up in their completed form.

Cobra Vipers like to update their Facebook pages
and check their twitter feeds between missions to
hack into US satellite control systems.

I am not entirely sure what I am going to do with this yet, but I have some ideas. I think someone would probably be able to construct the entire thing in 15-20 minutes. Most of that time is just holding sections of paper together while the glue dries. But because putting this thing together was by far my last priority when on the phone, I did it a few seconds here and a few seconds there. I started this the week before Thanksgiving and finished it last night.

Today I do not have any client meetings, but I needed a break from my school work so I thought I'd do a quick update on the blog of this little mini project. I finished a 17 page paper yesterday and today I am working on a power point presentation. I need to make a 10-15 minute proposal for my graduate project, and my brain were starting to go a little fried. Time for a break.

I hope you like this little update. Tracker did an amazing job with his design. It takes very little skill to make something that looks pretty slick and could be used in a lot of different ways. Tracker and other artists have created several different versions of this chair and computer design with different skins, in different colors so if you are not into the dark green/gray I have here, there are other choices. Or you could run the thing though Photoshop or GIMP (the free, open source Photoshop!) and come up with your own ideas.

Ok- this break has gone on long enough. Time to get back to work. Take care.

Until next time,

David D.

Old Man Dremel Has Come And Gone

2011-11-29T14:34:00.001-08:00

Woot! Just got done with the first draft of a 15 page paper due Friday. The best way to keep myself going was to tell myself that when I was done with this draft, I would let myself update the blog.

The gang is all here! Everything I
needed for this step is in this shot.

This latest step was actually really easy and really fast. The step I am referring to is the "sanding down the rub spots" step. Last time I finished taking the figure apart. This time I want to dremel down the parts of the figure that could rub against each other when it is put back together. Sanding those surfaces will keep friction from taking the paint off, leaving ugly scar marks on the figure.

In order to complete this step, I used my Black and Decker dremel that I picked up from Target, two different sanding tools (more about this later), and a mask to cover my mouth and nose. I just grabbed the instructions for my dremel tool, er, "Rotary Tool", since it was made by Black and Decker and I think Dremel is tradmarked by the company that makes Dremels, and it looks like the 'sanding tools' are actually cutters. Hmm.

My grandfather, who was a wiz with tools, and according to my mother, always said that "you need to use the right tool for the job", is probably rolling over in his grave. But what can I say- I'm learning this as I go, and didn't break anything, so I'm still calling this stage a qualified success.

The coarse cutting bit in action.

There were 6 items to sand: the 2 shoulder joints, the 2 elbow joints, and the 2 knee joints. I started with the shoulders and got use to the fact that breathing in the mask fogged up my glasses. I tried adjusting the nose of the mask to minimize this.

I used the more coarse of my two cutting tools turn sanding tools, and used the lowest speed on my dremel, er, rotary tool.

I am going to get the hang of this. Just you watch.

Based on my first experience with the rotary tool (natch), I learned that on the high setting, the cutting tool will cut through of action figure plastic like tear gas on through a Black Friday shopping mob. Thus, I made sure I was on the lowest speed, because I don't want to destroy my work pieces. I had no problems with the shoulder and elbow sections. I rotary tool'ed (the verbing of America at work) 'em down just a little. At the lowest speed, this took about 4 passes per area I was sanding down to get the joints the way I wanted them.

The fine cutting bit in action.

The knee joints were a little different. As I mentioned above, the bit I used with the more coarse cutting bit of the two I have. The plastic on the leg section of the action figures seemed to be different than the plastic on the arms, because instead of just sanding off, the tool left small, ugly, rough scars on the plastic. I switched to the finer cutting bit to see if it would make and difference and kept the rotary tool speed on low. That did the trick- no more scars on the plastic, and it was sanded down just a bit, just like the arm sections were.

As I said at the top, this was a really fast step. The rotary tool did kick up some plastic dust, so I was glad I had my mask on. I don't know what happens if you breath plastic dust, but I bet it isn't good for me. I didn't use goggles, although I have some and it probably would have been smart of me to do so. I figured my glasses would protect my eyes well enough, which is probably exactly what every guy with glasses thinks just before they have a horrible power tool accident that robs them of their sight.

Keeping the tools clean.

Because I am my grandfather's grandson, I know I need to take care of my tools. One handy tip I learned during the great Build-A-HQ project is that a toothbrush is a great way to get plastic dust off of scoring knives and other tools. I got that suggestion from another hobbyist website, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which one. If I do remember, I'll post the credit for it. The idea wasn't mine. In any case, that toothbrush technique works great for getting the plastic dust off of rotary tools as well. There wasn't a ton of dust in and on the tool, but I want my tools to be good for me, so I figure I should be good to my tools. It only about 20 seconds of brushing to get everything cleaned up anyway. Once everything was cleaned up, I put it all away.

I am still a little miffed about my using "cutters" to do something that it sounds to me like they are not designed to do. As much as I would love to be a handyguy, I am about as far from one as a guy can be. Is there a better bit to use with a rotary tool for sanding down plastic? I'll have to check this out. Am I more concerned about this than I should be? Without a doubt. But I would like to be using the right tool for the job.

The next step will be washing everything off and putting a base coat of paint on. I plan on using black spray paint for the base coat, since according to my master text, black base coats make it easier to get shadows to happen in your miniatures. I have one other copy of the same figure; I may do that one in a white spray paint base coat (which the book recommends for minutes that will be painted in bright colors) to contrast how the base coat impacts the final look of the figure. The master text also has some other great suggestions about how to do the spray painting of the base coat, but I'll leave those suggestions for the next blog entry.

So! Painting is on the agenda for next time. Painting. My favorite activity. Wish me luck.

Until next time,

David D.

Step One Complete

2011-11-27T13:01:00.001-08:00

Hey folks. Its been a busy Thanksgiving week and weekend. My best friend Matt came to town. He is a resident doc at a Big Deal hospital on the East Coast. He and I met in college, and despite being one of, if not the smartest people I have ever met, he is completely down to earth and cool. He is a giant video game nut and we spent plenty of time (when we weren't stuffing ourselves silly with too much food) on the playstation, hanging out, and just having a good time. It was great. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving too if you celebrate it, or a good "lets celebrate the help that the native peoples gave starving strangers in a strange land, only to have those strangers decided to take over and kill the people who helped them" weekend, or, if you are not from the USA, a good "oh jeez, those crazy Americas are getting even fatter this weekend" weekend.

Oh shoot! All my fellow readers from the USA are gone!

Anyway, for the 30% (now 100%!) or so of the readers from outside the USA still here...

When in doubt, read it out.

First announcement- my wife Laura, Matt and I ran to the mall at some point this weekend. Laura picked up a present for me: Acrylic Painting for Dummies. I'm a huge fan of the For Dummies series. I've gone through at least a dozen of their books for IT related stuff, including Excel 2003 for dummies, Networks for Dummies, PCs for Dummies, Photoshop for Dummies, TCP/IP for Dummies, Unix for Dummies, etc. They are great books written for beginners but have a tremendous amount of information in them and can serve as great references later on. Each chapter is pretty well self contained, so you can skip the sections you aren't interested in reading or don't need to read without screwing yourself later on. I would love to take some classes on acrylic painting to learn some brush techniques and just general tips about painting, but what I have found doesn't really fit into my schedule. We have an extensive community ed program in St. Paul, MN where I live, but the classes tend to be at night, and I already go to school at night, or, since I work as a life skills worker with teen guys, tend to have my client sessions at night, and thus, those classes don't work. Between Acrylic Painting for Dummies and the book mentioned grabbing in my last post, How to Paint Citadel Miniatures, I think I'll be able to teach myself plenty in the weeks ahead. It makes me feel like I'm going to have the know how to pick up my figure painting game and make some progress detailing my figures.

Yeah, that was a pretty intensely dorky sentence. Moving on to the real meat of the update.

So where am I with the current project?

Revisions with the master plan have already taken place. I was originally planning on dremeling down the rub zones, such as the knee, shoulder and elbow joints, on the figure, and then taking it apart. Well, I tried that but the dremel had a hard time getting the joints without rubbing on the rest of the figure. I didn't do much damage, but I noticed that things were not going according to plan.

So an alteration is in order:

Old:

1. dremel down the the rub points in the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees.
2. disassemble the figure, including removing the lower legs/arms from the upper legs arms through the use of a hair dryer.

OUTDATED. DELETE OBSOLETE INSTRUCTIONS. OVERWRITE.

New:

1. disassemble the figure, including removing the lower legs/arms from the upper legs arms through the use of a hair dryer.
2. dremel down the the rub points in the shoulders, elbows and knees.

INSTRUCTIONS UPDATED.

PLAN ALTERATION COMPLETE.

Score one for the The Corps action figures:
They are easy to take apart.

The good news is that it is really, really easy to take apart action figures from The Corps line. A single screw in the back holds the figure together. That screw is easily reached by a Phillips head screw driver (sorry, don't remember the size, but it isn't an exotic gauge or incredibly small or anything like that- I had the right sized screw driver in my work bench.) Once the screw is removed, the front and back torso of the action figure come apart, and the waist, arms and head are easily removed. Besides the screw itself, there are no other methods of fastening the figure together. No body cracking with a vice like you evidently need to do with modern GI Joe figures is necessarily, which is kind of nice. The less opportunity for screw ups, I think, the better I will do at this point.

My wife's hairdryer to the rescue!

At the same time, this level of disassembly does not make it any easier to actually dremel down the knee, elbow or shoulder joints. More work needs to be done to separate those parts.

Thankfully, I have done enough research about taking action figures apart to know there are two good and worthwhile methods to use here: either heat a joint with a hairdryer or put the pieces in a cup of water that has been in the microwave for a minute or so. Because it seemed the hairdryer method would be easier to use if I needed to reheat the plastic, I went with that.


Protect your digits. Don't put them in front of streams of super hot air from hairdryers. Instead, put plastic held by clothespins in front of steams of super hot air from hairdryers.

In order to keep from burning my fingers, I used a clothespin to hold the plastic limbs. This kept my fingers from getting fried and allowed me to hold the plastic in front of the hairdryer set on hot for about 60 seconds, which is about what it seemed to take to get the plastic warm enough to pop the various joints. While holding each joint in front of the hair dryer, I slowly turned the limb so that the joint was heated on all sides.

Another tool that helped to pop the joints apart was my Eklind multihex key tool. These are great little tools that can be found for about $2 or $3 at the hardware store. I used the smallest hex key on my foldout set to pry into the spaces of the joint and push the hot, flexible plastic apart. The smallest tool on my kit was 5/64th inch or thereabouts, and the metal on plastic gave me a lot more leverage than I could have mustered using my fingers and fingernails alone.

And this little piggy pries plastic
joints apart all the way home.

The key to this step was patience. The plastic is pretty malleable after 60 seconds of hot air from the hairdryer, and I was worried that I could tear it with the hex key if I got too rough. Also, the plastic becomes cool fast. I found that I had a good 20 seconds to work with the plastic after 60 seconds of heating. Using my fingers alone didn't seem fast enough to take the joints apart. If I couldn't get the joints popped in 20 seconds, I applied another round of 60 seconds of hot air to the joints, and tried again.

Eventually, everything worked just fine. I went to school on the first few joints, and applied what I learned to the rest. Each joint in this action figure was held together by a little peg. The pegs had big end and small end, which will be nice later on because when I reassemble the figure, there is only one way for the pegs to be put back into each joint. I learned quickly that trying to pry the small side of the peg from the joint was a much faster way to take the joint apart than by trying the big side or trying to pry both sides at once. In a few minutes, I had all the joints popped apart.

Woo hoo!

I gotta say, it was pretty satisfying to see Shinto-San all taken apart without any parts broken or other mistakes made at this point. I could have tried to break the figure down even further: the pin joints of the elbows have pegs in them that attach them to the upper arm, allowing the joint to rotate in 3 dimensions, and the hips are connected to the lower torso by peg joints as well. In both of these cases, I didn't think there was much give going on there to pop the joints, and I also didn't think these were vital areas to pop to make painting easier or dremel work look better, so I let sleeping dogs lie.

Because there were so many parts and because my wife and I have two loving, wonderful, sweet, and completely ADHD cats who will play with *anything* they can get their paws on that isn't nailed down, I have put all the pieces of the figure into little compartments to keep them secured. Each of the joint pegs are unique to the joint they fit into, so finding the correct peg for each joint should not be a deal later on, but I still separated the parts by portion of the body. Even without cats, I didn't want to throw all of the parts into a drawer or something; they are small, and I figure the work I am putting into this project make taking a little care of accounting for all of the parts well warranted. I would *hate* to get nearly done with all of this only to realize a forearm or knee joint was missing.

So that is where I am at the moment. Finals are coming up, and I've got a ton of papers to research for and then write, but I hope to have at least all of the rub areas dremeled down and have an update on the project inside of a week. Take care.

Until next time,

David D.

999 blog hits

2011-11-27T12:57:00.001-08:00

Hey folks-

When I logged in today to start writing my next post, I saw that I have had 999 hits on my blog since I started. To all of you who have been out there reading my blog and sending me emails or posting comments of suggestions, ideas, encouragement, and your own stories, thanks very much. I can't tell you how much it means to have a little section of the internet that people actually find worthwhile to check out, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your support. Gracias, amigos y amigas.

David