The Things I Do For Friends

I had discovered the really nice looking ‘Dragonball Mecha Collection’ from Bandai on ebay. I immediately bought one model for myself, but also thought about my brother’s upcoming birthday. So I went and bought this:

I turned it into a bit of an experimental project. The van and minis were base coated with Vallejo sand-coloured spray primer. I then built shadows with a sepia ink and highlights with white. To reinforce the cartoon look I divided panels with a black ink in the grooves. Then I took yellow ink and used it to create a filter effect. 4-5 layers gave me the saturation I was happy with in the end. I also used Citadel Contrast for the first time on the model, the Black Templar. I also made some direct comparisons with the black ink and must say, I’m not impressed by the contrast paint.  Definitely not worth the money.

I used the inks to mix with normal acrylic colors and create the red-orange seats and the orange robes. Some highlighting in the end, adding the stickers (yes, you get stickers, not decals) and done.

Andy had made the diorama base in the meantime from plywood and balsa. He also made the guard rails and poles from sticks and balsa wood. Painted the road and the grass patch, then we added the tree and flock. At last a good helping of matte varnish, and done.

Before gluing everything in place I made the little smoke puff by picking from a piece of styrofoam, painted with dark grey Vallejo surface primer first, then a heavy wet blend of burnt umbra and beige, followed by a dry brush of white.

Glued it all on and done, ready to be delivered next week.

The last, and most complicated Diorama. Andy made a Tardis (technically only half a Tardis), with interiors. This is forced perspective to the max degree, and the results are amazing. Lighting this and creating all the techno-babbly goodness was a PITA, but absolutely worth it in the end.

The next is another Spitzweg. We’ve added LEDs in this one, turning it into a beautiful scene of a guard at a gate house in a clear winter night.

The results:

My neighbor Andy is an awesome artist in his own rights. Over spring and summer he went and did three amazing dioramas with forced perspective. I had a little hand in all of them, albeit my contributions were minuscule.

And here is the result:

Lack of feedback had put me off continuing with my projects here. Be that as it may, I decided today to go on anyway and treat these more as personal diaries. So without further ado:

The next entry in the line of Imperial (Anti)Heroes is the Culexus, who I painted in an icy fashion.

This beautiful old mini needed a replacement hand and, as per request, a bolter. So I gave him an augmetic, this way he would be able to bear the recoil of firing a bolter with one hand. The bolter itself is a 2nd edition plastic oldie, which seemed fitting.

There’s yet more to come. Next up on the list is a modern Culexus and a small Imperial templum for my friend, as well as more stuff from my neighbor.

Next in line was this bad-ass Lady. In keeping with the “super-hero” theme, I gave her a purple body glove. The weapons emit a green glow, and her hair had to be red because of old times sake ;P

While rummaging through my friend’s old stuff we discovered some fantastic old models from back when we started playing 40k. I offered to repaint the models since they looked, ahem, not so good.  I had to model a backpack for him out of a SM backpack, a handheld auspex, a plastic rod and a skull.

I smoothed out the walls by sanding back some and adding filler to hide the horrible wall textures. The vending machine inside is lit by an LED. I will provide some better pics later.