Xarboth's Painting Blog - 17/05/12: Space Wolves 750point FAP

**Omega1907** · 4th February 2012 13:00

I have the same problem with the skin

But those are looking good as they are!

**edmundblack** · 4th February 2012 13:03

Looking good, very consistent. Always the first hurdle in progressing as a painter.

I think that stronger highlights on skin works better. It's a small area on a small figure often seen at arms length or more. So by being a little more contrasted in tone, it'll look better at all ranges. For me anyway.

**Michael** · 4th February 2012 17:51

Looking good Xarboth!

Eb is definitely right about the skin, faces always look more lively with a lot of contrast. Make the recesses darker and the raised areas lighter. I would add a wash with gryphonne sepia, go over it with your base colour again and than add highlights with a 50:50 mix of your fleshtone and bleached bone, followed by highlights with a 80:20 mix or even pure bleached bone. May sound like it gets to bright, but this way faces pop more imo.

**Xarboth** · 5th February 2012 08:15

Thanks Michael - I'll try that for the next one. Space Wolves'll certainly give you plenty of opportunity to practice painting faces, that's for sure.

**Xarboth** · 15th February 2012 13:45

Something slightly different here today. Last night I was on the GW website looking for terrain inspiration, and I was looking at the Imperial Bastion, and thought to myself "How hard can that be?" So I spent a couple of hours last night on the GW website holding a ruler up to the screen of my laptop (using the picture of the actual box of the Bastion on the GW website and a Space Marine in front of me for scale purposes), and I planned out all the measurements.

Today I built it out of plasticard. Here it is:

I think I've made a decent job of that. It's a little rough, and there are some gaps in all the joins, but nothing a good bit of Green Stuff (and liquid green stuff for the smaller cracks) won't fix. And it needs some decoration with chapter emblems maybe, and then I'll paint it. Probably took around 6 hours in total. And the total cost in materials so far has been £2.40 for the 2 sheets of plasticard...rather than the £18.50 GW would charge for a proper one. Granted theirs is much better quality than mine, but still.

**edmundblack** · 15th February 2012 14:03

Hey, looks good enough to me! Nice one.

Some rough spray paint would also help maybe, or perhaps some bumpy wallpaper?

**daddy4count** · 15th February 2012 15:46

Texture for sure!

Also, making some long strips bent in half lengthwise for trim pieces over your joins will help strengthen, look cool, and hide gaps.

Great replication, gonna be a terrific piece on the table

**edmundblack** · 15th February 2012 15:47

As a thought - would it be possible to create a flat plan of this on a pdf document?

**Xarboth** · 15th February 2012 15:53

I'll see what I can do - although not entirely sure on the legalities of that? I should have made one for myself really - what I ended up doing was cutting out each panel separately and building it by gluing small hinges of paper to the inside. It was a nightmare to put together and is the reason why there are gaps all over it. I'll probably make another one at some point though, so I'll give it a try.

**daddy4count** · 15th February 2012 15:58

As long as you don't profit from it there should be no legal issue.

Just don't call it an "Imperial Bastion" and don't charge for downloads.

**The Infernal Penguin** · 16th February 2012 00:03

When it comes to painting it, you could try using textured paint? Available in a variety of places. Might be too coarse though (you could make your own, I guess).

Great effort though. Will look great, I'm sure.

**Xarboth** · 16th February 2012 15:30

So having built the bastion, and whilst I'm waiting for the liquid green stuff to set in the cracks, I wondered what else I could do scenery-wise out of plasticard. I'll start designing my own soon, I promise, but I decided I'd see about knocking out an Aegis Defence Line. I think these have come out better than the Bastion (although, to be fair, they're not exactly difficult!)

Here's the equivalent of what you'd get if you paid £15.50 at Games Workshop: 4 double-barriers (or however you'd like to describe them), and 4 single ones.

And here's what I managed to get out of 1 sheet of slightly-bigger-than-A4 plasticard (at a cost of £1.20):

That's right, folks! 8 double, and 6 single barriers. Almost double what you get in the box from GW. So that's almost £51.50 worth of GW scenery for a grand total cost of £3.60 (and sacrificing a significant amount of detail and a little bit of sturdiness, but I think it's worth it).

As you can probably see, they're a little flimsy just now, and will need some bracing before they're ready to be used, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Now, I wonder what kind of designs I could come up with myself...

**daddy4count** · 16th February 2012 15:51

Very cool!

Glue them onto some plasticard for a base and that should solve the sturdiness issue

those are great!!!

**edmundblack** · 16th February 2012 20:38

Chuck some scrap bitz at them, that should help improve their look. At least these ones can stack flat somewhere, the thick plastic ones can't so easily.

**Beeva** · 19th February 2012 11:17

Nice one, Xar! Those are great, you can do so much with them! Like D4C said, put them on a base, build up a load of crap around then and you'll never know they're made out of Plasticard!

**Xarboth** · 21st February 2012 14:11

Here they all are with some liquid green stuff filling the cracks in the bastion, some plastic bracing along the inside of the bottom of the defence line, a bit of texturing, and a layer of Shadow Grey paint. It still needs a light drybrush of SW Grey and details like doors/emblems/iconography, but I'm pleased so far. They should fit nicely with my SW army without being too obviously SW-ish that it'd look silly to use them for other armies.

Anyway, pics:

**daddy4count** · 21st February 2012 14:53

WIN

**edmundblack** · 21st February 2012 17:24

They look grand enough to me. Nice one Tsar!

**Xarboth** · 27th February 2012 08:49

Bastion complete! The door looked really bad before I highlighted the edges with Mithril Silver and put the scratch-marks on the inside edges to show how they open. I'm pleased with that effect - the execution of it isn't perfect throughout but it's a new technique that I've not used on any metals before, but it's going to get used on further DE vehicles and their blades. So it's a completed terrain piece, and between the bastion and all the bits of defence line the raw materials came to a grand total of £4.50. Plus a bit of paint and glue.

**TeynhamProPainter** · 27th February 2012 09:04

One of my mates has just finished his Salamanders Army and they are a great Chapter to practice a bit of free-hand on. If I can get some pics ill post them for you, might spark some insperation.