perjantai 27. marraskuuta 2015

Planet

Made a planet prop for the Space game. It's ~4 cm in diameter. I have a lot of cotton wool lying around, and wanted to know if it's good for doing clouds. It is!


The full recipe for this one is:
1 Paper ball (I guess any ball will do, but the slight texture of the paper pulp is so damn good).
5 colors, blue, green, two browns and white for ice, showing just barely on top of the planet.
Cotton wool (from the cosmetics section).
PVA glue that dries clear.
Water.
2 Sticks (toothpicks or some spare plastic bits).

1. Paint the ball. I didn't really mix any colors here, but tried to carefully blend with just flat colors.
2. Make a mixture of 1/4 of glue and 3/4 water.
3. Pluck tiny bits of wool and throw them in to the mix. With this scale I found that the size of my thumb nail are good, just try to get them as "airy" as possible.
4. Take your sticks and fish the wool from the glue, drain it off some against the border.
5. Slap the wet wool in the planet and stretch it in shape with the sticks. Try to stretch it so that there's no big clumps. You might want to get some tissues here to wipe the watered glue that'll start running around the surface.
6. Bear in mind that the PVA glue dries clear, so don't thin out the wool too much. I found out that if the clouds look good when wet, they are barely visible when dry.

perjantai 13. marraskuuta 2015

Note to myself

I was scrolling through my many comments (got like ten!) and saw a mention for a shaman mask for my Treeman. I was also scrolling though my phone photos and saw this!

Bark reference pic of which I might try to emulate. 

Many of the GW Wood Elves -of which the Treeman will be a part of- use these weird leather half-masks, which had some dissenting opinions at the time. I might have opted to use them less in my miniatures. After all this time I feel the masks are okay.

Now I had an idea connecting all these three. A Treeman face with half-mask made out of bark, with a hole for an eye which would be sculpted as above. Maybe a Treeman Ancient (the one who can do magic), so he'd look more mystical than the regular Treeman who's limited to punching fools.

keskiviikko 11. marraskuuta 2015

Car number two, the Bumblebee

Here are some picture of that car I said I'd give you way back when I was starting my Treeman. (The Treeman hasn't got anything done to it, thanks for asking. I've been busy as heck!)

Like I said in my first posts here, these cars are a test bench for different painting techniques. I've pretty much got that rust effect down with these first two.
This time it was the windshields I wanted to get right. I think I did well with the base, the shadowy interior mixed with reflections from blue sky and brown earth. Now the thing that looks like a giant bird turd or shattered glass is supposed to be a reflection of the sun... Maybe next time.
I also fucked up my masking tape, and ripped the whole mid part out. My yellow paint job was so awful that I needed to make so many layers that the tape couldn't just rip out the things its supposed to.

Edit: Now actually looking at the pictures below (especially the last one), I might have an idea how to make reflection right. Just a thin line, with one focused dot in it, above the glass.

The first paint layers I took a picture of waaay back.

These two are taken in an awful lighting.

I really like the effect the salt grains make when paint and wash is sprayed on.

Mechanics along the pictures too!

I got two new things for the Car game. Ability cards and ramming statistics.
Now players can build their cars with ramming in mind. And the ability cards can be used as a Hail Mary of sorts, to try to get the lead by force at the last corner, but of course the leader can use his to make his position even better. Cards include things like a extra speed for your car, sabotage of an enemy car or having shit thrown in front of someone else.
After I've got these two integrated well in the game, I feel that it has all the things I originally wanted to get in.

Then it's on to the track pieces. I need to get some more variety to them, and I really don't know how yet.
And then I need to make the pit mechanic, and balance the cars with the round numbers.
And then I need to check my dice, if I want to fiddle with them.
And then I need to actually make the physical game, and not just a prototype.