Sunday, July 12, 2015

Progress - Primer Woes - Half Orc skin tone

Hi All,

I'm trying to rein in the stream of consciousness while my daughter rambles on about The Amazing World of Gumball.

Lets start at the end of today.


I've been putting more work into the first five of the gobbo unit, so they are starting to form up. I've got a lot of work to do on the shields and I want t get these guys done before I leave for California. I haven't totally decided what I'm taking with me to paint, but I have to take something.

So the guys in the back right are the Army Standard Bearer from the new-ish box and a Black Scorpion miniature that had the axe repair. They're a tad dark in the photo but I had to do them Burnt Umber and then wash them with black ink.  I wanted to do gray primer but my can appeared to clog after the first pass. I tried different nozzles and researched how to unclog the can itself on youtube. I can get the gray to shoot out all over my hands with a toothpick, but none of the three nozzles I tried would get paint to spray out. I found some reviews on amazon talking about the "known issue" of clogging of Liquetex spray paints and the inadequacy of the stock nozzles. Supposedly you can buy packs of spare nozzles at Michael's craft stores. Wish I'd known that when I was there yesterday. I'll let you know how that progresses. It makes an expensive can of paint even more expensive if you only get to use it a couple of times.

I did have one epiphany though. I used goo gone to get the paint off my hands and it occurred to me that, not only could I soak the clogged nozzles in it, but perhaps it could be used for stripping figures? Has anyone tried it?


Going further back in time, yesterday I think, we have the Army Standard Bearer and Gunther after I finished their base gunk but before priming. Just wanted to show the green stuff mold of the axe and my not so great job of blending it onto the figure.

The pictures aren't to scale here, just trying to fit them in one picture.

Lastly I wanted to show you/ document my Half Orc flesh recipe.


Hmm, looking at it now I may have picked the wrong picture in the middle step. Anyway the idea is that you mix the mid tone orc flesh color (Hauser Med. Green) with the three Human Flesh tones (Reaper Tanned Shadow, Tanned Skin, and Tanned Highlight). I think it looks good as a contrast to my usual orc and goblin skin palettes. In fact I'm thinking of painting up Gunther in these colors.

I tagged this post bodgehammer as I've been thinking about the things going on on the Oldhammer facebook group. While I don't blame them for wanting to keep some control over the group and keep it focused, I sometimes wonder if I am really an Oldhammerer. I have a lot of old figures, but I don't mind some of the newer ones or using other recent manufacturers. In fact I'd much rather support people who are sculpting figures now in a style that evokes the old ones than pay some body on ebay 10 times what a figure was worth in 1990 because it is "rare", "OOP", or gasp "In blister".

I need to read Whiskey Priests post asking if Oldhammer has jumped the shark, I'm not sure. Am I an Oldhammerer? Hard to say. But I'm totally comfortable with calling myself a Bodgehammerer.

8 comments:

  1. Looks like you found a great recipe for Orc skin Sean - great job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Michael, it's one of those things I've been thinking about for a long time. As an extension on it I'm going to try and mix purple with the flesh color for a Chaos Thug style look.

      Delete
  2. Sean very nice.

    I totally understand your feelings on the whole Oldhammer thing. I'm totally comfortable using a modern sculpt if it fits the idea in my head. I don't think you have anything to worry about...You are Oldhammer my friend. Looking forward to hanging out in a few weeks, and possibly getting a game in. Would love to do a comic report against these cursed greenskins. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Airborne, a comic report is definitely in the future. I need to get my shit together though.

      Delete
  3. I think you've really captured a really old skool green there, Sean. I'm not a fan of the bright green seen today, and think your muted tone is very similar to that first seen in the pre-slotta days. Certainly its ideal for a half-orc imho. Presumably as a Bodgehammer you're not burning all your old sculpts in protest against Age of Sigmar?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Blaxkleric. In a way it looks kind of like the moss green triads someone else was doing. To me it looked like over cooked peas. I've been holding on to these figures for too long to burn them now.

      Delete
  4. Using old figures? I'm with you all the way on that! But keeping them in blister because they're "worth more"? Naw; they're intended to be played with (I'm hearing echoes of "Toy Story 2" here...)

    BTW, the green for the goblins is good. Definitely a bit brown-green rather than a bright emerald green and therefore much more suitable for a living being (excluding tree frogs and the like).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Hugh, the only reason some of my figures are in blister still is because I never got around to them before packing them all up. I'm trying to decide whether to try and trade off some of the orc archers, I've already painted several duplicates of the same figures or try to build another unit around them. I think I've given up on trying to find more 1980-90 Orc Boar Boyz and will go with Black Tree Design to fill out the unit I wanted to do.

      I like my orcs and goblins green. I was trying to figure out a way to introduce a shift in skin tone for half orcs. I think it worked.

      Delete