Skeletoro's Great Company motivational thread

[skeletoro]

Thanks guys... means a lot! Especially because I'm actually not happy with them at all at this stage.

 

You know how minis get like that when you're half way through them?

 

I just did the armour colour, which hasn't turned out quite right. I used all vallejo paints because I was tired of getting a clogged airbrush. I went black->dark sea grey->medium sea grey->barley grey (I omitted this step for the last 4 of 7 and instead just added more glaze/thinner to the next step)->light blue grey->bit of white mixed in.

 

Which turned out OK, but very heresy-era - only slightly blue. I chickened out and decided I wanted at least a BIT of blue. So I applied a "US blue grey" glaze at 45 degrees. Which blued it out a bit. But unfortunately it killed the highlights. So I think I'll have to go back and line highlight over the top.

 

At the moment I've dubbed this colour scheme "blu tack" because... yeah. 

 

Anyway, I haven't done ANY brush work (including dry brushing) or ANY washes yet. The theory was that I was going to paint the "high points" before the oil wash - and use the oil wash to add the shadows and any filtering you'd normally get from acrylic/ink washes. Hence very pallid and relatively flat colours so far, for the most part.

 

Also, I followed some of the advice in the nice guide irwit linked. It mentions masking putty, and I looked into this - turns out silly putty is the shizzle!!

 

 

 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

and I'm back to hating you.

 

WLK

[skeletoro]

hmm.. Just realized I shouldn't have glazed blue grey over grey. To shift the hue of the grey towards blue I needed to layer on a lot more paint than if I had glazed it with actual blue rather than blue grey. Which means it ended up killing the highlights a lot more than if I had just used a very weak thunderhawk blue or Russ grey glaze (which is actually pretty blue by my standards).

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

SILLY PUTTY!!

-This is a brilliant idea. Brilliant.
 

KITTEH'S!!

-Fluffy Kittehs. Fluffy.

 

End of Line

[skeletoro]

So, I have been brainstorming a conversion possibility to work on after my commission.

The idea is to convert a bunch of iron priests on TWM as a big batch (maybe 3-6), paint them and then sell the extras (I probably only need 1-2).

How much do you think a well painted conversion could sell for on ebay?

Materials list:

2 boxes TWC

2 space marine techmarines (with servo harness)

1 set of FW iron hands Mk iii marines.

6 iron priest helmets (stormfang kit) from a bits store.

That should allow me to cobble together 6 pretty legit-looking iron priests. Each one would use just one of the arms from the servo-harness, as well as a TWC model (mainly just the wolf, saddle and outstretched hand) and a iron hands Mk iii model (body, legs, bionic arm -i'd supplement with my bits box or the techmarine bodies to put a 6th together). Add some pewter power cables, various pelts/wolftooth necklaces/wolf skulls etc and i'd be good to go.

Comes to about NZD 250 for the materials, possibly. But a well painted Harald mini seems to sell for upwards of 100USD, so by selling 4 or 5 I could recoup my costs, plus some money for time (maybe $2 pr hour but hey..) and i'd be left with a bunch of extra bits for the bits box.

So the question is: do you think they'd sell and for how much? It fills a gap in the product line for a unit that may become popular.

Do YOU want to buy one? capital is tight so with a pre-arranged buyer it would get me the confidence to buy the bits and get started, haha

[skeletoro]

amazing terminators Skeletoro!!! I second the questions from dantay plus one- What colour did you used in the gold?

 

Guy at the front: I cheated a little and used green stuff to make a cast of the wolf on the front of one of the power armour space wolf chests (I think that one was in the space wolf accessory sprue from an old blood claws box, now an online-only item on the GW store)

Isn't it from the old long fang?

 

I think that sprue was included in a few kits. I got my first one in a blood claws box. I remember because I was playing Black Templars at the time using Codex: Armageddon, and needed crusaders with bp+cs.

[Dantay VI]

If I had the funds I would buy one for sure, it would be an honour to own a model painted by you.

 

But funds are not something I have much of just now. However depending how far into the future you try your project...

[irwit]

in terms of is it worth making the models,   I would only make them if you want to make them.  Im not sure on your financial situation but if you can afford GW and forgeworld products then chances are you are doing ok.   I guess the other one is how much spare time you have.  For me I have the money but not the spare time,  however even if I did have the spare time I honestly wouldn't spend it making models for other people at 2 dollars per hour,  lifes too short!

[skeletoro]

It's mainly to speed up so I can start selling them for 3! And maybe eventually 20 or 30.

For me, it's an opportunity to practice and improve and build up a portfolio.

Also, I do want to make them. I plan on keeping one or two. Doing 5 or 6 as a batch should hopefully speed up the process a fair bit, allows me to choose which I want to keep for myself, and gives me a chance to make character models (my favourite) en masse using bits from different kits without paying for way mere than I need or paying inflated bits store prices for a single model. For example, it's be hard to justify buying 5 iron hands marines if I was only going to use 1.

[skeletoro]

If I had the funds I would buy one for sure, it would be an honour to own a model painted by you.

But funds are not something I have much of just now. However depending how far into the future you try your project...

Thanks

I am about to order the bits from GW (2 techmarines, another pack of TWC to be added to some I already have, and some fenrisian wolves which I may or may not attempt to convert into cyberwolves, if I can find a way) and FW (those iron hands models, maybe immortals too, to use the bodies for iron priests on foot and the shields to make my 5 cataphractii into very distinctive looking shieldbrothers, hmm maybe some flamers, Mk ii assault marines and Mk ii mêlée weapons for my TWC, aaaargh, I hate you FW!)

I won't actually be able to start converting/ painting until after the tournament I'm preparing for - so mid September. Then it'd be all on, hopefully, and I estimate I could build them within a week and paint them within 2 weeks. As I'm still a 'student' of sorts (I treat all this stuff as a kind of self-schooling) I am OK with making a crappy hourly wage, as ideally I'd be able to do this sort of thing in about a week, with more practice.

Anyway, so I wouldn't actually finish the project until October some time, so there's a bit of time between now and then.

It's a bit hard to figure out an appropriate price. I guess that's what Ebay is for. I'm not sure what a bespoke kitbash/conversion for a unit that lacks a proper model would actually sell for. It seems the Harald model can fetch upwards of USD100, but this is a bit different so it's hard to compare.

Anyway, I'd sell for 100USD (plus shipping costs from NZ) to anyone on here as long as you commit to buy before they're all finished and on ebay/trademe or whatever (might start the bidding at a similar number). As I'll pop progress shots up, etc, you might even get a little bit of artistic input or a chance to get first pick of the rune priests.

[skeletoro]

Ugh! For some reason the paint is having serious issues adhering to these old metal terminators. To some extent the RTB01s, too. The Vallejo primer is just peeling right off. I am actually going to have to strip and restart all the terminators. :(

 

 

[Dantay VI]

Thats not good, sorry to ear about your primer issues. I am assuming the models were washed before trying to prime.

Maybe contact Vallejo, incase they have a dud batch... The worst that will happen is they say they don't best is they apologise and replace it.

 

Have you trid a different primer to see if it will adhere? I use el cheapo car primer and it works pretty well.

 

Hope you get it sorted out soon. Is this the commission Crimson Fists for the tourney that you are working on?

[skeletoro]

Yeah, for the commission.

 

I scrubbed the metals with methylated spirits as they had some old enamel paint on them, and then soaked them in soapy water. I guess it is possible residual meths was the culprit, but then why did I get the same problems for the plastic, which I didn't clean as it was new (admittedly 25 years new) on the sprue. The plastic was really odd because it was just one chest and one pack, on two different models, from a batch of 18. Even the other bits on the same models were ok... it was limited to those specific parts. I wonder if they came from the same sprue?

 

I've cleaned (stripped is too strong a word) the rest of the paint off the 9 metal models in question using simple green, and will try an army painter spray.

 

I think it's an interaction between characteristics of the materials and the Vallejo primer. I've heard Vallejo primers have issues with 'orange peel' and if I can get better results with a can I don't think i'll look back. Anything I can do to toughen my paint job will make the masking/oil wash stages that much easier.

[Urauloth]

How have I only just seen this thread? These are some of the coolest wolves I've ever seen, I absolutely love your conversions and GS work.

[skeletoro]

Thank you so much :)

 

Very happy with a lot of my conversions. I think my green stuff work is one of those areas I need to improve in.

 

When I show my kitbashed/converted minis to people not familiar with warhammer, they kinda look worse than the standard citadel minis because the viewer can't tell the difference. They don't realise I sculpted that wolftooth necklace or pulled parts from 3 or 4 different sources to make the mini. And ultimately, my one ends up looking a little worse to them, because although my green stuff is relatively passable, it isn't seamless and it's not amazing under close inspection (e.g. my wolf pelts look far worse than the GW ones!!) So I definitely feel I need to take a few more ranks in craft:GS.

[Nadir]

What colours you were using to paint the face of Arjack? I realy love the "putty idea" :)

[skeletoro]

Umm I think in that pic it has been mostly bugman's glow, then something darker (might have been cadian ?) then elf flesh, then I probably went a bit lighter with some white mixed in.

 

I bought some Vallejo Model Air hull red, tan earth and skin tone and am liking it better, though.

 

Note that either way the plan would be to use oil washes to shade at the end. If you're not doing that you will probably want to use some ogryn flesh, agrax earthshade and maybe purple ink or chestnut ink if you have any. Flesh wash is far too orange I find. I use it to make red hair though ;)

[CatSmasher]

For your iron priests, have a look at the pilots from the Stormfang, they have some nice bits if you can work with them, and I'm sure you can

[skeletoro]

Hehe, I am assembling two stormfangs at the moment and just this morning, I gave one of them a bare head (the forge world character upgrade pack bionic one) and the normal SM vehicle crew chest/shoulder. Leaving me with one torso, helmet and shoulder!!

 

I've gone and ordered the bits for the iron priests, too. A box of TWC, 2 finecast techmarines, and 1 squad each of the iron warriors mark iii and medusa immortals squads. I can spare a few thundwolves I've got sitting there primed, to bring it up to about 5 or 6 iron priests.

[skeletoro]

Ok, so the tournament happened on the weekend and sadly, i didn't quite manage to finish the two armies. Here's a pic of what i managed to get done (magnetized arms were elsewhere when this pic was taken). I got some nice comments from people and at least one vote for best painted but unsurprisingly didn't get it, due to the not-quite-finish status of the army. funnily enough we DID get first equal for sportsmanship, though

I am a little short on time so will be sure to post more in the next few days to catch you all up on my progress

[Token]

Looks like some old school mk6 there, cool. Hope they didnt cost to much?

[skeletoro]

Not actually sure how much the beakies cost - they're my allies so I didn't buy em ;)

[skeletoro]

Ok first, got a few images to share...

 

 

 

 

I know it's not space wolves but it's my excuse for not having finished anything space wolves related in a while.

 

There are 25 beakies, finished, except for some magnetized weapon options which I need to do the last few steps on. The terminators are not quite done. I'm doing oil washes (hence the crazy glossies) but the thinner actually decided to eat through the varnish in a couple of faces. Moreover, the faces need a little work anyway, even the ones that haven't been damaged. But yeah, definitely an end in sight!

 

After that there's the finishing touches on the 3 vehicles and we'll be done.

 

In the meantime I've committed to a big apocalypse game at the end of November. I was going to field the entire Champions of Fenris super-formation and actually have enough models to do so, but I've decided to put that on hold and focus on something more pragmatic and sensible...

 

*barking in the distance*...

[skeletoro]

..lots of thunderwolves. Woof.

This will allow me to get started on the iron priests project I mentioned a few weeks ago, and put together and paint a force for the apoc game at the same time. Yay!

So, here's what I was contemplating taking to the game:

Logan on stormrider

3 wolf lords or battle leaders with pets

7 iron priests with pets

5 units of thunder wolf cavalry (3 models each, all with shields, one with a wolf claw and one with a hammer)

Each of the 5 units would therefore have 5 cavalry models including two ICs, and a bunch of fenrisians/cyberwolves, too.

After the game I'll be selling 4 of the iron priests (maybe more, maybe some lords too depending on interest) to offset the cost and time spent building all those thunderwolves.

I'll be looking for 100 USD per iron priest plus shipping, but could maybe do a deal on a pair. Jochteas already has his name on two of the four and I'm throwing in an extra iron priest on foot to sweeten the deal

Next I'll go into a little more detail outlining how I intend to model and paint these bad boys! Bear with me...

[skeletoro]

Here's some very very early stages pics (just some bits sorted in preparation of impending kitbash!!) I'll add some explanatory text later - need to go and pick my son up from day care!!