Tyberos The Red Wake - Wrap up

First, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by and a even bigger thank you to all the people who commented.  Some very nice things were said, some teaching occurred and hearts and minds were won (a special 'hello' to my seven new followers!).  This is what its all about, kids.  All in all, a very successful series that I may have to repeat will be repeating in the near future.
As far as the actual painting went, a lot of good was had on my end:

1) I got out of my comfort zone on this one - key to learning.  There was actually a point when I was scared to go on because I might ruin the model!  Kind of an eye opener really.  But, I pushed through and learned something about my abilities in the progress. 

2) I got some much needed experience with shooting from the hip, or heart if you prefer a more passionate idiom.  It was good because I got some practice with just doing things without all the meticulous planning I'm used to.  And it was good because It's been a long while since I've been able to paint something without having to ne able to reproduce the whole thing over and over (and over) again.  Very freeing in a way.

3) Freehand practice.  That shark icon was freehand.  I'm not completely happy with it, but it was a good attempt.  One of my weakest areas, to be honest.   

4) I got a couple of really good recipes for unique colors I can add to the repertoire.  The gray for the armor and the blue rippey claws in particular.  Not too bad for an off the cuff kind of thing. 

5) Most importantly: I've got my very own fully painted Tyberos.  Quite possibly my favorite model from the GW ranges.

But it ain't all good:

1) My work schedule kinda, sorta blows donkey dique.  Part of that is because Special Lady Friend and I only have one car and there's a two hour difference between our shifts three days in every week.  Basically, I get to hang around work for two hours just wasting time until its time to go home.  Loosing that two hours is a killer and drastically alters how fast my projects take to complete.  What's worse, is there's nothing I can really do about so its not even like I can have an after school special silver lining.

2) I'm still an abysmally slow painter.  Even on projects I'm in love with.  Bah. 

/introspection

With Tyberos sitting in the ol' cabinet, it's time to get back to the Eldar.  I think I'll do another long term WIP on Eldrad Ulthran once I get past my last Wave Serpent.

Tyberos The Red Wake - FINAL!

After 17 days of nearly sporadic work, Tyberos is done.  It's been a fun ride and a special thanks to all of you who took the time to drop by and comment. 

And here he is in all his glory:

I'm not entirely happy with the pictures (as usual), but every time I get a little closer to what I want. Plus, I saw (and fixed) a couple of bugaboos.  But such is the nature of learning - if you're were perfect, there'd be no room for improvement. And nothing to live for.

Thanks for looking!

Tyberos Supplemental #3

Since the update posts have been moving quickly but haven't had much substance, I thought I'd toss in another supplemental.

This time around its just a quick not on a happy side effect of all the pictures I've been taking.

We've all had that moment where we thought we had finished the miniature - but then, out of nowhere, we notice some crucial flaw we had completely missed.

A few days ago while I was posting some of the shots for the main body, I noticed three things that I might have otherwise missed.  Who knows for how long.  For example, there was a lens on my Baal that I didn't notice I had missed until like 4 months after the fact.

Here's what I caught on Tyberos:

1. Totally forgot to highlight one of the plates on his chest.  I think the angle I was using to paint most of the model kept this out of site until I tried to get some details on the lightning bolts.
2. A highligh on the leg was the next culprit - I had missed a key blend.
3. When I was gluing the figure to the base, I must have smudged the red paint on the skull

Nothing too major to fix, just a bunch of niggling things that I might have missed otherwise.

I'm not sure macro photography is the most efficient way to go about things, but...

I guess the lesson here is:  always go over you work one way or another.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 17

I've been pretty run down and stressed out lately, but I was able to get into a nice, relaxing groove and bang some work out:

That's right guys, we're a day away.

Stay tuned!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 16

Sorry for the delay on today's post.  Though you didn't miss much - I was struck down by some eye strain.

Though I did paint a bit just to say I made progress.

A red lens and the chipping. Weee.  Though stay tuned for later today - things got interesting!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 15

Nothing to magical about yesterday's progress - just the highlighting on the remaining arm, some minor corrections on the body and some normalization on the highlighting.

I've had kind of a rough day today - not a bad day, just tiring.  I'm also into the midpoint of my week where my schedule gets shitty.  I think it's entirely likely that I'll take a day off from Tyberos.  I've got a supplemental planned so it wont be a day without Lauby.

Which is just as well, those Japanese pikemen that have been amassing near my boarder aren't going to strategically bomb themselves. God, Civ V is fun.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 14

Here we are at the two week mark.  It's been a fun experiment for me so far.  The day by day tracking has really kept me focused.  Plus, it turns out the format is great for educational purposes (thanks, SinSynn!).

I think there's a good chance I'll do more of this kind of stuff with that in mind.  I've always wanted to use this blog for teaching as much as the other stuff.  I think I may have finally stumbled onto a way to make that happen.

Yesterday was another productive day all things considered - Special Lady Friend got a ride to the airport,  Ma and Pa Lauby sent some enablers gift cards in the mail and then there was the shopping and the beer.

Despite the odds, the main body segment is done.  Here are the WIPs.

all the gold trim is done

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 13

A day off from work is a day where I can make some progress.  I'm aiming to have the main body finished soon.

Since it was kind of a busy day, here are the WIPs:

Shading (Note: I shaded the other arm too)

Highlighting and touch ups

Chipping, a little blood spatter and some of the non-gold metallics done.

Looks like I was also able to match the gray's pretty well too.  The next step is to get the golds, the skulls and that little chest symbol done.  Then I think it might be video game time!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 12

Right, so I ended up taking the risk and went ahead and finished the arm I was working on.

What risk?  The risk that I'll have a hard time making the rest of the model match the completed arm.  Why'd I do it?  Lets just say that I don't have as much confidence in my own ability to 'just go with it' as I'd like.

Though I did get my camera sorted out a bit better this time:

Well, there we are.  I'm off to work on the rest of the model after a quick snack.  Since I plan on making a ton of progress, I'll be sure to get some WIP's as I go along.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 11

We're coming up on the two week mark - eeeee!

Though with any luck this bad mamma-jamma will be done by Sunday.  Double eeee!

I got the last little bit of experimentation and color finalizing done last night. 

same bit of paper from yesterday - no with extra color experiments

Because I'm working on one part of the model in isolation (which, granted, is a bit odd and seemingly counterproductive), I'm keeping the old sheets of tracing paper on the off chance I may need them for color reference.  I'm also taking copious notes on recipes as well.  One of the dangers of working on one bit separately is that you always run the risk of it not 'matching'.  I aim to minimize that as completely as possible.  It helps that my color choices aren't all that complex.  So does the fact that some of my recipes are old standbys.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 10

The pics from this post will look suspiciously like yesterday's.  Such is life.  Monday - Wednesday, I can only put about an hour/hour and a half in due to time constraints.  I'm trying to be productive as possible and do all the little things that'll slow me down come this weekend.

Like color tests.

Last night I got the silver metallics figured out (nothing too fancy) and dicked around with a color test for the rippy claws (the beastman axe).

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 9

I got a lot done yesterday in the sense that I made a bunch of important decisions and got a successful proof of concept done on my recipe for gray.  Hell, I even nailed down the chipping effect on the armor.

But not enough work has been done on the one part that I worked on to make me get out my light box

As I've said, free time in the middle of the week is at a premium.  Though I will probably be finding some time to shoe horn in some prep work an an Eldrad Ulthran model while I kill the two dead hours (3 days a week) that arise from only having one car for two people.

No close ups, but here's a shot of my work area and the wet palette I was doing color tests on:

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 8

I had planned to get more done than I did, but all too frequently, I just don't have the time/energy to completely devote myself to painting after I get home from work.  Though I always try to get at least a little bit done so that I'm at least making some progress, not mater how minor. 

So as a heads up - the next few days are gonna be a bit lame.

A failed experiment with oil paint and my acquisition of the OnG army book didn't help either.

On the plus side, the base is done:

pictures still 'off' somehow - I have it narrowed down to a camera setting issue

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 7

Due to scheduling weirdness at work thanks to Spring Break, I only ended up with one day off this week.  But I sure as hell made the most of it.

I got some pseudo color modulation done on the figure itself - important but uninteresting.  So no pics.

However, I completely killed the base.  Once the water effect dries, all I have to do is glue the two halves together and its ready for a Terminator to stand on it.

I started out with the top plate due to time constraints and the noise rules of my apartment complex.

The Massive Voodoo tutorials I linked to yesterday were put to good use:

this picture is a bit washed out.

I'm actually really proud of this.  Though there's a stray metallic paint brush stroke that I just discovered is bothering me.  Easily fixable.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 6

Back on track - no problems last night.  Just some nice, although incremental, progress.

Tyberos FINALLY got his base coat on.  P3 Bastion Gray - my favorite gray EVAR!  Possible my favorite miniature paint color as well.  Which I know makes me a bit lame... especially once you know that a couple of browns are duking out for second place...  maybe I'm not as interesting as previously thought.

This Tyberos project and even just the Space Sharks (Carcharadons) in general gave me a little bit of a squee when it dawned on me that I had an excuse to paint a whole army with Bastion Gray.  Though sanity and WHFB have been nagging at me for some time so it may be that Tyberos sits in the case alone.  Like a BOSS, however.  Non of this 'forever alone' crap.

This is where I wanted to be a day ago.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 5

So far, I've been writing these posts about the previous day's work.  So by the time tomorrow's post goes up, the progress in this post is over a day old.  Just thought I'd mention that.

Right... so last night was a bit of a motherfucker as I lost about a day's worth of progress on the model itself.  Or at least a few hours of work and a day's worth of waiting (thanks to my work schedule).  It turned out that my primer coat had fuzzed on me and i was back to the Simple Green bath.  This made it very hard to maintain the 'keep on happy painting' vibe the Massive Voodoo guys are into.

aaaaand it turns out that most of the pictures I took last night were garbage.  Except this one:

Luckily for me, things resolved nicely so no ashes to sift through.  Plus I got a nice, fat educational moment to play with.

For me, there were a number of lessons I learned or at least had reinforced by the experience.  Some things I think have a great deal of value as far as improving the knowledge of other people who maybe aren't quite as into the whole painting thing as I am.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Day 4

All right, now I'm starting to get into the part of the project where it actually looks like I'm making progress.

The putty filling on the actual model turned out really well - there's only one section I wasn't completely happy about - but there's not too much I can do about.  Thankfully, the flaw is in an out of the way place that won't be seen too much.  But would definitely harm my chances at a serious painting contest.  Good thing I paint mostly for myself.

After some sanding and general clean up, the model gets some black primer and gets to warm the bench for the next 24 hours.

most exciting picture ever.

A note on my system:  You'll notice that all the parts have a nice little section of wire sticking out of them.   This is a nice little two for one deal - when I trim them down it'll be a pin and before that happens, its a great handle so I can stick the piece in a hemostat for painting.  With models like this I usually paint the individual parts before assembly.  There's a lot of detail here and I plan on using an airbrush to get the base coat down.  basically, I get better access to all those hard to reach areas.  Once the bits are ready for assembly, I'll scrap the paint off the joints and assemble just before I seal.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Day 3

Incremental progress, FTW!

I have to apologize to anyone reading this at this stage of the project.  The early, early prep stages are the most boring.  It's basically just a bunch of waiting around for putty to dry.  Lame.

In particular, I'm waiting for Apoxie Sculpt to dry.   A nice and cheaply available 2 part epoxy clay.

Last time, I spent an almost undue amount of time bitching about mold lines and casting flaws.  Time to fix them.  Lots of people will say that green stuff is the way to go.  For organic shapes, I tend to agree.  However, green stuff sucks rocks for anything that's supposed to be flat/manmade.  Green stuff doesn't hold an edge like you'd hope it would and isn't sand-able.  So with gaps and flaws in large, falt areas and along hard lines, green stuff is pretty awful.  Mostly because it's really hard to get it so that the fix is flush with the surface.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Days 1 and 2

It's been a while since I've done anything that remotely showcases the kind of painting and modeling stuff I'm into.  It's been post after post of empty words.  Bah!  This isn't LiveJournal, you chumpasaurus!

To get back in the spirit if Laubersheimer Industries past, I'm going to be trying a bit of an experiment:  the day by day progress on a model I plan on painting to a high standard of quality.

The Model in question is my man Tyberos, the Birfday Money Impulse Purchase Red Wake.

My Eldar are almost at their fighting wake and I'm staring down 32 Khorne Dogs so the time is right.

Excruciating detail, HO!