Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 3

OK, so I finished the two stratagem. It was not a task without challenges.

First, I tossed the fossil Sculpey into the oven (275 degrees F for 15 minutes). Big mistake. (clicky for biggie)

>Sigh< While the Carnifex skull survived, the plastic of the base did not. Luckily, the Sculpey had set prior to the base literally melting down. A bit of red that I had experimented with on the skull bled through, but it was no big deal. I had one last large base.

 So, to recap, a small bit of Sculpey, an oyster half-shell, tiny crab claw, half of a carnifex skull, and 4 pieces of aquarium gravel (along ith two bases) makes this mess. Obvious mistakes here are all remedied at the  paint/finish stage.

I didn't take a lot of pictures from this point on because my hands were sandy...a very dangerous thing  for a DSLR. So the following steps were taken:

1) Wash Sculpey with a thinned Graveyard Earth.
2) Apply PVA glue (thinned with water) to all Sculpey areas.
3) Reach over to the hermit crab cage and grab a handful of very dry sand...and probaby a bit of crab detritus. Apply to glued areas, shake off excess.
4) Wash the sand with Badab Black wash, then, after it fully dries to set the sand, dry brush with Bleached Bone, Graveyard Earth, and White.
5) Drill the recesses of the skull to make the carni skull a bit more skull like. Paint the claw and skull with black and then white.
6) Dry brush the shell and gravel with white, black, and Gore Red.
And voila!

Oh, those archaeological signal beacons? They're finishing nails with red LEDs glued on top and little yellow and black paint. It was sort of an afterthought after I saw how muted it was overall. I also used a little more Badab Black wash around the skull to create a bit more contrast. (Click below to enlarge)

Oh, and the spiral shells? (Click to enlarge)

The ground cover on this one is yet more crab bedding...I think it's shredded coconut.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 3

A little more progress last evening. I am waiting for a conference call to start, so I thought I post a bit more progress.

So here we have the aforementioned oyster shell, crab claw, and half of an intentionally damaged carnifex skull. I thought I'd try Sculpey over green stuff, since I'm still working on how I want it to look. What I'm wondering, however, is whether the plastic will melt when I put the Sculpey in the oven to set. I guess we'll see.

These spiral shells have been painted primed black, painted, and dry brushed. The colors are all variations of Liche Purple. They are going to be part of a second stratagem. The tips are not painted because a) they are going to be embedded, and b) that's where I was holding the piece.

Next, I am going to bake the Sculpey and see if I ruin a perfectly good large base.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 2

Not a lot of progress tonight due to work issues. I primed some of the shells:

You can see that I've chosen 3 oyster shell halves, a little crab claw, 5 broken spiral shells, a piece of a sand dollar skeleton, and a neat little shell piece with a few barnacles.

I did a coat of white on the skull and claw and did an initial layout, but it doesn't look quite right. More tomorrow.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem Pt1

In WH40k, a stratagem is a token that represents some sort of objective in the game. In the venerable Space Hulk, there is the corpse of a space marine sitting on some sort of throne...very cool. Other stratagem are a bit more mundane: a pile of ammo, a drainage pipe, a small artifact, wreckage, etc.

These are Tyranid stratagem from the awesome warpshadow.com. A lot of gamers apparently use things like bottle caps and matchbooks, while obsessive gamers detail their little counters to museum quality.

So I was looking around my office last night, just cleaning up and watching Adult Swim, when I came upon a box full of shells that the kids collected when we went to Naples, Florida last year. They gathered a TON of shells, many of which were damaged, ugly, or both. Inspiration struck, and my plan is to use a large base and create a Carnifex fossil utilizing an extra head from the Carnifex I just completed (there were 6) and some of the shells that looked alien. There was even a little mutant crab claw in the box! The genetic material in this fossil would be incredibly valuable to interested factions - Eldar and the Xeno-haters, most likely - so this fossil as a stratagem makes a bit of sense, at least.

More this evening as I get cranked up on this.