Two Night Challenge - Reaper Bones Isabeau Laroche (Female Paladin)

So I feel like I've been neglecting my blog a bit so I am going to compensate a bit by doing a single Reaper Bones miniature in two nights.  For this challenge I chose Isabeau Laroche, female paladin.

The first step (as with any miniature I do) is to clean off any mold lines and degrease it.  This is especially important with plastic miniatures like this one so that the paint sticks better.  Bones do not require application of a primer.  Normally I would prime regardless on these with a 50/50 mix of black and white brush-on primer, but in the interest of time I will skip that and proceed with basecoating.

My strategy for the basecoating is to simply block out all the individual parts with the basic colors.  For that I've chosen RMS HD Twilight Purple for the cloak, RMS Tanned Leather (tabard and other dangling cloth), RMS Russet Brown (vest, gloves, and hair), and VGC Cold Grey for all the bits that will be metal.  I also used RMS Muddy Soil to cover all the dark areas that will be hard to reach and to create some initial outlining.  This is the result:

With the basic colors established I go through the process of shading and highlighting.  I do the skin and hair first.  After that I do the cloak and the rest of the cloth parts.  Finally, I finish off the metal bits and other small details.

The shield has a very large blank area so it needs to have something on it to keep it interesting.  Isabeau Laroche is a French name, so I've chosen the fleur de lis for the basic design of the freehand.

All said and done, this is what I have after two days:

 

 

There's still A LOT left for me to do.  The blending on NMM needs  to be cleaned up, there are 3 gems (2 on the sword and one on the shield) that need to be painted, and there is still the detail on her chest/abdomen that I have yet to do much with.  I also want to go back and give a bit more depth to the fleur de lis on her shield so that it's not just a flat 2D pattern.  But for 2 nights worth of effort, this is ok.

Building a Better Police Box (Part 2 - Creating the Master Plan)

I went in and replaced all the real world measurements on the diagram I found with the scale millimeter measurements I calculated and came up with this:

So working with this I start laying out the basic build of the box itself.  When I did this before I simply constructed a rectangular box and then built around that.  This time, I am going to take a different approach.

To help me visualize the design in 3D, I'm using a program called SketchUp Make (formerly Google SketchUp and now owned by Trimble).  I start with the basic box construction which will look something like this:

Note, the 21mm x 21mm square sheet on the top actually extends over the dimensions of the inner box.  The panel assembly will fit into that section and will be flush with that part.



 

The next part of the assembly (which will probably be the most time consuming) will be the panels.  There will be four of them with the following design:

 

Another somewhat involved part will be the headers.  I first created a "T" block in SketchUp and then drew in lines to indicate how the individual pieces will fit together:

 

The roof will be a bit tricky because I have to cut angled pieces.  All 4 of the roof sides will be cut as trapizoids and will slant up to the central column as shown here:

 

Fully assembled, the model will look something like this:

 

 

As a sanity check to make sure I got scale correct, I put in a couple of reference objects in the model (the 4th Doctor scaled to 32mm in height and a quarter which is ~24.17mm in diameter):

 



 

 

Yes, I know... this is going to be DAMN SMALL!

 

I still need to figure out what I am doing for the lamp on top as well as the other details (windows, door handle, etc.).  But for the most part, the design is mostly complete and I can start in on this as soon as I get the materials which SHOULD be in the next week.



Super Dungeon Explore - Starfire (Part 4)

Ok I'm FINALLY done!  Here some pictures I took of the finished product in my makeshift lightbox:

So rather than go with the VGC Fire Orange, I decided to use RMS Phoenix Red followed by RMS Fire Orange.  These models aren't particularly detailed which actually gives painters some opportunities to add detail in.  In this case, I stippled in both RMS Fire Orange and RMS Buckskin Pale in an attempt to hint at a scale texture.  I also used gloss varnish over the eyes and in the mouth to give those bits a bit of a wet look.

I could have done A LOT more.  I could have removed all the mold lines, gone much thinner on the paint in general, and maybe put some reflected highlights underneath.  At this point, however,  I feel it's at the target quality level I was going for.

Now on to something else!