I talk my way through the process of building, problem solving, painting, adding new details and more painting and basically muddle my way through. This was typed up on a nightly basis, so it may change tenses during the article, so apologies. You can see a 99% finished model at the end!
I had a pretty clear vision from the start of this project: I wanted to use LEDs to create a glowing pool, and have fibre optic cable running from some more LEDs to look like fairy lights twinkling in a willow tree.
There was obviously a lot of preparation work needed before I would be able to realise these aspects of the project, let alone create a piece that would actually look good, and not just like a gimmick. The first step was figuring out how to use LEDs!
I did a bit of research on how exactly to wire LEDs and so on, and realised that it was probably a little out of my depth. I was running on a schedule and this made things a little more difficult. So I made the call to purchase some pre wired LED setups from a company called Powered Play. They are expensive, but they are ready to use straight away. They arrived with a number of different light options.
The next step was figuring out the specifics of the base, where each component would sit, and so on. I drew a little sketch and once I had that idea in my mind, I went down to Bunnings to purchase a PVC pipe end to use for the base. I picked this because I knew I would need some space inside for the 9V battery, wiring and whatever else needed to be in there. I used my Dremel to cut some holes, added some cork, and made a plasticard "pool".
You can see I've already started adding some rocks, twigs and the tube where my LEDs will run up inside the tree I will sculpt. I am not worried too much about the exact textures right now, just creating the shapes that will eventually make up the final base. One other idea I had at this point was to have a second, smaller pool sitting up the top, also lit from the LEDs. Exact specifics yet to come on how this would occur, but the important thing during my process is that I let myself go crazy when I have a cool idea.
I began sculpting some of the rock face, using Milliput. I realised at this point that I wanted to create more depth, having some things to look inside as well as the surface areas. I cut some holes out of the top area, not really having any idea what I would do with them. I also decided at this point, yes, a waterfall was a great idea!
Began adding more volume, decided I wanted to have a little pathway running down from the top section down to the pool itself. I figured since this was a fairy world that some floating rocks would look quite cool, although certainly not the first time anyone has done that concept, it wasn't the main focus and would just be another little addition. I created the first floating rock, a larger one, that the rest could be attached too.
Here you can see some of the tiles for the little walkway being added, and more of the floating rocks being attached. I use a Vallejo Sandy Paste, and a Liquitex Sand Gel to add dirt. I used to use sand, but as I get more invested into the display piece side of painting I have realised that the scale of the sand is all wrong. Although it drybrushes up well, it does not look good for these sorts of pieces, so I use the sandy paste to create a texture that I can work with.
At this point I figured I should probably do a test run of the LEDs, and began feeding them into the holes I had left for them. Moment of truth...
The glow was pretty full on! I realised I would probably need to diffuse the light slightly, otherwise it would be taking all the focus of the model, instead of being a fun little aspect of the piece. It did look super cool though.. LOL
I glued in the LEDs, added some sand in the base of the pool, and began adding vines to some of the rock face. The overall shape of the piece is beginning to take shape now, and I feel like I could be onto to something quite cool. Still a lot of work left to go of course! Here is a Lizardman model to give you an idea of the scale! (Incidentally, I am supposed to paint up that Lizardman model for my best man as a gift for the wedding!)
Now in my travels over the internet, and over the last few months I have accumulated lots of cool little add on bits and pieces I have purchased to use on projects when I feel inspired. This particular piece I had a few things in mind that I was going to use out of my bits box...
Mushrooms and froggos! The mushrooms are a beautiful little resin kit from Blacksmith Miniatures, and the frog is actually a piece I cast off from a Troll bust from MJ Miniatures. The frog wasn't going to sit there, I wanted him to sit on the rock on the right hand side of the piece, just being a little fat shit.
Here at this point I sat back and had a good look at how the model was shaping up. I really, really liked the round shape of it, how it tapered down. I felt like I would try and reinforce that shape as I constructed the tree, trying to keep it quite round. I obviously planned on adding a lot of foliage and texture to the base, so I didn't need to go much further than this with adding details, but I was beginning to stall at this point... because I didn't have the focal point of the piece yet! I was waiting on the model that would sit above the Enchanted Pool to arrive, Sina and the Knight by Aradia Miniatures.
In the meantime, I mucked around with the stupid frog. I usually feed my ideas through my Twitter, but this time I was relying upon my loyal OzMachine bros, and Leeps suggested sticking the frog out of the bigger hole. I wasn't convinced, but I tried it out... and fell in love. LOL! I hung him a little further out, and added a little hand sticking out as well, and viola. It was a fun little addition, adding more cool things to look at. One initially unseen factor of this was where the froggos head was placed... right in the path of the waterfall... looks like my frog is going to get a little wet!
I got to this stage and I really was stalling, because I did not have the model! I decided to part undercoat the areas I felt were finished, and keep the positive energy and creative enthusiasm rolling along. Was another opportunity to see how the model shaped up with the lighting! The darker surrounds as opposed to the white reflective plasticard made the glow a lot more subtle, so less concerning. It will only need a little diffusing! Started laying down some basic browns, and began construction of the larger tree. I didn't want to progress too far with the construction because I didn't know exactly how much shape the turtle would take up, but I ran three LEDs up the trunk and glued the basic construction in place.
After a number of days, I finally managed to obtain the model that would be the centrepiece of this whole shebang! And.. it was way bigger than I expected! LOL
I trimmed the beautiful log that I had put up the back, and put it over the other side, purely to get the texture and shape on the piece somewhere! I added a few more mushrooms and began adding the sand.
I sculpted the back of the model, adding the rocks and covering up all the crap. The whole model base was starting to reach the finishing stages. Another quick lighting test... :)
Time to build a tree! I've done quite a few recently, and I've tried a lot of ways. I have added bark, I've tried sculpting the texture, and I've tried using twigs to make up the framework. I decided to try a combination of a few of these ideas, I wanted to use larger twigs to create the upper branches, and sculpt some texture on the main trunk. I found some cool seed pods, and attached them to the twigs. The bark on the tree came from milliput/green stuff mixed, moistened and smoothed with water, and then ran a piece of twig up and down it.
I also tucked one of my three LEDs from the tree into a seed pod...
I left that to dry and set to work filling some gaps on the model itself. The actual turle was fine, the connection between turtle and riders is not great but I've left that until after I've painted the two pieces separately. But the riders had a lot of gaps, a lot of pieces with interesting connections, and I was forced to add a fair few sections of GS to make it all match up.
And before you know it (well, not really, but for the purposes of this article, it happened in like twenty seconds), we are ready to start undercoating!
I went back in with the airbrush, adding a lot more colour to the base, and tried not to worry too much about areas I had already worked on a little bit. I then went over the whole lot with some washes and got everything a little more dirty looking and harmonised.
Now, my biggest weakness as a hobbyist (outside of a glaring lack of skill) is my impatience. I love gluing things together that really shouldn't be glued yet, because I love that sense of completion that stage brings. However, this time I really felt like this whole base needed to be worked on as a complete piece, not just stage by stage. It's not really the way I work best, but for this model it felt like the best way for it to be constructed.
I began by adding some colours to the areas that would have colours, and just blocked in a bit more on the rocks.
And once that was done, I started gluing down plants! I have a huge collection of interesting tufts, plants, flowers, grass, leaves and so on that I basically scattered randomly about.
Once that was dried, it was time to sort out the last of the technical LED placement things, I glued down the wiring underneath, fixing up the placement of the motherboard, made a little battery holder, and then also added the first layer of gel to diffuse the lighting to the LEDs in the pools.
I set them all aside, ready to dry, and be worked on more later on. That also marked the last part of the sculpting and assembling part of the model, outside of gluing down the finished piece, so I was noticeably excited at this point. Time to get down to the really important stage, the painting of the core model, the main focal point of the piece! I felt like this was the next step as the colours on it would help inform how much more or less saturation the base needed to have.
So time to try painting old mate turtle. Or at least, get started on some colour concepts for him! The base you can see has a pretty strong colour contrast going on between the blue mushrooms, and the blue LED, and the orange flowers and scatter. This is intentional! I want to work with these two colours predominantly as my scheme, but for the fairies themselves, I want to go pretty crazy with lots of different variations of blue and orange.
However, to start with some base tones on the turtle I wanted to start with green and brown, normal turtle colours. I figure the turtle guy is just a normal turtle dude, hanging around getting ridden by fairies on occasion. I start with Hull Red and P3 Orange on the shell, and a mix of several different greens for the skin. I shade with both Hull Red and DSB, and highlight with a bit of orange. These are just the basecoats for the moment, trying to get an idea on where I am going with it.
In the meantime, I start pouring my first layer of envirotex. I wanted to diffuse the brightness of the LED so I started by mixing in a bit of ink with the first layer to soften the glow. I tested out old mate turtle and I enjoyed the colours. Once those colours were highlighted, I felt like they would pop from the base a good amount, keeping the focus where it needed to be. Painted froggo too.
At this point the tree was becoming a problem. I was actually thinking an iron grey initially but the colour just didnt fit in with the autumn palette that was going on, so I opted for a more traditional brown, but threw in some purples in the shadows as well. That was airbrushed relatively quickly, then drybrushed and washed a few times with various colours.
I painted the seed pod things in a brighter orange, again to tie it all together.
I have been working quite erratically on this project, jumping from task to task and I think it is working out quite well for me so far, I am remaining engaged with the various different things. Doing the water, and landing some water on froggos head from a waterfall seemed like a fun thing to try. I have a few different techniques for creating water and water effects. In this instance the melted plastic idea seemed like the best way to get interesting shapes for the flowing water.
I glued the first few layers down, and added the gel. I also create a splash effect at the water below the froggo, and also tried to cover up the LED a little more, since the glow was still too powerful. I added some leaves and arranged them to look like a lillypad, but submerged. I kept working on the flowing water, but at this stage I am not ultra happy with it.
Painting the tree was not going to be as simple as what I had already done, but I was beginning to feel like I should not be wasting time painting shit that I was going to cover up anyway. So I decided to glue down vines and dosh across the tree so when I did highlight it, I was only doing the areas that mattered.
Back to working on mr Turtle, although this night I didn't have a lot of time so I just started exploring some more blue tones and adding some interesting colours. I also airbrushed the basecoats of the skin on the fairies.
I went back in with the brush and started putting some more colours into the skin of the fairies. It was a tricky balance, trying to keep the skin looking a little pale and unnatural, but also creating some interest. I ended up going for some blueish tones in the skin, and tried to remember that my main areas of light would be the tree, and a little bit from underneath. Here is the first few stages of paintwork on the skin.
As you can see I have tried to reflect the fact that the model will be lit from below by blue LED light, before it even gets turned on! This is just a very early colour concept, and before I went any further, I needed to block in some of the other colours to see how it would work with the base I had already done.
My first idea was to go for a bright orange for the pants, to tie it in with the base I had already used very warm colours on. But immediately I realised the red was just too saturated, and really didn't feel right. I decided to switch it up, and try a purple. I didn't originally plan on using purple on this model, but I felt like the same colours as the base might not work quite right.
I still wasn't sure. I liked the way the purple sat beside the green, but I really didn't enjoy the overall coolness of all the colours. Something again about it was not quite feeling right. I decided to push on with painting the green leaves on the headdress and make sure I maintained some forward momentum on the piece. I then started on the brown leather bits and bobs.
I changed the hair colour to better fit in with the purple, to an orange tone. I did some funny stripes and streaks to represent a reflective surface for the glasses.
I took a look at the waterfall I had done. Although the plastic I had done for the splash looked really good, the rest of the waterfall had not come out as well as I had hoped. I had added a little white foam into the clear gel, and it didn't really look right. I decided I had to try again, and I went to option number two for waterfalls: fishing line.
Clear fishing line, glued from the rock face, down to the splash, glued together in a few points. I then painted the Vallejo gel over the top of that. I was able to have a much more flowing stream that looked more natural, although it missed little froggo with the splash now.
I had a bit more time to reflect on the colours of the fairies. The problem was, the colour of the base was quite saturated, even though I had tried to keep it a little down. The model needed to stand out more from that. But the colours I was choosing made it look discordant and jarring, so I had to think a little differently.
The other issue was the subject matter itself: Fairies. They are kind of ephemeral, whimsical creatures, and I looked at some artwork for inspiration:
The colours were generally a pastel colour. I figured that the problem with pastel would be that naturally it would be a lot less saturated, meaning it would tend to recede. So I had to strike a balance!
Here was the first attempt.
And surprisingly, I actually really enjoyed it. I felt like it played nicely with the pale skin, and still had a lot of vibrancy. I decided to try and emulate that piece of artwork on the lady.
I went back and checked on the waterfall, and was immediately much much happier with the result.
You can see that old mate froggo lost a little bit of skin when I peel away the old waterfall, which is something I will need to correct before adding the final splash elements to the waterfall.
Something about the blue hair felt forced, like I was trying to tie it in with the base on purpose without having a good reason. So I tried red hair for Sina, and also shifted the hair on the Knight to be a sandy blond. I noticed that there was a strange leaf in the centre of the Knights head, and figured I might drill it out and stick one of my pre made flowers in there, again focusing on tying things together and keeping everything a unified whole. It worked out well!
Time for a test fit. This is the first time in the process of painting that I have put everything together, and for me it is an important process to continually check back and see how the model completes on the base.
I am really loving the lilac clothing. It works for me. I want to reflect that colour in the base a little more, and the obvious fix is adding some purple mushrooms on there. I also have reached a point on Sina where I feel like I can actually glue them to the turtle. There is a few gaps that need filling and before I reach a completed paint stage on either of them I need to do that. So, here is the next photo showing exactly that, the fairies glued down to the turtle, the gaps filled and a few purple mushrooms added, although I want to add a few more splashes of purple to the base yet.
I began working a bit more on the shell of the turtle, covering up the gaps I had just filled, and starting to add some more highlights and shading. The colours I've used for this model I've tried to keep in the orange or blue spectrum, so the green has a lot of blue tones, the purple has more blue than red, and so on. The shell is the same, shading with the ubiquitous DSB, Hull Red and P3 Orange mixed together. I also started the process of highlighting the turtles skin, mixing in a lot of yellows and creating some stippling textures in there.
Once I added the skin tones, I realised that my initial plan of using the same coloured scales on his skin as the shell just would look a little too drab. It is supposed to be a fairy turtle thing, so it needed more colour! I figured to help tie back into the mushrooms, since I had removed the blue from the models themselves that the blue would work. I tried it out:
I wasn't convinced, but I also wasn't really dissuaded either. I felt like I needed to add more saturation and highlight everything up to the same sort of level to really see how it all looked together. So I pushed through and got the blue to a point where I actually really enjoyed how it came out!
I actually started to see the model coming to life now. It is amazing the impact of these last few stages of highlighting, of really adding the lighting and watching the colours start to pop out. I was pretty happy with it, and when I put it beside the base, it was all really looking good together, harmonious and unified, whilst the model was still popping out more. Put a bit more time into the shell, adding that same level of highlighting, and putting a few different colours in there as well.
I gave the turtle a varnish, and moved back to the base. I wanted to start getting a firmer idea of how the whole piece would look a a single entity, as opposed to just the two seperate sections. I needed the tree finished off, with the colours all painted on to know exactly where the turtle and his bros would sit on the base.
I was still waiting for the materials I planned on using for my foliage, so I switched back to the waterfall for a bit, adding some more size to the water with the gel, and adding some more splashes. This is not a new technique, I have blatantly copied from one of the people I am most inspired by, David Soper from Sprokets Small World. I got some tiny clear fishing line, glued it in place, added a tiny bit of vallejo gel and then added a microbead on the end. I did this in a few areas up the top of the waterfall, and I started down the bottom but I had to go. I will add a few more later, but here is the progress so far.
Finally after a long delay I was forced to go to a different supplier for the product I was using for my foliage. Again, another not original technique, this one is by Raffa at Massive Voodoo, using a christmas decoration called angel hair to create hanging foliage.
You first glue some of the angel hair to a section of wire or whatever, then run slightly watered down pva glue over it with your fingers. Once this has dried, you can airbrush it and glue it on. I started experimenting with this idea:
So whilst I liked quite a few aspects of this technique, it did not quite look perfect to me. The colour on that piece is too saturated at the moment, but as this was just a test run, I figured I could easily adapt it.
I needed a bit more texture on it, so I used the same dosh that I had put on the base, and added it to some of the strands. I felt like, again, I needed to work on it at one time, rather than individual strands getting painted and then just stuck on. So I decided I would airbrush them on the model after glueing them all down. Which meant that the next step was actually to add in my fibre optics!
The plan from the start has always been to have weird glowing dots in the tree, representing fairies as the caper around the willow tree. The pool glowing, the tree twinkling, it is all happening. So to do this I need to attach the fibre optics with superglue to the LED, then run the cable out through the foliage and glue it to a few strands, then trim it as the very last stage, so just the edge is visible out of the foliage. I glued down 10 different cables to the front LED.
Another lighting test, very exciting. I feel like if I can pull this off it is going to look, well, magic! So I began adding some of the strands of angel hair to the tree, working back into them, trimming, adding texture, so on, back and for until I had reached this:
Whilst I certainly dont hate it, I think the strands are too large, and the height of the strands needs to vary more. In nature, you dont get the straight ends, you have a lot more natural variation. I need to somehow add that, and add some smaller, more fine strands of detail.
The funny thing was, at this point I had a look at the model and realised a massive, massive flaw in the whole piece. I had highlighted the model based on the light source being the tree itself, which was consistent with the LEDs and so on. But, when I put down that foliage, the best and most saturated areas were mostly hidden by the foliage. The "front" of the model looked, well, average. I went to bed feeling a little despondent about it all.
After I slept on the willow fronds, I got up and had another look, and felt pretty disappointed in the overall look. The rest of the model has lots of tiny little details, intricate but also subtle. These hanging fronds were anything but little, or subtle. They ruined the whole piece. It was a real shame, because I imagined the tree from the start as a willow tree. I decided to go for a more traditional tree, and I used a product from a company called JOEFIX to expand the foliage. During this point I figured, since I was changing the tree significantly, might as well change the turtles position so that I opened up the nicely painted areas. I would need to resculpt a few rocks, add more foliage and things to some areas and remove a mushroom, but suddenly the front of the piece actually looked good.
The first stage was to glue these foliage pieces to the current structure of the tree. They have very natural shapes, but they do not have a lot of volume. So the next step was to add more texture and volume to the final structure. I sprayed thinned PVA over the trees, and sprinkled oregano and fine flock over it. I did this a few times to build up the layers. I covered up the other areas obviously so I would not ruin the work I had done. I then ran some varnish and shades of orange through the airbrush to seal everything together. Once it dried I spread a bit more colour around, adding a bit more natural variation, until it started to look pretty good.
Trying to tie the base in with the tree more, I decided to add some of the leaves that I had scattered on the ground onto the tree. I again sprayed PVA and sprinkled the leaves on. Once that dried, I added some more varnish, and a little bit more orange to tie things all together.
Moment of truth... I pulled everything apart and added the turtle back to the base in his new position.
Suddenly I could see the finish line! We still have a long way to go, but I have a base that needs a bit more painting, and a model that needs a bit more painting, and we can glue it together and bam, its done! Obviously it is a little more complex than that, but that is the sense of accomplishment I got from seeing the model like this.
I began adding in the shapes that would keep turtle mate with his feet on the ground, adding in a few more interesting twigs and rocks, filling in the gaps.
I painted and added the same flocking to these areas that I had on the rest of the model, and took a look at the base as a whole. Really starting to look like a finished base, but I want to try and elevate it to another level, so the last stage will be little details, like another layer of envirotex so the water level is accurate, adding a few more leaves and vines to the tree, and edge highlighting on areas to ensure that it has enough contrast and pop.
Back to the model again, I began bringing the value up on the right hand side of the model now, even though I have opened up the base a lot, I want the model to be a little more "complete", because currently the right hand side looks partly unfinished. Although it is slow going, things are starting to happen now. This guy needs the leaves finished, the girl needs a lot more work, and the turtle has some more shell highlights and adding some different colours and hues into it to create some variation.
I decided to add some foliage to the shell, and add some of that dosh to his headpiece. I figured it would add a lot to the model to have it on there, subtle but still trying to work things together.
I finally decided to paint mr Froggo at last, and hit him with a gloss varnish as well, so he glistened with wetness. That is an expression I did not expect to use in this particular context, I have to say.
One thing I noticed as I was putting some final touches to the base was one of the LED positions, the one on the far left, pointing out of the walnut thing, was utterly wasted! This little branch was being lit up by an LED, and nothing was on the branch... so I rooted around in my bits and found a little owl, from a Malifaux basing set (I think). I did a quick paint job, and glued him to the tree. Added a little branch nob for him to sit on, and voila, the LED shines on a little owl. The scale is all askew when you consider the frog and the turtle, but since this is fairy land, its all good I reckon. Here is an in the dark photo of the owl being lit up1
The base needed a few final touchups, highlighting mushrooms and edging some rocks, then making sure everything was properly sealed, before adding one more layer of envirotex to the water. I put that aside to set, and got back to working on the model. The biggest issues at the moment were Sina, the girl, and the leaves on the Knights head. I left the leaves, as honestly they've been giving me trouble from the start, and went back to Sina. I smoothed out the rough highlighting on her dress, I fixed up the issues with her hair, I filled in most of the little details on, leaving just some metallics on her and her bangles, her face, and her wings. I've been lightening the entire right side, adding more saturation to reduce the effect of the atmosphere lighting I was trying to achieve, but I still want a little sense of that so there is still a little blue on that side.
Here is the obligatory, all assembled photo, giving me an idea of how it all looks together, constantly trying to make sure the model is the focus of the piece.
One thing I noticed when adding some purple to Sina's face was her eyes. Honestly, they've bothered me for a while, but I just figured it was because I wasn't painting them right. As I got back to painting on her, I decided I needed to fill in the eyes and give me a chance to paint some more detailed eyes on her. So I pulled out the Milliput and filled them in, and left them to dry overnight.
Once I had a look at the eyes the next day, I was very pleased with the result. Whilst I am far from an experienced sculptor, I get by ok. This was pretty simple, making sure they were smooth and trying to leave a small line for an under eyelid and above eyelid. I painted them with very little problem, and then did some more touch ups on her face.
The wings had been something I had not really considered to be honest. I entertained an idea of maybe trying to recreate them out of a clear plastic, or a mold of some kind using the envirotex, but honestly that was never going to be something I wanted to try on this project. So when it came time to actually paint them, I sort of winged it... pun intended. :) I slapped white with the airbrush, then some purple glazing also with the airbrush. I then pulled off the masking and found I had done a shit masking job. Possibly the most frustrating experience ever? Easy enough to fix, but still, annoying as shit. You can see an example of this on the bag.
Anyway, I fixed up those areas, and added some cross hatching onto the wings and softened out the white with some more white. I then began finishing off the little bits and pieces that I had left, adding some proper hand textures, adding some metallics after a matt varnish to seal all the blends together, etc. Excuse the giant finger.
And with that, I called it quits on the painting of the model! Time to give it all a test fit!
Wow, what a mammoth project. I want to do up a small plaque for the front, and maybe just make a few tiny more adjustments here and there, but on the whole I feel like this is a completed project! It has been a lot of work over a few weeks, but I think it is close to the best project I've done (although possibly not the best painting, I think maybe I've painted a few pieces slightly more technically and better).
I know I am far from the worlds best miniature painter, sculptor or hobbyist, but this project has given me a sense that anything is achievable. My miniature painting mentor told me many years ago that if I wanted to paint as well as him, all I needed was passion, perseverance and practice. After almost 6 months of serious miniature painting, I can see how practice has evolved my painting and I am excited to see where I will be in another 6 months. Without perseverance I would not have finished any of the many projects I have started, because as you've seen throughout this process, there are always setbacks, challenges and problems that need to be thought around, solved or bypassed. I know that some people like to plan everything out down to the smallest details, but to me that feels like you would lose a little bit of soul and heart from it. I find my joy in painting, much like Bob Ross, comes from happy little accidents. Sometimes you just stumble upon things during the process that were unintended and yet they become some of the best aspects of a model. And finally, passion. Without passion, why would you bother painting at all? I am so passionate about what I do, that it often causes problems with my significant other, because I spend almost every spare second I have painting, thinking about painting or wishing I was painting. LOL
Thanks for following along with the blog, and for reading through this mammoth step by step. I hope it has provided some insights into how I tackle a project and gives you the motivation to try something like this. Wish me luck for the Crystal Dragon at Cancon!
Wow, wonderful! Is this for sale?
ReplyDeleteHey mate,
DeleteUnfortunately I sold this piece at Cancon on the weekend just gone!
All my models are up for sale here:
http://bigdenopaints.blogspot.com.au/p/models-for-sale.html
So if there is anything else you want, shoot me a reply or a message on Facebook.
Thanks!