Twisted Urkin Bloodrage Shaman: Mammoth Part 1

It has been a while since my last blog post!

There is a good reason for that.  I went away for a week to Melbourne and while I was there my usual painting while travelling didn't come together.  The lighting was terrible and I couldn't get excited when the colours were so inaccurate to my eye.  I did some small stuff but by the end of the week I really lost motivation for it.

I came home really excited to see my fiance and we headed up to the beach for a few days, with my family.  It was a great way to unwind.  Another thing I had agreed upon with her was that I would take some time off painting.  I do spend a shitload of time painting, researching techniques, model ideas, purchasing bits and bobs and just fucking around really.  So I promised her a week of no painting.  We played some computer games together (she recently got into WoW and I have been dabbling a bit also), and after the week ended I didn't really feel like picking back up.

So I stalled.  I left the table for a bit.  I finished off the Beastman but I was unhappy with the model after the Melbourne fail and so I didn't end up enjoying it much.  I started mucking around with the present for my Best Man at my wedding which is getting quite close now, a Skink Shaman from the Warhammer universe.

But I still felt myself struggling a bit.

In the end it came down to two things.  I have a commission job that I cannot get excited about right now, and I felt like I needed to cut some chaff, and clear things out of my desk to give myself a space that was more exciting, and less demonstrably fail filled thanks to all my incomplete projects (if only Knechty could see me now).

The moment I cleaned my desk, removed a lot of stuff that I was not excited about from my sight, I started getting more excited for painting.

The Skink started coming back together a bit, but I am not rushing the finished product there so I put it aside for a little bit.  Istill have the commission models but I know that painting them will be not great for my motivation so I pulled out a model that I think has been my most exciting in a while:  The Urkin Bloodrage Shaman from the Twisted Game.

This was my first attempt at putting together something interesting for this model.  It is different to how I normally approach a base, and you can see that it has a nice flow from the shape of the weapon down along the curve of the log.

I added some more detailing and put a tree on the base as well.  Looking at the tree now (it is a little more progressed) I am not sure that it is adding anything to the scene.

I undercoated the base and airbrushed some colours and then just sort of mucked around with colours and shades and more airbrushing and pigments until I reached this:

Felt too browny and orangy without any cold colours.  I initially was going for a desert vibe, but somewhere along the way I changed my mind and started thinking like a bayou scene, with water.  I realised it needed a lot more green.

A lot more green!

You can see here that I have added my first layer of envirotex.  I have had mixed success with that product, but I persisted and I finally felt like I got a handle on its properties now.  Funnily enough, you practice with something for long enough and you get better at using it... who knew?

At this point I started painting old mate.  Again, had no firm idea on where to go, but I wanted the skin to look vibrant and filled with lots of different colours, including green.

There is a lot of depth in the skin, but I am not finished the highlights or shades yet.  I need to get some more basecoats of other areas down so I can see what it actually looks like.

Starting with blue.  He sort of reminds me of a British sea captain or something.  Anyway I can see a little bit more of the colours now, and it gives me a better frame of reference for the contrast needed on the skin.

Back to the base, and I did a second layer of envirotex, and did a lot better job this time of sealing it.  I also managed to remove the bubbles more effectively this time also.  It is just a much better finish all round.

Back to the tree.  It has been a bit frustrating for me that I have not been able to effectively make a willow tree.  I can see it in my head, but I cannot seem to create that vision in a model.  I tried again, but it looked rubbish, so I went back to the product that is most consistently good, the JOEFix branches.

I sprayed hairspray on the tree and sprinkled basil on it, until the foliage looked a lot thicker.


I felt like it was way too overpowering, so I crunched it all together to try and make it less sizable and distracting.

This is where I left it tonight.  I think I am going to have to scrap the tree altogether, it feels way too distracting for the whole model.  Unfortunately taking it off makes the plinth feel a little bit too large to me, so I might need to come up with an alternate idea for something with some height to add to that back area.


I'd love some suggestions, on Twitter or on here, because I really want to keep this positive energy and motivation going.

Thanks
Trent