05.09.05 » Story

He had once been an orphen. His family was attacked by a group of bandits only days after arriving on the colony planet known as Earth. Their bodies torn to shreads, their home burned to the ground. A traveling group of monks found him not long after, alone in the middle of a canyon, covered in blood and in shock. The monks took him in and raised him. They taught him their ways of worship and self-defense.

Ten years to the day the monks found him he was in the Monesterys courtyard training with his teacher. Suddenly the sound of laser fire and explosions filled the air. A regiment of SDR troops had mistakenly concluded that the Monestery was a safe house for Mercs passing through the region. The attack was swift and without warning. Another explosion hit close and he was blown off the courtyard, down a hill and into a ditch.

When he awoke he found the Monestery and his foster family all gone. On that day he swore to avenge the deaths of everyone he loved. He took a vow of silence and joined the ranks of the Mercenary forces. His reputation grew and he left no enemy standing on the battlefield. His comrads dubbed him Bloodwind after the silent swiftness and ferocity of his assault.

05.09.05 » Concepts and Variations

So since I started this whole FFForum group-build thing, I'd better participate. I figured that I'd do an SAFS for my first entry and more if I have time. This first one is called Bloodwind. The name was originally going to be for a stealth GM, but I never got the ambition to start the project. I had some kanji decals printed though so I figured I'd make use of them here and make up a story to match.

This kit is going to be pretty much OOB with some added detail and a custom base. I'm thinking grassy ruins this time. The pilot hatch will be open and I'm going to modify the pilot head to be shaved with monk-dots on his forehead.

Below is my intended color scheme and a bunch of other variation I messed with so I thought I'd post them up. I usually do a bunch of color schemes while deciding on a final, but I never show them. Well, here's part of what you're missing. LOL! Thanks to bhop for the improved lineart illustrations.

Anyway, I started the kit today. Should be a quick build. I'll take pics tomorrow.

05.13.05 » Parts

The SAFS is pretty much cut-out at this point. I'm actually farther along than you see in these shots as all the parts have been sanded and puttied/Mr. Surfacer. Currently I am texturing the armor and making fabric-looking joint covers from epoxy putty.

Here you can see the body. At this point both halves were glued and sanded and a line of Mr. Surfacer was applied to fill in any hairline seems (which there were). At the bottom front, you can see where I had to shim a gap with some styrene. YOu can also see where I notched out the female connectors for the front and rear skirts with my dremmel to make them "snap-fit".

Here's most of the armor skirts and some other parts. Notice the "lip" on the lid where the sensor meets the base. That needs leveled out with putty.

Here's te arm parts. You can see where I had to shim another gap with some scrap styrene. I didn't bother connecting the elbow joints and such beforehand since I'm replacing them all with cloth-looking epoxy putty.

The hand needs a little work. THere's a few pin-holes that were filled with Mr. Surfacer and sanded and the sides of the finger joints had no grooves. I grooved them with a razor saw and Tritool. The head was connected to the sprues at the ears so I need to sand off the poor ears that were molded in and make new ones. Lastly was some engine parts for the back of the suit. These take some work to make fit properly.

Lastly, here's a close-up of my color scheme. I'm playing wth some ideas to achieve this rough-edged look. I'll either hand-brush on the darker colors or use rough-torn tape to mask to achieve the look.

05.16.05 » Ionic or Corynthian, but not Doric

Magic sculpt rocks. Period. One of the IPMS guys gave me a sample (thanks Steve!) at the last meeting and I decided t try it out on my joint covers. This stuff is a two-part epoxy putty similar to Miliput, but it molds so much nicer without all the stickiness that you get with miluput. I was able to do most of my shaping before it set-up as opposed to Miliput where you shape it slightly then carve and hack at it and hope for the best. The first shot is of my right arms cloth sculpts. I still need to do a little clean-up but I think it's pretty good! The second shot shows the wire between the left arm before the Magic sculpt was applied.

I also got to work on my display base. I'm going for greek column ruins in a field. I started off with a finished base and added joint compound mixed with fine crushed talus. Before it dried I added a few rocks and the sculpted column.

The column was made from PVC, Joint Compound and strips of styrene. I made a diagram of how I built it in case anyone wants to build their own.

A: 1 Inch PCV pipe

B: I cut strips of styrene appoximately 1/8" square and glued them around the outside.

C: I put joint compound in a zip-lock bag and cut the corner off. I squeezed it into the grooved between the styrene strips. I then used my finger to smooth it out and create the concave channels.

D: You can see the general shape of the channel.

E: When dry I sanded it down to remove the excess joint compound from the styrene and used a razor saw to cut the seams where the column pieces would fit together.

F: I used a dremel bit to make the nicks and weathered damage that would happen over thousands of years and a few world wars.

Finally I added another glop of joint compound to the top and pressed some sand into it to creat the broken/weathered top. (see below) I still need to paint and weather it and maybe give it a marble grained texture using a pencil. Hmmm... those "retail rendering" classes I had in art achool are paying off!

Here's the general pose of the kit on the base. The arms are not properly posed yet as I need to properly glue them to the kit after painting. The ground will be weathered and drybrushed more and will have tall grass added to it. I bought some dead/harvest gold colored grass to mix in with the green stuff I have left over from the Griffon.

05.19.05 » Paint and Base

I started painting the SAFS last night. To achieve the rough-edged look I ended up testing rubber cement as a mask and to my delight and glee it worked out great! I got a very jagged rough edge. The first shot shows the results on a test piece. Ignore the colors as they're not the finals and only for testing purposes.

The second shot shows my first paint coats. What I did was start with a slightly green sand color. Over that I sprayed a grey-green in a mottled pattern and over that I sprayed that same green with some sky-gray mixed in. All paints are Tamiya Acrylics. After that cures I'll apply the rubber cement and spray the darker colors. Below my photos in my inspiration image for this kit. I'm going for a rough look and if possible will attempt to make it look water-colored like the image.

Next up is the base which I completed yesterday. The column was weathered with an oil-wash of black + burnt sienna. The grass is "Woodland Scenics" field grass. I used two shades; light green and harvest gold to make the grass have a more realistic end of summer, but not quite ready for harvesting look to it. Glad I don't have to bail hay ever again! Bailing hay is itchy and not all that fun. Well... watching the bailing machine cut, wrap and toss the hay into the trailer is fun, but aside from that... itchy.

Anyway... I made certain to make the grass spread out where the foot would be. Later I'll wet the white glue and press down where the previous footsteps were to make a "trail". This will add some nice realism to it.

05.19.05 » Paint Chip Camo

I have a new favorite technique! I will use this again! Basically I was trying to figure out how I'd do the rough edged camo for my SAFS. After talking with Mitchell about liquid masks I found an article on simulating paint chips using rubber cement. Rubber cement is perfect for this sort of thing as it doesn't soak into the Tamiya Acrylic once cured and rubs off easy with a ball of dried rubber cement or a rubber cement 'pik-up'.

I took some picks so here's a little step-by step. I used Bestine Brand Rubber Cement and Pik-up. More info is here. I also used an old frayed paintbrush for application.

First paint your kit it's intended base color. I used a light green/tan and mottled it with my airbrush by adding darker colors to it. Once the paint cures, apply the rubber cement with the frayed paintbrush making sure to dab it on the kit to get the rough edge.

After the rubber cement dried (under 5 minutes) I sprayed on my next shades. I used a darker gray/tan/green first and sprayed it on randomly and thin. Over that I sprayed the same color mixed with 50% future several more times with a little black, clear green, or clear blue mixed in. This gave it a mottled and random look.

Finally I used my "pik-up" (or a ball of dried rubber cement) to rub off the cement from the kit. It rubbed off of my flat paint with no trouble. Below is the final result.

Later I'll paint the details, clear-coat, decal, filter, wash, and weather. You could also first paint your kit a dark gray and use little bits of rubber cement to simulate paint chips.

05.20.05 » Blood Stripe

Last night I painted the red stripe on the arm and hatch. I was gonna do one on the back as well, but decided against it. I used the same rubber cement technique as above, only I added tape for the larger areas that I needed to mask and only used the rubber cement to get the edge I wanted.

05.23.05 » Chipping and Decaling

Since my last update I've gotten the paint chipping and decaling finished. I used a small brush and thinned dark gray Tamiya Acrylics to paint on the chips. I also used a 2B pencil to do some of the smaller chipping and scratching around greeblies and hard edges.

For applying the decals onto the rough texture I found that instead of letting them sit and dry while the microsol does it's work, that taking a damp paper towel on my finger and pressing the decal into the texture worked best to prevent silvering. I did this after the microsol softened the decals somewhat and as a final step. Don't use your bare finger as the decal will stick to your fingerprint grooves instead.

Below are pics of my chipped paint. The pencil lines don't show up that well yet due to the glossiness or the graphite and the future coat. They'll show up better once it's flat coated.

FInally, here's pics of my pilot head so far. However I had a bit of a disaster this morning which is causing me to rethink the whole head thing. I was putting the inside hatch greeblies back onto the skewer and busted the eyepieces off and lost them. But it's fine I was debating on using the head in this kit anyway and making it a closed cockpit only piece. This event decides for me. I will use the head on my Heinrich though as I was gonna do another bald head for that one anyway. Here's some pics though anyway. I was scratchbuilding the headset from magic sculpt, minus molds and copper wire.

05.23.05 » Weathering

Since it was a rainy day I got a lot done. First I gave the kit a wash. The wash consisted of White, Black, Burnt Sienna, Yellow, and Blue oils plus Klean Strip Odorless Mineral Spirits. This gave me a dark mucky gray-green wash. I brushed it liberally on the parts (one part at a time) and while each part was drying I used the same brush and lightly brushed down to build up wash into oily rain marks.

After that was done and dry, I applied a filter. Missing-Lynx says to basically use a thinner wash for a filter, but I decided to use Future Floor Acrylic + Tamiya Acrylics instead. I mixed 1 airbrush cup (badger crescendo) full of Future with 1 drop Yellow, 1 drop orange, and one drop Field Gray (dark olive drab). This gave me a very thin color. When I sprayed it on the kit the result was barely visible but that's what a filter is. It slightly changed the overall color to make it warmer without obscuring any of the details thus blending all the tones together. I think when I do a winter suit I'll use a slightly blue filter. Should be cool.

Next I gave the kit a flat coat of Future. After that I mixed up a Flat Future + Mud color and sprayed that on the legs, lower body & skirts, and the ends of the arms concentrating on the feet. This is where dirt would collect as it was kicked up by walking. Here's the pics:

« before filter

« after filter

05.24.05 » Last but not least

Lastly I did the sensor eyes. I used Waves small H-eyes for this. They're terrific and I totally recommend them. They come in various sizes and are convex enough to function like a lens. Here's a pic: