Saturday, September 18, 2010

Plant Manager Burns Finished

Last night I finished working on Plant Manager Burns, my counts-as Primaris Psyker for the Blisstonian 9th. Overall I'm happy with the results and will gladly put Burns down on the table, leading his army of disgruntled workers in defense of Sector 7G. I think the astropath miniature turned out well and does a good job of expressing the contempt in which Burns holds his minions. In particular I like the jutting jaw and his pallid complexion.


As can be seen in the pictures there are quite a few things I could try to fix but I'm satisfied for now and am ready to move on. The parchment tacked to his staff turned out rather messy as I was impatient and used a wash without waiting long enough for the lettering to dry. Also the staff itself looks unfinished but I've never been able to paint those properly. I did spend some time trying to fix the weird highlighting on his robes which I noticed in my earlier WIP photo, but a few prominent areas still look pretty funky. Nonetheless these issues don't bother me enough for me to want to put more work into this guy and I like where he's at now.

Plant Manager Burns is complete, up next for painting will be the first squad of Blisstonian 9th penal legionnaires.

18 comments:

  1. I'd love to be good enough to get picky over parchment. Right now, I'm satisfied with straight lines=p

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, thanks! I've noticed a lot of us painters tend to be harshest on ourselves, and I still have plenty of trouble with straight lines myself. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Woa! Mr. Burns looks superb!
    Really, I love the skin! How did you achieved it? Wich colours did you used?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you very much, Nesbet, I really appreciate that!

    For the skin I started with a base of Khemri Brown followed by a wash of Gryphonne Sepia. Next I used Midlund Flesh, Ryn Flesh, and then a mix of Ryn Flesh and Menoth White Highlight building to almost pure Menoth White Highlight, all of which are Privateer Press paints. Finally I dabbed in some Devlan Mud two or three times into the eye sockets to make them dark and shadowy. This model doesn’t have sculpted eyes so I wanted to hide that as much as possible and my trick works well unless you look at his face directly and in good light.

    I’m trying out the P3 line of paints on this army after getting to use them at Adepticon earlier in the year. For GW paints I’d suggest starting with Elf Flesh mixed with a little Graveyard Earth (Dwarf Flesh looks too red and healthy to me for this job) followed by pure Elf Flesh. I’d next start mixing in Bleached Bone and then some Skull White as well until you get it as pale as you want. I hope that helps you out, I’m always happy to do what I can.

    Thanks again, I’m really grateful to hear from you, oh and there was one other thing... HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY, CHILE!! I hope you have a lot of fun celebrating, Nesbet!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Exxxxcelent.

    I also really like the bases you've been doing. Looks simple but good. What's the method?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Haha, nice. : ) I'm glad you like the bases, they are in fact very easy to paint. I start with Cryx Bane Base, followed by a heavy drybrush of Ironhull Grey, and then a light dryrbush of Underbelly Blue, all of which are P3 colors. I painted the side edge of the base Greatcoat Grey and that's it.

    I'm really happy with how this method turned out and it will likely become my standard for painting this type of concrete rubble base. Cryx Bane Base is a very dark grey paint with an interesting greenish hue. I think it may be this subtle coloration that makes me really like the overall effect but I'm not sure. Thanks again for asking, it feels great being able to help out and answer some questions.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the advice on the flesh PapaJJ! I'll sure try it with my marauders ;D
    (always wanted such a nice pale skin!)

    I don't own any P3 paints, but I do own some Coat d' Arms ones. If you look at their site
    http://www.blackhat.co.uk/online_shop/images/fantasydeal2.jpg
    http://www.blackhat.co.uk/coat_darms/paintcolours.php
    ...then you'll get that these colours, are the same as the old citadel ones, with those fantastic bottles that PP is now using. I'm 99% sure that CdA is the man behind the courtain, regarding the P3 paints line =P
    Or maybe HMG Ltd of Manchester, wich is the company that manufactures the paints that CdA distributes. I'll try with the other CdA whites I own before ordering the Menoth white in Maelstromgames store xD

    Thanks for remembering my country's bicentennial! We have 2 entire days more to celebrate it! (3 left, 2 more to go! xD)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice work Paps, the blue and purple work well together. The mini itself is perfect for the role - has a slight, haughty look about him, chin up, looking down his nose at the plebe's.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @ Nesbet - No problem, I'm glad to help out. And thank you for the information, that's very interesting about the Coat d'Arms paints. Those colors look soooo familiar, I think you're right about P3's origins. And if that's the case then I am thankful as I'm really starting to like these paints. I wouldn't be surprised if you have a lot of the same colors as me just with different packaging. Thanks, Nesbet!

    @ Gyro - RIght on! Thank you, Gyro!!

    @ Rogue Pom - Thank you very much! I'm happy you like how Burns tuned out and I agree totally... he definitely does not look to me like a man of the people. ; ) Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sorry, wasn't clear about the base question. What I wanted to know was what material you used to get that texture.

    ReplyDelete
  11. No worries, I realized later you might have been asking about that. The materials are even simpler than the paints. I used clippers to thoroughly grind up some pieces of sprue and glued those directly to the bases. I then glued down a pretty standard mix of pebbly sands but didn't bother to be too careful around the sprue bits so that they ended up mostly covered. That was it before priming. Nothing fancy, I'm just using all the chewed up snippets of plastic to add some variety in height and texture. Sorry about the misunderstanding, I hope that helps. Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice and simple, good work. You did well with the washes; added depth without being sloppy.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nice work JJ.
    One comment to an overall excellent paint job. I wanted to comment on the WiP version, but never got around to posting (whoops!).
    I agree with your earlier comments about being desaturated, the purple especially was desaturated which on this model didn't seem to work as well. One of the things I picked up on at Adepticon this year was to use colors other than white to highlight. For example, my color wheel says if you add red to your purple, it will give a nice highlight without desaturating the color.

    Unfortunately the blue is super hard to highlight without desaturing the color (trust me the Ultramarines have taught me that!).

    Anyway- love the model, especially the face. Is that the stock staff on him? I am getting a funky Eye of Mordor feel from the staff.... perhaps fitting given the background! :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. @ Thor - Thank you! My goal when painting is to be as neat and tidy as I can so I really appreciate your analysis. Thanks!

    @ DrGabe - Thanks, Doc! Yeah, I'm a lot happier with these richer colors than those in my first try. That's interesting about adding red to the purple, I'll be sure to try that out. Thanks for the info and I'm glad you like how Burns turned out. I didn't do any conversion work on him, it's just the normal stock miniature, including the staff. It is a cool little figure with some nice details, I like it. Thanks for checking in, DrG, it's good to hear from you!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yeah, I have been out of the loop a bit the last couple of weeks. But I hope to make a big comeback, starting tonight! :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Woo-hoo!! Seeing that put a big smile on my face... thanks, b.!

    ReplyDelete