Finished off basing my civilians & police.
I base them on two pence pieces, skim some putty (a £1.00 tub from Poundland) add a wash of paint and then flock those that need flocking.
Once finished I wash the figures with black and varnish them. The shiney bit on my cutting board is clear 'sticky back' plastic ( yes Valerie Singleton's BP generation) it allows me to paint and do messy things without damaging the board.
The civilan picture was too blurred (more close up practice needed, any tips?). But some of these boys will be out next week in my version 'Nazi Zombies come down to Georgia.' (on lates and EP's) 'Zombie Moonshiners come down to North Carolina'
After that I wanted to move further into some of Ed's scenarios and 'Giving up the Goat' required some chucacabras (?) a bit of internet trawling (not as amusing as Angry Lurkers) gave me some photos. A 'bag o'zombie dogs', a blade and some 'green stuff' produced these. Undercoating and painting these beasts and their Z.Dog cousins for a pack is next weeks (months) project. The original is the one without the GS on.
I've never used 'green stuff' before and found it fabulous! I've usually just used plastacine. I found it a bit difficult to manipulate. Anybody got tips or websites that can help. It's so good I want to get better at its use.
Once that's done I want to try taking my crew to Haven & the ATZ. In the meantime I've ordered some Ceasar 'Mayans' from http://www.models2u.co.uk/ (a good online store) with the knife and the glue and the old green stuff I hope to produce a couple of 'Jugger' teams for a game of 'Qwik'. If all goes well I will try and blog every stage of that conversion.
I've kept up being selfish and reading your blogs (and not blogging myself) it's GREAT such a diversion and a release from my working life (it's only 5 years since I last worked the streets, but so much has changed). Keep up the good work.
Welcome back, Irqan. You're making good progress with your figure painting.
ReplyDeleteA good tip for taking close up photography is to increase the depth of field on your camera. If your camera has a manual override you want to set the F number as high as possible, say for example f16. This will help put more of the foreground and background in focus. It really depends on what type of camera you have and what functions it has. I use a Nikon D40 SLR camera and once I got in the way of using it, I've had near perfect results.
Photography and sculpting are two topics that are well covered on the Internet. It's just a case of knowing where to look but the old adage, practice makes perfect, certainly holds true.
Thanks Vampifan. Catch up to you soon. How's team Vampifan going?
ReplyDeleteNo problem, mate. Team Vampifan are still alive and raring to go on their adventure.
ReplyDeleteLooking good. Not sure what to suggest as I 'cheat' and use a cheap digital camera, it auto sets to Macro when I get close. I did read some cool stuff about ensuring you have stong light sources, from more than one direction and making sure the light isn't too close, which 'darkens' the shot. I don;t have a tripod, but I rest my camera on soemthign when I take a shot, books, a box etc. Hope that's of some help. Good to have you back.
ReplyDeleteCheers Zombie Ad & Vami. I've practiced with the camera tips, not too bad but it certainly isn't as easy as the results make it seem. I do not know why I didn't 'google' tips for using GS. I have now and picked up loads of stuff. Thanks again guys.
ReplyDeleteGood work Irqan. I've not tried using 'green stuff' yet, but based on what you've done and your comments, I might just have to give it a go! Thanks for posting about it
ReplyDelete