The Avatar of Menoth

I'm calling this one done. I did some final clean up work on various places where the blending was a extra rough, and some metal work had gotten away from me. To be blunt, it was hard to come back from a month away from painting and consider doing too much more work on it. The clean up work was plenty to tighten up some fine details though and overall I'm happy with the end result. After having this model in my backlog for so very long it feels great to wrap him up, and to finally close out my remaining unpainted Protectorate models.

I loved this project, from start to finish. It was very enjoyable to take the time and think through what I wanted to do and really make this model my own rather than just accept what I felt was a sub-par sculpt. The painting portion was also enjoyable, and the end result really didn't feel like it came together until it was nearly done. The final shading and highlighting really put that slightly more dark gothic feel to the overall tone and brought it more to where I wanted.

If I was going to do this project over again, there a few things I might change. First, I think the base could have been tighted up a bit more. I still like the concept, but I could probably have executed it better. Also the rods between the waist and torso could use some change, but I still haven't figured out what would have been better. Also I think the fine inlaid details of the metal sections could have been made to pop a little bit more. Probably there's other details, but off the top of my head that's really the main points.

Having fielded this guy just the other night under MKII, I can honestly say that my favorite thing about having done this project is to bring his sword in line with the new rules, specifically making it obviously have REACH! I've always loved the concept, art, and (small) story pieces around the Avatar. When I first fielded him though I was always disappointed at his performance for the point cost. That made it really hard to get excited about assembling and painting him. Now in MKII, he's a big pile of iron awesome and I'm very much looking forward to fielding him a bunch.

Avatar Nearing Completion

My painting, playing and posting have all taken a serious hit lately unfortunately. Primarily due to holiday stuff, work stuff, and general life stuff. I got some painting done though, and the Avatar is pretty much wrapped up. It's not the most crisp paint job though, and honestly I'm thinking of continuing to work on it. However that's for another day, perhaps after returning from my Christmas vacation (for four weeks). Anyway, pics below, and constructive feedback appreciated about whether I should continue or not.

Progress is progress

I'm only really posting this to keep myself motivated. Yesterday I kept staring at all the black primer and it was driving me nuts. So, I went ahead and did the base coating of white. This is always the big debate in my mind when painting Menoth, especially jacks. It goes something like this:

MeOne: "I'm going to paint this Menoth model with the traditional white/red scheme."
MeTwo: "Then why don't you prime in white?"
MeOne: "Well, painting metals over white is terrible. I'd have to base coat black for those areas first."
MeTwo: "So prime in black?"
MeOne: "Yeah, but then it takes forever to basecoat all the white areas."
MeTwo: "So go with a black/red scheme instead?"
MeOne: "I thought about that, but warjacks should stand out on the battlefield."
MeTwo: "So just suck it up and do it."
MeOne: "First I want to whine about it though."
MeTwo: "Screw this. I'm going to get a beer."
MeOne: "...."
[and then the model sits on my desk for a week before progress gets made]

Why the Avatar is SPD 4...

This model is taking me forever to paint. I keep getting distracted with other projects. The Seraph got bumped in my painting queue due to the upcoming Steamroller 4 tournament at the LGS on the 14th, and I feel obligated to at least make an honest attempt at getting back to fully painted. Anyway, I'm tinkering with the Avatar at the same time. The photo this time is better, but the lighting on my desk just exacerbates the challenge of photographing a model that was primed black on a bright background. However, as you can see, I've got the golds and silvers mostly done except for final highlighting. I've base coated the cloth bits at this point and plan to do them next. I always prefer to leave whites until last only because of my tendency to splatter onto them. Hopefully this weekend will provide for a bit more painting time on this big boy.

Starting to paint the Avatar

After what feels like a very long dry spell, I finally got started painting the Avatar. It's pretty sad progress, mostly because I spent a portion of the day making a new folding game board for Malifaux and painting a minotaur model I've been working on for months now. All I've done here is basic metals work, with a base coat of Oily Steel, then washing with GW Black Wash, then drybrushing back up with P3 Quicksilver. The reason I started with the metals is that I've found my techniques for metals get pretty messy and I often splatter washes onto other parts of a model. So rather than get mad at myself later for splattering on some finished white coats, I figured I'd start with metals and work backwards. Unfortunately the photo is pretty terrible as I learn how to use my new camera phone, and find a better improv photo method for stuff on my desk.

Avatar Assembly Finished

Assembly finished! I'm not going to get super detailed here on my pros and cons, but just some quick notes.
* I'm happy with how he has more of a presence. He's tall and in charge.
* He's a little thin in places. It sort of makes him look spindly, but we'll see how that looks after I finish painting him.
* The pose is much better. It's more dynamic, and conveys more motion.
* The effort involved wasn't overwhelming. Despite my busy schedule, I was able to complete this fairly quickly, given my skill level at conversion work.

Now, as soon as the weather changes and the humidity goes down, I can prime him and get started painting!

Avatar Progress Part 10, and a battle report!

Minor update on the conversion project. Got the cloths attached. Tomorrow night I should have time to finish the rest of the assembly and snap pics.

On another note, I got in a game tonight! A practice game for the upcoming Retribution tournament event this weekend at the LGS. I brought an eThagrosh list and was playing against an eGaspy list. It was a pretty vicious battle in the middle, with a swarm of Bane Knights breaking into the middle thanks to Tartarus' beckon. eGaspy's feat round was brutal with both Bane Knights and Soul Hunters driving in, however eThagrosh hung in there and survived the onslaught. At that point the remainder of the battle was academic, with the Totem Hunter, eThagrosh, Typhon, and a Seraph all with clear charge lanes to eGaspy.

Avatar: 1, Fingers: 0

Well, tonight I was doing some additional assembly and managed to jab my finger. I was drilling holes for the cloths that hang from the shoulders and the drill bit slipped and drilled my finger. Ouch! Anyway, I got the holes drilled at least, as well as finished assembling the other arm with extensions. With the additional work of getting a model ready for the small painting competition at the LGS, progress is a bit slow. However, I'm closing in on the end now. I'm planning to finish the cloth attachments to the shoulders tomorrow night and then the final complete assembly the next night.

Back to the Knife

After being gone for the last few days for a much needed vacation, I've returned to my desk to get a bit more work done on the Avatar. This evening I managed to chop the arms apart at the forearm and get the sword arm reassembled. When I cut the arms, I decided to swap the shoulders. This gave a better angle to both arms, opening up the pose. Here I've gotten the sword arm completely reassembled. I wanted to create a bit more dynamic pose to the arm. I've also drilled holes for pinning the shoulders to the body, but have only done an initial dry fit for the moment (to ensure the arm position is ok).

I'll probably work on the shield arm tomorrow. Before I attach the arms to the body I also want to work out how to pin the cloths that hang from the shoulders. Once that's done there will be very little left to do before priming. The biggest barrier to moving forward is a painting contest at my LGS, for which I need to get an entry ready in short order. Depending how well I managed to juggle tasks, I may still get more progress done on the Avatar while getting that entry ready.

The Avatar Stands Tall

I sort of lumped the progress of the whole weekend here. I was hoping to get more done, but I was distracted with a number of other things. It's late here, so time to get on with the updates.

First, I decided to create a somewhat epic base. I decided to go with a stone slab, raised up on top of some stones. To that end I created a couple rough shapes and then marked out where I wanted to cut the circular slab into individual stones.

Once the pieces were cut up I went through and roughed up the edges appropriately. Then I reassembled them using some Miliput and put the whole thing together on the base. Although not pictured here, I also carved a menofix into the slab's surface. This whole process turned out to be rather labor intensive, taking pretty much the whole day. Cutting up the slab into blocks took a while since I had to drill and saw to break it up. Then I had to rough up the edges with the cutters. Then the re-assembly with the Milliput. At that point I painted the menofix on the surface and carved it out with a blade.

After the work on the legs, I decided to re-angle the toe of the back lag to give it more of an action pose. To create a stronger join all around, I drill the holes so that I could use a single bent pin to join the toe to the foot and also have the pin stick down for when I joined the leg to the base. This guy is big enough that a thick pin for each foot is totally warranted. The space between the toe and foot of course got filled in with some green stuff and smoothed out. Once it all dried and hardened it was remarkably strong.

Speaking of stronger joins, when it came to attaching the legs to the hip, I needed to put some extra strength into the whole thing. I've had some problems in the past with hip joins and wanted to avoid those troubles (pins shifting and causing the join to rotate). So this time for the join I used two pins and then green stuff. This picture shows both halves to give an idea. Perhaps it was overkill, but with the Dremel doing most of the hard drilling for me, I might as well do it. The Dremel also makes it easier to drill nice deep holes to ensure a strong fit.

Finally, I got both legs on and attached the big guy to the base after drilling holes. For his left leg I left the thick cast pin still on the foot and drilled out extra space to get a nice tight fit for it. Overall this whole thing is incredibly sturdy. I've also got the two long pins sticking out the bottom so that I can attach it to an empty spray can for painting purposes.

Whew! Well, it doesn't look like a pile of progress, but this really gets me a long ways toward done. I'm unfortunately going to be gone for a few days so it might be a while before I finish up the last of the assembly unless I manage to squeeze in a little more work tomorrow night.

Sharper, Taller, Better...

A little more progress. First up is the sword. After the Milliput had properly hardened, I used the dremel to grind down the end of the blade into (roughly) the shape I wanted. Now, a fair word of warning here. The dremel is king at this task, but it also throws a fair amount of dust obviously. It saves lots of time over filing it down and certainly can be just as precise. When I was sanding it down, it turned out there was a tiny air bubble inside which got exposed. I simply added some green stuff, smoothed it, and filed it once it was hardened. It's not a super great job, but it's close enough. I specifically didn't want a pointed tip to the blade in this case, but it would definitely be possible using this method I bet.

Second is the legs. Again, not long enough. His stock legs make him look like a dwarf. I want this guy to stand taller than the other jacks, and this was definitely a necessary step. Here I did very similar to the hip replacement. I used the jeweler's saw, cut, filed, drilled, and reassembled. This was actually not so much work as the other, primarily due to the simpler cuts and pins. I did however make sure to drill deep holes to make sure the pins would easily support the weight of the body once everything was assembled.

That's it for tonight. With the weekend coming up I'm hoping to make significant progress.

Minor Avatar Progress

Yadda yadda yadda... Work is kicking my butt and slowing my progress, but I'm still making headway!

First change is the sword. I wanted to extend it, not just to reflect reach, but to create a bit more of a dramatic balance to the pose overall. I actually did a few steps here. First I lopped off the top point of the sword. Then I drilled a hole and put a thick pin sticking out to a length that I wanted to extend the blade to. I gave it just a bit of a bend to put some angle to the sword. I should point out that I repeatedly and obsessively verified that I was putting the right angle on the blade tip relative to the hand's pose. Finally here I used some Milliput and built out a rough shape for the blade extension. My goal was not to create the final shape for the blade. I intend to use the dremel to shape it down.

Second, I added the sides of his torso, and also added a couple "tubes" to the hip join. For these tubes I used thick guitar string as the shape gives them that ribbed hose look.

That's it for today. Hopefully I'll get some more time tomorrow to work on this. Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far! Although I'm not real confident with doing conversion work, this is turning out to be quite fun.

The Avatar Gets a Hip Replacement

Step one is complete! I chopped the hips off of the center torso. It took a while to saw through and then file and clean up the surrounding material. Once that was done I drilled some small test holes and made sure things line up ok. Then I drilled the larger holes and put in the supports. In order to make two of them look more like pistons, I picked up some brass tubing and slid shorter pieces of them over the main pins. If you buy your brass rod at hardware or train stores, they usually have a variety of types including tubes as well. I just made sure to get ones that slid over smoothly. Note that you can't just cut the tubs with wire cutters since it will mash the tube. Once that was in place I just added a little milliput to the surrounding area to smooth things out. Despite seeming like a small step, this actually took me quite a while to do, mostly because of the sawing and dry-fitting steps.

Project: Avatar of Menoth

I've been absent for a while (working lots, plus trying out Malifaux), so the Warmachine aspect of this blog has been on a bit of a hiatus unfortunately. However, with the preview release of the final MKII stats (and if you haven't seen them, head over to the PP site), I got a sneak peak at the Avatar and was pleasantly surprised at him gaining reach! It was the one feature I felt he was really lacking that would give him the extra edge he needed to be worth taking. The Avatar is the last unpainted PP model I have currently, and this preview was enough of a kick in the shorts to get motivated to work on him. To that end, as I did with a couple of other key projects, I'm going to do a series of posts of my progress on the Avatar.

First, let me be blunt: The stock sculpt is kinda... dumb. I'm almost done with a post about my favorite models to paint which will get more into what I like in a model, but I think I'm not the only one who dislikes the Avatar's standard pose. I've had this model in my backlog for probably at least 2 years now and had decided it needed to be a serious conversion project. I'm pretty pitiful when it comes to converting, and I'm primarily a painter, so this will be a big departure for me. My goal is to turn this model into something truly worthy of being the Avatar of Menoth, without trying to cobble together an entirely different model.

So, the first step was to make a plan. I got all the pieces out, trimmed them, and started reviewing them (all 18 of them). I also did some research by searching the PP painting forums and CMON for examples of conversion work that was done. There also used to be a great conversion job on the BrushThralls site, however that set of pictures seems to be inaccessible now. In any case, the following is a list of things that need to be done to the existing pieces:
* Extend hips lower from the body - This will help make him look taller.
* Widen hips to give a wider stance - This will help make him look more stable.
* Lengthen legs - This will allow for a more dynamic pose to his lower body.
* Extend upper arms - This will allow for a more dynamic pose to his upper body.
* "Fix" sword - Yeah, seriously... the flaming butter knife is just dorky, especially now that he'll have reach.
* Remount shield - Not sure exactly what I plan to do here, but something that improves the pose angles.

Well, that's about it for now. My goal is to have at least a small amount of progress every two to three days.