c - Glider Detail Work

Finalist Jana Wang writes:

November 10

More detail work. Began by lightly drybrushing over the canvas wings with Ivory to highlight them, both the top and bottom.

Painted the blue lightly over the red gloves to give them a blue-red blood color.

Freehand-painted a red dragon on the tail section. (Aleene's True Red) I can't offer much advice here except to say that the occasional art class does pay off in the long run.

Painted white eyes on the front-facing end of the wing frame, and a white undercoat number 4 on the bottom of the pilots platform. This is a military vehicle, it needs a number. I'll go over the number in red, the white undercoat is there to help brighten up the color later. Otherwise it would get muddied up on the brown.

November 14

Earlier I painted each nailhead on the frame with black. Now I barely touch each one with brass to draw attention to the detail. Not realistic, but then we are talking about a flying dwarf here...

I paint the bellows on the flamethrower with Americana Burnt Umber, a nice warm medium brown. Bellows are typically made of wood and leather so this looks ok. I use a thinned burnt umber to outline the frame of the wings and to highlight the patches on the wing canvas. This is a warmer shade of brown than the wash I used to make them look old, and the slight difference really makes the detail pop.

I'm getting down to the final details now. Most of what remains are spots on the pilot that require a minimal dab of paint and a followup dab of highlight or touchup. It's opening a lot of bottles of paint and cleaning the brush repeatedly. In some ways it is harder and more frustrating than painting the big areas. The two big decisions come over and over again; What is that, and What color do I paint it?

For me, selecting color comes down to choices about contrast. The pilot's boots have to contrast with his pants, which in turn have to contrast with his shirt, all of which have to contrast with the roping and the frame of the flyer. This means not just different colors but different values of color. The frame of the flyer is dark, which leaves me light and medium tones to work with. I have to alternate light and medium/dark to get contrast. If the pilot's pants are dark blue, his shirt and boots have to be light colors. Otherwise when the eye scans it the figure will register as a single blob. I paint the boots with Crafters Taupe, a neutral light sand color.

Following the above logic, if the pilot's shirt is light, the next section is the gloves and they have to be dark - I already painted them blood red so it's fine.

Over all of these colors are the rigging ropes, which have to contrast against the dark brown wood and the blues of the pilot... I went with yellow which works on both of those colors very nicely.

As a final color touch I will paint our Dwarven daredevil with a head of flaming red hair. I like to do this by starting with a yellow basecoat (Aleene's Medium Yellow) and adding a red wash (Aleene's True Red). This is the same yellow I used earlier, and the red from the tail art. While I have the red out I will complete the aircraft number on the bottom of the unit.

November 16

This figure is nearly finished. I give the wings a good look over and touch up any spots that need it. While I'm there, I use a toothpick to place two black dots in the white eyes I painted earlier. The wings are done. I put those aside.

I go over the body of the flyer and the pilot doing touch ups. A little brown, a little blue, a little yellow. There's a lot of rope around the pilot, in his rigging, attached to his feet, around his body.... I use some Americana Burnt Umber to wash the boots.

While the paint is drying I turn my attention to the base. The plastic-domed hexagon has interesting possibilities, making me think of terrain under glass... but the peg that the flyer attaches with just does not look big enough. Hey, I carry CA glue with my army all the time, but why tempt fate? I get out the pin drill and drill into the base of the flyer. Fortunately the little guy's foot is right over the hole and I can get some depth here. I drill a corresponding hole in the plastic base and glue in a piece of wire.

Time to let it all dry overnight.

November 17

The deadline approaches. That's right, Thanksgiving is a week away and the table has got to be cleared by then. Which means painting has to be finished... Oh yeah, and Bill wants his flyer back. :)

I worked on the base. I still like the idea of a terrarium, so I started by cutting out a base for the bottom of the dome. I simply traced around the hexagon onto a thin piece of card (old blister pack) and cut it out slightly inside the lines so it would fit perfectly with the base. Then I painted it Aleene's Deep Sage, which is a dark mossy green sort of color that looks good under flocking. A dark brown would have worked, too.

After that dries, spread with white glue using a damp brush, and dip into the flocking. I keep mine in a plastic snap top food container to prevent accidents. I press the base into the flocking, then turn it over and bury it in the container. This lets it come in contact with as much green stuff as possible, particularly the finer particles which can really help fill in the base.

My basing flock is a mix of 2/3 green fuzz to 1/3 dried out tea leaves. (Use old tea bags, dry them, put the contents into the blender for a few seconds). This gives a nice green and brown mix, the tea looks like bits of bark or old brown leaves on the forest floor. Sometimes I scatter a pinch of white "gravel" (I have cats, and all the fresh white clay litter I could want) to imitate a rocky surface.

November 18

I've gone over the figure one more time and checked for missed spots and done a few touch ups. Then I take it out to the garage for a good coat of gloss spray. I make sure I get top and bottom of both pieces, and spray from the sides so everything gets covered. I apply several light coats a couple of hours apart, rather than one heavy coat which could run or pool.

Personally I like to leave my figures with the gloss finish, as I think it brings out the color better. However, for this piece I will end with a sprayed matte coat to tone it down some.

November 19

Time to do the final assembly. I clip the wire I glued into the base, leaving myself about half an inch to work with. I test the depth of the hole I drilled and snip the wire shorter until everything fits neatly. I notice that after painting and gluing, the wire is just a hair too thick and I have to shave it down some with my knife to get it into the hole.

After the base is glued to the bottom of the flyer and has had half an hour to bond, I put the wings on. I adjust them by eye until they are level and I like the angle the flyer sits at, then walk away and let it dry for several hours.

November 23

I should have mailed this out Tuesday. Then I wouldn't have noticed the wings wobbled and I wouldn't still be messing with it.

I tried an additional drop of glue but that did not set up, so I've pulled the wings off and am letting it dry so I can scrape everything down and re-glue later. I've seen this happen before - the original bond is not tight, and for some reason a second drop of glue will not set up on top of the first attempt. It all has to be cleaned off before gluing again.

While trying to assemble some other figures I come to the conclusion that the shelflife of my CA glue has come to an end. It's still liquid, it's still tacky, it will still stick my fingers to anything I touch, but it will not cure and hold a good bond with anything. Pah!

This means it is time for... EPOXY!

Some people like to use epoxy all the time, but I don't. It has a number of unpleasant qualities (it has to be mixed, it drips, it stinks, and it sets up before I get halfway through gluing) so I prefer to reserve it for jobs like attaching solid metal dragon wings and repairing grandma's china. I suppose this qualifies as metal wings. :)