Round Five Report from Rob Jedi

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Rob Jedi writes:

Hi, folks - welcome to Last Painter Standing Round 5. The pack is definitely reaching the last stretch here, with only 3 of us left - got to say the end is a lot closer than I thought it would be. Once again, I'd like to thank Bill for creating this competition, i-Kore for the generous sponsorship, and all the readers that continued to vote for someone else =D.

Inspiration

This round, the model is a Fomorian Blood Reaver - an incredibly cool and dynamic miniature, that I could find absolutely no painted examples on the net anywhere! And I looked, too. So I waited till Bill posted the background...I realised it was a kind of crazy cross between a lizard and a shark. Sure is a nasty-looking beastie, I really have to compliment the sculptor on this one.

I vaguely remember having a wonderful image of it being red and tiger-striped when I first got the mini. However, that was about 3 months ago, and just before painting this I did a Daemon Prince of Khorne...frankly, there is only so much red one can paint in a short period of time. I needed a change of colour and style. So I started researching via the wonders of the Google Picture Search for dinosaurs, sharks, iguanas and lizards, and even a few birds for a cool colour scheme. What I eventually found that really peaked my interest was the collared lizard, a cool-looking little fellow that has blends, stripes and spots. I wanted a challenge, and this scheme sure would give it to me.

OK - that was the inspiration out of the way, now to finish that Daemon Prince XD. Once that was done and I was all worn out from sleep deprivation, I got to work on the Blood Reaver. (BTW, if you want to see the Daemon Prince, here he is.)

Preparation

First up, I cleaned up all the parts of the model. The body of the Reaver is one piece with separate front legs...considering most of the weight will be on the front leg, it was a little worrying, since it looked tricky to pin. The rider sat on the Reaver no problems, and also came in 2 parts.

I used needle files, sandpaper, and a hobby knife to clean all the parts of mould lines. I then test fit everything, and noticed the ball sockets for the arms needed a more cleaning. (I cut out the bumpy stuff with my hobby knife.)

After that, I tried out the look of the mini on its base. Too small. OK - what else to use? I found a nice GW Dreadnaught base in the bits box, and tried it out in a few different directions. I liked it - much more dynamic - only problem was, the mini was designed for a flat base. The rear leg was bent slightly at the ankle. The front leg had to be in a slightly out-of-socket position. That was OK - it's what Zap-a-Gap is for.

I tempted fate here and didn't pin the leg into position, just using the glue to hold. There was a bit of a gap to contend with, so I mixed up some greenstuff and pushed it into the gap between the arms and the body, then - wetting my finger - dragged it over the join, wiping away the unneeded putty and getting the join nice and smooth. That was easy.

For the rider, I decided he could use a pin to hold him together - since I knew that people would pick up the mini by the topmost part (in this case, the rider) and I didn't want him separating in the future. I used my Dremel to drill a single hole in his body and in the middle of the socket in his legs, and after putting the legs over the Reaver, glued him together in an appropriate pose. Lastly I drilled into the Reaver's foot, and put a pin in to stick him to the base with some strength.

Painting

Paints this time - and there were a hell of a lot more colours than I have ever used on one mini before! - were Games Workshop, Palmer Prism Acrylic, Artist Spectrum Inks and a single Vallejo.

I started the painting by spray-priming everything black. This was then over-painted by hand to make sure I got into everything, and left to dry.