Forged Hope - Dysfunctional Robot

Oh to sit back and just go fishing all day long! Probably was this robot's builders thoughts when he was making him, though too bad he was not smart enough to pull out fish! Seems he is only interested in tyres and scrap!

So this was my piece for Massive Voodoo's latest contest, Forged Hope. The little village that needed to grow, but required some extra help to make it so! My idea started out as a fisherman robot, but the water effects aspect scared me off too much, so I changed it a bit to be more trash collector of the rivers!

But with all projects.. there is a beginning.. so let's go back a bit to understand where it began, and how it took off from there!

Original pose and thoughts was lazy summer day, sitting on the river side, and lazily fishing. Like a lazy robot apt to do from time to time. But then the thought of water effects and blah blah scared the crap out of me. And I thought it would not be the best piece to be trying that one at the moment since the socket is not fully smooth on one side to mount up the water.

So after some tinkering with putting some rocks and such on the top sections, the dynamic nature and the story of the piece changed dramatically!

No longer being lazy, and now focusing on some hard, and heavy styled fishing here. But what to catch?

Well a tire of course! What else would he be trying to capture at this point?

Initial Color and function was put down at this point so that I could move on further.

Actually from here, I began to work almost exclusively with the Modelmates liquid pigments. Applying them both in thick and thin forms to get some interesting colors on it.

Afterwards painting the socket itself black to set the scene. I think it really turned out nicely, and gave me something different to look at here. Though there was still washes and glazes to go, but no real color was added on the piece itself. Was really surprised that just a few of the products could product such a result though!

But next steps was back at the robot itself! I mean the contest is about robots, not basing!

First steps, besides assembly, was to get some rough texture on the to be rusty spots. I used Vallejo Liquid Putty to create some texture on the rusty spots and make it look like the rust has bubbled up a bit. And to give the metal itself a bit of texture overall.

From here it was using more of the Modelmates products to add in the rust colors... love this stuff so much!

From here I threw on some AK Interactive Heavy Chipping Medium, and then began to put in the basecoat of the colors for the robot himself!

A nice bright blue!

The only problem from this point is that I did not take any photos! But I can say that it was due to how frustrated I began to get with this model..

Due to the resin being very brittle, and me having such large sausage like fingers... this meant that the piece broke time and time again!

I think I snapped the left leg off 3 times before I finally got the pin to stay in properly.
The feet changed due to breaking off the longer sections.
The hands and fingers were a nightmare to re-position on this piece and make them stick to the handle of the rod.
Snapped the head off at one point.
The rod is the right height to be caught while moving near it or painting it. So the arms fly, just fall, off the model due to the spring in the pin.

Arghhhh so much paint and frustration on this piece.

I had taken it with me to Blumberg, to the Fernando painting class there, and worked on it a bit while staying over at Peter's place. He and Phillip both gave me some advice of attaching it to the base to do the light situation better. Since I was struggling to much with where to place them while it was on the little paining socket.

Broke the arm while placing it. Snapped the leg again as I tried to force it to stay. Cursed enough to teach both Peter and Phil some new English expressions.

Was not a happy camper with this piece to say the least, but their advice helped me to get the colors down at least. From there I could say that at least I was finally making some progress on it.

Great guys even if one of them slept all the time ;)

But it was not until I got home. Had some time to think on the piece. Have some quiet time, that I was able to put a bit more work into it.

That and the deadline to the contest looming overhead to me that made me want to get it finished NOW!

So I was able to get it finalized after Roman's basing class where I saw people using brass wire from cables as rope! Like ... wtf!!! Why didn't I think of that? So my line problem was then solved, as soon as I made one of my old mouses a wireless version :D

And painting it up with Scale75 metallic paint to give the shine that would come from a piece of fishing string. Though this one had a hooked claw hand as a hook.. but still...

Final photos can be seen below.. am really happy with the piece in the end. I had added an oil/gas can like it was part of his lunch or pack. But that it had tipped and spilled over the side of the edge. I also added some more oil pigments from Modelmates here, and reglossed the entire section. End results show a really weird formation in the mud sections, but interesting effects all the same!

Hope you like the final photos below!

Currently it is up on Putty&Paint and if you have an account you can vote for it as well!

Enjoy the week!