Behind you...

So I have been completely amped up with motivation to paint since coming back from the Scale Model Challenge that I have done little other than work on this piece! Including but not limited to neglecting this poor blog!!!  OK.. didn't help that we just finished up the 5th-dimension painting contest, and the winners have been announced now! So it has been a bit busy...

But before I dive into the SMC review.. I wanted to show where I am now with this project. I did post up about it recently showing a different base.. but right before the SMC show I really was not liking the direction of it. And I know I could do better.. I mean.. come on.. this is going to go and sit in Roman's private miniature exchange cabinet!!! I can't just put anything in there ( though I have slipped a few things in there when visiting him.. not sure he has noticed them yet :) ).

The base before looked like this..

And the story behind it was a bit weak as well. I mean it was to be that they were holed up against the invasion/outbreak/looters blah blah while hiding in a broken down area. But when I began to throw some pigments on it, and began to look at the foliage a bit more.. well.. I was not liking the direction at all.

Sooooooooooooo after SMC, and with some new loot from the show ( I mean.. when have you seen me not get loot from a show? ) I set off to build an even better ( read bigger! ) base!

The grass roots of it started with an idea of a square socket.. and then cutting a piece into it.. there was some planning done.. I mean I did draw a sketch for it, but those get discarded quickly when I get into the building. I knew I wanted it to still have a big brick facade but I was not sure what to do with it. Until I saw the Walking Dead trailer on the TV and inspiration hit! I needs a Zombie!!!!

Rushing upstairs, I cracked open my Zombicide boxset, and grabbed a shambler from there to stick on the base.. but not just anywhere.. but within the safety of the house! And now I have a new idea.. making him visible through a window!!! Huzzah!!! Engage super motivation mode now!!! Heck, even Mrs Lee was like "WTF are you doing in there! So much noise, and activity!!!"

So with the plan in motion, I began to lay the foundation of bricks onto the base. Taking some of the newly acquired bricks I got from SMC, and trying some fancy new layouts with them to line them up on the base here. Playing with the different sides of them, and sizes, really made a more visual difference to the piece and it pushed me to go even further! Ok, so it is not as many bricks as I had used in Roman's basing class in August, but it was still quite a few! I was also trying to keep in mind that I would want to frame the piece so that the sides were closed and not open. Something that I have tried in the past but never really worked out for me. Probably due to piss poor planning on my side!

This time however you can see that I came with a plan. Although I am not the most precise person with regards to building things, I am pretty good at improvising! And hopefully doing it enough to make it work.

For the back and sides, I used cardboard, and balsa to frame it, and then covered them both with thin plastacard sections to make it uber smooth. I attempted to make the roof angle proper to avoid issues later on, but that would be a fail there though. But again I would just improvise here later on :)

Originally I was going to for a tiled roof, but then thought that it would need to be really damaged, and I was not really wanting to go down that route. Not cause of laziness ( maybe because of laziness ) but also because I couldn't find an appropriate size for the times as these tiles were far too large and thick for what I wanted to achieve.

In the end I went with a corrugated type sheet metal roofing. And I have plastacard that resembled it from one of the many trips to a hobby shop in the past.

You can see how it was looking, and that I was beginning to get other aspects of the base put together at this point. The gap on the left was filled with a pipe drain. And the frame for the window was built out of balsa.. which I am quite proud that my almost 90 degree angle cuts lined up so nicely!

But more important is that the roof came together nicely and the chimney section fit nicely between the roof sections. I did look online for ideas on this though ( a first for me! ) and I found lots of inspiration for how to make and then paint the metal sections..

At this point it was time to prime the base ( after having long chats on FB about what to put in the front corner ). And tossing in some extra things like bags, blanket, and a bucket. Oh and some grass that would be super aged while in the base.

You will also notice that I didn't prime the whole Zombie either. I really wanted only his face and surrounding areas to be focused on.. so only would paint that section and ignore the rest. No point painting something that no one will see! Especially once he is in the house and the back of the room is black, and the window would cut out the view a bit further as well.

Now this was fun! Sketching the colors here on the bricks! Cause I had crated it with different angles and styles, I figured that they could be from different types of bricks as well! So I really had fun playing with colors here and making the main section of the wall a bit brighter. I also did this as the main model is quite dark, and he would need something to help bring him out, more than make him hide easier in the base.

This continued onto the sidewalk bricks as well.. really giving a separation between the different pieces. You can also see how the Zombie looked in the window with minimal paint. I had done very little, but with extreme highlights/contrast and I was loving it! Though of course I wreck it later when I begin to add blood effects and cover most of that great work.. but I know what to do in the future though so that is fine.

The base more or less completed for coloring at this point. Touched up some of the highlights with some grey/white to make them stand out more. Painted the socket black, but this kept getting a white dot or 2 on the front from my bear like paws while painting it. argh...

And the first shots of the roof with the first layers of rust from Modelmates being applied. This is always fun as I just play with the different tones and see how it comes out. Sometimes throwing some colors in like orange, red, or black depending on what I want to achieve. Can never know how the end result will be like until it is all dry, but that is where a hairdryer comes in. Makes the job much faster.

Jumping waaaaaay ahead in the process, and with a piss poor cell phone photo.. you can see, sorta, how the rood weathering has come together. And that the entire base has been attached by moss!

I would go on to add the models here, and reattached some garbage bags behind the little girl also.

There are still a few more things to be done with the base/models yet. The gunner is missing his knife that goes on his back. And I need to weather up the entire thing with pigments and dust yet. Especially the window as I don't want it so visible through it. I want the focus on the zombie behind the glass.. but only through the broken sections ( aka where I painted the model! ).

But I am a lot more satisfied with this piece as it is now, and will see what happens with it when I head off to Liverpool once more this weekend for a weathering and vehicle painting workshop with John Harrison. Should be fun as always in Liverpool ( and hopefully my liver doesn't take too much of a beating Saturday night! ).

So let me know what you think as I go on now to write up my review of the Scale Model Challenge show!