As the second figure from the old Grenadier line I'd be working on, I had a decent idea of what to expect while painting. The sculpting is good but not excellent. The feet are a little bit too small and blend into the base a bit, and the mould lines are a bit of a pain. However, other than the line that runs along the top of his outstretched left arm, they were fairly manageable. He is certainly recognizable as Stratos, and that is the important thing to me.
I had good results priming with gesso on Skeletor so I thought I'd do it again with Stratos. I found that this time it dried a little bit rougher, and now I think I've pretty much hit on a good formula for using it. Adding just a drop or two of water to the gesso smooths it out a lot, so that's the way I'll likely use it from now on. I also really like that I can make my primer any colour I want simply by adding a few drops of paint to it!
Once again the paint work here is extremely simple, but yields effective results. I started with all of the skin and fur, covering with GW Fortress Grey. The exposed skin of his face is GW Tallarn Flesh. All of the blue was done with AP Crystal Blue, the red on his weapon, helmet and feathers is GW Red Gore, and of course the silver is good old GW Boltgun Metal.
With the block painting done I covered the whole figure with a coat of GW Badab Black wash and waited for it to dry. I used the original grey, silver and blue to go back and highlight those areas, but used GW Mephiston Red on the feathers and helmet to make them pop out a little bit more.
Based and done.
Although I'm not as happy with this figure as I was with Skeletor it still turned out nicely. Can't wait to tackle a few more characters to start rounding out the ranks!
7 comments:
Ah! Takes me back! Nice!
Once I get two or three warriors done for each side I'll certainly be setting up a game. It might take a few months but I'm really looking forward to that!
He's really cool mate i love him. As I said on LAF I had forgotten i had a toy version of this guy as a kid
Gesso. Yes, my preferred primer as well. It contracts as it dries giving a very tight, highly, detailed finish.
Looking Good!
I don't think I ever had a Stratos toy as a kid. Can't actually recall him appearing much in the original cartoon. He was in lots if the 2002 series, and it was a good toy. I should have taken a pic of him with his Dreadball team though...
I've got some Tamiya German figures that I primed with gesso and some paint/water. It looks a little scary as it dries because you've got these big gobs of stuff obscuring all the details. Looks great when it dries though. And I hate getting out the spray cans and priming board just to do one or two figures!
I find the gesso covers better for me... mostly because it can get hard to spray up between a chaps legs... and end up with poor coverage... or spraying 4 or five times...
Post a Comment