Gamera - Great work on Captain Picard! The skin tones are wonderful, and the uniform colors/shades look spot-on. Stoked to see the Romulan beaming in as well.

Marc - White glue also lends itself well to replacing texture like your sanded-off detail. Dabbing on the bumps with a toothpick should make short work of it. (Plus, it's removable if there's something you don't like. I'm far too chicken to attempt such a thing with CA--that's a lot of grief if a glitch develops along the way.)

gregbale

Aaron -- Hizonner appears to be shaping up nicely. What is the blue color, by the way? (It looks like a great shade for a pending automotive project.)

Greg,

I used Tamiya royal blue as a base, then added Tamiya Blue to it to add lighter shaded. White added to blue provided highlights, then I misted over a 50:50 mix of blue and royal blue to tone down contrast and blend the shades.

Cheers, Aaron

gregbale

Marc - White glue also lends itself well to replacing texture like your sanded-off detail. Dabbing on the bumps with a toothpick should make short work of it. (Plus, it's removable if there's something you don't like. I'm far too chicken to attempt such a thing with CA--that's a lot of grief if a glitch develops along the way.)

Thanks for all the tips fellas.  I ended up using gap filling CA.  The problem at first was on 1 “bump” per dip in the glue.  That would have taken forever.  So I heated and stretched the end of a plastic pipette and just kept tapping little dots out.

Not perfect but once painted at least it won’t be a bare strip running down the sides.

Gamera...speaking of zippers, check out the back of the calves.  This is not a model of the creature.  Technically, it’s a model of Ben Chapman who played the role of “The Gill Man”, on land, in an un-credited role. Ricou Browning played the creature for the “in water” shots.  Also un-credited.

Marc, that's a nice job adding those missing lumps, looks good. The zip's are a nice touch, are you planning on leaving those in.

Hey Marc, the added detail looks good enough for me esp with his arm position they shouldn't be too visible in any case.

That's funny with the calf zippers there, amazing that they put that level of detail into the kit!

I also think it was kinda funny that many of the gillman suits in later movies 'inspired' by CFtBL had a weird hunchbacked look. Strange that the hunch was about the same shape, size, and position as a SCUBA tank...

Pretty awesome that Browning could hold his breath so long he didn't need an stinkin' air tank!

Thanks Bish. I have already filled them.  i made some impressions of the other "fins" below the zippers in some Silly Putty and will cast some extra to further hide the repair.

Oh gamera, that is just an amazing coincidence the the hump back is the same size and location of a SCUBA tank  I've only ever seen that original movie and plan on watching it in the next couple of days for some painting inspriation.  And I'll bet the underwater scenes are all short take with lots of shot changes for how long he could hold his breath  Kind of like the weightless shots in "Apollo 13"  Can only have short takes on the Vomit Comet.

After filling and sanding the zippers I pressed the fins into some silly putty for a mold and made some resin casts to cover the repairs.  Did a little more bump work on the "leggings"

Marc: Looks great, painted they look like they were originally there.

Gamera-very nice work on Picard-reminds me of a plant manager I used to work for-bald, British and expecting everyone to 'make it so'

Greg-good tip on the white glue for adding texture-I'm gonna need some on the Green Goblin due to the seam work.

Marc-the Creature is looking good-and a great tip on the pipette on the super glue-I'll have to remember that one (once I'm brave enough)

Someday when I grow up I wanna do figure work like this!

And then they were gone. Nice fix Marc.

Gamera-nice job with Captain Picard. The colours for the uniform look great.

Wingnut-good job with the bumps and the fill in on the zippers. You hid everything up nicely and they are very hard to see even with knowing where to look.

starting to feel the pinch with spidey. So close to being finished that I started to rush a bit and mussed up the last bit of webbing. So had to redo the one leg, and have the webbing all lined up nicely now. I should know better than to get too anxious about trying to finish. a couple more pieces of web to place than paint.

Nice job everyone on your builds, and cya at the finish line.

Last Friday, I added the gray primer to Conan and Belit. 

I sprayed this from directly over Conan's head to give me a visual guide where the strongest light would fall as if beneath a noonday sun.

Some of you were wondering about the effect: Here it is! 

For me, the gray helps me block in the base flesh and first shadowed flesh colors. I suppose it also acts a little like pre-shading. Now, I have to get painting.

OK, time for an admission: I've never airbrushed a figure before. All of my figure painting experience is with a brush. I'm breaking new ground here! I mixed my own base flesh tone using Vallejo red, white, deep yellow, and deep green -- ratio 5:9:6:2. While Conan hails from Cimmeria, essentially Northern Europe, I thought he'd be darker complected right now because of all the time he's spent sailing around in the tropics without a shirt on. Thus, I went with a darker base flesh.

I'm blocking in the base flesh tone on those places that were almost purely gray and fading the edges into the places that remained black. My plan is to complete Conan's skin, mask him off, paint Belit's skin, then work the clothing.

I made the basic shadow color by adding a bit of green to the base flesh mix. You can see it in the cup.

Here's Conan with the basic shadow flesh color blocked in. It looks a little stark right now, but I'll work in a deepest shadow color and then highlights, and it'll look even worse. Then I'll start blending everything together. I'll resort to brush work on the face, and probably for some of the more subtle blending on the rest of his body.

The base shadow color will serve as the base flesh color in the shadowed areas. Then I'll add subtle highlights and shadows there--nothing too stark. Because of the nature of the figures pose and the amount of shadow cast by Belit, I'm forcing the light thing a bit, both for realism (hopefully) and dramatic effect.

Again, I'm revamping what I would normally do while using a brush and transferring that over to the airbrush. We'll see how he turns out!

That's looking really nice there Tim, some really interesting technics being used there, I am watching closely.

Shiv: Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing the wallcrawler with all the webbing done.

Tim: Very nice work there! Picard was my first attempt to do a figure with an airbrush but I chickened out and did most of the detail painting with a brush. Learning a lot from what you're doing there. To be honest I prefer something with the hyper-definition like Conan there, to me it's easier to paint than just broad flat areas.

Tim....SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

Today I concentrated on getting Conan's face close to done.

His eye brows aren't finished, but everything else is pretty close. The fig just has solid walls for Conan's teeth, so I painted individual chompers. I might go back and define them a bit better, but I'll wait for final detailing.

Right side.

Left side.

Marc - the gillman is looking great!  Looks like you've  solved the missing detail problem, and super glue is likely the method I would of used too.

---------------------------------------

Tim - looks awesome so far!  I usually steer away from using black in shadow areas (something imbedded into my brain from art instructors), but some people can pull it off, which is exactly what you seem to be doing here.

Regarding the teeth, if you have the time and are inclined to do so, here is a little toot I put together.  I took a crop of one of your in progress images, and used the upper set of teeth to illustrate the process.  It basically is how I would approach this detail when painting on canvas, but is useful here too;

1.)-  fill in the teeth area with a suitable gum colour.  I'd suggest  a bit lighter than his upper lip, somewhere in the pinkish brown range.

1.a) - optional, but to give more contrast, darken the lower area where the bottoms of the teeth will be.

2.)  - fill in the shapes of the teeth (might want to do some photo research on this).  Use an off colour white in the ochre to slightly blue range mix (guess depends on how much black coffee the individual drinks- ha!).  Again optional, (not illustrated) you can make the last few visible teeth in the back of the mouth a bit darker than the front ones.

3.) Add highlights, reserving straight white for maybe just the front two teeth, and less so on the remainder.

-------------------------------

regards,

Jack

Looking really good Tim.

Ok, finally, here he is in all his glory.

As you can see, I re painted those 3 white buttons a light grey and did those inlays a mix of gunmetal light grey. I am really glad I did those, so thanks for raising that Tim. And Trabi, thank you for those links, they were really helpful not just for this but for the Stormtrooper I just finished. I will be saving that site.

As I mentioned before, I took some tips for the base from an article in FSM from last year. And the Imperial badges was made from 6mm MDF, and that was a real chore cutting that out. That's was an idea I got from plasticjunkie.

The lightsabre blade is a piece of clear acrylic rod painted clear red and I got the chain from a local jewellery store and decided to leave that silver. Gives Darth a bit of bling.

Now for the pics.

And finally, the now traditional mug shot.

Tim, Aaron, thanks again for a great GB and the chance once again to do something different. And thanks to everyone for all the help and the great builds, and a big thank you to jack for the advice on painting the cape. It made a real difference. 

Bish

Great work. I know how hard it can be to get a good shine on a kit and you hit it right on.

Phil

Tim - Excellent work on Conan! He's beginning to look properly terrifying. I'll have to try completely airbrushing fleshtones one of these days, since you're providing this excellent tutorial.

Bish - Most excellent Lord Vader, and the base with the Imperial emblem is the icing on the cake. Can't look at your photos without hearing the electric sizzle of the light sabre. Truly epic!

Marc - Great seam restoration work on the GillMan!

jgeratic

1.)-  fill in the teeth area with a suitable gum colour.  I'd suggest  a bit lighter than his upper lip, somewhere in the pinkish brown range.

1.a) - optional, but to give more contrast, darken the lower area where the bottoms of the teeth will be.

Jack,

Thanks! I appreciate the support. You know, that's exactly what I did, up until step 2. I mixed up a bone color and left but a very thin strip of pink. Then, I compounded my folly using a just-off white to paint in the teeth. If you look carefully, you can see them in the pics. But, at your suggestion, I'll repaint them tomorrow morning before beginning on his hair and finishing up those eye brows.

Bish - Excellent job on Darth Vader! You nailed it, and the base is stellar. I'm glad Mike Muzyka's article was helpful. I'll add Darth to the Hall of Fame in the morning.

Bish

Tim, Aaron, thanks again for a great GB and the chance once again to do something different. And thanks to everyone for all the help and the great builds, and a big thank you to jack for the advice on painting the cape. It made a real difference. 

You're very welcome! Thank you for joining us. Stick around for the rest of the build. Some of us stragglers are starting to pour on the gas. Plus, we'll announce the next FSM Group Build here first.

Marc, Gamera, and Greg - Thanks! It took me forever to get to that point today. Lots of blending, mixing colors, throwing mixes out, and remixing colors. Aaron at one point asked what was taking me so long. I flipped him a long, solitary bird in response. Tomorrow, hair, eyebrows, and then on to the rest of the his body.

Bish - most excellent work for this embodiment of the dark side.  

From the various finished sheens, to the details on his chest, simply great stuff.  From here, that imperial symbol looks like it it was cut from a tool and die machine, nicely done.

regards,

Jack

Thanks a lot guys, its been a real pleasure.

Don't worry Tim, I will defiantly be sticking around, to much great work here to miss Mike's article was very useful and I will defiantly be using that for inspiration when I start doing large scale aircraft..And I also routed the edge of the base, its the first time I have used one of those and it a real nice toy I will be making the best of.

Jack, the badge was cut out with a copping saw, the holes around the edge were the trickiest.  

Phil, thanks. Getting the shin on the armour, especially the helmet, is something I really wanted to achieve, and I am really glad its come off.

So Nemo finally got his boots on, although they need buckles for the straps.

Looking good GM. That's a novel solution for masking, nice idea.

So when vader was done, and looking so real, did he say, "Bish, I am your father"

GM, that looked like some kinda weird silver cape. neat mask.

Bish: Impressive!!! You're wielding that paint brush like the saber of a Sith Lord!

GM: The brass looks fantastic, love how he's turning out. I must admit though foil mask made me think of those cone things they put on dogs to keep them from scratching their ears though!