Unsurprisingly I didn’t win anything at Golden Demon yesterday. Despite staying up until 11-30 on Saturday evening getting my entry done. My basic problem was that I ran out of time and rushed the final parts of the model. The red elements was litterally splashed on, the metals weren’t finished off to a high enough standard plus the base and cloak got whacked out in an evening – far too short a time to do them justice. This meant that I didn’t even receive a single sticker for my entry 🙁 – which was my goal. However the fault lies squarly on my shoulders as I should have spent more time on it when I had the opportunity and for not being able to take more time on the finishing elements.
However those were the negatives. My intention is to begin to plan and work on next year’s entry now. My Brother’s new flat is in Chippenham, has easy access to a train station (5 minutes walk away), so next year’s Games Day is pretty much sorted from a transport point of view – plus the train will mean that I don’t have to wake up at 5-30 in the morning 😀
Now, although this years entry sounds like a complete disaster I need to hold onto the positives, which actually far outweigh the negatives.
- First off the actual modelling aspect was pretty spot on, I’ve learned ways of doing things that I didn’t know before and refined techniques to the point of being able to repeat them or know how to do them better.
- I’m very happy with the cloak that I sculpted and the end result was exactly what I was looking for, I was asked by a couple of people where I’d got the actual cloak for, which means that I achieved a look and feel that mirrored GW’s own style.
- I’ve worked out that I dislike highlighting grey with a brush, so need to practice achieving a nicely blended highlight (likely airbrush highlight with a brushed sharp edge). The shadow colour also needs deepening, using real paint in addition to washes.
- My skill and knowledge with an airbrush has increased. I was able to churn out an acceptable base and cloak in no more than a couple of hours. I do however need to look into decent methods of masking off areas. Regular blu tack is greasy (and cocked up the cloak inner).
- Practising colours on a test piece should compulsory for colours I’ve never painted and are a significant component on the model.
- For complex models, keep each element as a seperate unit. I had a complete arse of a job painting the arms and some elements of the torso because I had to glue it all together.
- The base construction needs to be done first and secured in place before too much else is done – this acts as the framework for the whole model.
- You need to regularly put your painted model underneath a halogen light as that’s what the display cabinet has lighting it.
- The model needs to have a number of bright colours on it. A snow base helps, but in principal my Dreadnought was bland – grey and brown were the main colours. This resulted in it being largely lost in the cabinet.
