Journeyman 2014: Model Prep

After cleaning the house all last week and entertaining some friends over the weekend (Cards Against Humanity is amazing, as was the LEGO Movie), I was able to steal some model time last night.  Both Ladyzoid and I needed to relax and so I watched Leverage and scraped and filed mold lines, and she played WoW (gotta get the LFR in before Tuesday, right?) and watched more of Season 2 of House of Cards.

Here’s where I was when I stopped last night.  It doesn’t look like much, but thorough model prep is the first step in making good looking models.

The Extremoth is getting the metal base.  It’s already going to be a gigantic, all metal ball of fury, so I figure I might as well just help it stay balanced on the table by lowering it’s center of gravity a bit.

Harkevich and Black Ivan were already assembled, though I found some mold lines I had missed on Harkevich, so I took care of those.  I also noticed Hark’s base needs flocking.  I’ll handle that when I build the other six bases.  I’m also not 100% happy with Black Ivan’s pose, so I may fiddle with that a bit.  His arms are both magnetized, and I had already modded the gun so it turns and I can angle it left or right.  I’ll need to drop an extra puin in that so it sticks, once I pick a position.

I was able to clean the legs, hips and feet of the Extremoth.  I would have assembled him, but the four joints for his legs and feet are all ball and socket, and thus can be posed in any number of ways.  I’m going to get his base ready, plant the feet, and build up from there.

I worked on the five horses for the Greylord Outriders, too.  They had some bad warping (likely due to being in a hot container during shipping or something), but 160°F water took care of that pretty easily.  I warmed up both halves of each horse in turn, and then held them together under cold water to ensure a nice, tight fit.

I also got rid of the little tufts of grass on the front hooves of some of the horses.  I had to clip around where the hoof was hidden in the grass, I couldn’t just cut the tuft off.  Things like these tufts are a great way for the model manufacturer to help keep an active pose and maintain stability on the base, but the grass doesn’t work on my basing scheme, so it has to go.  Since the hooves actually go down halfway into the grass tuft, the distance that needs to be made up is pretty small, so I’ll just add one extra layer of slate rock as needed.

That’s it for now, stay tuned for more tomorrow, and then some Week 1 Battle Reports later in the week.