Quarmy Project Log

[Mattias!]

[Eilif]

Fantastic stuff man.
That is really coming together.

[Mattias!]

[Eilif]

That is a weird and wonderful tank.

[timlillig]

Some of the in pregress shots look like you are making a fondant tank. I'm really enjoying your progress.

[Michael S.]

Hi Mattias,
Wow! It all looks great. The Quar soldiers look tough and cute at the same time. I like that you can use them for K. 47’. I see that you are using them as British. I was thinking that you could use the British force rules, but for background fuff they could be aliens who come through the rift created by the atom bombs.(Just a thought.) The tank looks fantastic, I love the look of the gun and other design items on the turret. As Tim wrote, I was also thinking of fondant tanks. My wife made a cake using fondant and I noticed the similarity in the look of the material. I hope the plans you have for painting it work out. I look forward to seeing your army on the table top.
Michael

[Mattias!]

Thanks so much guys! I'm glad y'all are enjoying the updates.

The tank DOES look kind of fondant-like doesn't it? The EVA foam wasn't taking the paints quite as nicely as I wanted, so I've decided to re-prime and go a different direction--but I think it's going to look really cool.

More on that later though. For now, here's what I've been working on:

First off, I fashioned a little removeable tank operator for the hover tank:

This way I can run the tank as a Quar specific tank or I can remove the operator and run it as a generic tank for other games/scenarios.

Next, I applied metallic silver to all the guns, helmets, and bits n bobs on all the models (thanks for lending me the paint Karl!):

And with that, it was time to finish up the underpainting step with a couple of drybrushes. I used cadmium yellow first for some color modulation, then titanium white to establish the highest values. I used oil paints applied with a cheap makeup brush for the unparalleled smoothness of drybrushing they provide.

Here's a pic of the guerilla unit before drybrush for comparison:

And here's what they look like with just the yellow drybrush:

And here's a commando so you can see how nice a modulation of colors you get with the translucent cadmium yellow tinting the existing spraycan gradient beneath. It establishes volumes really well:

Next was the white drybrush. So you can see the comparison, here's the commando squad part way through. The rightmost has been drybrushed white, while the rest still only have the yellow:

Here are some shots of everyone with their drybrushing done:

Each drybrush step took perhaps 20 seconds per model. Super fast, super easy.

Now it's time to really get into the oil painting with the heavy washes. The idea with this step is pretty simple. I use heavy washes of quinacridone red (a very magenta kind of red), dark purple, reddish brown, and black all over each model:

As you see, this makes the model look like a goopy mess. But that's okay! Because these are oil paints, they dry quite slowly, especially when applied thick like this. I let them set for 5 minutes or so before using makeup sponges to wipe away the excess on all the raised surfaces:

I work this like a zenithal highlight, wiping with the sponge from the top of the model down. The effect is that on the raised areas, the underpainting comes through only slightly tinted by the washes, but the washes remain in the recesses and shadowed areas. It is in fact a lot like the effect of dipping, except you have a lot more control over color variations in the shadows. And just like that, all of the darkest values are established!

Now I'm only going to work on these two squads until they're finished before moving on to any of the others. This is because the next steps (spot colors and then highlights) work best if they are done on top of the oil wash layers that aren't fully dry yet. But at this point I was done with painting for the night, so I put the two in-progress squads under a bell jar to keep any dust or cat hair from getting on them, and called it an evening.

I'll post more updates with the progress on these guys soon. In the meantime, here's the updated checklist:
[list=]
[*]Reattach damaged bases <-------COMPLETE
[*]Repair damaged models (namely that artilleryman who is missing a head) <-------COMPLETE
[*]Finish the hovertank armor and reprime that model (Uncomplete, decided to reprime after all)
[*]Block out all the metallic areas with silver acryllic <-------COMPLETE
[*]Drybrush everybody with yellow and white oils to complete the underpainting <-------COMPLETE
[*]Establish shadows with heavy oil washes of dark brown, black, and magenta, and clean to leave them only in the crevasses. (These are also the main colors of the bases)
[*]Once the washes are dry, block in spot colors using oil glazes and heavy filters. (Dark brown for leather, Blue or red-brown for uniforms, dark grey and khaki for bits and bobs, bright colors for Quar skin)
[*]Highlight with off-white oils to finish.
[*]Finishing touches and black lip on the bases
[*]Make banners[/list]

[Eilif]

Incredible stuff. Those cavalry in particular are great!

[Mattias!]

[Mattias!]

Tank update now! I decided to go for something a bit more 'out there' for this one.

First, I reprimed with dark red spray paint:

Then a zenithal of this light orange:

Then using blue tack, I masked off a camo pattern:

Then sprayed with light green and a zenithal of light blue:

With the blue tack removed, it looks like this:

These are the same colors I used to prime the infantry. My idea is to have to complimentary color schemes: the pink shirts and the blue coats. Because the schemes are complimentary, they can be used as either one unified army or two opposing ones. The tank could then be part of any of these configurations.