Diesel DM

Skin shaded and highlighted

Quick update on the Mountain King progress.  I got the skin shaded and highlighted.  I think it came out all right, but doesn’t feel like my best work ever.  Shading and highlighting muscles is a lot different from the usual Cygnaran armor plates I’m used to. I did adjust my paint blends to get deeper highlights and higher highlights, which I think came out pretty well.  Ended up redoing the highlight on his stomach as the first attempt was especially bad.

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Shading and highlights on the rocks

Finished up the shading and highlighting on the Mountain King’s rocks. I initially followed the Gargantuan’s guide, but found that the highlights were not bright enough, so I went back and dry brushed in a three additional layers of highlights.  Over all I’m not thrilled with how the rocks came out.  In reality there are to many faces and angles to the different rock spikes I could spend a month highlighting and shading them.  I think starting a shade darker may have helped, or maybe try washing in some of the shades into the recesses.

Cleaned up the skin base coat

Once the rocks were done I quickly went back in with Trollblood Base and cleaned up the parts of the skin that had gotten splattered from the rock texturing.  As I was doing it I realized that the splatter technique would work really well for Trollblood skin as well.  Probably want to choose different colors than from the rocks, but maybe do a purple or magenta for a darker splatter and maybe a Frostbite for a lighter splatter.  Though the rock colored splatter was also interesting.  But in the end I decided to stick with the original plan of regular smooth colored skin.

120mm Slate Wastes base from Dragon Forge

And lastly, my base has arrived.  A 120mm base from Dragon Forge, it will match the Slate Wastes base I used for eDoomie and that I plan to use for all my casters.

Basecoat the skin

Work on the King continues!  And now that my internet has returned I can post some pics!  I started by basecoating the skin.  I will do the rocks first, but getting the skin done first will make cleaning up after easier.

Basecoat the rocks

Then the rocks got basecoated, following the guide in the back of Gargantuans. I only did the large sections like the back, forearms, hands and calves. The small stone will be done after the skin is completed.  There is a lot of surface area on these rocks.  It seems like a simple enough model at first, but there is a lot going on and this is going to take longer than I imagined.

Splatter the rocks

Next was the splattering of lighter and darker browns to give the rock some texture, like a granite with different colored specks.  I’ve never done this before and I may have gotten a little carried away with it and put too much down. But we’ll see how it looks when it’s all done.  I wish I had taken more care to cover the skin while doing the splatter.  I have a lot more to cleanup now.  Some plastic cling wrap in appropriate places to cover the skin would have gone a long way.

Primed black with some white zenith highlighting primer

Now that I’ve opened the way into Trollbloods with a battlegroup, it’s time to jump right to the biggest troll of all: the Mountain King.  With the Stormwall and a few trolls under my belt, I feel less intimidated by the Mountain King.   I believe him to be the best looking Gargantuan by far, so I’m still trying to take my time and do him justice, but without as much “where do I even begin?!” trepidation as when working on the Stormwall. (more…)