Last Thursday I showed off my Lotann entry in Gamersaurus Rex’s contest in SGCC, and I figured this week I can talk through how I did it.
Inspiration
When I got Lotann, I realized that I wanted to do a few things with it. First, I wasn’t going to be super perfectionist about it. I hadn’t painted in a GOOD LONG WHILE, so I just wanted to get back on the hobby horse again. Second, I wanted to move away from the grim and gritty that I’ve been doing with my Orks and Dark Mech.
I didn’t want my Lotann to be the usual Blue/Silver Idoneth colour. I really drew a lot of inspiration from David Soper’s (Sproket) Tidecaster, and so ended up with blue-green, reminiscent of the sea, contrasted with the warmer tones of the gold and red of the octopus.
Paints
There isn’t as much record-keeping here, as I was rushing through the painting. There was only 1 month from collecting the model to the deadline, and I would be gone for work for about 2 weeks during that time.
I quickly laid down the primer, followed by very basic base coats for Lotann and the Octopus.
I usually do a zenithal prime these days. It definitely does produce additional value changes when I airbrush. I don’t see as much difference when I use a handbrush, but every little bit helps, and it’s not a lot more effort when I’m using the airbrush to prime and lay down base coats anyway.
The next time I took a photo was when all of the paints on Lotann were mostly done already. To bring the figure all together, I would use a lot of violet shades in the shadows. Carroburg Crimson is currently my go-to shade for that. Unfortunately, it really darkened the Octopus, so I would need to go back over it with a mid and bright red (P3 Skorne Red and Khador Red Base).
I was very happy with my colour choice for Lotann, but I think the Octopus could have been better. I didn’t have a lot of time though, so proceeded onto the base.
Like waves on a beach
I want to preface this that I’ve never done a clear resin base before. I did try a resin terrain piece AAAAGES ago (in my early Warmachine days) and that… could’ve turned out better. Still, I wanted a way to ‘wow’ the viewers, and I figured a half clear base was a good way to do it.
Step 1: Destroy your base, worry that you screwed up and will run out of bases. (This is not likely going to be the case, considering my mountain of backlog grey and unpainted plastic.) You note I’m making multiple bases. I only had time for 1 pour (with the curing, going overseas etc), so I wanted to hedge my bets. Plus if I ended up with more bases I could aways use it for other minis.
Step 2: Ensure the base is waterproof. I built a plasticard base, glued it to the original base, then used greenstuff to build the ‘slope’ for the beach. I then used basing material for the texture.
Step 3: Paint all the dry bits. You’re not going to have access to this any more, so make sure you do it properly! To get the illusion of depth, you notice I painted the slope and the plasticard at the bottom in a gradient from light to deep blue. I also tried to texture it a bit; again, trying to give that illusion of being deep water.
Step 4: Build the wall and pour. You notice I used different types of tape to wall off the base (painter’s and vinyl tape). I think Vinyl tape is better. Both are sticky, but painter’s tape has a bit of texture. If I were to do it again, I’d probably go with super thin polystyrene or clear plastic sheeting.
I used 2 part clear epoxy resin, and a smaaaall amount of turquoise ink to colour the resin. Don’t use a lot; ink is very strong.
The resin shrank a bit when it cured, so there was a bit of a lip to the edges. The tape also imparted the texture onto the resin. I tried sanding it off, but was only marginally successful. I’m not sure how to improve it in the future (please do tell me if you have any ideas), but I don’t think it is all that noticeable.
Putting it all together
I fixed the model on to the base, then finished up the base by adding some heavy body acrylic gel onto the surface of the water, to make it look like waves. The waves dried clear, so I went back over them and drybrushed a bit of white to get the white caps of the seafoam. I think it could’ve been better; I’ll have to try it out again sometime.
And there you have it. My Lotann, first mini in just about a year. It didn’t win the contest, but in the grand scheme of letting me try out a new colour scheme, and making me get off my lazy ass and start painting again, I think it was a success.
