WIP: Warpath (Garage Kit)

Quick update on my latest commission!

With real life in the way (lots of overtime this week), I haven't had a ton of time to work on kits like I would've liked to. My local hobby store is having a contest that I would like to have entered. Even though after placing first with my Thundertusk I wasn't eligible to compete (a good rule to keep people from sweeping every contest), I still would have liked to have something on the table, even if it wasn't judged, as deadlines keep me focused and focus makes me do my best work. That being said, I have two commissions waiting for me on my bench and a kit I was going to try to finish in time for the contest as well, but my personal stuff had to fall by the wayside with such a busy week. So on to the commissions!

First up is a bust of the famous X-Man, Warpath, who notoriously bit it shortly after his first appearance. As is the way with all comic characters, he seems to have resurfaced.

The client wanted a darker stone base, so I set out to do a very minimal look to the whole base section. I started with black primer.

Then I went with a very heavy drybrush coat of Mechanicus Standard Gray, then a very very light drybrush of Dawnstone. After that, I washed the entire piece in black to tone the grays down even further. I also picked out some of the details that appear to be metal poles, sort of like rebar, though I couldn't tell for sure. I put some metallic paint and dabbed some rust effects on there to break up the overall tone.

After that, I assembled the bust (6 pieces, the torso, head, two arms, and the "fringe" at his shoulders) using some CA glue and Apoxie Sculpt. No in progress shots there, unfortunately, though look for a tutorial on the different putty types soon. The big guy was then primed with Tamiya Fine Surface primer, where a few pinholes presented themselves but were easily taken car of with some super glue and microballoons. I then preshaded the bust. I have only dabbled in preshading one other time with my Dragon Hulk with decent results, so I sprayed the recesses with Tamiya Flat Black:

It was an interesting effect afterward. Preshading always looks weird to me. After that, I sprayed him with Tamiya Flat Blue using the old "zenithal" trick of spraying from the top down to preserve the shadows I had created. I then mixed in a bit of white to the paint and sprayed some highlights. However, the blues weren't quite the tone I needed, and the white I added was a little harsh on the transitions, but this was by design. I tied it all together by spraying some Tamiya Clear Blue over everything, which brought all my tones back to a more middle ground (you can also see the base better in this shot):

After that, I had to let everything dry for spraying the reds, since masking wet paint can have disastrous results. So, next is to whip out the ol' masking tape and get to work on the red tones, then the skin shortly thereafter. Once that's done, he's off to his owner! Thanks for looking.