Well, this was one fast project. I started work on Saturday; picking up where I'd left off in the build 2 years ago, and started painting on Thursday morning. 24 hours later and I'm done!
To be fair, the speed of the paint process was mostly due to the nature of the model. I also maximised the amount of work I did with the airbrush, so I spent about 2 hours on that part of the paint. After that, it was just a matter of sorting out the details. Oh, and fair warning, this post contains moderate resin boobies!
My favourite part of the paint is the glowing eyes. They didn't take a lot of work, and I'm really happy with the final result. I basically just airbrushed them with dark angels green, then Vallejo escorpina green. After that, I washed around the area with a little Biel-Tan Green and then just highlighted the central eyes with a ever lightening mix of moot green and white.
Considering the time spent on paint, I'm really happy with how she came out. It's also nice to take something out of the cupboard of shame and get it finished for once. I'm planning to pick up a Lord Discordant tomorrow, and I never thought in a million years that I'd actually finish this model before then.
Anyway, that about rounds it out for the Avatar itself. Due to some difficulties with this kit, I've also written about the process of building it (which is basically just a massive page long complaint), but if you're just here for cool pictures, you can skip that bit.
Kit Review
I'm happy with the look of the final model now that it's done, but honestly it was a horrible experience to build. Resin can be hard to work with, and I've gone through plenty of resin models in my time, but in a number of ways Raging Heroes really dropped the ball on this one.
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A gap in the claw you can fit your thumb in...
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I expect to spend some time with greenstuff filling gaps, but the position of the seams was just plain terrible, and the kit honestly feels poorly designed. Often seam lines between parts seemed to be arbitrarily cut straight through crucial rounded areas that were next to impossible to fill cleanly.
Looking at a mock up of the model before paint or greenstuff, if you enlarge the picture, you'll see that there are seams running though every inch or so of the claw on the right. The front side is the better fitting one, and let me tell you it took quite a bit of time to fix all of that.
The worst seam on the whole thing? the butt. For some reason, they decided to cut the legs at the hip to the groin (which you can also see in this picture). That would've worked well if the avatar had clothes, but with a bare demon ass to contend with, it basically left a large horrible seam right across the body that was really unnecessarily hard to fill and work with. Why they didn't follow the line of the chains, I'll never know.
Detail pickup is ok, but far from ideal as well. It just feels slightly blunted and lacking in the crispness that you see in other manufacturers (eg: Anvil, Forgeworld, Prodos, Black Sun, Wargame Exclusive, Nocturna, even Finecast). Overall, if you like the model, I'd still get one, but just know that it'll be a ton of work, and honestly don't even go there unless you're an experienced model-maker.
I don't like slamming a manufacturer, but I've got other Raging Heroes models from the kickstarter, and it'll probably be a few years till I can face working on any of them either. It's a shame, but that's the reason I shelved this project in the first place, and it's a real problem. Does it look nice now? yeah, but I had a ton of work just getting it together in the first place, and it's mostly down to poor design choices.
She looks incredible and nothing wrong with a model that paints itself :)
ReplyDeleteToo bad the kit was a chore. I've dealt with some bad miniatures before as well, some that are hard to say no to because they're so affordable, but it's just not worth the aggravation.
Yeah, in some ways it isn't too bad if you know what you're getting and are prepared for the work. It stings more when it's brand new off the production line and just building it is like torture.
DeleteIt does look nice now though, and in some ways I claimed a lot of time back in paint!
The final result looks awesome! My favourite part is that huge claw on her left, so I find it a particular shame that section was designed so badly. Well done for sticking it out and getting back to it and finishing it up. I know how that can get, I've still got a Lucius Pattern Drop Pod sitting around unbuilt from like four or five years ago because building the first one was such an awful experience.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm really happy with the claw - big glowing eye things is definitely a winner, and the paint mix worked really well.
DeleteI think everyone has an occasional run in with resin that leaves its impression. It certainly makes you appreciate plastic kits though!
Outstanding paint job on the purple shades, congrats!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I paint a lot of purple - it's actually my favourite colour!
DeleteYeah, the outcome is pretty bloody awesome! I like that you've painted the bony bits...well, bony, instead of making it a smooth purple.
ReplyDeleteThose are some huge seams, though. Seems rather odd they wouldn't pay as much attention to that in such a large model.
I looked at other people's paint jobs and actually saw someone else paint the bones bone-colour. I thought it looked cool and also worked well with the airbrush, so I went with it.
DeleteThe worst gap was actually behind her head between the hair and the back of her head. In order to get the "shhh" pose to look right with the finger, her head needed to be where it is, but the hair actually directly locks into her back. Basically it left a gap that was almost a centimetre across.
The design of the kit sucks ass. But luckily you've done a great job of building and painting her. Nice going man!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have to admit that I'm starting to like the kit more now that it's finished. Building it just made me angry to be honest, as it's such an infuriatingly poor design. The pictures do look good though, so I can't complain too much about the final results.
DeleteShe looks magnificent. Beautifully done. Was she meant to be compatible with Slaanesh lore? Anyways, I love what you did with the colors.
ReplyDeleteI also have a ton of stuff from the KS and I must say their Resin is horrible to work with.
ReplyDeleteApart from the generous application of release agent (multiple rounds of bathing the parts in dishwashing liquid, ultrasonic cleaner with more dshwashing liquid and scrubbing), something in their mixture or process also makes it incredibly brittle, to the point where some parts on the smaller models break apart almost by looking at them (seriously, who came up with the idea of using this resin on models that have sections that are less than 1mm thick like the claws of the Mantis Warriors). On the big models, the material is really hard, so removing the pieces left from the sprue is a lot harder than with most other resins I've worked with so far.
Still, the finished models, especially the big ones, look really nice