Minuteman x2 with OSL

[PG_Bubblybrew]

I've been excited about getting Minuteman x2 (Minutemen?) since Wrath came out, and when they hit the streets a few weeks ago I knew I wanted to try and push myself to do something that I'd consider "out there" for my normal paint jobs. Since this little bugger hops around with jump jets, I decided to try and make it look like those were in use.

The streams of fire are muzzles flashes that I picked up over at Armorcast, which I pinned into the jets. Because they are so long, I put the minuteman one a large boulder made out of cork covered in green stuff. A little bit of practice with my airbrush and a few Brushtralls tutorials later, viola! OSL.

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Edit:
By request, step by step on the OSL.

I painted the model the way I wanted it, and finalized everything except for my final spray of dullcote/sealant.

Then, I loaded up the airbrush with dark red, and sprayed the back of the mini from a few angles. I did this from far away from the model, and sprayed in a wide arc to get the warm glow.

I switched to a dark orange and repeated the process, except holding the airbrush closer and spraying in a tighter arc. This made the light more intense for that color.

Repeat again with light orange, yellow, and white. Getting closer, shrinking the arc, and getting it more intense with each spray. At the end, I coated all of it with a spray of a really watered down orange wash (1 part paint to 10 parts water) to tie it together a little.
This, of course, totally screwed up the flames themselves, which I then repainted (based menoth highlight, then yellow (leaving some white), orange (leaving some yellow) red (leaving some orange).

[Adept Rahn]

These are very cool i love the jet packs

[SchnauzerFace]

Fantastic work! Can't wait to see these guys beat up mulg.

[althai]

Very cool work. The jetpacks are awesome, and the OSL reads very well.

I do have one critique, which is the rocks still have that "blob of greenstuff" look. It's probably not worth the effort to redo them, but I have two tips for getting more natural looking rocks, in the future:
1. Don't try to make the entire rock (shape + texture) in one go. Instead, first try to get a more interesting shape, without worrying about texture. Right now, you basically just have two cylindrical mounds. Instead, do something a bit more three-dimensional, with outcroppings and crevasses.
2. Once you're happy with the shape, and it's cured, try to get a good rock texture on top. The best way to do this is cover everything with a thin layer of putty, grab some real rocks from outside, and use them to stamp textures into the putty.

[PG_Bubblybrew]

Thanks for the feedback Althai. I honestly had no idea what I was doing with the rocks, and after some failed google searches decided to just wing it. You gave me some great advice that I'll be sure to apply in my next project.

Tell me, do you use green stuff for this, or is there another material that would be better for natural looking rocks?

[SchnauzerFace]

I usually ball up a piece of tinfoil and roll it all over the putty before it sets, which should help give it some texture. Is this the 2-part plumber's epoxy? If so, that stuff sets ridiculously fast. When doing really tall bases like these, I usually do it in several stages and build the rock taller with each layer. Otherwise, it'll set before you get a chance to do any sculpting/shaping/texturing.

Again, this is really some of the best OSL I've ever seen. And the rest of the jack looks awesome, too! I'll have to find out what reaper blues you're using for the armor. It looks so good that I almost don't hate Cygnar so much.

Almost.

[althai]

Thanks for the feedback Althai. I honestly had no idea what I was doing with the rocks, and after some failed google searches decided to just wing it. You gave me some great advise that I'll be sure to apply in my next project.

Tell me, do you use green stuff for this, or is there another material that would be better for natural looking rocks?

It depends on what sort of texture I'm going for, but I usually use some mixture of putty and natural materials like cork, tree bark, and sand. As an example, here's the base I made for my Ruby:

You can easily see what parts are cork and sand; the white and green bits are putty. In my experience, there's no ready-made material that looks like a rock in scale without doing anything?whether you are using cork, bark, putty, or some other material, you generally need to do some work so it doesn't just look like whatever material you started with, and actually looks like a rocky outcropping or other natural formation.

[Thundersteel]

WOW! Those are awesome!

[Defenstrator]

Those are fricken sweet. I'm going to feel like an underachiever when I get to mine.

[Stanislav]

I like it!

[Zargar]

holy smoke.... LOVE it!! Makes me want to get an air brush
seconded on the feedback on the base, but thats already covered

[nerdforest]

my jaw dropped when I saw that. amazing work.

[Falcon42]

Two thumbs up.

[capamerica1980]

Kudos... Excellent job.. Now I have an idea for my two Minute Men...

[detton]

Excellent work - they are really memorable!

detton
=?

[pattison]

Slightly over the top for me, but indeed very spectacular.

[Lachlan the Mad]

When I need a rock, I use... a rock. Because I'm a geology student, and I have a rock for all occasions!