[This post was originally posted to Otherverse Games & Hobbies as part of a series called Plastic to Painted, or P2P. You may see logos or references to this site and series]
Aptly Named. This Model and I Have, A History…
The Lady of Strife, though not as large as my Queen of Ecstasy, was the actually the fist large scale Creature Caster model that I attempted. I really liked this model as soon as I saw it, and it seemed like a great side project. Very Khorne. She would make a perfect Daemon Princess for a World Eaters detachment. If I ever got around to rounding out my 20 year old shoddily painted Berzerkers. As I alluded to before, however, I have no intentions on doing so at the moment. The Khorne daemons, at least in the GW line, are largely unappealing to me. Also not a fan of all that red either. Though those new Berzerkers are certainly temping.
So yeah, I when I started building this model, everything looked simple enough. The torso, upper legs, and upper arms are all one piece. You just have to add the head, remaining limbs, and wings. Then, attach to the model to the scenic base. Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy, Done-zo.
This, as I would soon become very aware, is where the problems all began. My expectations, versus reality. Reality coming in with the thunder.
I began from the bottom up, as one does, by attaching the the lower legs to the body, and then the completed piece to the base. I immediately ran in to trouble getting the legs to adhere. I made sure to clean the resin properly. I even scored the resin with a blade. Nothing worked. My super glue was new and rather strong stuff. No matter what I did, the legs would not stay attached. As soon as I thought they were, I would try to fit it into the base, SNAP. It got really annoying. But I pressed on. When I finally got them “attached” I began working on the upper limbs. As soon as I applied any pressure to the model… SNAP. The legs broke again. My frustration cause me to rage-quit and I boxed the whole thing up and relegated it to my closet.
Some time later, in a fit of masochism(always been more of a Slaanesh guy), I pulled this model out and tried again. The results were similar, but I was finally able to get the model fully built. Relieved, I even began working on painting her. Things were going well, until…
I DROPPED THE WHOLE FUCKING MODEL ON THE FLOOR!
It shattered like a crystal wine glass. Like a scene in a murder mystery movie. The lights flickered, a crack of thunder boomed with a bolt of lightning illuminating the room for but a mere second, a scream pierced my ear from somewhere in the abode, and on the ground a crystal model shatters.
OK, as dramatic as that sounds, none of that happened, save the models demise. And it was probably my cat that meowed, instead of someone screaming. But yeah, pieces spread across the floor. Now, I don’t know if I blacked out, or if I was just that defeated. But all I remember was just picking up the pieces, boxing them up, and returning the box to my closet. I don’t remember feeling anything. No anger. No disbelief. Just “we’re done here”.
And done there, we in fact were. She would be relegated back to her closet of solitude with the other misfit shame.
Fast forward almost a year. I am bored and in lock-down. I had spent the better part of the year powering through my backlog of large scale models. Surely, I can finally get this model finished after a year. It has been hanging around like a dead albatross from my neck. So I started over from the beginning. I even re-primed her. With much better luck this time. Not only did I get her built, but I got her painted.
I moved her around like I was moving a museum piece. It was as if I had finally beaten a boss battle that I had been K.O.’ed in hundreds of times before.
Victory, at last.
So why was this so hard? I look to the design on this one, as well as this being my first resin model that wasn’t GW’s. The lower legs connect to the upper/torso at the knees. A small connection point that doesn’t exactly fit well. Which is unfortunate considering these are load bearing connection points. Creature Caster has a lot of these connection issues, I’ve found. Once you have them attached, getting the feet to slot in to the scenic base is not exactly as easy as, insert and done. I had to flex the legs to make them fit. This was where I was getting breakage. I think to fix this issue the legs should be one piece, with connection points at the hip. The Queen of Ecstasy’s legs are one piece, and connect like that. I shudder to think of the nightmares I would have had if it was not so.
In terms of painting her, I enjoyed that process. Well, with the exception of being as gentle as I possibly could, for fear of breaking the whole damn thing again. I wanted to differentiate her bone armor from the bones she is standing on. So I decided to give her bone armor a grey theme. Otherwise it would just be Ushabti Bone color all over the model and base. I used splashes of the bone color with the grey, and then drybrushed a bone color on. I think it all worked pretty well. Her skin is Khorne Red washed a couple times with Agrax Earthshade. This darkened it up and gave her skin a bit of a sheen too. I used Carroburg Crimson on the black of her wings to give them some red texture.
Despite my turmoil, I love this model. It is a great addition to my display case.
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Robert
All of the following are true, except for one:
Robert is: a Hobbyist with too many hobbies to list, a Music Lover, an RPG/JRPG Gamer, a Mustard Lover, Chaotic Neutral, a Japanese Speaker, a Veteran, an Otaku, an Aviation Professional, a New York Rangers Fan, a Chaos Lover With Loyalist Tendencies, in a toxic relationship with spicy foods..
