Welcome to my first Work in Progress blog. This one in particular will reflect a WIP for both this Games Workshop miniature and on how I want to do more of these in the future. The WIP blogs will be different in the sense I’m giving more of a detailed look at how I prepare and paint miniatures. I’ll be providing dates at each update making this a more living document and as such will be updated multiple times before finishing.

6/26/2020

So I actually got this model back in the early part of March this year. I decided early on I wanted to be able to switch out the heads and all of the hands. Mainly because the model is $40 and it seemed like a waste to use only one head and two of the hands. I decided to get some rare earth magnets from Amazon. 1 mm diameter in size.

I started by removing all the bits I planned on making modular. As such, I removed both heads, all four hands and the parts needed to assemble the body. Then I washed all the parts in soap and water. After they dried, I glued the body together. This turned out to be a minor mistake for the right hand options (more on this later).

I then turned my attention to the heads. Given the deep recesses of the heads versus the flat “head space” on the body, I decided it need to have the space reduced to be able to use the magnets. So I turned to trusty green stuff to fill in the head gaps. Once I finished, before the green stuff hardened I glued a magnet to the body with superglue. Once dried I took a loose magnet and snapped it to the glued one. I then took the head with the semi-dried epoxy and pressed it unto the space. With the indentation indicating where to glue the second magnet; I removed the loose magnet and did just that.

The heads fitted and the green stuff continuing to dry, I moved on the the left hand. Using a vice pin I drilled out a hole for the magnet in the wrist. After I placed it in the socket, and again glued it in with super glue. One of the hands needed a hole drilled like the arm and I followed the same steps. The other hand (the one holding a smaller rock) I had to fill in with green stuff and then follow the same step as the heads. With the left hand done I moved on to the right hand.

When I got to the right hand all seemed well. For whatever reason, I decided to dry fit both hands. The hand with the chain and part of a wall fit in nicely. Then I went to the hand with a good sized boulder. No matter what angle I tried; it would not fit. After some additional manipulation I realized that it was designed to be glued to the right arm before gluing said arm to the body. So I will be stuck with the hand with the chain due to this.

Right now I have switchable heads, switchable left hands, and once painted, a right hand that will remain constant. Not terrible; if I decided not to use magnets I’d be left with a unusable head, right and left hand. Once done with this part of the project I used a dark grey primer (Army Painter Uniform Grey) on the body, and used a paint on primer for the hands/heads (Vallejo).

7/8/2020 – Color choices

Well between work and the holiday progress on this project slowed down quite a bit. For now, I am going to share some ideas concerning colors for the model. As you can see on the box art they went for a two toned skin approach. Looks nice but honestly dull in appearance overall. The dark skin tone and dark cloths/metals make it visually unexciting. So I’m hoping to bring out a brighter color scheme but still be brooding/dangerous.

So to start off I’m thinking of a blue skin tone – after all this is fantasy and lets explore some possibilities. I want a darker tone and a lighter tone; as I like the dynamic of that aspect of the look Games Workshop went for. The exact shades of blue remain mutable though one will be a grayish -blue hue. To compliment the skin I’m going to try a lavender for the hair. As blue and purple are analagous colors this should work quite well.

Beyond the skin and hair I have a few other areas planned out. The loin cloth will be a darker shade of red and the wraps most likely will be a beige of some sort. The metals on the model vary on the location. It will be a mix of iron/steel and bronze on average. These will be weathered by varying degrees. As to the skulls – I’m likely to use Army Painter’s Skeleton Bone but may try a few other hues as well. The last major area of contemplation is the stones. I am thinking a white stone for those attached to the chains. As to the one the cyclops’s holding maybe a dark green or greenish blue.

7/15/2020

So when I left off last week ; I talked about colors for the model. This week I took a bit more effort to narrow down what exact colors I wanted to use. This process took place bit by bit after work and a commission I took on last week. I am still ruminating about the dark green or greenish blue stone but the majority of it has been decided. Of course I might add/subtract as needed but the pictures below should be most of the colors I plan on using.

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7/26/2020

So today I started the actual painting of the model. I started with the hair, as I wanted to see how much shock value it had in the base coat. The color chosen – Lilac Dust provided the shock I expected. The pics below will help illustrate this.

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With hair done, I began in on both faces and forward facing chest/abdomen region. For this region I picked Army Painters Wolf Grey. A nice bluish grey color to help bring the two colors together. The initial base coat seems to provide a nice juxtaposition and make the areas distinct. More pics to show how the miniature currently appears. For today I’m done but hope to update sooner in the future.

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8/24/2020

Continued to work on both of the cyclop’s heads. Applied an additional coat of the Lilac Dust for a more even coverage. After that, I mixed the following paints together in a roughly 3 to 1 to 0.25 ratio – Oak Brown, Lava Orange and Mythical Orange (not pictured). This mixture was applied to the head with the eye patch’s straps and covering. As well as the large straps crisscrossing the chest and back. Plus the right arm bracer.

Returned to the face, and touched up areas of Wolf Grey near hair line and around strap. Next paint used consisted of Red Black, my favorite color for inside of mouths and tongues. Once applied I mixed this color with Dragon Red for the exposed tongue for an easy high light. Next the teeth received a layer of Skeleton Bone, as well as the exposed eye on the other head.

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9/27/2020

Well with the worst of the fires and smoke seemingly behind the region I return to working on the model. This week I returned to the leather straps I missed at the last update using the Oak Brown, Lava Orange and Mystic Orange mixture. After that I started in on the rest of the skin beginning the base layer with Viking Blue. This covered all the remaining skin areas on the main body of the cyclops. I provided two thin layers over the body and afterwards noted that some cleanup will need to occur at a future date.

I applied Chaos Red to the loin cloth in two layers to build up the color. In addition I reapplied Skeleton Bone to all the skulls for better coverage. I took the time to address any clean up of the cloth now to reduce future work (as I already know that the skin/leather need it once fully dry). I started in on the steel metallic part by using Necromancer Cloak on the two of the manacles.

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