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I'm involved in Nunnery Practice
My latest Blog http://www.players.tacticalwargames.net ... p?blogId=8

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Michael Lovejoy's Art
Grey Army

Hi all,
Happy Canada day to you all!

Here is the latest update:  The main is now joined together, and almost all the FOL are in place.  The FOL count is now up to approximately 300.  The two parts of the hull are joined together by a screw, re-inforced with glue.
Note the 3 plasma cannons (all LED equiped):  Two joined to the prow, and one in a turret.  The turret was made out of green stuff, and is not complete yet.

Thanks,
CF

Interesting. I must say, I'm not too fond of the lines the hull makes with how the lance battery bits line up. Seems a bit odd and disjointed. I think they would look better flat against the sides even in the upper turret got close to the edge of them.

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-Vaaish

Hi all,
Vaaish:  Thanks for the honest feedback.  I aggree it looks a bit mismatched currently, but I think with paint and some more green stuff it will blend in better.  Some of the placement was also dictated by structural issues with the bonding of the upper hull plates together.

I'm pretty happy with things so far, but I'm wondering whether this might look better without the lower flight deck.  I think I've just been looking at this too long, and just second guessing my self, and should probably leave it as shown.  Its hard to tell as its still a WIP, but what do you guys think?
Thanks,
CF

Looking good so far, I like the lower deck maybe try and blend it in a little more so it looks part of the upper deck. I know what you mean by looking at it to long, I tend to go off project if I feel its not working and come back to it a few days later with a fresh perspective.

And I think you are reading my mind, I got a similar project in mind to combine 2 BattleBarges and a I.N BattleShip together in one all-mighty, mother of all ships and have all the cheeseiest weapons that are available. So its good to see how it might look, the bigger the better.

Not that your work so far hasnt been intresting, but this just got real intresting.

Keep it up

Hi, and Wow!
   Having just started around here, I have a lot to catch up on.  Couldn't pass up on contributing another "wow" about your work.  Love this hobby.  Some really great work to feast the eyes on.
    As for "constructive": I assume the lower deck is more for the electronics to fit, than just to make it bigger, yes?  I'm sure you already have thought of this, but: is there an alternative?  I mean, do you have any other 'spare' hulls to build on, instead of the lower hull shown?  I think it will look really good, when finished, judging by your skills, however you finish out.
    Like everbody else, I'll be watching to see how you decide to finish this.  
G.F.

Hi all,
Thanks again for all the comments and encouragement!
I had a few disasters, including breaking the fiber optic illuminator (the FOs now don't burn as bright), overloading the green plasma cannons with too much voltage (the ones in the pictures are new ones) and a whole load of other big problems.  So I've been painting like a @#!ing madman, because I leave on vacation in 12 hours, and I haven't packed yet.  My wife is gonna kill me.  So the paintbrushes have been put down... for now.

I still have some more details to add (and some more freehand and weathering), and hopefully I can put out some more WIP pics.  But here you go for now:

Oh, PS:  I decided in the end to abandon the double decker idea.  I think this looks better.

Thanks,
CF

Hi all,
Its been a while, but Invictus is finally finished.  I've been keeping her on the back burner, but look for the following new refits:
Name plaques on rear superstructure
More iconograpy (all NMM, with a final interference wash)
New color for the 'U' on the prow
Minor detail painting
Minor weathering

Alas, I still wasn't able to uncover all the FOL.  What you see represents about only 30-50% of the original FOL construction

Anyways, thanks for all the feedback, and support in Gothicomp '08.
Enjoy!

I also took some WIP to show how I painted the metallic icons:

The U was from the FW brass, the sword made from sheet plastic.  They were painted brown to start.


Next, very dilute white was added (this is called a glaze) on the areas to be highlighted.



Next, a glaze of yellow was added over the highlights, spilling into some of the brown areas.



This process of alternating white and yellow layers was repeated.  Not all of these layers are shown, but there are about 3 cycles of white/then/yellow.



Now, you have a passable NMM item.  To give it that extra shine, I use a paint called interference gold.  Notice how it is quite silverly by itself, but when placed over dark pigment, it gives a gold metallic effect.  I use a very thin glaze of this over the entire icon.



After the icons were glazed with this gold,  I again placed a yellow glaze overtop, to tone down the metallic effect.  Finally, a bit of the interference gold glaze was placed just over the brightest highlight.

Note how in these pictures, you can see a metallic effect under more proper lighting conditons, without getting that "my metallic paint looks fake" look.
Thanks,
CF

Wow!  Just... wow!  Nicely done!

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Set phasers on "fun"!

Good Lord, that's impressive work!

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Amazing!!!! A proud Ship

WOW! that is  a new level of crazy!

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