Blind Berzerker:
Well, here it is; my very first post on CDO… :hat off
Personally, I could not think of making a more dramatical entrance; a first post, showcasing the winner of a very hard fought contest. First and foremost, I would like to take off my (slightly oversized) horned helmet to all of you who competed together with me; the standard was very high indeed and I am surprised and humbled to have done so well… Also, a big thank you to the organisers of the contest; I know this kind of thing always puts the pressure on and it can be a very taxing endeavour indeed. Oh; and of course thank you to all who voted for my entry; cheers!
I saw there’s a who’s who thread somewhere, so I will introduce myself a bit more elaborately there. Suffice to say I ended up on this great forum through a web search for Chaos Dwarfs (no surprise there I suppose). I have recently started a Chaos Dwarfs Blood Bowl team (after my Goblins had failed me one time too many. That is to say; they have never won or even tied just one match…) and sought some inspiration.
So, when I stumbled in here, I was so inspired, I decided to finally get that Big Hat army I had always wanted. I dug up my meagre collection of evil stunties and accompanying Hobbos and set to work, until I noticed the announcement for the GH13 contest and on a whim, I decided to enter.
So I signed up, but due to circumstance, I didn’t get the chance to actually post anything (real life has a habit of getting in the way, doesn’t it 
). By the time I did find the opportunity though, my entry was finished (a couple of hours before the deadline of course), and maintaining radio silence seemed like a fun way to remain that one mysterious outsider everyone talks about. You know; handsome stranger and all…
Anyhow; I can now finally break the silence and post a (very) abreviated bloggish series of pictures of my entry. Yay!
When I came up with the idea, the first thing I did was doodle it into my notebook as a starting point. 
I later also scribled down the construction of the boiler, its plumbing and the whistle’s lever. I also worked out the facial expression a bit better (which doesn’t come across very well on the pictures, but quite matches my later drawings in real life. So my photo skills need some serious brushing up. Also because almost all of the subtle blending and shading on the mini completely failed to show up on my entry pictures. But with no time or remaining photographic skill left, I simply had to go with them).
Believe it or not by the way, but this is the very first full sculpt I have ever attempted. However; I do have my share of conversion work under my belt and have been in the hobby since the late eighties, so luckily I’m not a complete novice.
I did read up on sculpting techniques and basics though, so I started out with a wire frame, made out of paperclips:
The first part I created was the whistle/hat, which was made from a piece of 1/72 aircraft ordnance (of which I havve enough to start and decisively conclude a minor brush war), with the ends cut off, to leave a plain cilinder, which I capped with pieces of plasticard. I then added the cone on top with putty. I use ProCreate almost exclusively, with some Green Stuff here and there as foundation and bulk. I simply find it to be a much nicer material to work with…
I then added the basic shape in GS over the wire frame. It was then that I decided to add a bit more dynamism into the pose by making him twist to the left, which makes him visually more appealing when compared to my initial drawing.
As the globbed on GS was way too bulky, I then dry sculpted it back to the right proportions with a sharp blade.
On top of this basic shape, I then started sculpting the final shapes and the surface detail. Luckily, scale mail is very easy to do, as that was the first area I tackled. Sadly though, most of the sculpting on the back later disappeared under the zany steam contraption…
Next up was the face, which was one of the two parts I dreaded the most (the other being the left hand), but surpisingly, it went very well. I suppose studying those tutorials on the web really paid off…
Then, inevitably, came the other area I feared; the rather difficult left arm, which was complicated even more by the twist I added to his pose. This forced me to cut away the entirety of the GS foundation for the arm and work the pose back from the finger in his ear all the way down to his elbow and sleeve. I had to do this in stages. The first one I had to take off again, as it looked like Hobbo dung. The second try was much better, but really rough. So I had to go back, cut some parts back again and smoothen out the work I did in my second try. But in the end it looks pretty good, all things considered. The second stage is shown in this picture.
Then came the big moment of merging the hat and its wearer. At this stage, I also added the other parts, such as the boiler, chimney, plumbing, lever and chain. I was inspired by Astrogoth’s boiler for this, so I used an old (and damaged, out of a bitz buy) Hero Quest Ork head for this, with a boiler made out of a 1/72 cluster bomb (fuse used as water tank cap). The demon’s face was sculpted on with some more ProCreate. The plumbing consists of a piece of soldering wire, some round plastic sprue, plasticard/rod/pipe and a piece of a WH40K Space Marine Missile as a valve knob. The chain is from some WHFB Chaos Marauder flails and the lightning bolt end is also plasticard. Finally, some last detailing (such as the rivets all over the mini and the arrows on the whistle/hat) was done and he was ready for undercoating!
Finally, here is an alternative shot of the finished product, from a higher angle than the entry pics.
I do plan on cleaning up some of the painting, especially the triangles on the chimney; they’re too rushed by far. I will exchange them for red and yellow ones forming a band around the chimney’s top, bordered in black. I will also add borders to the triangles on the sleeves and clean up the line where the plate mail meet the fabric of his tunic, possibly blacklining inbetween the two colours.
As I am a very slow painter to begin with, I am not dissatisfied with the final result, as I did the entire paintjob, including undercoating, on Sunday 31st. Had I taken a bit more time, I am confident the end result would have been better. Which is why I was so surprised to find I had actually won, even though I had been aiming for a top three placing (I even ceremonially slaughtered 13 kittens and 1 newt to ensure my success). :idea:
All in all, it was a great (and fun) experience and I am confident enough in my skills now, to want to sculpt more Chaos Dwarfs! I have taken up the plan to sculpt, and cast in white metal, multipart CHaos Dwarfs to create my CD army, as Ebaying all the required models will be prohibitively expensive. Let’s hope I will be able to pull off this monumental task I have set myself to…
Cheers,
Blind Berzerker
[align=center]2017 Image Salvage
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