Green Stuff Cloth Tutorial - Space Marines and Norman Horses

Redmanphill over at the Subject to Stupidity blog requested that I do a tutorial of how I do cloth out of greenstuff or brownstuff.  So if you don't like this tutorial, blame him.  Anyways I'll do this with two items that I'm converting that don't have anything in common, other than being miniatures:  Norman Horses and Space Marines.  So I have you 40k and Ancients guys both covered.  This is a relatively simple method to use, yields relatively simple looking cloth, and will not give you a cloth look with a lot of bubbles or fingerprints, unless your name is Tom Schadle.

First thing I need is a relatively good piece of plastic that the green stuff or brown stuff does not stick very well to.  That is generally a higher quality zip lock bag, not your typical thin plastic sandwich bag but something more industrial, or the film that they use to ship the two part GS in.  So here I have placed some water on the plastic, get it a bit wet.  Take some GS and flatten it out in between your fingers and get the basic shape.  Place that over the wet spot on the plastic.  Now we will smooth that out and get its thickness to a relatively consistent thickness.  To smooth out the GS, I will use tool number 1, that we so back in my Armor Plate tutorial.

 
Matter of fact we'll use tools #1, 2, 3, and 6.  In reality you only need a tool like #1 or 'c' and something that looks like a toothpick (a wet toothpick will work). 

Next I cut it to the desired shape. Use the color shaper or spatula end of a metal sculpting tool to further flatten the GS.  This one will be for the Norman Horse, a bit bigger piece than would be used for the space marine tabbard. 

Let it set up and stiffen 5 minutes or so.

Now if you use a small piece of plastic film, you could pick it up by the film and apply it to the miniature or peel the film off gently and apply it to the miniature. If you peel be aware of finger prints and its important to let the GS set up for a bit and stiffen. Once on the miniature you will need to manipulate it.

For this, I'm using a very good sized zip lock bag, so I will peel it off very gently with the xacto. 

Now I place it on the horse.

Here on the horse caparison I blended the upper edge into the horse body simply with my fingers. To do the blending moisten your finger and drag it across the GS until it blends smoothly into the plastic.



The further smooth out spots where my fingers don't fit, I use the tools and press and move the GS into those areas. 

I also need a crease in the center for the seem holding the caparison together.  I do that with the knife edge of the spatula tool.

Next I use the metal toothpick like tool, the conical color shaper, metal toothpick 90 degree bend, color shaper chisel point, or a bent wire tool to add creases or folds. You can also add folds by gently bending the GS into a shape.

The Space Marine tabard is very much done the same way.  Get the general shape.

Smooth out.

 Cut to shape.

Peel it off and I apply the piece of GS to the spot where the torso is glued to. 

On the above I used the tooth pick tool to make the 'V' coming off the pelvic area.  Below I added a few more creases with the tools, and then added a torso to make sure everything blends in.

Wow.  Long post.  Next time I'll show how I do drapings off shoulder pads and legs of the spacemarine, when I begin my space marine project.

A lone knight....You Cannot buy this from Perry Miniatures

Oh but I wish you could. Below are some pics of one of my converted Perry Miniatures knights. A single model is a bit easier to view sometimes than a whole group of them. I converted some their normal Normans to look the way I wanted them to look.

Their normal Normans just have mail armor, I wanted a sleeveless surcoat.

The horses are normally just naked, I wanted to change that also.

The shields normally have bosses and are a bit smaller, from the 1090's period. I wanted something to change that, and these GW High Elf shields were close to the style and shape that I wanted.

The basing is the same as the Hospitallers.

Painted Norman / Crusader Spearmen Unit

A very small spear unit. Definitely not done with these dudes. No movement tray yet. I did go with a variety of looks. Some English, some French, some crusaders, some from the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The goal of this army is to play over a variety of periods and different settings.


The banners did turnout better than the Hospitallers. I also did do a bit of converting adding some surcoats to the mailed Perry Normans.

Some of the figures are from the Perry's HYW line. Note that quite a few of the shields are from GW High Elves, I was trying to get rid of the bosses and this was a quicker way of doing just that.

Not sure when I will get back to expanding this unit. I was disappointed recently to hear that Conquest Games' plastic Normans on foot were going to be delayed considerably. So I will probably wait, and do some more knights in the mean time.

Warhammer Ancients Norman Cavalry Progress

Making some progress on my Perry Miniature Norman Knights. Got all of the horses done on the first unit and most of them done on the second unit. I was worried that my sculpting of the sleeve-less surcoats was a little rough, but after the priming and I painted a couple, that worry soon faded. I'm still not as good as the Perry's, but I think my work is holding up.

Different view, you cannot buy them from the Perry Brothers like this.

Below is one of the robed Perry Crusader Knights, that model you can buy from them like that, minus the paint.

And below for comparison, is one of mine with the sleeveless surcoat and horse with a caparison.

Still have a long ways to go, have to do all of the heraldry type stuff. Paint all of the shields, all of the washes to define things. I plan on painting all of that after everything is basically done. Mainly because I'll be using one of my better brushes, a Kolinsky sable, and for consistency. Most of the stuff is just sitting in my head at the moment. Basing will be the last thing to do.

Many Projects Coming...

I’ve had a number of people ask me what projects I have on my agenda this coming year, and I tell them that if things go as planned, which they never do, I will finish for sure my Roman Legions, have a playable 2500 points of Warriors of Chaos army, painted a 1000 points of Norman/El Cid/Crusades Knights for Adepticon, the beginnings of my next major and hopefully extravagant Fantasy army which will be the brutal Orcs, and starting my British Napoleonic’s/War of 1812 army.

The Roman Legions are basically done with the exception of the movement trays, which I’ll be finishing up shortly. I hope to have pictures of the entire assembled army within the next month. I don’t think I will get done with a display base for them when I go down to Adepticon, so I plan to use my 1000 pt Warriors of Chaos display as a fill-in, it is roughly using the same basing.

My Warriors of Chaos army, otherwise known as the Mutant Marauders, is approximately 1250 pts of completely finished models.

I started this army back in 2007, then the interim chaos rules came out separating beasts and demons from the book, then the new chaos book came out and I began to lose interest with them, then I got it back, then 8th edition fantasy came out and I lost interest in the game for a bit, but I like these guys and still love the models, so I decided to just keep going with the army. Not my normal style of doing things. I like to build everything first, then paint it all in one fell swoop. What makes it more complicated is that one of the colors I’m using for the army is a custom blend. I think in the next post, I’ll discuss my concept of how to I build armies whether fantasy or 40k or ancients.

The knights, something I have always wanted to do. I love reading about this period of history, I find it very intriguing and fascinating. Not much else to say about this army, other than it is meant to be for the Adepticon Team Warhammer Ancients Tournament. If it goes as planned, I will be teamed up with a bunch of Saxons under the command of the Mike “Old Coot” Butcher.

The orcs, much like my Khorne Demons, are meant to be my next extravagant, and hopefully the army will blow people away. With my Khorne Demons, my theme was obviously the evil depths of Chaos with blood pools throughout the basing and hands reaching up out of the depths of hell to drag victims down into the pits of despair.






I think it was interesting change from the whole lava based Khorne army scheme that you see done over and over. With my Orcs the theme is quite simple, brutality. And that brutality in particular will be directed at humans, namely the Empire and Bretonians. The orc project will be moving forward, now that I have figured out how to do my bases and movement trays. More on that to come, and I will probably do some posts on using themes to build your armies, something that seems to often be lacking in Warhammer 40k and Fantasy from the more casual army builders.

British Napoleonic is something I’ve also wanted to do over the past decade or so, so I decided to at least make an attempt at it. In this area I know of one other person that is interested in trying this and wants to do French, so I think will try this out, probably using Warlord Games’ Blackpowder Rules.

As for the other things on tap, there will be a few one-off display pieces, some more 40k conversions, and some commission work. I’ve basically caught up with my commission work, and have decided that this year; I will likely take on less commission work than I have in the past. I don’t always show pictures of the work I do, as once and awhile people request that I hold off doing so for a period of time for different reasons. I will be continuing with the VC Orc commission project, it’s been a lot fun, and is sort of an on-going project. This is not to say that someone may come along with a commission project that I simply can not refuse. For me, it has to be something that I want to do before I take it on.