Vikings!

The first of the Christmas presents has arrived! I've frequently referred to my brother as "Eric the Red", so it was only fitting that I make a rendition of him as a Viking. The model turned out great and arrived safely, despite some rather poor handling on the part of FedEx (big huge dent in the side of the box). The rune phrase (in the best translation of words into Old Nordic that I could manage) turned out rather well also. I think I am learning what will print successfully the first time and what will not.

Now, to paint! Unfortunately, it's huge, so this will be a big undertaking. I'm guessing the build organizer had fun with this one. Judging from the print lines, I believe it was printed with the words facing down.

Front:

Side:

Back:

Wow, nice model - I hope you show us what it looks like after painting!

BTW, I thought from your title that you'd made something for our (Minnesota's) poor excuse for a football team...I shoulda known better :laughing:

Go Vikes! (And take the Twins with you!)

Nice model!

What size is it?

It's 5 inches long, 3.25 inches tall, and almost 4 inches wide. Compared to the other stuff I've been making, this probably has 4-8 times the surface area.

And thanks for the compliments. The first step is actually to fill the hollow portion of the model with sand (there's a big hole in the bottom).

I finally completed the painting on these guys. It certainly took long enough, particularly since things are very crunched at work. As you can see from the close-up, there's a bit more texture on this WSF than normal, probably due to the larger size. You can also see that I'm not very good at painting... Luckily, what you can see in the close-up is not really visible unless you look very closely at the real object.

@turtle ! it looks great but couldn't you simply print it in full color sandstone ??

or is it that the painting is part of the FUN ?

Yeah, porous WSF is hard to paint well, but I think it turned out well.

@dizingof - I do like the painting, although it does take time. In this case, I estimate about 30 hours to complete the painting, since it's so large. The cracks and crevices are very difficult to get a paintbrush into. I haven't tried sandstone yet, but maybe I'll try that in the future.

@denali - Thanks! I find the texture afforded by WSF aesthetically pleasing. The trouble is that most folks who paint objects of this size and nature are accustomed to painting either really small stuff (wargamers) or, particularly, things which have much more intentional texture (e.g. fur). Thus, some folks I have asked for tips are at a loss, because there is no texture to drybrush or take advantage of washes. The bigger problem is that I'm mostly making things for other people, so I don't want to experiment too much.

As for the porosity, the key is to seal it first - this strategy saves paint also. A thin coat of sealant will suffice, without marring the texture.

Hey TurtlesAreCool, I showed this off in Friday Finds. Such a cool gift idea!

Thanks, Ana!

The gift has been given at this point (we generally exchange one gift on Christmas Eve), and my brother was quite pleased. Mission accomplished!