Dschingis Cow + Project Log

"The Mongols were known as fearsome warriors on horseback,

praising the neverending blue of the sky, but there is one story which has not been told thus far.

Some say it is just a legend, but when the Golden Hordes conquered parts of Greece they found the long fogotten maze of the Minotaur and even the mother of Minotaures got ... ehm... conquered. A son appeared out of this coupling and he grew to a strong warrior of the Golden Horde. They say it is a legend, but refugees full of terror may proof the legend wrong with their reports and fear in their eyes."

I started this project in August 2010 and it took its time to be finished.
The crazy and old conversion work on Figone's Minotaur was a pain in the ass to paint, really.
I just wanted to finish him and so I did. When I look back on the conversion it is like "whoha?" - wtf was going in my brain, but well, sometimes those moments are full of joy :)

You can also find a Miniature Unpacked of the Minotaure here.

I was very happy to see that this conversion even inspired Figone to do the "Gladiataure", or at least that is my guess when I look at his cow brother. Great model to paint, whatever you do with that cow!

 

I even wrote an article about scratchbuilding that fantasy weaponry back then.
You can find it here:

Creating your own Fantasy weaponry

Roman's approach in how to scratchbuild a sword and shield.

Dschingis Cow

Conversion of Figone's Minotaure

You can find more photos in my gallery on Putty&Paint.



Project Log

Well, with this figure I was struggling. Easy to see when I say I started it in 2010 and finished it now, in 2015. Why? Mmh, I try to explain.

Let me show you the first concept ideas of the base. Two big candle sticks:



Conversion work went on - using mainly green stuff and Magic sculpt:



After the conversion and sculpting work was done he got primed, black and white:



I like to start with a rough sketch, so I did with some wet and wet blendings on his skin. No idea yet where the journey will go:



I started to paint him with some basic colours back then, but still was not sure about the base yet:



Finally I did build a base on top of a plinth by Sockelmacher.de. I used Hirst-Art Gypsum parts for it. Interesting in using them? Well, check these tutorials:

Basing with Hyrst Art Gypsum

This Article shows how you can work with gypsum with Hirst Art products.

Bringing in details while basing with gypsum

Where there is something big, something small will always bring harmony.

Base looked like this:



Testing the model on the base:

Well, from this point on the cow often stood in my cabinet of shame. A place with too many WIPs and no interest from me to finish them up for the moment:

Why? Well, I think I lost the vision. Lost track on how the end result should look like. I was exhausted already from the conversion and somehow the conversion showed me the vision already. I was bored in painting him and somehow frustrated of all the added stuff. It confused me. So time went by. More and more. Sometimes I took him out of the cabinet to do some paintwork on him, but quickly he returned to the cabinet of shame.

Painting/Project Motivation
Roman speaks about a project related motivation curve.

For example during the years I was in need of the cow skull on his belt. I added to the model and I just took it, thinking I will not finish the model close in time. Priorities, but with this actions I lost even more motivation. One day I sat down and sat to myself get this boy together again. So I used a skull of a mouse to replace the gone cow skull and added some more skulls on his beld. The beard was made new and some minor changes here and there to get him back on track for painting again.

Recently I gave him colours again. All cold and grey. Maybe fitting to my mood. I was again not happy with him in this state.

I always say, there comes the right time for every project and well it was the same with this one. I just wasn't happy with the colours I used so I enjoyed to repaint the athmosphere in the whole project:



And that is something I can recommend: If you are searching for something different, or a stronger light or a darker shadow or more colour here and there - PAINT IT! Do not hesitate.

I hope you like him!
Keep on happy painting!