20,000 years later

Well, OK, more like two years, but still: I let this guy sit unpainted for FAR too long after finishing his assembly. I think he was actually pretty much done in early 2016. Unfortunately for him Harkevich had precedence (both for being a Khador model and for having the more interested lighting system that I was eager to finish and show off). After that I wasn't getting any games in anymore so my old plan of putting together a small Cygnar force no longer seemed to matter very much.

He wasn't too bad to paint: not too many different surfaces, and not too much extraneous detail. I initially painted the cloth in a neutral grey, but it looked terrible so I repainted it in warmer shades. It's amazing how much difference that made, but it looks much better now. The shading on the cloth was somewhat experimental, but I think it came out quite well overall (though the midtones might not be quite dark enough compared to the highlights).

I pretty much just used my standard colour palette for everything. The coils (which were made from acrylic rod that I had filed and sanded into shape) were simply glazed with undiluted Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints: Plasma Fluid. I took a shortcut with the armour and simply painted it Enchanted Blue then applied Asurmen Blue wash directly into the crevasses. I did drybrush a bit of Enchanted Blue over some of the shaded areas to soften the transitions before highlighting with Ice Blue.

The coils aren't as bright in real life as they look in the photos; I don't know why but that always seems to happen. This really dark photo is actually a bit closer to how they look in normal room lighting:

I made a mistake when gluing the rear coil in place; I don't think I positioned it properly (it was supposed to be glued directly onto the LED for maximum light transmission), which I think is why it's so much darker despite having a larger, brighter LED. I couldn't fix it by that point without ripping the whole model apart.

I've already posted about how I assembled the base in my tutorial on powered and light-up bases, but here's a bunch of WIP photos of the assembly of the body:

I cut and drilled the old staff out of the hand.

I didn't like the cables so I carved them off and sculpted back the detail as best I could.

I didn't really have a line to drill straight up the leg into the body, so I drilled two holes instead.

A large hole for the large coil.

A second hole to help me position the wires and LED.

The head of the staff, with a hole for the shaft.

I drilled out all the original holes in the "shielding".

The topmost part of the staff... drilling out such tiny pieces isn't easy.

After my first attempt failed I had to order another off the PP bits store and try again.

The large(ish) LED for the main coil.

Even my smallest LEDs weren't small enough to fit the staff properly.

So I filed the corners off a small LED to help it fit.

Soldering these tiny LEDs is really hard, several did not survive.

Ultimately I had to twist together and glue some wire BEFORE soldering to the LED.

Once soldered I threaded the wire through the copper tube that would serve as the shaft.

Superglue and primer was used as extra insulation, to be on the safe side.

Similarly the holes in the body were insulated as best I could with primer.

The wires were passed up the body, glued into the leg, then sculpted over.

The large LED in it's final position.

You can see the two pairs of wires passing through the base.

The twisted wire of course goes directly into the staff.

Soldered up and magnets glued in place (for transport). After this it was filled with milliput.

You can see here how I ended up cutting the body in half and repositioning it.

This was partly to help with the wiring and partly to fix the "pointing while doing the limbo" pose.

The left arm was reposed slightly and the gap sculpted over as best I could.

It wouldn't have made sense to add the smaller coils since they couldn't be made to glow.

You can see the LED in place here.

The final test fit before priming.

The head worked out quite well; I was never a fan of the original "steampunk Einstein" look, and since this is Nemo's first incarnation I decided it was appropriate to make him looker younger than usual. The head was donated from my second Croe model, who received his own conversion. It's surprisingly "craggy", so he still looks a bit aged. I wasn't a big fan of the expression, but a sculpted goatee helped cover that up.

While the rear coil not lighting up properly is a shame, overall I think the model looks good (and as usual I'm just glad he's finally done). The coils actually look pretty good even when not lit up, and I think the paint scheme is visually pleasing (even if it's quite uninspired, being pure vanilla Cygnar). Plus I think my repose looks a bit better than the original.

I named him Joules Verne, which I happen to think is a hilarious name that is highly appropriate for him.