The Cococuqui – Ladies of the Jungle

With all the other mini work I’m doing offline I’ve been kicking around some effort on slinging paint for these ladies. No, neither Gerry nor Pundancer will be given the sweet succor of satisfaction these figures will elicit after long anticipation. Believe me the painting is painstaking with my desire to get it right.

Color is still an inspiration and I’ve decided against guppies/livebearers. The fish are cool but not what I want to deal with as I found better inspiration with feathers. Yes, birds are the thing now. I have specifically zeroed in on the noble kingfisher in all of what that bird family can show off with. The stunning plumage is what I want as I can work with eye candy.

Yes, I’ve been taking it slow and whittling down my painting time to one day on the weekends. I’ve gotten Furious George painted, sealed and otherwise done except for the details of his basing. From the feedback of the convention I’ve decided to add a little bit of visual interest in adding some variety to the tones in his fur. A hint of blue as a shade may or may not make a difference but it could be something I should be more mindful of in future.

Beyond this I’ve dryfitted my next item for the ladies of the Cococuqui to use as either a warmachine or Titan.

So I decided to start on one of the monsters. It seemed easy enough with all the vast swathes of area to cover. Blocking in the flesh shade was helpful as I saw it was nearly done. Army Painter speed paint Holy White really did the trick to give just the gradient required for white fur. In two steps I’ve been more than pleased with the model I chose to include.

I went back for midtones using Reaper Master Series Ghost White and I’ll highlight the ends of the fur using a titanium white. I don’t regret the command decision to use a brush to do so as much as I thought. Blasted commitment to detail is making this a lengthy process but I have learned lessons I will carry forward.

Giving texture to the large smooth surfaces will be a challenge to consider as I block colors. A cartoon model with flat definition isn’t any better than any prepainted figure. Using details to my advantage is always going to be key to these army builds that I’ll be sure to consider. Yes, bases and faces are pivotal buy the general aesthetic of a piece can be changed in some by these little things. Future me will deal with that.

Under all this my bases will be Speedpaints to start off with. Gravelord Grey for stone and Vallejo Caiman Green will be my starting points for the stonework and verdure. Other detailing and models will follow, of course, that will make me question my commitment to quality versus effort.

Skintones will be the focus of thought as I look at this project again. Its not yet back on track to be worked on immediately but I think there’s information that has sparked my thinking to pick this back up again. After getting some Giftmas work done I feel as though I could tackle this and do a good job of it with less trouble than I initially fear. Hell, the base work was most of the agony in organizing the figures. The heavy lifting, other than the lizard riders, has been done and I am confident that I can knock this out in short order.

Now looking back I also think that the pterosaur feet will need to be set onto sculpted base material so I might do that first and then go to painting. *sigh* Details can’t be overlooked when a bar gets raised and standards become measured.

Sometimes its good to just hobby and lose your head in it. This weekend has been just such a time as I’ve not been in the best of moods. I’ve been upset with myself on the hobby front as well. Using this tandem sense of being pissed off I kicked my own ass and jumped onto the Amazons. I’ve pinned the feet to all of my foot soldiers and archers from the KS TitanForge sent me so long ago and magnetized all their bases and the trays. I drilled the feet of all my big models with 1/8″ brass rod to pin them and they too are magnetized. I stripped crap detail from the flying monster’s base I didn’t want to keep. I used my Dremel to eliminate most of the mold lines on the wings of said model and grind off flash and pour gates from the molding process.

I’ll get to sculpting onto the rods to incorporate them better in future. I don’t have the patience or attention span at the moment to be good at what I want to do.

As an addition to my general angst for life at large I had my warlord on beast break not less than four times while trying to get her set up on the jaguar. I replaced the resin spear with piano wire. I reattached both her arms and one of her legs at some point. I took a Robin Williams prescribed dose of Fuckitall and sculpted a cape for her back that I textured with feathers that the dino riders have on their mounts.

Without a doubt I’d say that this has been an episode of to effectively be productively pissed off. Now to turn my attention to the Arabian Knights project and get some stuff done there.

As I put more thought into the paint I think I’ve burned myself out for a bit even with the motivation I got from the local painting group last weekend. I’ll put more into this plan and creative tricks for the future. Aside from the sambe queens I’ve found fish are a great source of color inspiration. I haven’t gone into killifish or rainbowfish but these are good for the moment. On top of that I believe there also is something I can do to add more in the department of feathers or wings for these Amazons.

I’ve gone through and done all my magnets for the Cococucqui force. JK Magnetics is probably quite happy with me and my purchases.

• As I’ve done with the Arabian Knights, each 25mm base has one 1/8″x1/16″ disc magnet.
• Every slot on the movement trays have a 1/8″x1/8″ (roughy 3mm) cylinder that pulls at my transport tray sheet steel and the figures on top.
• The ape lord and triceratops have a couple of 1″x1/4″ bars that are 1/16″ thick.
• The great pteradon has a grand 1″x2″ bar at 1/16″ thick in order to really keep the monster from moving around. I may add one or two more smaller ones in order to damn near cement it there but at 8lbs of attraction force seems like enough for now. I’m worried about the supports for the legs though.

As a technical note for the model from Signum it is well sculpted but has poor keying for the feet to the rock rubble base. I removed the extra resin and its very little to work from as far as substance. I’m putting in brass rod in order to give the model stability as attachment through the legs. I’ll probably add a third near the tail but I hope that I won’t need to.

• A minor technical issue to solve is done with 1/8″x3/8″ discs that will be in the bottons of the dino rider bases. [Cavalry doesn’t quite work and I have no other word for them other than saurian skirmishers. Eh, *shrug* I guess that’ll do.] Those figures will need to be built in sections with magnet bases, then pin the dinos to the bases (they also have the lower halves of the riders sculpted on) and finally attach the rider’s upper halves. Its a great exercise in sub-assembly and greater detail than I care to play with in one go.

I’m putting thought into the color scheme I want to use for the skirmishers based on more samba queen imagery and imagine the other dino images I pulled as well. Its just color chaos to try and manage.

The decision making process is difficult as I try to balance unit division in loud colors for clothing and cohesion with armor and  dinosaur coloration. I think its the same underlying dynamic as the blue turbans in the Arabian Knights but in a more pronounced fashion.

Owing to the nature of the natural world showing danger in bright bold colors the ladies of the Cococucqui will snap the eyes to attention with their clothing. This is only fitting for the perils of the Axolotl jungle.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. I’ll be using the color scheme of the previous lot of Amazons for my Hearthguard. The rabbit hole of samba queens is too deep and the riot of color too great to not fall into for inspiration. Whittling down the final color scheme has been difficult. I will work off these for my armored melee troops. I hope I’ll be able to keep the general hoi poloi of hues in check.