Hey Vault Hunters and gaming enthusiasts, gather 'round for a tale of dedication and creativity! Our very own nDruid from our Discord, has been on a crafting adventure, and boy, did he cook up something special – the Ultimate Vault Hunter Pledge holder of our dreams!
After countless hours and a sprinkle of loot and explosions, nDruid has birthed a masterpiece that's practically a love letter to the Borderlands game. Just take a peek at the photos – you can practically feel the passion oozing out of the pixels!
But wait, there's more! Before we unravel the epic journey nDruid embarked upon, let me extend an invitation to those of you who haven't hopped in to our Discord group yet. It's a bustling hub of incredible gamers and talents, and we'd love to welcome you into the fold. From gaming gossip to hobby channels, there's a little slice of heaven for everyone.
Now, back to nDruid's adventure – think of it as a rollercoaster of DIY joy, with twists of determination and turns of pure gaming passion. So buckle up, buttercups, and let's dive into the awesomeness that is nDruid's gaming case extravaganza!
Day 1: Hey everyone, so to start I masked off the aluminum parts. Sprayed primer and base color. The base color turned out to be a mistake. I should have started with a white primer and no base coat.
Day 2: Spent the day fighting with the green and grey panels. Especially the green was giving me trouble, the color wasn't even and didn't come through right (the picture looks better than it did). This was mainly because the color was very transparent and I had too dark of a base coat. This was also my first time painting with craft paints and that contributed to the problem.
Day 3: I got the panels looking like I wanted, painted the base grey and started on the camo and started to have fun. I still struggled with the paints and getting good coverage.
Day 4: I spent the day doing minor things, like lining the recess between grey and camo. I did things like this several times through out the project to motivate myself and to see how it would come together. I knew the process I needed to follow, but didn't trust myself yet. Only real progress of the day was the buttons and shading the panels.
Day 5: Decided the colors were too dark. I'm saving the panels and grey bits, everything else has to go. Hitting the reset button and starting over with white, like I should have done in the first place. I also redid the grey borders.
Day 6: I'm starting to find my groove and get the right idea for the camo.
Day 7: Once again decided to repaint part of the lid, the right hand part that is. Got new colors and significantly lightened up the feel of the piece. Now, I was really having fun. I pulled an all nighter, painting 8 hours straight without even realizing how much time had passed.
Day 8: I base painted rest of the grey parts, recessed panels etc.
Day 9: I did not feel like painting, but enjoyed every minute of it once I got started. Sometimes the biggest hurdle is to get going, and I was happy I overcame it. Highlighted and shaded the camo. Simply put a lighter shade in the top part and a darker one on the bottom of each color. I did try to feather them out a bit, result varied depending on the color I was working on. This was the only thing in this project I was familiar with from mini painting. At this point I was also getting used to the paints I was using.
Day 10: After a day away from the project, I blacklined the camo. This is still a new thing to me, so I pretty much outlined the colors and did a more haphazard dotted lining between shades, if the transition was harsh.
Day 11: Started highlighting the grey parts. I wanted to do simple comic book style non-metallic metal. Simply put, I had no idea what I was doing. :) Had the idea that doing light grey areas with white stripes would give the impression of light reflecting of metal and ran with it. Spent 4 hours on it, wasn't happy, packed up the paints and decided to continue the next day. Couple hours later I went back with some markers, another new thing to play with. Within 90 minutes I was feeling good about the idea.
Day 12: Did the rest of the ”metal” bits, except for the side ends. Put some stripes on them, but started toying with the idea of doing pictures on them.
Day 13: First time painting any sort of shapes. Rebased the area and painted the base shape of MFC's Beast.
Day 14: Added the letters to the ”MFC logo”, rebased the other end, did the name panel on the lid and the vault sign on the front face. All of it went surprisingly well and fast. Vault sign and text got a simple 3 tone shading, didn't bother to blend the colors at all and relied on the distance they would be observed at doing the trick for me.
Day 15: Both end recesses got their ”final” form. Now I would have to wait a couple of days to be able to varnish.
Day 16: Managed to rest one day and then couldn't keep away from the thing. Added highlights to the graffiti, sparkles to MFC, one lighter and one darker tone to vault sign and text, drew on some screws and did some general tidying up.
Instead of crafting all new trays for the minis, I decided to use existing trays as much as I could. The result is a combination of original trays cut and pasted into new shapes with hot glue and modified with cellular foam. I call them frankentrays. Some trays I used as is and made a couple new ones.
There's a lot of things to fit in and I'm pretty happy I was able to do that. As I wanted every mini to have their own slot, I knew space was at a premium.
To start I laid down some foam to level the bottom.
