Painting the Fortifications (and an experiment)

Back to terrain!  This was the big experiment with the airbrush.  The idea was to see if using the airbrush could create some time saving aspects for painting.  Nothing fancy, just getting the primer on more quickly, as well as the initial layers of paint.

Since several forms of hardboard and foam core can warp a little when you paint them with regular brushes, I was hoping to avoid that.  The airbrush would use little or no water, and thus less warping!

I knew that the experiment could be compromised by the age of the equipment I was using.  When I first thought of using this, I thought it had been 10 years since I last used my airbrush stuff.  Actually, it was more like 13 years!  One of the hoses had completely disintegrated.  I cobbled together what I could find, and set out to test things out.

It  began well enough, with the primer going on pretty easily.  The first layers of paint did as well, but I could tell that the compressor was acting a little crazy.  This was my nice compressor with the pedal control.  The remaining hoses seemed to have leaks, and all the ancient airbrushes started to jam.

It went downhill from there, so I abandoned the idea.

This is as far as I got with the airbrush...

It's not so bad, as I began to realize that the airbrush also had a big 'footprint' and the only area where it could have gone is now occupied by the new video filming area!

There is also a lot of pre and post airbrush stuff that has to be done, taking away too much of the anticipated time savings.

So, I proceeded to go ahead with the standard brushes.

Here's what I did with some rust colors and other shading.

The next post will show the rest of what I did with the brushes.

Stepping away from terrain for a moment...

OK, a little break from the terrain for you guys.  I believe this was a special edition figure set from Dark Sword miniatures.  Dennis Mize definitely had a distinct sculpting style, especially for hair.

It did make getting to the face a little more difficult, but they were always fun!

Pug dog!

This Olde House: Part Two

When we last left this project, we still needed a way to get in!

Just as I did for the watchtower, I got myself a sheet of baked sculpey, and drew out my design.

This one is slightly different from the watchtower.  I used my trusty wood carving tools, taking care to  vary the depth of my carving.  I wanted the edge of the door and the stones to be deeper, while the wood grain and cracks in the stones were much lighter.

Here I am getting ready to carve in those lighter textures...

The door is carved, and glued in place.

Just like the watchtower door, I used some plasticard to make the metal braces and door handle, etc.

I still have a decent amount of the plastic sheet of brick texture, so I put it to use!  I cut out several 'corner' pieces, which will be exposed brick where the stucco has fallen away.

This image shows a little more of that textured plastic sheet.

Several pieces have been cut and glued in place.

Now for the fun part... some Flex Paste for our stucco texture!

I used the end of one of my woodcarving tools as a de-facto palette knife to apply the flex paste.  not only would this give me the texture I wanted, it would also hide the ends of the pieces of brick texture that we glued on.

Once that was finished, I cut out some flagstones for the entrance.  Then I finished things off with some ballast and rocks of different types.  I learned to be patient with the flex paste as far as drying time goes!  That is, unless you want lots of rocks in your stucco!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I didn't make a chimney for this piece.  I will do so on the next one. :-)

Now that the 40k terrain is painted, I will get some paint this as well!