Fire Sale!!! Black Friday arrives!!!

Here come the Outlaws, looking to create a fire sale of their own with the super nifty Flame Truck!

All kidding aside, Wild West Exodus has a smokin' hot 35 percent off everything in the webstore for  a massive 4 day sale.  There are a number of brand new items up for Pre-Order.

I had a lot of fun painting this vehicle.  All of the heavies like this are in minimal numbers of pieces, making them much easier to deal with than what you might normally find at this size.

I used some Secret Weapon dry pigments to finish off not only the weathering, but to feather out some edges, and even create some color variations in the brass, etc.  I have noticed that the pigments can be used for 'painting', and not just dirtying up something!!

I have more vehicles on the way, such as the Judgment heavy support, which will oppose this beast!

Fragility is also something that is not a concern for these models.  Very solid construction makes them practically unbreakable!

I will do another post showing some standard infantry sized WWX minis standing around this to give you an idea of scale.  The main weapon crew is the same size as an Iron Horse/Interceptor rider, so the scale matches up quite nicely!

So, be sure to visit the Wild West Exodus site over the weekend.  I know I will. :-)

The 'Secret' to good cooking

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope you are all having a great day with great food!!!

And if it's not Thanksgiving where you live, I wish you all the best, and express my appreciation for you coming to the Painting Madhouse!!

So, I mentioned a rust/staining technique that I discovered by accident.

It involves using the Secret Weapon Orange wash.  Quite often, I use the Secret Weapon washes with regular paints to create semi-opaque washes, mostly in the middle tones.

I also  use it to thin my paints instead of water.  This time, when I did that, I noticed that when mixed with certain 'regular' colors, it made a very nice stain/rust color!

Obviously it flowed quite nicely, since it was very fluid with the Orange Wash.  This meant that it would flow into those crevices very well, with not much effort.

But it also had a staining property when used it a very watery form.  Thee were times where I would place a drop of this mixture on the surface and dab at it with a paper towel, creating random textures that I could enhance with darker, more opaque layers of paint.  

You can see a hint of that on the rear gun mount. 

Yummy breads made by Chef Babo will be a fantastic addition to Thanksgiving dinner!!!  Butterscotch morsels, ginger ale tint, and a crust of melted butter/caramelized sugar should help to fight the sleep induced by turkey!

In this side shot you can see that using the Orange Wash mix works very well for the rivet stains.  It's very easy to 'draw down' a strand of the orange rust from the rivet.

In this view, you can see a number of instances where I put down a 'puddle' of the orange mix, and then manipulated the edges in different ways.  Sometimes I would feather them out to make it very soft, and at other spots I would add in those darker colors, letting them mix by themselves.

You can see a few of the 'regular' paints I used as my rust colors.  There was also a very deep, rich umber color as well.

The method really shone on the wheels!  It was the perfect thing.

Here are all the pieces, ready for assembly!!!!

The first image of the assembled Flame Truck.

There is still a few hours of finishing work to be done, mostly in the form of weathering powders.

Stay tuned for the final images!!!!

Cranberries!

Well, it's that time... for cranberry sauce!!!  Sugar, raspberries, a pinch of curry powder.. and cranberries!  Poof.  Something you can put on just about anything.  Yum.

More yum from the new Outlaw heavy support, this time working on some glowing stuff and verdigris.

Also, working on the gun crewman before her gets attached...

The verdigris on the copper surfaces.  I wanted this to provide a slightly different color to the overall palette of the vehicle.

Uppy can barely contain his excitement as the cranberries pop!  Be careful, Uppy!

Some initial weathering effects were begun at this point as well.

As you saw in the concept art, some seriously heavy weathering is happening all over the Flame Truck. It fits the nature of the Outlaw's pattern of 'borrowing' things.

This would be many hours across innumerable surfaces on the truck.

One tiny portion mostly complete.  Once all these effects are done, and the vehicle is assembled, I will break out the powders to do some final touches.

I did manage to discover a new method for weathering!  It utilizes one of the Secret Weapon washes in a way I have never thought of before.

It was all very accidental.  I just thought I would give it a try, and it really worked out well!  I love experiments... especially when they work!

This is definitely something that I will work into the overall technique.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!