Just a week away!!

OK folks!  Preparations for Reapercon have been in full swing.

Shaded Basecoat, Glazing and basing are on the menu again.  This means getting lots of figures ready for painting!

I did learn something very important about BONES minis.  A hair dryer works perfectly for straightening out any warped or bent parts!  In fact, the heat from the gun seems to bend them into the exact shape you want... truly amazing.

I did have a container of very cold water on hand, so that I could dip the figure right away and seal that shape.  Amazingly enough, they stayed right where I left them.

I wanted to make some very quick aquatic style bases for the fishies.  I began with some cork.

Laying down some mica flakes, I tried to create and impression of seaweed or some other organic material.

The mica flakes were applied with a flat sculpting tool, almost like plaster on a wall.

I let this settle for a bit, and got ready for the next step!

Oxide paste would give me a bit of sandy texture, and fill in all of the big gaps that remained from the 'broccoli bases' of the fishmen.

I mixed a decent amount of elmer's glue into the oxide paste so that I could drop some fine ballast onto it, providing one more kind of texture.

This piece is being done as an example for the basing class... I exchanged bark for cork...

These are the usual types of ballast that I employ.  Heavy, medium and light.

For the Fire Giantess, I went with black lava.  I needed to create a cooled lava effect very quickly, and fill some very large gaps from the sliced broccoli bases.

Once again, I mixed in some elmer's glue to hold the ballast.  It will stick by itself, but adding the glue creates a very strong bond.

You can see how easily it builds up, and holds its shape.  This is important, as I am pulling up bits of the 'piles'  to make that puffy lava.

It did not take terribly long to get well over a dozen large minis completely based with a nice texture.

All set for priming!!!!