Mass basing

Here is something from last week.  I needed to get a good chunk of the bases painted for the video miniatures, since most of those instructions don't involve the base itself.  

If it's a video about painting reds, I won't be wasting precious time on painting a base. :-)  That's why I have videos covering that topic!

This was some quick 'down and dirty' base painting.  I had mixed up a few lighter colors to brush over the generic brown.  One was a little more green, another more yellow, and so on.  That had to do with what colors might be on the figure.  For instance, if the miniature was going to have lots of warm colors on it, I trend towards cooler colors on the base.

As you can see, dozens of figures were done all at once.

The lighter colors were taken even farther than normal, in order set up the subsequent glazes and shading.

They are all just about ready for glazing!

When I get down to the glazing, I will set up a few standard colors...

You can see a sepia tone, a black, and the concrete wash from Secret Weapon that I talked about in the painting of the sci-fi base.

I use a larger brush, but one that still has a fairly sharp tip.  Varying the glazes on each part of the base to create interest, I darkened and shaded one base at a time.

I did at least 2 -3 layers of this glaze in certain parts of each base, trying to create and interesting pattern of lights and darks.  Also, I tried to keep in mind where the miniature would be, and if there would be a lighter or darker set of colors touching the base.

Time to paint the edges black, and call them done for now!!

On a wing and a prayer...

I think a few of you might recognize this color scheme from somewhere :-)

As I said over and over again at Adepticon, I would work in the Dark Eldar freehand into one of the videos!  I had these in mind from the start, because they were the closest thing to the jetbikes as a non-GW figure.

The idea is to do as many kinds of freehand over as many surface shapes as possible.  That's why just about every square millimeter has some fashion of design on it.

The good folks at Urban Mammoth gave me the OK to use a few of their minis for the videos, and the Archangels have always been favorites of mine.

I tried to work in as many different types of freehand as I could, even on the base itself.  There will also be a 'side session' or two showing how I work out potential designs in a two dimensional form first.

The gals in the video are the 'flying' versions of the Vasa Archangels.

Be sure to check out the Urban Warfare figures and the game.  They do some amazing art, which leads to fantastic minis!

Unboxing the Finecast Gwaihir

As I was clipping many pieces of resin from vents, gates and sprues, I thought I would get this guy in the mix as well.  I need a second eagle for my expanded LOTR Knights of the Blood Rose army.  While my original eagle will serve as Gwaihir, the Finecast version would be OK for that second 'regular'eagle.

The plastic eagles will be used when we do our really big 1000 point games. :-)

So, here is how it comes out of the box:

Everything clipped, scraped and filed.  Washed with dish soap as well!

Gluing the pieces into place, using the same glue/green stuff/glue technique...

As it is with all resin eagles (or anything with feathered wings for that matter), you will need to do some green stuff feathers to hide the joints.  I did pretty much the same kind of feather additions that I made on the CMON birds...

I mixed up some of the brown craft paint and some black primer to see how that would work.  it actually worked pretty well!  That's cool!  I don't think I will be able to do the painting on this until after our next journey...

The ranks nearly filled

Look out Sebastian!  More spiders headed your way! :-)  While my original thoughts regarding the use of these beasties during my games centered on having them popping out of terrain, I see that they can do something else, if need be.

There have been many games where there was simply no way for me to effectively get at archers ensconced inside buildings, or at least standing on walls.  Very frustrating.  At least now I have something that is guaranteed to get up there and go after them!

This is just about it for the regular spiders.  I need to sculpt myself a spider queen and some broodlings at some point...

A little color, a little freehand...

I snapped a few pictures as I painted the sci fi base of sculpey and polystyrene tubing.  The colors were very basic.  I began with a dark brown/blue mix, and lightened it with a greenish grey, until it was almost white.

Then I dug out 2 washes from Secret Weapon.  Soft body black and concrete.  The concrete was is especially interesting, since it is semi opaque, and lighter.  It is very fun for bases!

You can see here that I have put down a few layers of the glazes on the base, choosing certain areas to darken more than others.  Aside from regular shading, I am trying to create just enough contrast for a bit of the freehand to show.

Now for some rust, using my normal watered down Calthan brown...

Then the freehand designs, making sure that they don't get too bright.  I water down the colors to help insure this happens!

And your final base!  The miniature on this is coming soon!

Polystyrene tubing and sculpey in action

I needed some bases for one of the freehand videos, and here are some images of the process.

The bulk of the bases are baked sculpey, as usual.  You can also see the polystyrene tubing.  It makes very nice conduits.  I normally use a few different gauges.  

You can also bend the tubing for some interesting angles.

The tubing is very easy to bend.  Just be sure to vary your angles !

A few pieces are glued in place.  Once the glue dries, I snip off the excess.

An image showing one of the packages of tubing.

For rivets, I slice of very thin pieces of the heavier tubing.  Using a very sharp and pointy exacto knife, they are glued in place.

The bases are just about ready!  You can see many more articles on basing in that section of the blog.  All kinds of fun stuff!

A little hint at what's going on the bases. :-)  The next post will show you the base I painted for the test figure of the first freehand video... stay tuned!

A practice Mantis warrior

Here's one more practice Raging Heroes Mantis demonette for the video.  These are definitely some fun flesh tones!

The bases were a design that I sculpted for CoolMini as part of the Groundwerks line.

Here she is with one of her sisters!

Their kickstarter is coming soon... keep some pennies saved!