How do you cook your Turkey?

Hey folks!  It's almost that time again.  Traveling through the wind and snow to get to someone's house for Thanksgiving!!

This is what it was like in our neighborhood a few days ago.

It's about to get much warmer, however, as the Black Friday sale at Wild West Exodus approaches!!!

http://www.wildwestexodus.com/

This little dandy you see here is the new Outlaw Flame Truck, a new heavy support choice for the Wild West Exodus troublemakers!

I thought I would show you a few WIP images, starting with the usual shaded basecoat.  As always, the object here is to 'block in' not only colors, but where the lights and darks will go.

It's far easier to paint all the component element separately, and then do the final assembly later!  It also means that I don't have to handle certain edges as much, removing paint along the way!

By setting up all these basic shadings, I can then pick and choose what I want to make even darker, or tint to a different shade.  When you are dealing with as many shades of gray as this, it can get a bit monotonous, so you really want a way to work in that variety.

That can mean making one area more greenish or reddish, and so on.

The primary gun mount.  The colors were changed on this a few times, which is the kind of flexibility the Shaded Basecoat approach provides.

The crew of the gun mount also had a lot of earth tones on him.  That's good, as it will make him stand out from the cooler greenish blue grays...

The wheels are a major part of this vehicle.  These are shaded with the darkest parts towards the top, and lighter closer to the ground.  It's all about the reflected light!

These will look quite different when all the weathering is added.

Speaking of food... this cranberry/orange dressing was very nice on this salad!!  There had to be some kind of recipe included. :-)

Here's a shot with many of the pieces getting their darker glazes and shading.  There's a bit of preliminary weathering on the prows...

More definition is added to the wheels... in the hubs as well as the treads.

One last shot of the wheels!!!

For those living in cold climates:

Wage says, "Don't forget change your furnace filters once a month!"

More from the brand new Outlaw Flame Truck soon, so stay tuned!

A plague of Locusts

Well, eventually there will be Union Locust light support craft flying above these trenches!

For now, here is the completed base, which is just about 60mm.

It's interesting to see these sorts of bases painted and compare them to the original wood, gravel and other materials used to create it in the first place.

As you can see, the addition of the Secret Weapon skull and cartridges gave the interior of the trench a nice boost!

These ground level views show the stick/log assembly, and how I tried to paint it to look more 'in scale', and less like sticks.  Also, I attempted to run that same balance of browns, grays, greens, tans, and so on.

I am really looking forward to showing the finished Locust on this fun base!!  Stay tuned.

Now this dude looks harmful!

Monsters from Mierce Miniatures once again.  This guy looks particularly nasty!!

The textures on this figure were the most fun to paint of the rhino series.

Two more on the way, including a standard baring rhino!!!

Are you en'thralled' ?

You have seen all the big, bigger, and friggin' HUGE stuff from the Mechanicus army thus far.

Now it's time for the little guys.  That is, thralls!

This was the first color test mini.  You will be seeing lots more of these very soon, as I have been hammering away at those too.

It is definitely one of the more unusual infantry troop types I have ever done for 40/30k.

A lighter shade...

The next few Rhinos, like this one, are going to have some lighter fur.  It was fun to paint this lighter color...

I got a chance to make use of Secret Weapon Concrete wash on the fur.  I love the Concrete wash, since it is one of those semi opaque washes that works so well in the mid tones.

While it was a darker wash on the fur, it had a very nice effect in the shadow areas.

The darker faces on these guys are a nice contrast from the dark fur/ light faces of the first two rhinos!

Rust and dust... EZ PZ

Next stage arrives for our Flames of War Easy Eight.  A bit of weathering.

As some of you already know, I like to use paints for rust effects that have a "sedimentation" property.

That is, when you mix them with a decent amount of water, the pigment begins to break down.  You also know that I have discovered a few in the correct shade which do this... such as the GW Calthan Brown, and some of the P3 paints.

These were also mixed with a Sepia Wash to thin them down, instead of water.  This helps to create other interesting random effects within the various placements of the rust.

It also means that it will sink down into those crevices, which rust tends to do.  It follows the water!

It's always best to choose those sunken nooks and crannies for the rust.

Once I have gone all around the vehicle with the darker rust color, I pick out fewer areas to lighten...

I really want to get down here into the treads and tracks!

The selected areas of rust get lighter.

This will be the final rust color... fairly bright, as you can see, so I don't want to get too crazy with it.

That's about all I want to do with the rust, so now it's time for some dust!

I kept things simple this time with the application of a little Secret Weapon dry pigment.  You can mix it with rubbing alcohol if you want to paint it on like regular paint, or mix in the Secret Weapon sealer.

This time, I chose to simply spray it with dullcoate to fix the powders.

An old favorite

OK, here's where we stand thus far on some Grey Knight terminator bases.  Still another ten or fifteen percent to go yet...

I always loved this design.  This time around, I have added a few more twists...

The taller bases are always for special characters.

But I could not resist adding a servo skull!

I didn't have Secret Weapon skulls the last time I made bases such as these. Nice to have now!

Here's another look at the shallower bases...