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Monday, June 1, 2015

Not barking up the wrong tree


Hot off the presses, a new set of bark 'n branch bases.


There's been numerous how to's on both the sculpting and painting process here, so I will let newcomers seek those out for themselves. :-)


Since a few of these bases will be carrying some heavy magnets on the bottom, I chose to pin the branches into the bases.


I normally would not do that, as the normal process of gluing in the 'trees' is pretty solid


.However, the magnets I will be using on these are the same ones that I use on larger creatures, and I will need to exert more force to pull them off the metal sheet.


I had some really sweet pieces of bark to work with here... that fantastic shale texture that basically happens all by itself!


A few Secret Weapon skulls and a bit of the straw..


A wonderful swirling pattern to the rocks leads you right up to the tree...


I enjoyed painting these, as I wanted to incorporate more golden browns and muted reds.  I did this in advance of placing the figures, which will have a distinct set of cooler colors.

This will give me a nice suggestion of contrast, without the viewer actually noticing that it's even there!


2 comments:

  1. James, these are wonderful. Simple, fun but really effective. I do really like the reds and greens - the trees look pretty ghostly. One tip I picked up a while back for the trees was to "paint" them in PVA/white glue first. It makes them really robust - and a lot more sturdy that they might first appear. Lovely work, Sir!

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    1. Glad you liked these! I do something very similar to that, to 'seal in' the goodness. The brush on primer also adds a layer of protection, which I use all the time.

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