Playing in the mud

Amongst the myriad tasks of this week, I did a lot of work with weathering, focusing on the Secret Weapon Miniatures tank.  I decided to paint it in the colors of my new IG army.

You have already seen several of the WIP images showing the painting process.  These next few pictures were taken as I did the initial application of rust.

In this instance, I was using regular paint.  I want to show a few different ways to do the weathering... with paint and with the powders.

I also did as much freehand as I could, so that I could demonstrate the very nifty effect that the weathering has on it.

Just about ready to start applying those powders!

I had been doing tests for several days on the mud technique.  This involves taking the Realistic Water from Secret Weapon and mixing it with the powders.  There was a lot to discover!

I have a few images of the application process...

At this point, I began to put on the 'powdered' version of rust and soot...

I made a few streaks of rust...

This area looks much different now with some mud splatters...

But I didn't forget the underside!  Some fresh mud there :-)

I went back and forth with the powders, starting with the darker shades, making them lighter, and then putting darker mud over the top of the lighter and 'dustier' shades.

Skaarlys from Raging Heroes

I did the last few tidbits on my latest Raging Heroes figure.

She is Skarrlys, and she will be added to my Dark Eldar army.

She has a number of different options, which is normal for all Raging Heroes figures.  This is a more standard arrangement.  I figured it would be a little more 'flexible', and possibly let me choose a named character or two.

Perhaps even Lilith Hesperax :-)

The Three Amigoes

Back to the Napoleanics!

I will never get over the sculpting commonalities with earlier era GW sculpts.

My guess is that the next time I need more horses to pull my Khandish chariot conversions, I could probably find some great horses (minus saddles, of course), for a great price.

I think Cathy would prefer that to me continually pirating more Riders of Rohan horses! :-)

Some of the mould lines do end up in more 'unfortunate' places on these guys than they do on your typical fantasy miniatures.  

These are a nice 'step away' kind of miniature, keeping the other kinds of work a tiny bit fresher, as it offers that change of pace from Fantasy and 40k.

Tanks again...

Here we have some of the work for the Weathering and Battle damage video.  In these first few images, you are seeing the shaded basecoat work.  All of the colors are made lighter, with the plan of darkening them with glazes and washes.

The wheels were probably the most complicated element to do the shaded basecoat with, so I put each wheel on its own pin.

Let's not forget all the extra tank weapons that come with these fine tanks from Secret Weapon.

I used a variety of products here... GW, Vallejo, and Secret Weapon washes and glazes.

Once all those glazes and washes are completed, then you move on to the rust.  After that, I did the freehand.  From there I moved on to the paint chipping.

In the finished images, you will see all the weathering with the powders.  The mud as well.  That should be particularly interesting, since I have not tried that out except for a few tests!!  Stay tuned...

Keep Out!!

Yes, once again, a case of having too much FUN with basing!

As I mentioned the other day, I decided to paint up this base that was made during the sci-fi bases video.  There was a tiny slice of time open for it, and it seemed like it would gove folks a better sense of what they could do with it.

I also did some work with a few Secret Weapon weathering powders.  On these kinds of bases, you can get a little extra zing.  It made the concrete slab all the more convincing.

Another experiment is under way with the powders on a base.  Pics of that in the next few days... stay tuned!

Charge!

I have been working on many scores of historical minis over the last few months.  Most of that has been 'grunt' work, all the basing, prepping, magnetizing, shaded basecoats, etc.

As I was waiting for some huge files to transfer after filming, I did some finish work on more horses...

Here are two of them.

It is strange how similar, yet different, these are to work on.  If they were sculpted by someone who was NOT a former GW employee, it would not be so odd.  I could almost use these horses for Rohan riders in Lord of the Rings.

More to come!

Walking the plank(s)

Ironically, the reason this figure was painted was to provide an example of one of the wood plank bases being used.  As I mentioned before, I am trying to have as many practical examples of the various bases as I can for the basing videos.

So, I sawed this Reaper pirate figure from the base, and put her on the planks!

Yes, I am strange.  Painting a mini just to show off a base... and not the other way around.

Yar. :-)