Big bases for big birds...

These next few posts will show a combination of a few different materials.  Super thick plasticard, Apoxy sculpt, and some skulls from Secret Weapon.  Since most of us don't usually have a ton of 50mm bases hanging around, it may be necessary to create our own.

For the large creature videos (such as those using the Cool Mini or Not birds of prey), I had to cut up some thick platicard from Back 2 Base-ix.

I used a razorsaw to cut them.  The edges and burrs were scraped and filed down later.

I filled out the rest of the rock textures with apoxy sculpt, and then added some skulls and garvel to complete the look!

I even added magnet sheets on the bottom of the bases.

The razor saw in action... you will want to clean the semi-melted plastic bits out of the teeh of the blade.

Here are some bases for the Snowy Owls!  Tomorrow I will be creating the preparation post for them.

Now those bases need to be painted!  As I mentioned the other day, I will be trying to work in more and more of the Badger airbrush paints.  For the heck of it, I picked out some from the set, and painted my base coats on all the bases at once.

You might recognize these from Syl-Iriah. :-)

Here we see the basic layers on the griffons and eagles...

Next up, the glazing and shading, using a combination of the new Secret Weapon washes!

Show me the green! Syl-Iriah finished!

Tonight we introduce the Heroic version of Syl-Iriah, a very spectacular figure from Raging Heroes.  This is the miniature I used for the "Painting Greens" video.  It certainly allowed me to explore a huge range of that color.

Here is a glimpse of the palette.

The concept was not just to show how many different greens we could make (which is still kinda neat!), but to explore the light and dark shades, and even high vs low saturation. 

There are 3 main areas of exploration as a result.  Color range, value range, and saturation.  All of these things help to keep a rather complex mini such as this under control.

To get an idea of size, the base is 50mm.  The base insert is a design that I sculpted for CoolMiniorNot as part of their Groundwerks line.  I have a post coming up soon that shows me painting the base. 

I also have another post that shows how this was prepped and assembled.  As you find out in that post, this was very easy to assemble.  Very surprising, given all the wings and such!!

I had a lot of fun creating the "center of interest".  That was done by having the brightest and richest colors juxtaposed near some of the darkest and lowest saturated colors.

Hopefully you will also have more fun working with green after seeing the video!

One more Flesh tone!

Once more... another flesh tone.  This time it's the Ruddy/tanned look.  I meant to take a comparison shot next to the African tones, but I forgot... Anyway, this gives you an idea at least :-)

I have been using those Badger air brush paints more and more.  Not excessive, but in key situations.  I am using them with regular brushes, taking advantage of how thinned down they are right out of the bottle!

So, you will be seeing them here and there in the videos.  As time goes on, and I make post kickstarter videos, you will probably see more of them introduced.  I am pretty sure that I will be making a stand alone video just for using those paints with "airbrushes on sticks".

Here's a shot of the base.  The reddish brown that I used for the base coat was one of the Badger air brush paints.

More spaced armor for the RAV 6 x 6

All right!  Time to keep building that extra armor for the Secret Weapon tank!

At this stage, I am building up the armor plating by placing slightly thinner layers of plasticard on the original piece.

Also, it is time to magnetize this, which I do by gluing some rare earth magnets to my polystyrene tubes (they just happened to be the same diameter!)  On the tank hull, I have small pieces of sheet metal.

The magnetized rods are attached so that I can see where to glue the main plates...

I put a few details on the opposite side of the main plate which will be facing the tank hull.

Most of you have seen me crate rivets by cutting very tiny polystyrene tubing with a very sharp exacto knife.  It can be a very tedious process, and many of the rivets will hop right off the table as you cut them.  You have to work through the aggravation :-)

I have a dab of glue handy, which I apply to the plasticard with a pin.  I use the knife to pick up the rivets and put them in place.

With the rivets and extra plate finished, it is time to glue them onto the magnetized rods.  This was a very tricky process, as my reference points got a little fragged, to say the least.

But, I think I got them just about exactly where I wanted them.

They were going to look a little odd so far out from the top of the tank, so I was glad that I had chosen to create a 'top piece' for the spaced armor.  Besides, it will give it a real resemblance to a Chimera :-)

Strips of plasticard were cut to nearly fill the gap entirely.  They are basically flush with the top edge of the vertical plate.

This was my favorite detail!  I cut two thin strips of plasticard and then used polystyrene tubing for the rungs of the ladder.  I wanted to mirror the ladder detail on the vehicle itself.

I added more details to the top plates as well, trying to carry the original vehicle details onto the spaced armor.  If I can find my Jerry cans, I will put those on as well!

So, the main plates are finished.  I am adding a few more touches, including some actual battle damage for the painting videos.

I am also creating some magnetized heavy bolter sponson weapons, so that this could be a Leman Russ.

Stay tuned!!!

Making some spaced armor for your RAV 6 x 6

As promised, time to show you the images from the extra armor I made for the Secret Weapon tank.

Here are the supplies... plasticard and polystyrene tubing.

I wanted these to be magnetized.  My first step was to cut some tubing that would prop up the extra armor over the wheels.

With those rods measured and cut, I grabbed some reasonably thick plasticard to make the side skirts.

I measured them out, and drew my design on the plasticard.  This card was thin enough that I could use a scissors.  If it was any thicker, I would have gone with an exacto knife.

With the first side cut, I made a few templates out of it so that I could make more!!

The second piece.  In the next episode, I will show you how to build up the textures on these armor plates, as well as magnetize it.  Then some fun details!

This figure from the Raging Heroes kickstarter is going to be my tank commander!  Go check that out...

Another flesh tone video mini from Reaper

OK, folks!  Time for another flesh tone video.  This time it is oriented towards an African tone, using a Reaper Miniatures dancing girl.

As with all the flesh tones, it's about balancing warm and cool shades of a very narrow color band. Just a little tweak here and there make all the difference!

It seems like every game comes down to a "games of inches", but last night's contest certainly did.  I never saw so much 'debris' on the ice, and so many consistently crazy bounces of the puck.  It looked more like a superball.  If the puck hits some of those helmets and sticks, you might get a very different result...

Fortunately, hockey continues in the Windy City.  That is very good, given the lousy season the Sox are having!

Assembling your RAV 6 x 6 from Secret Weapon Miniatures

The last unboxing post showed you just how nicely produced the RAV 6 x 6 is.  In this post, I will show you how I assembled it.  There were very few mould lines to file down.  The gates and vents were also very much under control.

The most stuff that had to be removed was on the back of the wheels.  You don't see much of this part, but I wanted to make sure they were all gone.

  

I don't use a Dremel, as I prefer the feel and control of carving tools.  In this case, I was using one of my wood carving tools.  It is rounded, as you can see, which was perfect to preserve that inverse curve of the wheel.

Clearing away the last of it...

With the top and bottom halves glued together, it was time to glue the side pieces in place.  These snap into place very easily!

No worries about warped parts here, or gaps!

Getting the other side ready to glue together.

With that done, it was time to focus on the turret.  It fit very nicely in place, so I didn't have to do anything to make it steady, even with the weight of the metal turret weapon.  You can see that I put a pin into each weapon, so that it would remain steady.

I also put pins in the axle sections of each wheel, so that I could mount them on dowel rods for painting.

The underside of the vehicle has some nice details, but they are not too crazy to paint.  You won't have to struggle to get the brush into tough places here!

Some features that I was glad to see excluded on this kit were air bubbles and giant gates!  Notice the lack of green stuff!!

Looks like some autocannons are ready for action!!!  I love how this larger turret looks when it is turned at an angle.

This is the weapon that gave me the idea to try and make a Leman Russ conversion.  That is being worked on right now.

Everything primed and ready to go!!

This vehicle was very easy to assemble, as you have seen.  A stark contrast to so many other vehicles I have had to deal with.  As far as resin vehicle kits are concerned, it is vastly superior to a certain other company :-)  None of the crazy miscast issues to worry about.