A bit of dust... in conclusion.

Ok!  Here are some images of the weathered Secret Weapon bases.

I used the Secret Weapon weathering powders to add some effects.  Nothing fancy, just down & dirty.

You can mix the pigments together, so I put a few out on the palette.  For this batch, I used them completely dry, forgoing the usual addition of the fixer and rubbing alcohol.

Finished!  A little reinforcement of the edges and some of the freehand.

I will probably add more things to these... such as the shell casings!!

Obviously, it will be very easy to base any kind of miniature on these... no issues with the 'footprints'!

Again, I could have gone way fancier, but went for simple.

Now for the other set.

Just like the Flight Deck series, the Deck Plating comes in a pack of ten unique bases.

Very fun!

Can't wait to have shell casings and miniatures on these!!!

Landing on the flight deck...

Let the inundation begin!  Starting off the Secret Weapon product splurge with a few base sets:

Some very fun things.

First, they are in sets of ten.  Like squads. Yes. Not the mystery packs of three. :-)

As you can see, ten different designs.

Even better.  No need to spend hours farting around with soap and water.  A special mould release is used, which means you go direct to priming, like I did.  I was working with my brush on primer, like normal, and it was just fine!

That is ace, since getting back the time I have spent washing other entity's resin pieces, I might average more than 3 hours of sleep every night.

These sets begin with the Shaded Basecoat, just like any other miniature.  The concept is to start with the middle tones and work your way lighter.  The colors are kept simple.  Never more than 3-4 on the palette.  Work very fast and loose.

With the shaded basecoat complete, I threw on a bit of freehand here and there.

I put out a few Secret Weapon washes, and set down to glazing!

Glazing on bases is extra fun, since I can go nuts applying and removing glazes.  I will use either a beat up craft brush or even some tissue for that.

Remember, vary those glazes!  Go from blues to browns to even green or reddish yellow.

The first row with the first glaze application.  You can already see the difference.

Don't be afraid to use your fingers to wipe away the glaze.  I did that over the black caution stripes to try and pull off some of that paint, making it appear worn away!  Much easier than spending hours attempting to paint that effect.

Here's the beat up craft brush in action.  Actually, I used another one of these brushes that was in a better condition to do all the other work you saw previously on the bases.

I am dabbing away at applied layers, poking at the edges, trying to make some softer by blending them out to parts of the base which didn't get any pigment at all.  In addition, you can try to create hard edges, or something that looks a little like an oil splatter, etc.

Now for an image that was taken after 2 layers of glaze was applied.

More to come!  I will be using some weathering powders (guess who's!!) to create some rust and other effects.

Stay tuned!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Hometown!

I really love these Archangel figures.  I am making a squad of them for my Adepticon army.  Even combining them with some GW Sisters. :-)

This mini was one of the practice figures that I made for the Shades of Gray painting video.

They are fun to paint in any color scheme, but this limited palette gray scheme was very sci-fi.

She is also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321341682642?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

On this day in 1837, the City in a Garden was founded.  Happy birthday to my birthplace and home, Chicago!!!!!

And here is our flag!!

Something rotten in Slime Bay

Yes indeed... all sixteen of the rotters!  You have seen them one by one, but now they are all together in one stinking pile of ooze!

As you can see, there were at least two of every race.  It created an additional layer of challenge to get some differences between each one.

While these were still done in 'assembly line'style, I would only take them to a certain level of completion, and then isolate one or two to finish off.

The idea was to keep things from getting too monotonous.  Had I simply plowed ahead doing them all at once, the same colors would have crept in over and over.  In fact, I even kept most of the completed figures completely out of sight!

Certain elements were done in as common a style as possible, mostly pertaining to the sores and such.  I thought that should be the one thing that tied each figure together.

For as big a project as the Empire Swordsmen had been, this one was really a tough task.  So many minis, but a lot of extra tidbits along the way.

I hope that you did not grow tired of seeing these slimy guys over the last few months!

A monster post for a monstrous unit!

OK folks, normally I break up a mass of images such as this into a few posts, but I have a ton of things going on all at once right now, and I figured I would simply carpet bomb your retinas with all the pics at once!

Here is the culmination of all the work on the Averland Swordmasters.

I recall the nickname of "Goldswords" being applied to these guys early on, so painting the yellow and black was a fun tease for me :-)

I really loved how they all meshed together, despite all of the challenges.

As I mentioned several times over the course of the project, there was even more sky earth non metallic than any other unit I have painted until this point.  Simplicity was the key.

I am pretty sure that I used no more than six unique colors to paint any of these guys.  Even the colors used on the bases and movement tray found their way onto the figures.

This also kept the flesh tones nice and muted, mixing in many of the colors used on the metals.

The really was a tremendous project.  I always learn new things with every figure that I paint, and it was certainly no different here.

I hope that you all enjoyed seeing the individual minis as they were painted one by one.  They were done assembly line style.  Lots of shaded basecoat in the beginning, and lots of glazing.

It is funny to think how much of these guys were painted with big filbert brushes and #8 round craft brushes that cost about 50 cents each!

I can't get enough of these unit shots!  Man.

It was neat to see them in smaller batches, but this really hits me with the realization of what went into completing this.

Now for a few closer shots.

I am taking some pictures of the command figures together as well for you!