Browsing Tag

bases

Antares Bases

Posted on April 29, 2017

It turns out I don’t have a post for Antares bases. I noticed this because I went to paint a bunch of bases and clicked the tag “bases” and couldn’t find anything for Antares. Usually I pick one of the post where I paint bases and tack the tag onto that so I can refer back to it.

This post is just about bases!!

So exciting.

I almost got the bikes in the photo, which are almost done, but due to some fancy angling managed to ensure that this post was entirely devoid of anything interesting.

Here’s the bases recipe:

Snakebite Leather
1-2 layers of Seraphim Sepia
Drakenhof blue shade as a shadow
drybrush up with Tallarn Sand and then Ushapti Bone.

Work-in-progress

Basius + Fixit Sculpting

Posted on October 31, 2015

I went in with a friend on the Basius Kickstarter a while back. I initially tried using Milliput with it, with very poor results. The Milliput was too flaky, and pulled apart when I pulled the pad off. It also got stuck in the crevasses, ripping out detail in the base I was making and obscuring detail for future bases.

I spoke with a bunch of my wargaming buddies, in particular one who has been championing the Basius all along, about what they were doing. First they recommended a product called Fixit which was said to be a superior sculpting medium. You can’t get it in Canada, so I had to get in with another friend who was doing an order, having it shipped to a post box in Blaine, then going down to pick it up. It worked out pretty good, but it’s an annoying set of steps in this “global” world.

The easier step was to pick up talcum powder to keep the bases from sticking.

I think it worked out pretty good. The detail is excellent on the rough dirt. The railroad tracks are a little soft though, especially since I’ve been using actual model railroad to build bases previously, with great success.

You have to put a good amount of clay on the base to make an imprint, and then you have to carve away the excess as it “squirts” out the sides. Have a lot of bases just hanging around, as you’ll be able to do more than you think you can.

One thing I’m not super happy about, and it could just be my choice in Basius — there’s very little thematic cohesion between the bases I’ve done. From the same pad I’ve made railroad, dirt, muck, tiled streets and combinations of the bunch. I just finished attaching them to some Beast Handlers, and while I’m sure it’ll look fine in the end after some painting that brings them together, right now I’m wondering why half the squad is standing in the muck and the other half is standing on tiled street!

I usually cut into my bases and then slot the models “tab” into the hole to provide extra strength. The Fixit once dried is really hard and I chipped it in some places while trying to do this. For the Beast Handlers, I ended up cutting them off their tabs and gluing them directly on top of the bases. Only time will tell if this was a good idea or not, after they’re transported from place to place for a while.

Featured Images

More Movement Trays

Posted on September 24, 2014

I like having skirmisher movement trays, since 8th edition Fantasy has skirmishers less skirmishy and more ranked. I’ve done these before, so it was a relatively easy task to undertake. In addition to the simple drybrushing, I did an under layer of SW Flesh Wash, Guilliman Blue and Waywatcher Green to try to bring some other tones than just grey to them.

The other difference was that I used the Vallejo Lava instead of gluing pebbles to them. So much easier, and just as nice looking. I did press a few pieces of gravel into the lava goop, to try to bring more different textures.

I think they are a little more interesting now. Still just lumps of rock though. 😛

Featured Images Technique

Agrellan Earth…

Posted on September 21, 2014

…I had wanted this to be published on the 7th, so maybe I could get some feedback on it. Apparently I missed the publish button. >.>

I saw a video a few months back showing someone locally using the new GW Agrellan Earth technical paint to create a seriously badass lava base. Since lava bases are my thing, I picked up a bottle and then prompted started painting Malifaux, with zero lava.

OFCC is in 3 weeks, and I have a list of things that still need doing – including making a new base for a skink priest. The priest from my stegadon is on pins, and is getting a shiny new base since I need priests, and Engine’s of the Gods aren’t really great anymore.

I started by painting Vallejo Black Lava texture paint onto a 20mm base. In the end, this wasn’t super necessary, but it does make the end result have a little different levels to it.

I painted a sloppy mixture of Mephiston Red, Blazing Orange and Sunburst Yellow on it.

Then I painted the Agrellan Earth, noting that I’d really just painted a brown slop over my yellow. >.>

When it dried, it looked ok, but not nearly as stunning as some examples I’ve seen. I did some wetbrushing with Chaos Black.

I watered down some yellow and orange and painted it again. Because of the heavy water content, it slipped into the cracks easily. It was on top as well, but after I was done with my water mixture I went back and wetbrushed the Chaos Black again, and it got a little brighter.

If I could get the kind of separation as the example, I’d be a lot happier. Anyone have any experience with it?

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Outcasts – Void Wretches

Posted on May 30, 2014

I successfully used plastic glue on these guys, so they didn’t need (*cough*) any paint. So this is as good a place as any to talk about how I’m doing my Outcast bases!

I started with Secret Weapon resin cobblestone bases. I picked a bunch of these up while at AdeptiCon because I wanted to finally get some of them under my models. I think in the end, I’d rather do my own bases. I feel like I’m getting pretty good at customizing them and I don’t have to order in more when I find out I don’t have enough. >.<

I basecoated them with a drybrush of Codex Grey and Fortress Grey. This looked pretty crappy. I think the roundness of the cobblestones just made it look bad, as opposed to a grey square brick. Anyway, a long way still to go. 🙂

I used the Amethyst (purple) and Sapphire (blue) Secret Weapon washes to heavily shade the crevasses, and also to tint the surfaces. GW Waywatcher Green was used in puddles to bring little spots of green around.

Then I drybrushed again with Fortress Grey to bring the highlight back up.

SW Red Black wash (which is actually kind of…purpley) and Flesh Wash over the gravel bits. I used the Oxid Paste to keep the Wretches feet well anchored to their bases, and wanted to colour this differently.

Then I drybrushed up again with Fortress Grey and mixed in Skull White over 3 layers to bring the shade way up again. I drybrushed Zamesi Desert, mixed with Ushapti Bone over the gravel and called it a day.

The details were Warpstone Glow Leaves, Mithril Silver metal and Zamesi Desert rope. I did these colours early so that the various glazes and washes would colour them as well.

As usual, I wasn’t happy with how it looked until I finished and then walked away for a couple days. Now I’m really glad that they look great, and didn’t need any paint! 😛

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Arcanists – Bases!

Posted on May 19, 2014

My last few posts for my Arcanist bases (previously called “Malifaux” bases, before I got an Outcast crew!) ended up muddled between a few different posts, making it hard to refer back and repeat. Here’s a summary of how I did my bases for some Steam Arachnids!

I prime everything white these days. I drank the koolaid on starting with bright colours and shading down.

Rhinox Hide all over the gravel, Mithril Silver on the rails and Vomit Brown on the railroad ties.

I bought the “new” Seraphim Sepia from GW, but it wasn’t really as dark as I wanted so I put Nuln Oil all over. This was really super black. Much more black than Badab Black, much less…shadey.

Wetbrush up the gravel with Rhinox Hide and Scab Red, then drybrush Tallarn Sand and lastly Zamesi Desert.

It’s not the same scheme as how I did my last bases, but it’s more concise. I think it’s more…I don’t know. It’s brighter in places, but also darker in others. I think it’s the Nuln Oil, in that where it dries it’s really dark, but otherwise it has very little coverage.

Work-in-progress

Plaguebearers – Bases

Posted on November 13, 2013

Part of my plaguebearer project (which…not only haven’t I written about for a while, but I also haven’t worked on for a while) is to have half of the unit in the daemon/rocky bases that my horrors are on, and the other half is in the mortal world. The mortal world is cobbled, so I set about making my own cobblestone!

Milliput, the same stuff I’ve been making my stegadon and Old Blood bases with, because for a few bucks you get a ton of putty. It works similarly to the GW green stuff, in that it’s a two part epoxy that you knead together, but it’s a lot more grainy and flaky.

I started by taking a ball of it and spreading it evenly across the base, ensuring that I got it into the corners and edges fully. I had to be careful to avoid pulling it up from the base once it was on there.

I used the knife edge of my GW putty tool, along with a healthy amount of water to smooth down any fingerprints in the putty. I also cut away and pushed up the edges so that they didn’t extend over the edge of the base. It should also be relatively flat, but it doesn’t have to be exactly flat for my purposes. This is “the old world”, so uneven stones are to be expected.

Again, making sure the putty knife edge is wet I pressed it into the putty in lines. Make sure they are straight across and relatively even. After I had cut a line, I twisted the tool slightly to both sides to widen the cut a bit. This is important, because otherwise as you cut, my cut lines will push closed again.

Take the tip of the knife and cut perpendicular lines into each segment.

After you’ve done all of this, you’re mostly done, but you have a few clean-up tasks to do.

When you cut, you’ll have shifted your lines around, and with my knife in particular some of my bricks ended up with pinched corners. I pulled the knife lightly back through some of the lines, and used the flat to smooth down places where I had accidentally cut to much.

The edges of the putty are probably also pushed out over the edge of the base a bit. They look a little pillowy. I took my knife flat and pushed it all back, and then re-cut the very edge of some of the cut lines to ensure that the cut lines extend all the way across the base.

I wanted to do this, because I have a big unit filler planned and I’ll need to do some custom base work on it to meld the rocky bases and cobblestone bases together!

Work-in-progress

Passion

Posted on October 29, 2013

It turns out that despite having at least 3 projects on my desk, and 2 more projects that I brought home from Kipper’s Melee, that all I really want to do is build a new dinosaur riding another dinosaur.

Nick Klose was kind enough to give me the saurus rider from his Troglodon/Chocodile box and I wanted him to be a Cold One Lord. I had originally thought to use the Cavalry legs and his body, but for two problems – he’s a massive, massive lizard though, compared to the rest of the army, and his tail and torso are a single piece.

So I carved out the rocks he was standing on, puttied the hip joint to pull the legs apart a bit and I think he’ll look pretty bad ass!

Trying to re-create the same type of base as on the stegadon. I used the same strange milliput, but I mottled the ground a bit. I didn’t want to carve out the plants on the Cold One base, as they are structural, so I sculpted around them and will paint them brown and dying or similar.

Puttying reminds me that I want to take a class at Adepticon next year. On puttying. So I can stop sucking, because it’s really embarassing that I have this pro-active painting and modelling learning new techniques thing, but my sculpting is limited to “can I green stuff such that the original model is the only thing that is showing”. One day I plan to win the Little Pat Award at a local tournament, so I had better start learning how to cut Forge World models in half and do as good a job at sculpting them back together as he does. >.> (also, more penis’…need to stop playing an asexual army with no gentials on them).

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Rail Crew – Markers

Posted on October 13, 2013

Malifaux uses a ton of markers. Your models drop Corpse or Scrap Markers when they die, and other models interact with those markers. You can use a (1) action at any point to drop a Scheme Marker. Sometimes these markers are used to score victory points. Sometimes they are just used to make your opponent think you’re trying to score victory points.

I wanted to make some specific to my crew since I had a ton of 30mm bases kicking around and it wasn’t that much extra effort.

These are done with the same basing technique as the models. Instead of drybrushing Fenris Gray over the Rhinox Hide (as I did for the Emberling), I drybrushed Bestial Brown and then Zhamri Desert. I like it a lot more! It left the dirt red, but brought a lot more yellow into it which I feel is a lot more realistic and good looking.

I’m a little concerned about the railway ties right now. I know that I just did Vomit Brown followed by a Devlan Mud wash, and I know that I feel like that isn’t enough paint. But they look ok with just that…

In some places it also just looks like a dirty mess. I’m not a huge fan of that, but it probably looks ok/great to other people. Urge to clean…

Work-in-progress

Horrors – A Ton of Bases

Posted on August 24, 2013

I’ve join a builder/escalation league. Now I have a ton of models to paint. But it’s ok, because the plan is to use this army at Adepticon next year, for the team tournament and possibly more, depending on how I feel about it when I’m done.

However, the 500 points/month scale doesn’t work for either my schedule, or the quality of the paint scheme I’d like to put out. My plan has been to put 3 colours on each 500 point chunk each month so that I’m tournament legal, and then create buffers for myself along the way.

For the first 500, I’ve got 20 horrors, 3 flamers and a Herald of Tzeentch. My next 500 points has a Daemon Prince that just needs to be glued back together, put on a new base and then raised in quality (he doesn’t go in the final army) and 2 Beasts of Nurgle. Which means that I can spend the next month focusing on getting this bigger chunk of the army up to the standard I like.

Which means I spent the last month painting bases. (and all the other hobby shit I get up to.)

A bunch of bases get a basecoat.

I didn’t like the final yellow of the test model, so I changed the rocks to red. I really like how this turned out – it’s a really strong contrast to the (currently) barely visible difference between the green and blue on the model itself. I tried to keep to the slate look for the top, but it was harder this time to get it to look slate, and not just like green rocks.

Here are some of the worst photos I’ve ever taken, of the current final product. The top photo is a little browner than the bases actually are, but the bottom photo is pretty representative. (I figured out how to make my phone-camera do white balance better…these were wicked orange at one point).

Unit of 10 horrors.

Herald of Tzeentch on the left and 3 flamers on the right.

Another unit of 10 horrors.

When I say something like “glazing watered” or “watered” for any of this, I mean that I took a small brush of that colour, mixed in 2 brushes of Acrylic Medium and then doused it with enough water that it ran around on my palette if I wasn’t careful. The idea is that when you put it on the model, there are spots of black, but that it’s mostly a darker transparent.

Red Rocks

The red rocks went something like this…

Scab Red all over the place, make those rocks red.
Watered Chaos Black, applied all over the place.
Watered Rhinox Brown, applied all over the place but in particular into the recesses.
Watered Charadon Granite. This was a good idea here, but a bad idea on the slate.
Watered Stegadon Scale, mixed with some Chaos Black along the bottom half of the rocks. This isn’t enough to make them green, but gives the bottom rocks a colour similarity to the top.

At this point, the rocks are pretty dark.

Less watered Scab Red to bring the highlights back in.
Watered Blazing Orange on top of the red.
Lamenters Yellow. I pulled this around a bit, trying to create lines of highlight.

The Lamenters dried shiny, I hate that. After I finished that, I did a really light and dusty drybrush of Codex Grey over it. Again, this is to try to create some similarity between the top slate and the bottom rocks. It also hid some of the shininess and lightened the red up a bit.

Slate

The slate started with Sotek Green and followed the same procedure as the test model. I think I may have just highlighted with Ushapti Bone though, which may be why these guys were more green and less grey…

You have to go over this with a lot of watered Black. A lot. Put the paint on the top and then pull it towards the middle. Because most of the liquid you just applied is transparent, you can see the black bits and pull them where you want them to go.
At one point I did a watered Charadon Granite, this was a really bad idea. Instead of the nice seafoam green, it became more Dark Angels Green, which was not at all the colour I wanted. Had to re-highlight with the Sotek+Ushapti. Don’t add anything resembling brown to this part of the model.
Just keep painting black.
I added some watered Codex Grey, but I just blacked over it again.

When I ran out of patience, I did a light dusting drybrush of the Codex Grey. I think this made a really awesome difference, but I’m slightly worried that all of my previous work has been hidden by it (really light dusting!)

Next Steps

Now I have some models to figure out. Also, Patrick will probably have some comments on the bases about something I should change. This Sunday is go time! We’re playing a ton of 500 point games, and we’ll be taking photos for the paint voting!

After that…we begin the next 500 points. 🙂

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