Hippos and Beyond

So I found bags of glowing rocks which of necessitated the painting of my Yu-Jing Infinity...

And as a bonus the drakon horde is finished for the elves!

How to: Swamp Bases

Project ADD has set in and its time to start a new army.  As such it's a perfectly good time for a basing tutorial.  This time we are making some boggy quagmire for the undead legions to rise from.

You will need:

Vallejo water texture (or some other water effect)
Paints
Cork
Plasticard (I'm using a 2mm thick piece)
Glue
Sand
suitably marshy flock (I used gale force 9 but there are plenty of options for this type of base)

To start off with I've taken broken up cork and glued it onto the plasticard.  These will be the little spots of land between the swampy bog so be ready to leave room for miniatures to stand on both land and swamp.  The stone monument came from somewhere in a bits box and was just added for fun.

After our usual priming of black I've gone back and painted all the land parts dark blue.

Next mix some blue in with grey and dry brush all the land.  This should give you slightly weird and unnatural blue tint to your land.  Hang on it's about to make sense...

Next we finish off the land parts with a sepia wash.  This will leave the land looking suitably dingy and disgusting.  On top of that the sepia over blue makes a fun weird color that's a little hard to pin down and thus may lead to further madness.

Next I have taken my finest cheap paint (walmart acrylics even!) and painted all the water purple.

Without waiting for it to dry mix a little black and purple and start blending it in to begin making the deeper portions of the bog.  Remember it will get deeper as we move away from the land masses and thus darker.

Again without waiting for it to dry start mixing more and more black in until you are happy with the overall coloring.  The transition won't have to be super smooth as our water effects will mask imperfections later.

Speaking of water....

It's easiest to put your miniatures that will be partially submerged in the swamp down first before we do water effects.  Once their glue is dry apply a thick coat of water texture all over the water areas.  If you are using vallejo water texture it will go on white and (trust me) eventually dry clear.  Thicker areas may take upwards of 24 hours to fully dry.

Once the water is dry (and only after it is dry) add some flock to the land areas for a little variety and done!

Yet More Dwarves

This is now the project that never ends: The Abyssal Dwarf Army....

But progress has been made, slowly.

Since I had an odd man(thing) out I decided to do a small conversion to make an Abyssal Halfbreed Champion out of the Mantic halfbreeds.   The flag is just plasticard bent under a heat gun and the hashut symbol on top was a butchered khorne symbol (surprised GW never resolved that thread when they blew up the world).

I hope all abyssal dwarf/chaos dwarf players are thanking Russian Alternative because they have done a fantastic job providing amazing looking evil dwarves at a more than fair price!  They of course make up my  blacksouls.

I decided I needed an ode to a 'friends' army in this horde so I made a prisoner that's being dragged rather unwillingly into battle.  He's done up in his armies colors and looks rather pathetic next to these strapping and battle worthy dwarves.  

Finally I finished up a new troop of half breeds.  The painted portion of the army finally outnumbers the unpainted part!

Goodbye to the Knights

Well we all know that once in a while its time to clean the closets and get rid of things that just aren't useful anymore.  I have not been a fan of 40k for some time (especially after KoW 1st edition came out).  It just never was a very well balanced game between factions but even more than that as the editions kept coming it relied more and more on just having a better list than your opponent.

This just seemed to come to a head with the latest rendition of 8th edition.  Admittedly I tried it only once but watched many games and it seems to be down to whoever made the better list and whether or not they go first.  For me this just isn't a game worth playing since it is decided on the first die roll but generally takes 2-4 hours to finish fully.  Thus I decided to sell the only fully finished 40k army I have:

Plenty of good times and bad with these buggers but I just can't hold on for 9th edition to possibly 'save' my interest in the game.  More pics on the completed army page:

http://bobthebobish.blogspot.com/p/grey-knights.html

How To: Elfy Bases

Time for another basing tutorial!  This will take a lot less painting than the lava bases and can serve as a nice 'basing for beginners' type of how to.  For this you will need glue (super glue and PVA or elmers), paint, two different colors of flock and some flowers or clump flock.

For the elves I've been starting with the super easy to use mantic bases.  These are for a horde of tallspears but I want to be able to take them down to regiment and or troop level so I've split it in half and then in half one more time.  Next take some super glue and glue down bits of cork to make a more varied surface.

To add a little more variety to the bases I've used super glue (although PVA or elmers will work) to glue down some more coarse rocks around the cork.

Fore these bases I've primed the whole thing white though if you want a darker base you can prime black and drybrush your colors over it rather than the wash we will do on the next step.  

Now its time to take our least expensive paint (ie craft paint) and water it down.  I've used a basic brown paint and water it down to a 25% water 75% paint.  This will create a little variance and help to cover the cracks in the cork as well.  Slop all that paint on so that it covers up the primer.

Let it dry completely before this next step.  Next up we will take the brown we used earlier and add a good bit of white into the mix.  This will be drybrushed all over the place (no picture sadly).  After that dries take a nice bright green static grass or flock and glue it onto the base in spots.

I like to use super glue because it keeps it from falling off later during play.  Just make spots of glue at random all over the place and sprinkle your flock on. If you are using super glue instead of PVA make sure to do it in sections so that the glue doesn't dry before the flock hits it.

Next I do the same thing with a slightly darker flock.  This time it is in small spots and with much less flock covering everything.  Again this is to provide some more variance and color.

Next I've taken some 'flowers' (ie clump flock) and placed them sporadically around the area.

After painting the edges of the base (make sure to wait for the glue to dry before this!) we can finally put a set of demon elf models onto the base!  Yay for being done!

A Sewer Runs Through Them

On my sudden need to complete 1000 point demo armies the Ratkin finally hit the table again!

Never do want to assemble and paint another one these they are way too packed with detail though the model does look great on the table.

Spearmen have been rebased to fit the theme and given a magnetic movement tray.

The blight were taken from warhammer quest and re based to fit the theme.  Since I only had 14 a unit filler was totally nescessary and breaks it up a bit too.

Want to get at least a one horde of brutes eventually but these are enough for the demo.

and finally a group shot.  You can see the rest of the army on the completed projects page right here

How To: Curled Beards

Someone had requested this little tutorial on my abyssal dwarf beards so here it is.  Sadly the tutorial I used to learn this has since been lost to that great 404 in the sky or this would just be a link...

To start out make sure you have the following supplies:

Blue Yellow epoxy (aka Green Stuff), Water spray bottle, Hobby Knife (preferably a little dull but not too dull), Scultping tool for pushing the green stuff around into place, and finally a dentists pick.   I won't be detailing where to use the water but overall keep your tools and your greenstuff wet in order to stave off the sticky mess it can become.

Oh yeah and you probably want a miniature of some kind to put a suitably awesome beard on.  I have picked out one of the few abyssal dwarves left without a majestic curled beard.  Mantics beards are not bad at all but I want that old school chaos dwarf beard with the funny hats and all!  Sadly this will cover up most of the frontal details so be aware of that before you start. 

Speaking of which we start by saying an apology to all dwarven gods of all creeds and mythos. Why?  Because we will be chopping of a dwarf beard: a true sacrilegious act.    You don't have to be super clean about it because we will be sculpting over the whole beard area.

Next mix up a little bit of green stuff into a vaguely beard like shape.

Stick that weird chin tumor on right under the chopped beard area.

Take your sculpting tool and manipulate that blob so that it melds with the face parts a little.  It won't have to be super smooth all around.  Heck I even still had paint on my fingers so little bits flaked off all over!

 Seriously though don't paint and sculpt. It's your dwarves that pay the price.  Won't somebody think of the dwarves?

After the chin tumor is in place it's time to begin the beardening.  Take your dental pick and use the side of it to make indendations in the green stuff creating little lines going from the top of the beard to the bottom.  Make sure to do the same to the bottom of the beard underneath your lines to separate the strands later on as the beard takes shape.

Put on your chainmail gloves next (or just be careful) and take up your mighty hobby knife.  You will start on one side of each beard strand and just press little slits into the beard as you see above.

Next do the same to the other side of each strand.

Pause to curse and apply bandages should mistakes happen to your hand.

Then do the same to the middle of each strand.

Finally (because no one will ever notice but it will put your mind at ease and please the dwarf gods)  take the pokey end of your dental pick and make holes in the bottom of each strand of the beard to finish it out!

You now have a fully bearded dwarf and may have even made amends for the chopping off of a dwarf beard.  Should the sky's begin to turn red be sure to paint up the miniature as soon as soon as the green stuff dries fully (wait 24 hours) in order to appease the dwarf gods fully.

Hope this was helpful to all you stunties out there!  If there's something you see on the blog and want to know how its done feel free to let me know!

How To: Lava Bases

Going to try something new here and do some tutorials and share a little bit of experience and or knowledge.  What better place to start than happy little lava bases?  All you need is paint, bases, cork and sand!  I use Vallejo paints in this one but I won't be referencing the names of the paints (I don't even read them honestly!) and will be referring to them as simple shades of colors.  These are also the same bases I use for my Abyssal Dwarf army.

So to start off just tear off some cork from a sheet or your favorite wine stopper and shape it into a rock for your little plastic man dolls to stand on.  If you want you can add bubbles or other liquid like textures at this stage.

Next paint the whole thing black.

Now take a dark grey or blue-grey and drybrush it over the rock lightly.  for a dark black rock like this you want to keep the underlying black color and just highlight edges and cracks so keep it light!

Alright I did miss a few photos but the next step is to paint white everywhere that you will end up having lava.  This is to provide a nice bright base color to start layering your fiery lava colors.

Then build up the glowing effect of the lava by drybrushing red first along the edges and then a bright orange.  Make sure to keep in mind that the light from the lava will be coming from below thus leaving the tops of the rocks in shadow.

Now cover all of that pearly whiteness with red.  We will be working from the coolest point in the lava to the hottest.

Now mix that red with a little orange and put the next layer on top of the red leaving a little bit of red around the rock platform.  This way the red is nearest to the rock and as we move outward we will be adding lighter colors eventually moving to orange, then yellow and finally white-yellow.

While I let that dry We can start on the movement tray itself. I've got an old GW movement tray here but any of them will do.  For ease of transport I've added a bit of roofing flash to the floor of the tray so that I can magnetize miniatures to it.

And back to our base I've use a watered down layer of orange again leaving a little bit of the last darker orange layer showing as we radiate out from the rock.

This time a thinned layer of bright orange is added and the base starts to take some shape.  Keeping the layers thin from here on will not only hide more brush strokes but allow the last layer to show through a little helping to blend them together without too much effort.

Back to the movement tray now.  So to start with I cover the whole thing with sand and chip away small areas to create lava veins with.  Then it receives the same steps as the bases as it is turned black, drybrushed grey and drybrushed red then orange to create the 'glow' of the lava.

Depending on how many models there will be on the base and how hard it will be to continue painting around the model you can leave the model off the base or put it on now.  It can be a little tricky to transfer the glow of the lava to the miniature itself before you put it on the base but sometimes it will be necessary. I've chosen to affix the models to the base at this point and paint the lava veins in the tray orange.

Then the veins get a bright orange layer leaving the darker orange closer to the rocks just like the bases.

Next a stripe of yellow is added and the tray starts to come to life.

Now that our bright orange is applied we mix a little yellow in with it and thin it down before applying it as our next layer.

So since we have our model on the base now AND we already have our fire colors on the palette it's time to do the object source lighting on the model from the lava glow. Using an airbrush to do this can be loads easier but doing it by brush doesn't have to be a monumental task.

Start with red just like we did on the rock and drybrush the 'glow' onto the model wherever the light would hit it.  It's a little hard to see on this one since the basic body is already red (it's more visible on the beard) but make sure that ALL of your drybrush strokes are going in the same direction that the light would be traveling in (in this case moving the brush up against the model since the 'floor' is glowing).

Just like the rocks after red comes orange and finally this time do a little bit of yellow with each color being a little lighter on the drybrushing.  This will give a decent OSL effect without really having to do that much work!  How much glow you want will be personal choice, for mine I didn't want the glow of the lava to overpower the models so I only do a little though again that is just personal choice.  You can always add more paint to make the glow stronger but remember you can ONLY add more.  Removing it will require you to re-paint the model itself...

Alright back to the base itself we now start mixing in yellow with our orange to make a creamy bright orange color and layer that on the base just like the other colors.

For our movement trays we now take a little bit of yellow and mix it with white.  Use this color to make a thin stripe in the middle of each of the lava veins in order to really sell the fire effect.

Once the orange dries its time to lay down some thinned out yellow as the base starts to feel a little hot.  Remember to keep radiating further away from the rock leaving your previous lairs showing as you go further in.

If your yellow is having a hard time showing through try mixing in just a small amount of white to give it some body.  If you need to 'tame' the brightness out of it and bring it down to yellow just thin some yellow down and go back over the brighter yellow.

Next we will add a little white into our yellow to make a bright yellow layer.

And as our final layer take that bright yellow and mix it into some watered down white for a off white yellow color.  This will be your brightest point in the lava though if you feel like you need to go brighter just keep diluting the yellow into white until you reach your desired final layer.

As a final touch I like to edge the base with black though you can always just wrap the lave paterns around the side of the base as you go instead.  Again this is all personal choice.

Finally here's the full on finished regiment of Abyssal Half-breeds all with friendly bright lava bases! It is a lot of steps but they are all fairly small steps that work well when doing larger batches of bases.  Combined with the unit tray this unit really comes to life.

Hope someone finds this little tutorial useful and if anyone wants a tutorial for anything else that's been up on the blog let me know I'll look into to getting a step by step made!