#6MMRPC Week 5 Wrap-Up

(I'm legitimately sorry for the pictures, this week -- I couldn't take a good picture to save my life.)

Yeah, I skipped a week -- I ran out of super glue (both brush on and gel), right after a financial emergency, and couldn't afford to spend the money on glue.  That doesn't mean I wasn't working, I just wasn't doing very much.

In that time, I put another coat of flesh onto my Dark Eldar project -- a few of them will need a third coat, then I'm onto highlights -- and, that's really it for all of week 4.

At the beginning of Week 5, my wife was kind enough to buy me some glue, so I got back to work.  I did very little gap-filling (I need to find a less messy way to do it, both for the sake of my living room (where I've been working), and for the sake of my glue, which kept thickening up in the bottle from baby powder that stuck to the brush), and decided to work on bases.  This was mostly for the Salt City Gladiator Games -- with the games coming up, I want to have everything I could possibly use based, at the very least.

First up was my December Acolytes -- simple cork bases with sticks for trees.

Next up was Mr. Tannen (in the background of the Drowned's picture) -- I've made quite a few of these hardwood bases before using HO Scale Milled Lumber, but this time I wanted to fill the gap around the edges using superglue and baby powder.  That ended up being more effort than it was worth -- the glue got all over the edges of the wood, and then I had to carve wood grain into the glue after I sanded it down.  Next time I'll use Green Stuff.

After that, I had picked up some linoleum samples that I wanted to try out, so I moved onto my Drowned -- I won't be using these at the Gladiator Games, but the texture was perfect for a sandy base.  I started by drilling out the center to make fully recessed bases, then cut the linoleum to fit, glued the linoleum to plastic and glued all of that to the bottom of the base -- after that, I lined the edges with cork, and covered the seams with coarse sand and rope made of twisted wire.  I'll fill the bases with water effects after I paint.

Finally, my coup de gras of the week -- Mr. Graves.  I've been debating on how to do him for awhile, and I had various parts of this plan laid out for months.  Over the last 3 or so months, I created a door with my scale lumber and card stock, which I then used to make a door frame in some plasticard.  I didn't like how that looked, so I spent A LOT of time with a dremel, files, and my hobby knife to try and make the wall look like rough-hewn wood.  After that, I lost my door, so I had to make a new one out of plasticard, which I decorated with some Etch-Master brass from their IndieGoGo campaign (I'll get a better picture as I add my doorknobs and hinges).

Next, I needed a cobblestone base, and I've never liked the look of hand-modeled greenstuff cobblestones.  So, I hollowed out another base (I swear there's a tutorial about that somewhere -- if I find it, I'll link it) and capped off the bottom with another piece of spare plastic.  I glued down a layer of fishtank rocks, which just happened to be the right height, followed by a layer of water-thinned PVA and railroad talus which I press-leveled (I took something flat, and pressed it into the base to have a level surface), and finished off with more thinned PVA and the same course sand I used on the Drowened bases.

The final step was putting it all together -- I needed an elevated floor for the "inside" of the door, so I built a hardwood base on a wooden disk which I glued onto the cobblestone base (I made this a bit too big, and covered up way too much of the stones), pinned and glued on my wall, then my door (it's not glued, just pinned, so I can remove it for painting), and, finally, Mr. Graves.

This coming week will be more Dark Eldar -- I need to add flesh highlights, then edge highlight everything, and I'll be ready to base everything! -- and my Fire Gamin.

#6MMRPC Week 3 Wrap-Up

This week was slow, but I got a few things done.  Most notably, I finished all of Phase 1, and I'm now moving to Phase 2.   In case you were wondering, the final model to assemble was The Dreamer, as seen on the left.

• Phase 1: Assembly.  Get everything I currently have from Malifaux assembled.  I should have most of Phase 1 done by the end of this week.
• Phase 2: Gap filling.  

The first part of Phase 2 was to find an acceptable gap filling medium.  I've used Milliput and Green Stuff (both regular and liquid) in the past, and I've always felt the ROI was really low.  GS can't be sanded, so you have to get it perfect the first time, and Milliput takes FOREVER to sand.

As mentioned in last week's update, I wanted to try Future and baby powder, and I did -- it does dry to a sandable level, but it doesn't naturally adhere to whatever you're filling so I had problems with the dried stuff flaking out of the gap as I worked on it.  Great idea, not an ideal solution.

Moving on from that, I went to super glue (CA glue) and baby powder.  Many posts I saw that mentioned this method said to make a paste and mash it in, but it only gives you a tiny time to work with the paste before the entire batch is solid.  Instead of doing that, I used some brush-on Krazy Glue, and used a small spoon to heap baby powder onto the glue.  That worked great (take a look at Lord Chompy Bits' shoulder, on the right)!  It still takes forever to sand, but not as much as Milliput.  Priming and painting will tell how effective this method is, but I think it's the best method I've found, so far.

Let's hope I can finish this phase before the end of October, as projected.

Secret Bits Site: Shapeways

Matney here, talkin' about bits.  Specifically, an unlikely bits site.

In the last few years, 3D printing has come a very long way -- gone are the days where every printing step is painfully visible, and highly-detailed resins plus the availability of free modeling software like Blender are allowing 3D modelers (who may not have the slightest skill with green stuff) to print off some incredible bits, minis, and terrain (sometimes even as sprues, which is hilarious to me since they don't start out as an injection mold).

Shapeways is a 3D printing site, allowing its users to upload 3D models that they will then print to order.  Over the last year (I don't have proof, but a year ago I was looking for the same thing and found significantly less than I did this year) the custom bits market on Shapeways has blown up, where you can find just about anything.

Looking for Rhino doors for your Ork Lootas? Shoulder pads to make your vanilla marines stand out? A Fleur de Lis dozer blade for your Immolator? A dragon/demon/Tyranid model that none of your friends have EVER seen (see the picture)?  Throw 28mm in Shapeways' search box and go to town!

The only real downside I've found to Shapeways -- besides the prices, which are almost GW in nature -- is that most artists only carry one or two things that are applicable to any given hobby.  Sure, there are exceptions, but you'll have to actually spend time looking.

But, in case you don't feel like sifting through all of that, here are some excellent links for you:

• Admiral Duck Sauce - Alternative SM models, a couple neat head sprues
• DW Toys - Backpacks, weapons, stuff for your DIY terrain to look a little better.
• BlackBits - Dreadnought weapons and top hats (for your fancy IG, I guess).
• Custom Minis - Shoulder pads galore.  A few weapons, a few heads, and some other random bits, but this is THE place to find shoulder pads.
• Wolfhound Jack Designs - Dozer blades for SoB, IG, and SM.
• Vandil - Ork parts for Imperial vehicles, among other things.
• Dynath - Mostly weapon sprues, but some interesting mech bits are in there, too.
• GangWar Miniatures - Some great terrain pieces, as well as some female minis that would work well as Guard.
• ArtisticFiend - A single sprue of Marine stuff and a couple Storm Shields.
• Random Bits - Not so random as it looks like some interesting Necron alternatives, and some weapons.
• Custom Bitz - The demon/dragon/Nid posted above and some good looking wings.
• Saberwar 52nd Century - Chaos flamers, backpacks, and a pair of heads that will keep your bare-headed marines from looking like white supremacists.

 That's just the first few things I found, and I would wager money that there is more out there.

Lemme know if you end up buying anything -- I would love to see how it turns out (And I'll let you know when I buy the dozer blade and probably the dragon thing).

Back to Basics: Demon pt. 4 - Drybrushing

What I wouldn't give for a good lightbox, today.  None of my pictures seem to be showing what I did.

I was able to pick up a drybrush from a local ceramics shop, Sue's Ceramics in Layton, UT, today, which has allowed me to get back to the demon.  First off, I'm kind of excited to have a ceramics shop fairly close, because I've wanted to get back into that and finish a Christmas village for myself (would any of you have any interest in seeing that?  Leave a comment), but it also means I know a good place to get dedicated drybrushes.

So I'm back in business!

Back to Basics: Demon pt. 3 - Washes

Dave here.  In Part 1, we saw my first base coat -- where I thought the mini was a gargoyle. In Part 2, I did a proper basecoat for a demon, and experimented more with the flow of my paint.  Now, in Part 3, I'm going to talk about my very first attempts at washes, ever.

Back to Basics: Demon pt. 2

*The model looks WAY better in this lighting than it does under scrutiny.

Two blog posts in one day... if this wasn't the third post, total, I'd feel like I should say, "don't get used to it."  Except I just said it, and it's true that you shouldn't get used to it.  I just had a lot of spare time, today.

I hit the demon with Liquitex Burnt Sienna and Liquitex Raw Umber on its body and horns, respectively.*  I got a much better flow out of my Burnt Sienna, and thought I had it figured out until my Raw Umber was too runny.  I need to remember I can add more water, I can't remove it, and water is WAY cheaper than paint.

Back to Basics: My return to paining minis

When I first started playing tabletop RPGs, I was hugely into painting my own minis.  It was cathartic, it was something for my D&D group to do when we weren't rolling dice, and it probably helped that my mom family had recently gone through a pretty obsessive ceramics phase which left us with lots of paint and brushes.

When I discovered girls, however, I put down my brush and it's been about fourteen years since I've put paint to primer.  However, I never really stopped thinking about it -- I guess that you kind of stick with the things you know you liked, even if you're not actually doing them.