Can you tell what it is yet?
A little side project.
Can you tell what it is yet?
Image
Reply
Tag Archives: Games Workhop
A brief basing interlude
Image
This is a test piece for my Desert Rats.
One layer of household emulsion paint. Vallejo Crackle Medium and then another layer of household emulsion.
I’m happy with this, so no GW only one shade of cracked soil. I can have any colour I want.
Time rich, money poor
Image
My plan is to have every unit in my collection kitted out with a movement tray. This has been easy for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Black Powder and Field of glory. I spent the last few months at my last job, when I knew I was being made redundant, making stuff in the workshops. Three aluminium/brass carry cases and more movement trays than you can shake a stick at. They’re easy: a rectangle of plastic cut to the right size, a border strip made of six mil plastic and a thin sheet of mild steel cut to the unit’s size. Glue together, Dremmel sides, superglue some sand on and undercoat. Job done, ready to be painted up when the unit is ready so that the bases match the movement tray.
Now with 40K and Bolt Action there are round bases. Not so easy. 40K uses, for the main, twenty five mil circular bases. Bolt Action uses two pence coins. Foreign readers may question why so many English wargamers use money to base there figures on. Are we extravagant? No, the answer is that the two pence piece is more enough worthless. Plastic bases cost more to buy. Plus, if you get the older coins, they are attracted to magnets. Another love of mine is magnetised units, I have seen plenty of instances where an opponent has placed a unit on a hill only to see them slide away. Not me, I’ve magnetised more or less everything.
Anyway back to the circular based movement trays. 40K has twenty five mil bases and Bolt Action has twenty six mil bases. So what is one millimetre between friends? I don’t think anyone will notice a slight gap on my 40K units between base and movement tray.
OK. Time rich money poor. That’s me, plus I’m a tight bastard. I have seen some laser cut trays on Fleabay for between two and three pounds each, plus postage. I’ll probably need thirty odd. So the money mounts up. So what does one of these fancy laser cut movement trays consist of? Two sheets of MDF. The bottom one is plain and the top one has holes cut in it.
What am I not capable of doing?
I drew up some templates in Indesign, just to work out the size of the base. A ten man movement tray worked out to be ninety five mil by one hundred and thirty mil. Wouldn’t mind some five man movement trays and some twenties. Bauhaus has one square metre of three mil not-quite-MDF for four Euro something. From this I can get thirty nine movement trays. Went to Bauhaus on Monday morning armed with cake to bribe the wood cutter. Got the wood cut and purchased a twenty six mil hole cutting attachment for my drill. In all it came to twenty one euros on the nose.
All that is left is to drill the holes for the bases, stick them together and finish as appropriate for the unit.
The biggest chunk of that was the drill bit at Fourteen something Euro. But I have that now, so any time I want more movement trays it’s just the cost of the wood, which is minimal.
Result!
Schnee
How I made snow bases for my models.
I’ve been experimenting with baking powder and PVA for my Flames of War army and it was fairly pleasing.
Seeing as my painting has gone up a notch I wanted to do the same for my bases. After a couple of false starts I’ve come up with the following recipe.
Note to self. DO THIS AFTER VARNISHING!
Put some blobs of ready mixed filler on the base. If you dilute it a bit it looks slushy. I found this filler in my shed and had a bit of a play around.
Next a very gentle sprinkle of cake glitter. I tried a few of my Wife’s and settled on the white.
Finally a weak wash of GW’s Ice Blue in the areas where there would be shadows.
One down, how many to go?
Here is the first unit finished in Austria. A unit of Halflings, made by Battleforge, for my Albion army. The sculpting isn’t amazing, but they are so full of character and fun that I’d rather have these than a unit of dull but amazingly sculpted figures.
I had a lot of angst about finishing this unit. I had started painting them before I left Blighty and I had promised myself that when I got my stuff this was to be the first unit I’d paint. When I unpacked them I did a double take. The quality of the painting was so much higher than I thought I could do. Could I match it? I wasn’t sure and spent a while prevaricating before sitting down and starting.
The end result is good, but still not up to the standard I set.
I used a couple of new techniques that I have mentioned previously.
Microplaned sponge, I’m fairly pleased with the result, though you have to make sure that the particles are really fine.
Tester pots for the basing, this works well and I am pleased with the result.
I have started cataloguing and photographing, more work needed on the model photography. When the website is live I’ll post the address.
So here is unit WHFB/A/1/numbers 1 to 30.
Predictions for 2014
I’ll put my money where my mouth is and offer a glass of decent red wine if this doesn’t happen.
This is based on me taking a small interest in Military Modelling and observing how that particular branch of the hobby is advancing painting techniques.
GW will introduce two, at least, weathering products. One will be a spray of chipping medium, Hairspray to you and me. And the other will be a Dust Wash or a Mud in a jar.
Just my ten pence worth.
The November issue of White Dwarf
OK what happened to the Wood Elves? They were promised in the last issue and I was interested in seeing how they painted up the Wardancers. Maybe the December issue?
I would like to touch on the six new technical paints released. I’m making some assumptions as I can’t read German and there is no GW store nearby to actually see them for real. Please note I may be talking out of my bottom.
First up, Ryza Rust: does this have some texture or is it just orange paint? Do you want just one colour of rust? Back in the days of Rogue Trader (go and ask your Dad) WD suggested making textured paint by adding a little scouring powder. A more modern suggestion is from the vlog “Tabletop Minions”, use Liquid Greenstuff and carefully stipple some with an old brush where you want texture. Paint with your preferred rust colour.
Typhus Corrosion: is this just colour in a medium?
Blood for the Blood God: good old Tamiya Clear Red, what everyone has been using for years.
Nhilake Oxide: again, is this just a colour in a medium?
Nurgle’s Rot: this might call for some experimentation, but would ink/paint mixed with PVA do the trick? Or ink/paint mixed with a satin varnish?
The last product, Agrellan Earth, was the one I was most interested in. Again, why be restricted to one shade of cracked earth? With Vallejo’s Crackle Medium the world of colour is your crackled lobster.
Interesting products but with a restricted palate. So if you want your models to look like the product of your average teenage fanboy these are for you. But with a tiny bit of effort and probably less money you can have some more tailored effects on your models.
genuine grumpy old tin 