Blue man base and some paving stone experiments

Base with plastic card top

With blue man almost done I started working on a small display base for him, just because I can.  Keeping it cheap I cut up some offcuts of pine and made a 40x45mm pedestal for him.  After sanding it down a bit I painted with a few coats of a gloss black.  I also put dark green felt underneath.  Once you start felting you can’t stop.

Everything looks better in gloss black and green felt

For the display portion I wanted to keep with the 1950’s feel.  So I decided to make a linoleum floor with a wooden bar on one side.  Rather than paint directly on the wood I cut a piece of plastic card to size and painted that.  After undercoating black I painted a tile pattern in a nice, ugly egg shell blue tile with an alternate mustard yellow tile.  Reminds me of the floor from many an old government building of my youth.  I used the VMA colours Blue (71.008) and Yellow Ochre (71.033).  I’ve varnished the piece and intend to finish it off with some oil washes.

Unpainted section is where the bar goes

The partial bar I made out of balsa wood over a polystyrene core.  I simulated planking by scoring the balsa wood with a ball point pen.  Plastic card covers the two external sides as they will be painted black.  So far all I’ve done is a light brown (ala pine) colour.  A lot more washes, etc will be needed.

As a break of figure painting I did some experimentation with oil washes.  Using one of the J’s work pavement pieces (PA3018 1/35 Pavement 1) I undercoated the the piece in a mid grey, a mixture of the light grey and black Vallejo primers.  I then painted at random a number of the pavement stones in different colours from dark brown, light brown, various greys, etc.  I was trying to simulate a road made up mainly of one type of stone but with the normal variations you would see in times past.  Unlike today where all the stone is usually colour matched old roads were a bit more of what you could find.  All these colours were standard Vallejo paints.

Pavement underway

For the weathering I used oil paints.  This is the second time I’ve tried them out (inspired by the examples I see in the military model world) and I’m really starting to like the effects.  I made a number of washes starting with a grey wash (matching the grey of the majority of the pavements) and added either burnt umber, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, black to the mix and for mold added viridian.

I did a dark brown/olive wash over the entire piece first and then did different colour washes in different segments (each segment a 2-6 pavement stones).  I did a few layers of the green wash (from dark olive green up to bright green) for the mold areas making sure I got a lot of green colour in the pavement cracks as this is where mold normally grows - away from the traffic/wear areas.  In the end most of the piece was covered in 4-7 washes.  This really gives it a lovely worn in appearance.  Also each oil wash mixes slight with the previously so you don’t get the blend lines like you do with acrylic paints.  At the end I did some dry smearing with some light greys to white on the raised surfaces of the pavement stones.  Again oils are very nice to work with because if the highlight is too much you just smear it with your finger and it all tones back in.  Much like the colour spotting technique from the scale model world.

At the end of it I was pretty chuffed with the result.  It kind of looks like it’s been there for awhile and never been cleaned.  A real worn in road pavement piece.  Starting to really dig this $7.50 set of oil paints.  Need to try the red paints in the range next.

Blue, blue and the end of a relationship

Yep, redo the shoes

Got a few nights of decent sleep so I hit the blue paints and cracked on with 75mm man (aka Dapper Dan).  For all the blue work the colours I used were (from dark to light)

Midnight Blue (old Citadel range)
VMC Flat Blue - base colour
Lutheran Blue (unknown Citadel range) - I’ve re-potted all my Citadel colours so have lost track of what range some are from
VMC Light Sand - didn’t use much as too yellow
VMA White - I found the Model Air white much easier to mix with than the standard whites

The jacket went pretty well as all the folds and creases helps out the shading a lot.  The back of the jacket was harder being very flat.  There I found the highlights were smaller so the base colour was more the first shade colour.  This worked ok as most of the back of the jacket is well lit.

The pants were a pain.  After two tries I just repainted them all and tried again from scratch.  This worked much better as I scaled back the amount of shadow work.  The pants are very straight so I had to be super smooth (or tried to) on the blends as any obviously stepping lines between shade coats really showed up.  I pushed the highlights on the front folds quite a lot to make the base colour look darker.

Overall the larger figure is much harder to paint as the smooth areas are bigger and thus the blending has to be better than on a 28mm figure for example.  Big flat areas are hard to shade well.  I’m seeing why at this scale a lot more people use an airbrush for the bulk of the work.

I tried using a blue ink for a 5 o’clock shadow look but got carried away and ended up with a 3 day fungus growth instead.  So repaint time again.  I was quite annoyed as I was pretty happy with the original paint job on the face.  The shoes need to be redone as my highlighting experiment as seen in the picture above didn’t work.  The red handkerchief adds that tiny spot of non blue.

Although a test figure I think I will do some kind of display base for him.  In part as a further learning exercise and also as I’m getting happier with the overall result.  Currently I’m thinking of a linoleum floor in a check pattern and a wooden bar as the background.  I think that will fit the 1950/60’s feel.

Brand name worn off from constant use, I'll miss you guys

On other news I think it is time to announce the end of a relationship.  After twenty odd years my ever faithful Roymac 3550 brushes and I have parted ways.  Many, many armies were painted with these brushes and I’ve gone through quite a number.  But after a few evenings with a Windsor and Newton series 7, you don’t go back.

$80 never looked so good

Re-org time, with a little bit of painting

Not much painting this week as kid number one was sick most of the week so sleep was pretty much not on (getting up two times a night four nights in a row, very ugly).  As a result the brain and the eyes were just not willing to do much.  In the end I managed to get a bit more shading done on 75mm man, but nothing much.  However while painting in my LGS another customer wandered past and asked me about using a wet palette and I sprouted enthusiastically about it.  So that was a win.

With my new 54mm knight I just didn’t like the helmeted figure.  It just looked like a suit of armour, not a person.  So I ordered some extra 54mm scale heads (MIG’s medieval heads 2).  I ripped off the current helmet and after some cutting and sanding had a new head in place.  The difference is huge.  As soon as the new head went on the figure came alive.  I wanted to paint this figure now, instead of looking at it with a “oh well, guess it didn’t cost much” feeling.

Only a flesh wound

While playing doctor chop shop I also cut off the right leg and turned it in some what.  The original feet positions were at approx. 90 degrees to each other, which is a very unnatural pose.  Now the feet match the rest of the stance a bit better.  With all the cutting done I finished up with some green stuff to fill in the gaps.

My painting area has become a bit crowded of late.  On three sides I have terrain/basing materials, half done figures, 1/32 left over bits, undercoated figures, glue, etc.  The wife had seen a steel 10 draw unit in Officeworks awhile back and suggested I check it out.  It being quite nice I purchased one for $99.

Each draw is slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper and about 5cm deep.  The 10 draw units come on wheels too.  The draws can be removed too.  This extra storage allowed me to move all my basing/resin cast/etc into the draws and empty out the painting area.  I lined the draws with a layer of non-slip matting and some felt.  This stops things from rolling around.

In fact I liked the 10 draw unit so much I purchased two 5 drawer models for the shed.  They are a perfect fit for the narrow hammerlock shelves I have in there.  So if you are looking to tidy up, I fully recommend them.

Pinkysil silicon and Easycast resin reviews

One of my very early experiences with miniatures was casting my own lead figures with Prince August rubber moulds (the 3 figure fantasy range).  The smell of molten lead in rubber moulds, the heady toxic fumes reducing my intelligence and the sizzle of burning flesh as I accidentally touch the casting crucible.  Good times.  So I always enjoy casting and moulding things.

I have used the Woodland Scenics rubber rock moulds and even made some of my own moulds with Instant Mould/Oyumaru.  But the ultimate endpoint was to make a silicone mould and cast something in resin.  Well with a birthday just gone I splashed the cash and made it happen.

All ready to go

From The Combat Company I purchased some Pinkysil silicon ($40), Easycast resin ($40) and Stoner mould release agent ($25).  For the first couple of test pieces I went for a single sided/open mould.  This means one side is open to the air, as compared to a single part or two part fully enclosed mould.  A single sided mould is fine if one side of the object is not visible, e.g. will be glued to something else.

Ready of the silicon pour

The first test piece was to replicate a dead norman from Conquest games.  I glued the figure to some plastic card and hot glued that into the bottom of a cut down plastic cup.  The Pinkysil is a two part silicone that you mix up for a few minutes and then pour.  An hour later you are ready to remove the master from the mould.  That all worked pretty well.

Where did that norman go?

The Easycast resin is a 2 part quick set resin.  You have 2 minutes of mixing/pot life and 10 minutes before you can de-mould/remove the piece.  The first mix I made I mixed for 30 seconds (I was a bit gun shy of the 2 minute mix time).  That wasn’t long enough.  When the resin reacts the clear resin turns white (aka “blooming” as it looks like an algae bloom in fast forward).  This didn’t happen.  After 30 minutes I was able to get the figure out ok, but it had dried clear.  Over the next few hours it dried completely.  So not enough hardener had mixed in.  The second time was much better as I mixed for 1 minute.  Near the end of that minute I could feel the heat coming out of the resin.  Within 3-4 minutes I was seeing the white bloom and by 6-7 minutes the figure was fully white.

The bottom of the mould, with the figure removed

In both cases the detail was as good as the original.  The only issue with the mould were the feet of the figure.  As these go down into the mould they trap air, so the ends of the feet are missing.  So some air vents need to be added to the mould to fix that.

Resin "bloom" underway

Copy vs original

The second test I did was a nice sandstone rock I found in the garden.  First I covered the rock in PVA glue so it wouldn’t come apart in the mould.  I made a custom mould box from some 5mm foam card and hot glue.  Hot glue is quite good for this as it seals a join water tight (being melted plastic).  When in doubt, add more hot glue.  Finally I wrapped the mould box in tape to help hold everything together.

Sealed up with PVA glue

I underestimated the amount of silicon needed so had to quickly mix up a new batch to pour into the mould box before the first lot started to cure.  In the end the top of the mould is a bit thin.  I then mixed up some resin (again 1 minute mixing, waiting to feel the heat of the reaction near the end of that time) and poured away.  To preserve the mould I waited until the resin had cooled (approx 30mins) before removing from the mould.  The detail is fabulous.  Definitely going to be using this for some figure presentation in the future.

So crisp

So all up I’m pretty happy with the progress so far.  Next up is to do a fully enclosed mould of a test figure and get the hang of cutting open the mould correctly without damaging the mould.

Dan with a face

On the figure front I’ve done a bit on my 75mm test figure.  The face and waistcoat are probably 80% of the way there.  I’m pretty happy with the face so far, especially given the low quality of the figure.

New 75mm test figure

A bit quiet on the painting front as the birthday party madness of February finishes off (two kids birthdays in one month).  Also been busy catching up on home tasks.  This weekend’s task was pulling apart and swapping bits on gas lift chairs.  Handy hint - get a big pipe wrench.

Wanting to trial a lot of new techniques on larger (54mm plus) scale figures you need to have some disposable test figures.  28mm figures are a bit small to test things out on as you have very few large areas to paint.  1/35 scale military figures aren’t bad but the cheap ones tend to be a bit poor in quality.  The better quality 1/35 scale figures cost more, hence aren’t good candidates for test figures.

While in my local art store I came across some 75mm (ish) figures for only a few dollars.  They are sold as architectural figures.  I had purchased some previously for my kids to paint.  The detail isn’t great (like the hair just being a smooth surface on the back) but the large scale helps out.  Lots of room and good simple lines.  So I picked a figure, cleaned and puttied up the ejector pin hole, undercoated and away I went.

Well hello Dapper Dan

The male figure I have has very much 1950’s feel to it (tie, waistcoat, jacket) so I went of a plain blue on the suit.  I started up a bit lighter than normal so I will have more contrast to play with.  Going to be a lot of blue shading.  The face is quite open so I’m looking forward to having a go at it.

I want to use this figure as a test of more extreme contrasting and using oil paints, most likely for washes.  Unable to help myself I have already worked out a street scene diorama for the figure too.  Classic horse/cart misalignment issue there.

Now that February is over time to get back to paint land, and not just quick and dirty paint jobs on Doom figures.