Tiding up the loose ends - hills, bases and snow

This week was all about closing off a few of pending projects that were small but not quite done.  A cleaning out of the books so to speak.  Also I had to make some new wooden toys for the kids so weekend time was limited.

On the drying rack

First was flocking the two hills I purchased at Cancon this year and that I had painted green a few weeks ago.  Many containers of flock came out and I did my best “sprinkling spices” impersonation to give a bit of random variety to the hills.  Very unlike my previous hills which were a uniform static grass green all over.

Maybe too much static grass and flock?

A new base

Second was to make a the wooden base for my 54mm knight.  The big black base was too dominating for the figure as the base was 50x65mm on the side and that much black just overwhelmed the figure.  Back into the spares pile for that base.  Hopefully some larger figure in the future will match up to it.  So I went and purchased a tapered chair leg like I did for El Torres and cut that down to size and stained it.  The clear coat and green felt are drying now so by tomorrow it will be ready.  Also I will match nicely with El Torres on the shelf.  I will use a small layer of foam between the wooden base and the ground work so I can sculpt in some ground effects.

Thirdly I did a test run of the snow base on a small resin rock I had painted previously.  This was to make sure that the final technique from my snow tests was going to work out.  It looks good and even the wife said “That looks like snow”.  So green light on that.

Fluffy snow

Lastly the two Flemish figures got a little bit of love.  Hopefully tonight they will get a bit more time and paint.

Please paint us...

The orange truck comes to town

Being reasonably happy with the look of the orange banner I went ahead and reworked the white chevron of the shield in orange.  Since that shield is lower on the figure and had to match the tonal values of the blue on the shield I started with a darker base of the Leprous Brown mixed with some VMC Vermillion.

The old..

and the new

As I shaded down I added VMC Red to make things darker and some VGC Parasite Brown to stop the darker shades becoming too red.  Otherwise I would have gone from the orange brown of the Leprous Brown to full crimson.  The Parasite Brown kept the whole shade slightly brown so it tied in well.

For the highlights I had to go a little further on the top edge of the shield to match in with the almost white that the blue goes to.  I followed the same highlight scheme as the banner but added some off white/flat white right at the extreme.  The blue is pretty dramatic in it’s range (from near white to black/blue).  The orange isn’t across such a range but being much more vivid I don’t think it needs to be.

I really need to do a final snow base test but it’s just too cold out in the shed currently for PVA glue and flock.  I have base coated the resin rock in a nice dark mud brown and ground out some of the resin so the figure sits well.  Also I repainted the wooden base black as the wood stain wasn’t working very well and glued on the felt base.

Just need another 6 or so

Finally I found the Eureka samurai figure I got many moons ago.  I’m thinking of doing the 54mm samurai I purchased awhile ago next but want to try out some colour schemes first so as is becoming my usual path I do some 28mm trials first.

Getting over PDD with some Saga and Bones figures

After not much painting over the last few weeks due to work and family issues I decided it was time to get over my PDD (Painting Deficit Depression) and just get some stuff going on.

Flemish figures for Saga

So first I got out another two 28mm Flemish figures for Saga and started blocking out some base colours on them.  This was mainly to fill in the gaps while I waited of paint on my 54mm figure to dry.

Second was the repaint of the banner for my 54mm knight.  The wife (who has a much better eye for colour than I) has been telling me to repaint the white chevron on the shield and banner as brown/orange to add some colour contrast to the figure as she though the blue/white all over was too bland.  In the end I kind of agreed but started with the banner first as it was easier to fix up in case I changed my mind, and the blue on the shield was finally looking good after 4-5 attempts.

Before the buff glazing

The first orange (a base of the old Citadel Leprous Brown with shading from VMC Vermillion and highlights of VGC Orange Fire and VMC Lemon Yellow) attempt looked ok but was too bright and stark compared to the very flat and pale/faded blue on the banner.  I had made the blue on the banner quite light as it was the highest piece of the figure so it should be the lightest and most sun faded.  To correct the orange I did a number of very light glazes of an off white/buff (old Citadel Bleached Bone) to fade down the orange.  This is something I had picked up from some AFV magazines where a buff colour is airbrushed over the whole piece to create a sun faded look to the paintwork of the vehicle.  After about 5 glaze coats (note the glaze coats were 80% water) the orange had come down a few notches and was matching up with the blue on tonal level.  Next will be to redo the shield.

I also added some deeper shading to the inside of the blue cloak on the front of the figure so the deep blue shading on the shield was also mirrored with the same level of shading on the figure.

Finally I have had a Reaper Bones figure sitting in the paint pile for some time (Valkyrie).

Opera?

Unfortunately her sword was all warped and too thin to get straight (it kept bending back).  Also the shield back was dead flat with no detail and a bit high on the arm.  So a few snips later and I replaced the sword with a long plastic spear and the shield with a plastic shield at a better position with some wood detail on the back.  I used super glue to glue the plastic onto the soft Bones plastic and it seemed to work fine.  I can almost hear the opera now…