Feeling the blues (and blue whites, and the oddly purple)

The week was blue cloak week.  I needed a break from white and also wanted to see how the blue would end up before trying to finish the white surcoat.  Ideally I want the two pieces to match at a tonal level.  Or at least not clash.  Originally my range for the blue cloak was

VGC Magic Blue
VMC Sky Blue
VGC Dead White
VMA White

but the Magic blue didn’t shade down very well at all.  I tried VGC Flat Blue but that ended up looking purple next to the very light blue.  Thanks Josef Albers for that.  At least I know now why a totally flat blue can look purple sometimes.  On a side note I would recommend reading “Interaction of Color” as it’s one of those interesting color books about why blue sometimes looks like purple and orange looks like brown.  So I swapped out the Magic Blue for VGC Night Blue which worked much better.

I found I have one tide mark on the blue/white transition that I will need to work back down.  I’m working with super thin/watery paint so you need to be very careful as you aren’t painting as much as moving around puddles of dirty water.  You can’t let a puddle of water dry and leave a paint ring.


I’ve also started on the back of the shield, spear and helmet.  Still not sure I will use the helmet but I’m 75% there so might as well paint it.  No idea on what I’m going to do with the shield front.  I’ve been looking at some heraldry pictures but haven’t found something I like that I think I can paint.  So I’ll work on the back of the shield for now.

I also purchased the Tool rack from Miniature Scenery to replace one of the corner paint racks.  It's a standard mdf laser cut job that comes flat packed that you assemble yourself with PVA glue.  Lots of lovely storage for all those paint brushes and odd bits that I have packed away but keep having to get out.

Now I just have to wrestle my painting area off the wife who is painting up the resin gears I made for her steampunk outfit.  Lots of metallic paint (at least someone is using them) and washes going on there.

A Church for Saga by Miniature Scenery

Smells like gold

One of the few pieces of terrain from my LotR terrain period that survived the purge was the church from Miniature Scenery .  Although not strictly a LotR appropriate piece it fits very well into Saga.  Vikings know those monks are flush with gold...

The front door

This is a flat-pack MDF building that you need to assembly yourself with PVA glue.  Although around ten years old it still looks pretty good for a non-laser cut MDF building.  I build it as spec expect for the front entrance.  Rather than have the door at the front of the nave I put it back a bit so there was an alcove for figures to hide in.  I then painted in some tiles at the entrance.

Fake lead glass windows

I did a number of extra texture features to increase the detail level.  Firstly I created fake lead glass windows out of a spray painted cdrom case and some metal flyscreen.  The clear plastic cdrom cases are cheap and can be cut up and snapped apart easily.  I painted the flyscreen Boltgun metal and drybrushed it with Chainmail.  I sprayed the cdrom case black and then glued the flyscreen over the window with the black cdrom case added behind that.

One of the side windows

For the window in the steeple I painted a piece of cdrom case orange as I planned to add electric lights.

So so orange

The roof was constructed out of cardboard tiles rough cut to look like slate tiles.  I found the cardboard from Games Workshop boxes the best for this as they didn't warp when painted.  They seem to be a slightly waxy cardboard.  I went for a very Warhammer fantasy dark blue roof colour scheme.  In my defence it was the style at the time.

Dry brush heaven

The walls were painted with a textured paint.  This is basically paint with fine sand in it.  The advantage is that during drybrushing there is lots of texture that is picked up.  You can either purchase this or make your own by dumping in a handful of sand in some paint.

I also added some led lights to the inside of the building.  That way I managed to get both my main hobbies in one project.  The leds were glued into place with silicon before the base was attached and a small hole was cut in the base so I could get access to the main circuit board with the batteries.  The light in the steeple through the orange painted plastic work well.  The light in the main part of the building was less successful as the led was pointing down thus there wasn't much spread of light.  To be honest I never really use the lights, it was just a fun thing to try.

The base was whitecote mdf with the edge sanded down and painted green.  Then some static grass and flock was added.  I recommend basing the building as it adds a lot of strength.  Ten years on and the only damage to the piece is a few dings on the cardboard roof tiles.

New paint rack by Miniature Scenery

Ready for loading

A number of years ago to neaten up my painting area I purchased a number of paint racks from the Miniature Scenery company (2 x 'Paint Rack' and 2 x 'Corner Paint Rack').  The paint racks can handle most paint pots including the standard Citadel pots and dropper style bottles.  The racks are designed to clip together so you can chain a number together.  I got a large piece of 3mm ply which I reinforced with batons and bolted the rack onto this so I could easily move all my paints (mainly off the dinning table when guests were coming around) in one go.  It's a good system that has worked for many years.

In more recent years I have converted over to Vallejo paints.  As the paint racks were designed for a wide range of paint pots when using the Vallejo/Army painter dropper bottles there is quite a bit of wasted space on the rack.  Then Miniature Scenery came out with their new paint rack, the 'Dropper Bottle Rack'.  The older Paint Rack type stores 33 paints, the Dropper Bottle rack can store 76 paints in the same space.  Also the dropper bottles can be stored either cap up or cap down for ease of spotting colours.  The only downside is that there is no paint brush storage like the 'Paint Rack' type has.  However I’m think of fixing that with a quick drill session.

The paint rack is the normal laser cut mdf flat pack in which you punch out the pieces and glue together with PVA glue.  Nothing hard especially if you are happy to slather the glue on and get it constructed in one sitting.  Just make sure you have things square and leave everything for a day for the glue to fully set.