Basing and the 54mm Men-at-Arms Osprey Samurai with Naginata

Layer one of the snow

Well those oils on the display base of my knight took 5 days to dry so there wasn’t much progress on the base.  Next time I need to put the oil paints on some kitchen paper first for 30 minutes or so to soak out some of the oil first.  However the first layer of snow effects went down (the Army Painter snow base) and second will happen later tonight.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done any casting so I decided to make a new rock mould for figure bases.  I found a nice flat rock and cast it up in PinkySil.  I had a bit of extra Pinkysil left over so very quickly made up another mould box and cast a smaller rock rather than waste the silicon.  Always have a spare mould box ready just in case.  Saves a lot of harsh language.

Two new rocks

I did a few casts and the two new rocks are very nice.  The larger one if very flat but enough variation to look like natural ground.  I find the usual “add sand/etc over PVA glue” method of making ground work just always looks odd.  The sand particles are just too big.  I need to try and find some super fine sand I think.  Until then I find using rock textures works very well to simulate ground.  The texture is much finer than sand and the randomness of nature is hard to beat.

54mm Men-at-Arms Samurai

While I was waiting for oil paints to dry I went back to my 54mm samurai and finished off his prep work.  Since his arms are flat against his body I will have to paint them separately and glue them later on.  Since taking the picture I think his neck is too long so will need to trim that down a bit.

I originally purchased this figure as there is a wide range of colours that you can use and still be historically in step.  There were lots of colourful silks with patterns used in the period and a real attempt to look good.  A nice break of the brown, green and chainmail world.

Possible colour combo

Looking at the colour wheel I came up with the combo of yellow/purple/jade green with a yellow/tan trim.  I’m thinking the purple of the main tunic with yellow lapels.  Maybe the jade green on some of the armour pieces and the brown tan for the armour slats and trim.

For his base I was going for the traditional “Japanese wooden beam gateway on a path” image .  However I have a sheet of styrene paving that I decided would look good as the side of a Japanese castle wall (the type that have large stone foundations that slope back).  I went one step further and went for the entrance way so one side of the wall is sloped, the other vertical.  Before committing to that I’ll do a trial (as I have two whole sheets of the styrene paving).  So far I’ve done the undercoat and some zenithal shading in black sprayed upwards to catch the underside of the stones.  I also did more coats of the black on the lower half to darken it slightly.  Over this I plan to spray a gray and hopefully have the shading will come through.

One wall, just add castle

Basing and ground work

Trial layout

Milliput ground work

No update for a few weeks I’m afraid.  Real life and family issues overwhelming any painting time.  However this last week a few bits got done.  I also got seven old issues of the Figure International magazine off eBay :)

I continued to work on the base for my 54mm knight.  Originally I was going to use some foam to make up some of the ground work but decided that it was unnecessary.  Instead I used Milliput (standard) to make some rolling ground work.  I really like the water soluble nature of Milliput and you can shape it with a wet paint brush.  I however dislike  the slime factor which is why I normally use green stuff for ground work.  I always end up with yellow slime hands that smell for a day or so.  For the bigger base Milliput was a more cost effective solution.  Plus my Milliput has almost gone off so I wanted to get some use of out it.

Rear view of first paint trial

Once the Milliput had dried I primed with Vallejo black primer and then painted all the ground with VGC Earth.  This was then shaded with VGC Charred Brown and VGC Khaki.  After that I coated all the ground with matt varnish to take off some of the shine caused by the glazing.  The end result wasn’t what I was after.  I just looked like brown paint.  I should have textured the Milliput with some sand rather than leaving it smooth.

Breaking out the oil colours I re-did the ground.  I shaded down the burnt umber, payne’s grey and phthalo blue and shaded up with burnt sienna and white.  The blue added to the shadows really worked well.  I had picked this up from reading a few oil painting books.  This also matches up with real life (almost like those painters know what they are talking about) as when it gets darker things get bluer.  This was left to semi dry overnight.  I could have done this with acrylic paints but I just like playing with the oil paints.

Oil paint make great mud

The next day I got the white and a small amount burnt sienna and padded the white paint onto the ground where I thought snow fall would sit.  Not dry brushing, more like sponge applying but with a brush.  This resulted it the ground colour still being visible but there being a white covering/dusting.  Where the rock/tree was overhanging the ground I left the ground colour as is.  I was afraid that the contrast of the brown ground with the stark white flock/etc would be too much.  I think this will make a very good underlay and transition to the later snow effects I have trialled.

Rear view of the "snow" dusting

Now to wait a few days for the oil paints to dry before going onto the next stage and adding the snow effect products.

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…