Miscellany

Today's post is sort of an assortment of things I've been working on, looking forward to and buying.

First up is this little doodad.  I bought it at an arts and crafts store.  It was in the scrap booking section.  It's a fancy hole punch that makes leaves that should work pretty well for 40k and AoS base decorations.  I punched some sample leaves out of 110lb card stock and am pretty happy with the results.  I'm going to try gluing them down to a sample base over the course of this week and painting them up.

Next up is something I want to buy. Fantasy Flight Games put out a card game version of Warhammer Quest.  It's a ton of fun.  They just released two character expansions that give a little needed variety to the game.  These expansions are only $5 each.

Lastly, something I did actually buy.  I've been really enjoying Descent: Journeys in the Dark a lot lately.  As I've mentioned a couple of times, the Road to Legend app allows you to play without the need for an Overlord "bad guy" player.  It allows gives you expanded options, characters and missions as you buy more of the physical expansion packs to support the game.  To whit...  I used some Amazon.com credit today and picked up two of the expansions.  Lair of the Wyrm is the first small expansion and The Trollfens is the second.  There was an expansion released between the two that was bigger, more expensive and with more content, but wasn't discounted.  I got both of these at about 25% off.  I'm pretty excited for these to come in.  I think I'll start a new campaign with my wife when this stuff shows up.

I think I'm most excited about The Trollfens expansion.  The tiles look really cool and add a wet, swampy look to the outdoors areas.

Project #2 - 40k AdMech Skitarii Sicarian Infiltrators - Priming Complete

I decided to take a short break from the Marauders and set up the second of my three concurrent painting projects.

The project in my #2 project bin currently is a unit of five Sicarian Infiltrators.  I just love how spindly and ridiculous these things look.  I'm fairly certain that I've posted these before, but this is my new "bin project" thing going on.  I pulled them out, officially put them in bin #2 and did the sand.  I'll prime them tomorrow.  It's a little too late tonight.  I just can't see well enough with my porch lighting and I invariably miss things and have to reprime in the daylight.

Here they are, before and after sanding.

...and time warp until tomorrow...

Primed!

I anticipate that these will be really quick and easy to paint.  They'll be painted like the Onager Dunecrawler I painted, which is primarily dry brushed metal and purple.  These guys have very little armor, so it'll mainly be metal with purple heads and then whatever color I decide to do the weapons...  probably copper/gold with a patina.

Project #1 - AoS WoC Marauder Horsemen - Basing Complete

Today I did a little work on my Marauder Horsemen unit.  It's not much, but it's a tedious part that I tend to find I have no motivation for.  In my mind, assembly is putting the model together and gluing it, along with a little cork or whatever, to the base.  I consider the cork a part of the model's assembly.  For some reason, I consider gluing sand on to be a part of the basing.  It's annoying because I always forget to do it and then when it comes time to prime, I can't because I've got to do the sand.  First world problems, right?

I keep my sand and PVA glue in an old Chinese take-out container.  I like that the glue fits and keeps me from having to store it separately.  The glue, incidentally, comes two for a dollar at my local dollar store.  Cheap glue works just as well as expensive glue for this.

When the lid is off, I use the container for dipping the models.  That's why it's important to keep your sand in something wide enough to accommodate a flying base.

To get started, I apply some glue straight to the base, like so...

I use an old brush to smear the glue flat, making an effort to keep it off the cork and off the rim of the base.  Then I scoop it into the sand.  You have to scoop it almost as if it's a chip and you're trying to scoop up some salsa.  It's the same motion.  Once submerged, I swirl it around.  It's critically important that all the assembly related glue is dry at this point or you'll glue sand onto the model proper.

Now, if you do get sand on the rim, just use your finger to wipe it off.  This is PVA glue we're talking about.  If you used something like super glue, the results would be terrible.  PVA takes a while to dry, but is very forgiving.

That's pretty much it.  I need to wait at least an hour (or more depending on local humidity) for this to dry completely.  I'll probably go ahead and prime them at that point to prepare for painting.

I find the cork and sand thing works really well for bases.  It gives you three different textures...  the smooth rim, the rough sand and the stone like cork.  Usually I add some static grass or grass tufts to add a fourth texture.

Here they are, ready for priming...

Once last thing.  I always forget to close the cap and my glue harden in the cap.  That's a pain.  When I'm done with a container of glue, I wash out the cap quickly and toss it in with my other supplies.  If I ever forget to close a new container, it's no issue as I usually have a few unclogged caps laying around.

Green Slime Basing Tutorial

It seems like people like tutorials.  My casting tutorial from a couple of weeks ago is currently my most ever viewed post.  That tells me that I need to do more!

Today's tutorial is a glowing green slime base.

First, the money shot.

Glowing Green Slime Base Effect

I saw something similar to this online and decided to give it a go.  This is STUPID EASY to do.  Literally anyone can do this in about 5 minutes or so.

First, start off with your model.  I glued on some cork, glued on some sand and primed black.  I then drybrushed with a dark brown, medium brown and bone color.  Nothing complicated.

Glowing Green Slime - Step 1

Next, I took some Moot Green and dry brushed the edges of the cork as you can see below...

Glowing Green Slime - Step 2

Now, it's time to go crazy.  I went to Michaels, which for those of you who don't know, is an arts and crafts chain store in the United States.  I bought some Tulip brand Glow in the Dark Dimensional Fabric Paint.  It can be purchased from Michaels, or also at Amazon.com.  It's normally ~13 USD at Amazon and ~11 USD at Michaels, but is currently on sale for 6.59 USD on the Amazon store.  This stuff is totally worth it.  It comes with orange, red, white, blue, green and yellow.  I'm using green, yellow and white for this tutorial, but blue/orange slime would work the same.

The Tulip paints I'm using.

The paint tubes have a nice applicator nozzle, so you can use it to put glue directly on the base.  It has the consistency of thick PVA glue, so slop it on.

The Applicator Nozzle is the perfect size for models.

Glowing Green Slime - Step 3a

Next, do the same for yellow and white, but put less on.  Just put the yellow in the middle areas of the green and then the white in the middle areas of the yellow.  The glues will sort of mush together a little, so you'll get a nice graded effect.  I didn't take a photo of the white stage, but just pretend there is a Step 3c photo with some white on the yellow.

Glowing Green Slime - Step 3b

Last, but certainly not least, we're going to do a little basic object source lighting, or OSL.  We're going to make it look like the slime is glowing up onto the model.  To do this, take the same old Moot Green and just dry brush it onto the undersides of the model.  Imagine that the slime is actually glowing and think about the areas it would actually hit.  On my model, I mainly dry brushed on the metal areas as I though they'd be more reflective in real life.  This step took literally 10 seconds.

VERY IMPORTANT...  Moot Green is very watery.  Make sure your brush is pretty dry or else you'll get streaks.  If you get streaks, you can wipe them away with your finger immediately.  If you wait, you're stuck with them.

Glowing Green Slime - Step 4

There you have it.  To me, this looks awesome and takes practically no time at all to do.  Of course, it's easier to do on larger models, but can look just as nice on smaller ones.  If you're working on 25 or 40mm models, I would suggest no more than 1-2 "pools" of slime.  If you're working on anything larger, go crazy and practice.

Here's a wider shot of the finished model.

Glowing Green Slime - Final

Oh...  and it glows in the dark, which is awesome!!!

And it ACTUALLY glows!

Farsight Bomb Broadsides Work in Progress

Here's some proof that I've started to paint my army. While this isn't even remotely close to being finished, the scheme base is down. I need to do more detail work and then finish the bases.

Broadsides Painting Work in Progress