Rosie Paints Miniatures

How to easily paint realistic looking stone bases.

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 22:24:00 +0000

Tonight I have been painting some bases for Kieron's Dark Eldar army. The Tomb Core Pack by Dark Art Miniatures to be precise along with a set of objective markers by Purple Monster Gaming I've painted a lot of rocks recently on various pieces of scenery so I was able to get a pretty realistic rock look down quite quickly.

The order of paints I used were:

1 - Base coat black.
2 - Paint a layer of dark grey, I used Model Air US Grey (Citadel equivalent Skavenblight Dinge)
3 - Apply Citadel Shade, Athonian Camoshade generously
4 - Dry brush with Citadel Ulthuan Grey

This was the result

I still have to finish the details on them like painting the real skulls bone colour and maybe painting on a bit of mud/sand around the stone. But I think they're definitely off to a good start.

Temple of Skulls Completed

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 17:34:00 +0000

I spent another 8 hours on the Temple of Skulls today and I'm happy to call it finished now. I counted 25 skulls on this model which left me feeling a little disappointed. I guess I was expecting more skulls. Overall I'm very happy with the way the paint job has turned out. It's definitely the largest piece of scenery I have finished and I personally think it has been finished to higher standards than some of my previously painted models.

I think I need to take a break from painting big stuff and paint a few smaller things next.

Painting Warhammer Temple of Skulls, work in progress

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 22:09:00 +0000

I'm now attempting to paint the biggest piece of scenery I've ever painted so far. Kieron is letting me paint his Temple of Skulls. I keep forgetting its a temple and calling it Skull Island. This thing is a beast, it's HUGE.

This is where I am at after about 7 hours airbrushing and washing. The detachable pillars are further ahead than the main "island".

This piece was a gift to Kieron acquired second hand as such it started out partially painted. This is what it looked like before I started aka The "before" picture.

I also took a couple of photos after airbrushing the base colours, before any washes.

I think there's easily another two days work to get Skull Island finished. A lot of dry brushing and detail painting, there is a surprising number of smaller skulls tucked away on this model.

Warhammer scenery completed. Now with work in progress pictures.

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:06:00 +0000

I painted a couple more pieces of scenery today, however as one of my friends wanted to see before and after pictures of the painting I did yesterday I decided to take a few work in progress photos while I was painting today.

This is the scenery before I started painting. I bought both pieces recently from a carboot sale for £3. Kieron had said that he didn't like the fake grass glued to this scenery as his Warhammer table was urban ruins with a distinct lack of grass. The models were also pretty dusty.

The first thing I did was set my airbrush to 40psi and blow all the dust off the models. Then I covered the offending fake grass in PVA glue and with the models placed in a large plastic container, covered them with Game Workshop modelling sand. The sand has larger bits of grit in it which wouldn't stick to the PVA so after coating with the fine sand I stuck some of the larger pieces of grit on with superglue. The easiest way to do this was to put a single drop of superglue on the model then drop a single piece of grit on top of the drop of glue. Using this method I successfully avoided sticking my fingers together.

Then I put my airbrush back down to low pressure (about 15psi) and sprayed black paint into all the shadows and recesses.

Then I switched to white paint and sprayed on all the highlights, aiming from above the model down so that the "light source" was all coming from the same direction.

Then I started adding colour. This part tends to take me the most time. I keep my airbrush low pressure and hold the brush about 4 inches away from the model with a very light flow of paint. I build up the colour very slowly and try to keep the layers I put on transparent to show some of the colour underneath them.

The next step for me is to use Citadel shade to make the smaller details reappear. I like using Agrax Earthshade because its a natural brown colour and I think its black counterpart the Nuln Oil can look too artificial on scenery because real shadows are not totally jet black.

After applying the shade and leaving to dry, I paint the fine detail on with a brush. It can take quite a while tidying up the highlights but its worth it.

And here are the pictures of the finished scenery...

Airbrushing warhammer scenery, crumbling ruins

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 17:53:00 +0000

Today I did a repaint of three pieces of scenery. These are some plastic bits that Kieron had sprayed with grey speckled plastikote and abandoned. Due to the plastikote being pretty thick, a lot of the finer detail had been lost, however the plastikote created a rough surface texture. I started with my air brush and added black in the shadows and white highlights. Then I sprayed a light grey very thinly over the top. After that I started building up airbrushed layers of browns and greens. Using the airbrush I was able to build up some colour quickly. Then I applied a bit of Agrax Earthshade and started painting in finer details by hand. I decided to add some free hand vines and flowers to make the pieces more interesting.

Learning to use an airbrush

noreply@blogger.com (Rosicadia) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:35:00 +0000

So recently I have the time to sit and learn how to use my airbrush. Tried it out today on some of Kieron's Skaven. First observation OMG this is so much FASTER! I am going to try put some colour on them next, even if disaster happens I don't think I will ever going back to base coating with a brush.