Azazel’s August Technical Challenge

 

The Challenge

“…So we’re going to have “Technical August”, where the objective is to use techniques that stretch you a little, that you want to improve on, or are entirely new.”

For more details regarding this Community Miniature painting challenge, please check out Azazel’s site: https://azazelx.com/2018/07/24/august-2018-hobby-challenge-technical-august/

He’s got a great site, puts out a lot of superbly painted miniatures, and heads up all these cool (and easy) Challenges.

So, let’s get ….

 

TECHNICAL

 

Whoa, whoa, Faust!! That’s not a techno song dedication?! Yea, but it’s a cool song that I randomly found off the “Robots” soundtrack (a movie I haven’t even seen), features a band close to Aussie land, and is a pretty technical video. One of the coolest I’ve probably seen since way back when MTV played music videos. I’ve been wanting to sneak that one in for awhile, and it probably wouldn’t work for a Necromunda gang. So there you go. Thank me later, haha!

Entries

Yea, you read that right. “Entries”. Plural. Although to be honest, this is a hodgepodge of smaller stuff. I really wanted to try more and bigger things, but fates being what they are, this is what I managed. Hopefully still enjoyable to some.

Rusted bases.

“But Faust, you did those..”.
“Shut it, kid! They’ll never know the difference.”.

Yea, I’ve done rusted bases before using thinned Skrag Brown, but this time I’ve experimented with Vallejo Mecha Weathering Washes – Dark and Light Rust. Azazel tipped me to this, and so I checked it out. Honestly, when I got it and realized it was a wash, I was a little concerned.

No worries, turned out rather nice once I got comfortable with spotting. Apply neat, with a brush, and twist of lime.

But how does it compare to thinned down Skrag Brown?

(skrag brown rust in the middle)

Honestly, kinda like the darker rust color of the Skrag better. But I could see mixing all these effects to come up with something really nice.

Hazard Stripes.

Always thought they were cool looking, never painted them. Don’t tell the teen, I steal his legos when he isn’t looking… I marked off lines using what I thought would work decently. Then tried using some Acrylic Paint Pens (yes, these are a thing). I had tried them once for tattoos on the Goliath. And for some reason, they are still total crap. Much harder to write with than just using a paint brush, and it dries to a somewhat inky finish that you can’t paint over.

In the picture below, you can see two of the more messed up ones on the bottom right. The lego turned out to be too thick of lines, and I ended up spending more time redoing that and the acrylic paint pen, than it would have taken me to just straight paint on the lines, which is what I ended up doing for the rest.

Adding some scratched weathering helped things quite a bit.

 

Glowies.

So I’ve also wanted to try a radiation goo sort of looking technique. Mostly involves Moot Green and using a sponge. I have to say I’m crap with a sponge, and the video tutorial at the end, makes it look like a walk in the park. Mine looks ‘ok’, but nothing like his.On a few pieces I started with some darker Kabalite Green, just to see what would happen. Not really “radioactive”, but it was interesting.

Don’t recall if I had shared my Necromunda terrain in the past. I got a few pieces in a “done” state. The one on the left, is definitely far from it. The one on the right, ignore the green on the right/upper corner, as that was there before. I might have been thinking that would be a “radioactive” effect at the time, but it’s far from it.

For the glowy effect, you can check out this tutorial:

 

More?

Remember this guy? You might have seen him lurking around.

He’s basically been sitting around in a drawer like that for awhile. Being a hollow, fragile, 3D printed piece of brittle plastic, I kept thinking “I need to get it on a flight stand, so it’s not getting all jostled around!”.

He’s hollow, as I mentioned, and he has a small hole at the bottom (like a lot of us). So this became tricky. Maybe say I’m sorry, and cram some green stuff into him and then try to stick the flight stand into that? Yea, kinda worked, and oh yea, sorry guy.

Wait, this is supposed to be technical?! Ok, back to that…Spiritstone! Gem paint! Thanks Azazel!

A really weird paint to work with, and is supposed to be good for gems and other effects.

 

I tried to capture the consistency and look, it turns out something like Caro Syrup. It paints a little odd too. I’m not sure how to even describe it.

 

So I have these Dwarves, and I’ve been kind of dreading doing gems, because it’s all new to me, and I don’t want to mess it up. On the plus side, gems are small and it’s not like screwing up eyes. I watched a WarhammerTV video, and they said ‘paint a shiny color, then paint your Spiritstone, giving it a little smear/drag’. All fine and good, except it doesn’t give you any light/shadow effects. I found another article later on, that suggests painting with a darker and a lighter metal, to add light/dark areas. I didn’t get around to that this time, but it’s in the back of my brain now. The Dwarf on the left has a base of Balthasar Gold. Dwarf on the right has Spiritstone Red painted over the Balthasar.

Camera doesn’t seem to be able to capture the effect at all, unfortunately. It ends up sort of glossy, sort of metallic and shiny. And I can’t describe it very well at all, so moving on!

Back to this guy again!

 

 

 

I put together that base, using rocks (first time again), primed them up, painted away. Camera sure hates me. In hindsight I might have used more rocks, and I will paint the trim of the base black (which I forgot to do before picture time!!).

The “Waystone” is a piece of “Tiny Terrain”: https://www.miniaturemarket.com/tt032.html

They are cheap, and Miniature Market will often throw one in for free with an order. Pretty cool stuff. I painted it up, marking the runes with silver base, and Spiritstone Red on two sides. And Agrax Earthshade wash and Spiritstone Red on the other. To give a ‘lighting up’ effect on some of the sides. In retrospect, I might have painted individual runes light/dark on the same face.

The main thing, he’s on a base and has some points of interest around him, without detracting too much from the mini either. Oh yea, added some Ardcoat to the eyes, to give a little gloss. Another first!
Wrap Up!

Rusted bases, hazard stripes, moot green glows, and Spiritstone. I wish I had time to do more, or even play around with individual techniques more, but you take what you can get. We’re off to vacation soon, so had to wrap up things as I could beforehand. Wish you all well on your own Technical Challenges!

• Miniature Painting