...Array the rocks around the hull before we're sinking,
A million stones, a million bones, a million holes within the chinking.
The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) - The Decemberists
Hi friends, welcome to another Friday on The Art of Caesura!
Over the past couple of weeks we've been chugging along with my first forays into my next Age of Sigmar army: The Kharadron Overlords. We've seen them come together, fired some basecoats on them and looked at all their cool details, now it's time to finish them off with equally awesome bases.
I began the water by covering the base around the rock with Milliput (basically another type of Green Stuff that hardens harder) I've only used it once so far, but thought it might make the waves more durable than using Green Stuff. I then pushed the Milliput into rough wave patterns. I finished most of them with an epic crashing wave that I created by pinching off a bit of Milliput and sticking it to one side of the rock (typically the side that I foresaw the Arkanaut to be looking out over, for maximal epicness). I then frayed the edge of this flap that I'd just stuck on to make it look like a crashing wave. I must admit, it was easier than it looks!
Next, I primed the whole lot (Imperial primer - the only one I use) and then started the painting. I used a lot of the same colours in the water as I had in their armour to tie the whole model together (Stegadon Scale Green, Sotek Green) then upwards to Lothern Blue and finally Gauss Blaster Green. I stippled on the last two colours to give a sea-foam frothy texture.
Once I had the sea painted, but before adding the water effects, I painted the rocks. I decided to do it in this order in case I wanted to add slashes of water on to the rocks. I have always found it a bit funny painting a rock to look like a rock, but in this instance I was going for a warm reddy sandstone tone to heat up the cool blues of the armour and sea.
Over the black undercoat, I started the rocks with Steel Legion Drab because it covers quite well. I then painted the whole of the rocks with Skrag Brown. Skrag Brown is a relatively new paint for me, I have been using Doombull Brown for years, which is a real red / chestnut brown. Back in the day I also used Bestial Brown and Bubonic Brown which brought in some nice yellow tones. I was aiming for something like that with Skrag Brown, but having only used it sparingly for weathering the rust stains on the Arkanauts and a bit on Professor Sawbones, I didn't realize that this paint isn't really brown at all but more a deep orange / ochre. Anyway, by the time I painted the rocks Skrag it was too late, they had lost any natural tones and looked like orange plastic aquarium rocks...even though they're actually real!!
I decided to try to salvage them with loads of washes. I started with Reikland Fleshshade for some nice red-browns, but this didn't change the colour register enough so I tried Agrax Earthshade, which didn't quite work either. So then I mixed up about 50:50 Agrax and Carroberg Crimson and gave them two coats of this.
I let the inked rocks dry over night, and was much happier with how they looked in the morning. I used a 2:1 mix of Steel Legion Drab and Skrag Brown for the first dry-brushed highlight and then added Ushabti Bone to this for the second highlight and by this stage, the neutral tones had de-saturated the rocks enough.
Then came the fun part.
As I alluded to above, this was going to be my first go at using water effects so I didn't exactly know what I was doing. I'd read about adding white paint to the water effects to simulate the frothy waves and gloss varnish to...increase the gloss, but I wanted to see what the water effect gel would do by itself first.
When I opened the tub I was a bit surprised, I thought it would be a viscous liquid (like molasses, but clear) but instead, it was a white almost chunky gel, almost the consistency of bad hair gel. Anyway, off I went tentatively covering the whole of the wave with it. As it dried it became transparent, very glossy and gave the wave a bit of texture where I had dabbed it.
After about an hour, this layer seemed pretty dry so I mixed up another batch with 4:2:1 water effects:gloss varnish:white paint (White Scar). On the brush this one looked much the same as the water effects by itself (still white and chunky) but when I carefully added it to the crests of the waves it stayed white and gave a nice frothy texture.
I let this layer dry overnight and then tried adding a coat of gloss varnish over the whole water bit on one base, but this blunted some of the frothy texture (and the water effects had made the lot glossy enough) so I didn't bother with the rest of the bases.
I finished the bases by flicking gloss varnish off a stippling brush (as I would do with Blood for the Blood God under different circumstances) onto the rocks to represent ocean spray.
All that was left to do was to glue the Arkanauts back onto their newly pimped out bases...lets check that out next week, right here on The Art of Caesura!
Watching: Electric Dreams
Gaming: South Park: The Stick of Truth
Next Week:
The Company complete...
Over the black undercoat, I started the rocks with Steel Legion Drab because it covers quite well. I then painted the whole of the rocks with Skrag Brown. Skrag Brown is a relatively new paint for me, I have been using Doombull Brown for years, which is a real red / chestnut brown. Back in the day I also used Bestial Brown and Bubonic Brown which brought in some nice yellow tones. I was aiming for something like that with Skrag Brown, but having only used it sparingly for weathering the rust stains on the Arkanauts and a bit on Professor Sawbones, I didn't realize that this paint isn't really brown at all but more a deep orange / ochre. Anyway, by the time I painted the rocks Skrag it was too late, they had lost any natural tones and looked like orange plastic aquarium rocks...even though they're actually real!!
I decided to try to salvage them with loads of washes. I started with Reikland Fleshshade for some nice red-browns, but this didn't change the colour register enough so I tried Agrax Earthshade, which didn't quite work either. So then I mixed up about 50:50 Agrax and Carroberg Crimson and gave them two coats of this.
I let the inked rocks dry over night, and was much happier with how they looked in the morning. I used a 2:1 mix of Steel Legion Drab and Skrag Brown for the first dry-brushed highlight and then added Ushabti Bone to this for the second highlight and by this stage, the neutral tones had de-saturated the rocks enough.
As I alluded to above, this was going to be my first go at using water effects so I didn't exactly know what I was doing. I'd read about adding white paint to the water effects to simulate the frothy waves and gloss varnish to...increase the gloss, but I wanted to see what the water effect gel would do by itself first.
When I opened the tub I was a bit surprised, I thought it would be a viscous liquid (like molasses, but clear) but instead, it was a white almost chunky gel, almost the consistency of bad hair gel. Anyway, off I went tentatively covering the whole of the wave with it. As it dried it became transparent, very glossy and gave the wave a bit of texture where I had dabbed it.
After about an hour, this layer seemed pretty dry so I mixed up another batch with 4:2:1 water effects:gloss varnish:white paint (White Scar). On the brush this one looked much the same as the water effects by itself (still white and chunky) but when I carefully added it to the crests of the waves it stayed white and gave a nice frothy texture.
I let this layer dry overnight and then tried adding a coat of gloss varnish over the whole water bit on one base, but this blunted some of the frothy texture (and the water effects had made the lot glossy enough) so I didn't bother with the rest of the bases.
I finished the bases by flicking gloss varnish off a stippling brush (as I would do with Blood for the Blood God under different circumstances) onto the rocks to represent ocean spray.
All that was left to do was to glue the Arkanauts back onto their newly pimped out bases...lets check that out next week, right here on The Art of Caesura!
Watching: Electric Dreams
Gaming: South Park: The Stick of Truth
Next Week:
The Company complete...
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