#miniature reference

Okay, finally! Now, this isn’t the freehand cloak tutorial I promised earlier, but this is leading up to it! It’s how I paint less detailed things like the Thousand Sons symbol and simple white lettering.

I’m still testing out camera/lighting set-ups, so if you’re interested in future video tutorials from me, please give this a watch and leave some feedback on what you liked or didn’t like, things you’d like adjusted, stuff like that. Is it easy to see what I’m doing? Are the colours clear enough? Do my fat fingers get in the way too much? XD Is speeding it up to 4x actual speed all right, or would people prefer the vids at only 2x speed, or at actual speed? How long of a video are people willing to watch? Is the text on the video providing enough information, or would people prefer I add a voice-over as well? (I really don’t want to, it’s more work, but if enough people demand it then I’ll see what I can do). Stuff like that!

Any info or feedback you leave me is very much appreciated, so I can use it to make adjustments for following videos. Reblogging this post is also appreciated!

So! I decided to test out a few different slime/saliva/etc methods! FOR SCIENCE.

1st photo: Clear mono-filament super-glued in place, relatively taut, then water effects added to the mono-filament. Water effects beads up instead of giving an overall even coat over the filament, and bead size is very small, though multiple applications once previous layer is dry could probably increase bead size. Dries very clear. I also added Blood for the Blood God to one end - those beads are pretty much straight Blood, not bulked out by previous water effects.

2nd photo: Clear mono-filament super-glued into place, not as taut this time, then coated with gel superglue. The gel superglue tends to apply fairly evenly along the length of the mono-filament, but goes a bit brittle once it’s dry. BftBG added on one end again, the blood bead is pure BftBG.

3rd photo: Clear mono-filament super-glued into place again, then PVA glue added. Like the water effects, the PVA glue beads instead of giving an overall even coat, but the PVA gives much larger beads than the water effects. Dries fairly cloudy though, but that may clear up given more than 24 hours, idk yet. XD Again, BftBG added to one end, the blood bead is the PVA bead with BftBG over it.

4th photo: Plain hot glue gun! :D I haven’t really used a glue gun much before, so this went a little crazy, oops. Seems pretty easy to get varying thicknesses, better control will probably come with practice and/or the use of toothpicks. XD Dries a little cloudy but still translucent, and it’s also very stretchy once it dries, so you can get thinner strands by just pulling at thicker ones. The big loop sticking out to the right is from me just pulling at it. BftBG applied, beading is just the blood, not the glue gun.

The big blood drop also sitting at the right is from the glue dripping off the end of my glue gun after I turned it off, then I just dipped it in BftBG because why not. XD You could probably make smaller drops deliberately as well.

So yeah! SCIENCE. 8D The mono-filament base seems like it’ll give more control and precision, but may not be quite the look you’re going for. I’m also noticing it has some issues with the superglue holding the ends in place frosting a fair bit, so it’ll probably be better to glue the filament in place before painting the model. The glue gun is probably more of a natural, variable look, but might be hard to control. It may be easier with the glue gun to make all the strands off the model (between a spare sprue framework or whatever) first, then once it’s dried, glue the bits you want into place on the model. It doesn’t seem to be hot enough to bother the plastic, at least!