#miniatures reference

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! 

SO I got my hands on a webcam recently, and here’s my first painting video! It’s gonna take me some time to get used to painting in view of the camera, oops. XD No voiceover because this is me just painting a thing, not actually doing a tutorial or anything (and also because I hate my voice), and no music because finding enough royalty free clips is too much effort. XD

I’ve only just put it up so youtube hasn’t processed the full 1080p yet, it’s still only 360, boo. :( But with enough time and views, hopefully the 1080p will be up sooner rather than later!

One of the best things about doing commissions, imo, is getting the opportunity to try out different basing schemes that you might otherwise never use for your own models/armies. XD So! Here’s how I put together an abandoned city street - hopefully it’ll be helpful to people!

The pavement/sidewalk area beside the street is made by layering two pieces of plasticard - a larger one on the bottom for the gutter, and a smaller one on top, cut into sections, to show the kerb/pavement. For this I'm using plasticard that's about 1mm thick. Roughly cut out a circle or two that's about the size of your base - for this one I've only used one circle, since the street area will take up almost half the base. For bases where you want less street and more pavement, you'll probably need to use two circles since the smaller part of the circle won't be enough for the pavement/sidewalk area. 

Cut out any grill work for drains etc. from the gutter piece, and cut the pavement piece into sections. Using a knife and/or sandpaper, round off the top edges of the pavement sections, and also the bars in the drain. Then glue the gutter layer into place on the base. Don't worry if the piece overhangs the edges of the base a bit - once the glue's dry, you can trim the excess off.

Glue the kerb piece into place, then glue the pavement sections on. I've also roughly cut one corner of a pavement section off to show a bit of cracked, broken cement.

Again, don't worry about overlap, just trim off any excess afterwards once the glue's dried. You can also use sandpaper to help smooth out the edges.

For this particular street, I wanted a build-up of mud and gravel and such, so here I've used some Agrellan Earth, heaping it on thicker where I want larger/deeper cracks. You could also use any other texture paint or just plain sand/gravel for the road surface.

I've also used some PVA glue to add some fine gravel, then coated the whole thing with a thin layer of watered-down PVA glue to help seal the Agrellan Earth and hold all the gravel in place.

Once it's dry, spray primer the base. The spray primer will also help seal down any still-loose bits of gravel that the glue may not be quite holding.

Finally, paint it! I didn’t step-by-step this part, I mostly just used drybrushing of lighter grey/browns over a dark grey base, stippled on some yellow to get the road line, used a bit of bronze for the drain bars, hit the whole thing with a few washes of Agrax and Sepia, then a bit more drybrushing of light brown/bone afterwards. (And then of course tidy up the base rim with black, which I haven’t done yet here, oops.)