Tutorials of Tomorrow

Hey there true believers, today I’ve got the long promised tutorial on how to create your own stained glass for diorama & display. This method, creates a very true to life effect, that while not as fast as printing on transparencies, replicates both the texture and actual principle of stained glass. This means that it casts a colored light like stained glass, and has the same high gloss as glass proper. 

We’ll get started with supplies after the jump. 

Hey there True Believers, today we’re going to talk about how to create your own convincing weathered metallics using a really simple technique. This whole project is done using Warcolours and an airbrush, but you can use these techniques just as effectively with any acrylic craft paints and a brush. 

SUPPLIES Coarse Salt

Hair Spray

Hot Water

GETTING STARTED First off, we’re going to need the the prepped model surface we’re going to be working on, in my case, it’s a spaceship corridor that I sculpted for a diorama out of cardstock and some other stuff. In your case, this can be for old pipes, rusted out cars, Land Raiders, junked planes, really, anywhere where enameled metals have been left to the elements. 

We begin by priming it black, in the standard fashion. Ensuring even coverage and allowing it to dry for several hours, prior to applying the next layers. Once we’ve got that established, we begin to build up the basis for our rust layers. We’re going to start with a neutral, high saturation brown, and warm it up with each step into a terracotta.

Below you can see the browns applied with an airbrush, Make an attempt to focus the warming in specific spots, but avoid allowing the redder browns to achieve 100% opacity. We’re developing “filter” layers at this stage, and will be altering the texture in the next steps.

You can see how I’ve focused the filter towards the bottom of the wall. This will be the area with the heaviest weathering, representing where it has interacted most with moisture and wear and tear. If you were doing this on a Land Raider (for instance) this focal area might be around the treads, instead. It’s important to have an idea of which areas will be most heavily influenced by the rusting out, and begin to develop them. Next up, we’re going to be moving up into proper oranges. In my case, Warcolours Orange 4 and One Coat Orange. Were going to be applying these differently than we did the brown, as we’re going to use these to develop an erratic, rusting texture on top of the browns. We’ll need a bit of blister foam or sponge for this next step. The idea is to daub a bit on a sponge, and then stipple a paper towel or piece of carboard until you get a nice erratic pattern. It’s similar to the amount of paint you’d want on your brush, if you were drybrushing. 

Above, you can see the texture developed, post stippling. Note the areas where I’ve concentrated it, that will become important shortly. When you’re satisfied with this, it’s time to seal the project using the matte varnish of your choice. In this instance, I’m using Warcolours matte varnish. Apply a couple of coats of varnish, and allow to dry 100% before moving on from this step. You need the layers under this to be well protected, as we’re going to be applying salt and scrubbing the model after this. If you’ve not thoroughly sealed this layer, you will work your way down to the primer/plastic, ruining the effect and all the work you’ve done so far. Learn this lesson from me, as opposed to the hard way… Trust me. Next up, the real meat and potatoes of this technique, coarse salt and hairspray.

We’re going to be using the hairspray as a temporary glue, to hold the salt crystals in place. To that end, decant a little into a dixie cup by turning the hairspray upside down and spraying it into the container. This will smell like the 80’s, so it’s best to do it in a well ventilated area. After you’ve got enough liquid hairspray in the cup for your needs, take an old brush and start to apply it to the model, sprinkling the coarse salt over the top, and knocking away any excess. Focus these sticky salt piles on top of the regions of heaviest wear, where you developed the texture with the oranges. 

When you’ve developed enough sticky salt piles to satisfy, allow it to dry and then apply the paint/wall/enamel color. In my case, I’ll be using a mixture of Warcolours One Coat Yellow Green with a little One Coat Green mixed in. Now it’s magic time! 

Dip an old toothbrush in hot water, and allow it to saturated the salt crystals. When they begin to loosen, scrub them away. You’ll immediately begin to see the rust pattern develop. In addition to the salt texture, you can scratch or rub any amount of weathering into the paint. Since the lower layers are well sealed, and this layer is sitting on top of a water soluable hairspray base, it is very easy to manipulate. You want to make sure that you’ve removed all the salt from the peice, even going so far as to rinse it in cold water. Any residue left over will dry a chalky white and damage the paint over time. 

After that, it’s a simple issue of sealing it with another layer of Matte Varnish. And you’re ready to move onto the rest of your project. This method is not only simple, but provides a higher degree of verisimilitude than painting the rust effect over the green. Not only is it actually beneath the paint (like rust would be), but it ends up with a randomness that is near impossible to replicate with the brush, and is far closer to the actual effect for it.

Hey there true believers, here I am with another Tutorial in my never ending series to help you become a better miniaturist!  Today, I’ve got a real treat for you. I’ve been working on this technique for a few months now, and have finally mastered it. It’s one of the effects I’m asked about more than any other. I’m talking about capturing liquid in motion. 

Most of the time, when you see blood in miniature, it’s thin tendrils of UHU Glue, painted over with a transparent red paint. While the effect can be neat, I wanted something with both a higher degree of verisimilitude, and capable of withstanding tabletop caliber handling. After an inordinate amount of trial an error, I’ve created an incredibly cheap effect that is more durable than the miniature itself ( it’s pretty much completely flexible), and can be used to create any liquid shape you’d like.  The only limit being the depths of your imagination.  Lets start with the materials you’ll need, after the jump.  

Hey there, true believers! Today I’m going to walk you through the tools and techniques required to begin your foray into sculpting/modeling your own custom miniatures/details using Polymerics Sytems Kneadatite (Repackaged with a 300% markup by Games Workshop under the brand “Greenstuff”).  The example today will be a simple 3D Insignia with a relatively flat plane. You can take these tools and techniques and do much more complicated sculpts, of course, but for the sake of the demonstration, we’re going to keep in simple. In your own endeavors, I highly recommend starting simple and getting a feel for the tools and the Greenstuff itself. It can be a cruel mistress to the uninitiated, but we’ll get there in due time. First up, the tools of the trade. 

In the picture above, you see everything we’ll use to sculpt our insignia, sans the Greenstuff itself, and plus my especially ghoulish looking feet.  On the left, you have the silicon sculpting tools. They’re, as the name implies, tipped with a semi-pliable silicon shaping tool. They’re indispensable for a couple of reasons. First off, you’ll find that greenstuff sticks to everything but the surface you’re trying to attach it to, this includes your tools. There is little more frustrating than finally getting a seam perfect in the fold of a cloak and then having the effect mangled by it sticking to your shaper. Silicon tools (plus a touch of good old fashioned MK I saliva) fix that issue quite nicely. Additionally, given that they generate a soft pressure, they can be used to smooth over rough areas in the sculpt without leaving tool marks of their own. I highly recommend finding a set of Size 0 silicon shaper tools. They’re not cheap (around $30 for a proper multi tool set), but if you’re trying to get serious about mini sculpting, you’ll be hard pressed to improve the quality of your work without these at your disposal.  In the middle of the picture, you have two sheets of picture glass. You use these to mash balls of greenstuff into flat sheets (sans fingerprints) of the thickness you need for your next detail. With a little vegetable oil (also indispensable) and a straight razor, you can lift anything you’ve sculpted right off the glass sheet, and place it on your model. This allows for a 1:1 transfer of what you’ve sculpted, without it warping or distorting when picking it up. When combined with an illustration of what your attempting to sculpt, it can function like an animators lightbox, allowing you to “trace” the image with greenstuff by laying it in position on top of the glass over the image.  To the left, you have the dental tools. They’re what you use to generate crisp & sharp lines, where you’re looking for hard contrasts between surfaces. They are for more fine detail than the silicon shaper tools, but lack the malleability of the silicon tools. Every tool mark will show the exact pressure exerted. You have to have a delicate touch when utilizing these (and just get comfortable with the idea that you’re eventually going to accidentally stab yourself with one), but after you’ve gotten acquainted with them, you’ll be amazed at the details you’ll be able to generate, down to the 10th of a millimeter or so.  The rest is just a razor blade, a capful of vegetable oil and the greenstuff, but the greenstuff requires some explanation in and in of itself. 

Kneadatite, or Greenstuff  is a two-part epoxy/polyamide sealant/adhesive. It comes separated into two colors, The yellow, which is the basis of the putty, and the blue which contains the chemicals that activate the curing process. When you get it in the strips like this (it’s also shipped in tubes), make sure to cut away the bit in the middle where the two colors are joined. Otherwise you’ll find bits of cured Greenstuff in the surface you’re attempting to work with, and I can assure you that they rarely enhance the aesthetic.  You can mix and match the ratios to make it harder or more malleable when cured, and to adjust the working time, but for just starting out, I recommend just cutting off equal lengths and mixing them together. They start out as a tie dyed mess of blue and yellow, but eventually form into a contiguous green ball. When it has softened from the warmth and pressure or you kneading it, and you can’t see anymore yellow or blue bits, then you’re good to go.  Well, almost... I wasn’t kidding when I said that Greenstuff is a cruel mistress. Part of learning how to use the material is to understand its life cycle. When you first mix Greenstuff, it is very soft, and can easily be formed into whatever shape you please, but it will not hold sharp detail. Any fine lines you place in the sculpt at this point will be greatly diminished by the next stage in the life cycle, what I call the “Puffy Stage” The Puffy Stage begins about 15-25 minutes into having formed the greenstuff, when the curing process really starts to begin. you’ll note that the material becomes less pliable, and that any fine detail work you’ve put into it prior has been undone as the putty relieves the pressure you’ve accumulated on it with your tools by “puffing” back into the fine lines and rivet holes. If you’ve done deep lines or sharp clean edges, you’ll note that the edges of them have become slightly rounded and aren’t holding the crisp and sharp edges originally sculpted.  Don’t fret. keep working with the shape until you have what you’re looking for, as the detail work can begin in earnest in the next step of the life cycle, the imaginatively named “Detail Stage”.  The Detail Stage starts about 30 minutes after you first finished rolling the putty, but can be in as little as 20 or as long as 45, you’ll get a feel for it after working with the stuff for a while. You can tell that it is ready to hold detail work, as it ever so slightly attempts to hold it’s shape when you manipulate it. You don’t want it so firm that it won’t take a tool mark (the next stage) but you want to be confident that it is on it’s way to curing in the shape it’s going to set in. Another advantage of this patience is that since the putty has  begun to cure, the area around the spot you manipulate with a sculpting tool will react less. This means you can be slightly more aggressive with your pressure and motions, and not have to worry so much about warping or distorting edges around the detail you’re working on.  Then we’re onto the “Soft Cure Stage”. At this point (anywhere from an hour to an hour and forty five minutes), your silicon tools are useless. Any indentation you leave in the surface of the Greenstuff will pop right back into it’s original position. The putty will even begin to resist the dental tools. By now, you should have 99% of your sculpting done. Sometimes I remove a piece from the glass plate at this stage, if I’m going to wrap it around a part of the miniature. It’s still soft enough that it’ll bend into a different shape, but hard enough that it won’t warp dramatically while doing so. The final stage is the “Cured Stage”.  At this point, you can poke it with a tool and it’ll hold it’s shape. It can be handled, shaved, sanded, clipped and glued, just like any other bit, but changing the sculpt has long since sailed. You’ll often find yourself waiting until the next day to attach Greenstuff bits to your miniatures, as they’ll have ample time to have cured, and you don’t have to worry about mashing a cheekbone with your sausage fingers, or leaving your fingerprints on a pauldron.  SO! How do you apply all of this? Well, I’ll show you!

We start with the aforementioned tools, the surface we’re going to attach the new bit to (in this case, a dragon’s thigh armor) and an image of what we’re going to be sculpting. Sometimes, I draw the reference pic perfectly and precisely to scale with the space I’m attempting to fill, and then sculpt over the top of the image. For this example though, I figured I’d show you how you can use it as a loose guideline. 

Using the two pieces of veggie oil lubed picture glass (just a dab will do you!) we mash our greenstuff ball down until it is flat, at the thickness we want and free of sausage fingerprints. 

Next, we lubricate our straight razor, and begin making the cuts that’ll form the wings. In this case, it’s a simple geometric pattern. Straight lines are nice and easy with the razor, but symmetry can be hard to eyeball. I generally do this on a grid mat to assist with that, but it’s for Papa Nurgle, so it can be a touch sloppy.  

Having gotten our wings established, we use a lubricated tool to make the circular indentations. Can’t stress the importance of the oil enough. 

At this stage, we’ve cut out all the shapes of the fly symbol, and affixed them to the model in location using a dot of super glue for each piece. Word of caution. Make sure that you have the piece exactly where you want it to be when you have it superglued. Superglue and greenstuff LOVE eachother and want nothing more than to immediately settle down together forever.  The pounded brass texture was accomplished using a rounded silicon tool. You can really see how they can be used to develop soft and subtle detail work, without leaving individual tool impressions. In the picture, you can see me using a normal (lubricated) mechanical pencil to make the rivets. 

Finally, the result. I used the dental tools to create the wear and tear on the piece. took some little knicks out of the side to correspond with the scratches. There is no right or wrong answer at this point, you’ve got to go with what is most aesthetically pleasing to you as an artist. Go wild with it!  Following these beginner guidelines, and practicing, you’ll find yourself turning out professional quality pieces in no time!

Hey there true believers, it's Tuesday, and that means it's time for another tutorial from The Tutorials of Tomorrow! (echo implied) This week, we're going to be going over the very basic application of washes, and how to successfully apply them to your miniatures. If you're already familiar with washes, you'll probably not get much out of this, as it's meant for the novice painter. Fear not, there will be more advanced tutorials in the future, where we'll go over mixing your own washes, flow improver, matte medium, washes in relation to color theory, washes and the interplay of light and shadow and other, even more esoteric subjects.  If you found the second half of that last paragraph confusing or intimidating, you're in the right place!  To get started, lets lay out the materials we'll be using for this endeavor.  I'll be using a combination of three paints and a wash to illustrate the basics today. 

I’m painting the cloak of the Night Goblin in a purple scheme, so I’ve gone with various purples and the Citadel wash, Druchi Violet. I personally use P3 Paints and Citadel Washes, but since we're discussing basic theory, I'm not going into mixing your own colors in this tutorial. That being said, Citadel has a wide array of premixed colors, and more than enough to use them in lieu of mixing your own shades. The normal prep work is done on the model In this case, a Night Goblin Body from Games Workshop. It’s removed from the sprue, mold lines are cut away, it's been washed in soap and water (to remove any residual mold release) and it’s been primed black. The first step is to paint the area with your base color. This will be the primary color on the finished area of the model. It should be the darkest paint you use in your color scheme (your wash will be darker). In my case, it’s Citadel’s Xereus Purple, thinned to the consistency of 2% milk (always, always, always, thin your paints).

You’ll note that it’s not a perfect application of paint. It’s a bit inconsistent and the primer shows a little in some thin patches. Don’t worry at all about it, so long as the whole area is covered. The additional layers of paint will ensure that the whole area will be covered evenly with paint when finished. Besides that, using the thinnest layers possible will keep the paint from erasing any fine details.

Next, the application of the Druchi Violet wash.

It’s important to note that you use a wash differently than the other paints in your arsenal. You want your brush to soak up enough of the wash to cause it to pool in the crevices of your model. You can see an example of this in the folds of the robe, pictured above. You want to focus on applying the wash to the areas that would be wreathed in shadow, as it will darken whatever color it's applied on top of. 

On the flat/raised areas of a model, the wash tends to dry unevenly, leading to discolored spots. While it's best to try and keep the wash to the areas that you want darkened, it's not a huge point of concern. We’ll be cleaning up the edges of the wash with another coat of our base color. In my case, that means another layer of Xereus Purple.

As you can see in the above photo. I’ve re-applied the Xereus Purple over all of the raised areas, where the light would hit the cloth of the robes. If you want to sound like an artiste/pretentious, you can refer to this as 'reclaiming your base color'. If you don't want people to think you think too highly of yourself, just call it cleaning up your wash. Make sure that all of the recessed, shaded areas are left the color of the Druchi Violet wash.

Already, you can see a much bolder contrast between the two colors. We’re going to make the variances even more pronounced with our first highlight layer. In this case, I’m going to use Genestealer Purple along the ridges and raised edges of the robe to give the illusion of direct light on the fabric. These are going to be some fine lines, so I’d recommend a fine brush (I like a size 1 or 0, personally).

You can see now how much more detail has been drawn out of the robe. All the the folds are dark and the edges have the lighter purple highlights to throw them into relief. The majority of the robe is still Xereus Purple, but now it forms soft shadows in areas, starkly contrasting with the brightness of the highlight and darkness of the exposed wash. This effect really adds to the perception of depth and makes your model appear to have more detail than actually exists. Close inspection will show you where I’ve used the highlights to form small wrinkles in the robe, where none actually exist (above the left knee, in the picture). You could really go nuts with it, but I’m keeping it simple for the sake of illustration (there will be more advanced tutorials on the subject in the future).

Nearly done now, just the extreme highlight remains. In my case, I’m using a very light purple, Daemonette Hide. This highlight is used sparingly, inside of the first highlight layer. The idea is to pick out areas that recieve the most light. In this case that is the most pronounced folds in the robe and the very bottom edge.

Above, you can see the finished result. The last highlight layer is very subtle, but in this case, subtlety wins the day.

Today we’re going to go over my technique for creating striking water features in your miniature basing and terrain work, like this. 

This piece is the basework for a Cygnar Storm Strider, back when I thought that I was interested in Cygnar as a faction. Boy was I wrong! 

First off, a list of essential supplies for the project. 

A Base Corkboard Wine Cork Super Glue (gel/thin) PVA Glue 2 Part Acrylic Resin Baking Soda Acrylic Paints (I use a mix of P3 & Citadel) Primer Plasticard Milliput (or any modeling putty) Sand/Shale

Scissors Hobby Knife Dremel Tool A Pen

You start off by cutting a circle of your corkboard and gluing it in place on the base of your choice. This provides the start of your soil layer and provides a nice elevation for the edges of any water features you might place. Do not glue down any part of the corkboard that will later be cut away to form a pool, as it will be a bitch to remove if you do.

After you’ve glued the cork in place, use a pen to mark out the edges of your water feature. Try and avoid perfectly round pools, unless you’re going for a cartoony vibe. After making your mark, cut the shape out with your hobby knife.

It’s at this point that you glue/pin any of your major terrain features/props in place onto the base. In the case of the base at the start of the article that meant wine cork, cut at sharp angles, to simulate boulders.

After your props are in place, it’s time to Dremel out the plastic of the base where the bottom of the water feature will be. This will leave you with something that looks like this.

Now you’ll want to cut out some plasticard in a large enough shape to completely cover the bottom of the pool. When you’ve got that sorted, it’s as simple as gluing it in place.

Next up, you form the walls of the pond with a bit of milliput, making certain that it is sealed against both the upper lip of the corkboard and the plasticard bottom.The end result should be both organic looking and watertight. After the milliput sets, use some PVA glue and sand/shale to cover the cork and plasticard, just like you’d use them to base anything else.

I use several different grits and shale pieces to add depth to the soil profile. You rarely see uniformity in nature after all. I also picked shale as it’s sharp edges really math the rock profile of the wine cork boulders. I’ll be picking out individual pieces with gray paint to tie the terrain together.

After that all dries and sets, it’s time for some black primer.

The first thing you paint is the bottom of the pool, so you can pour your resin and let it sit overnight (not a project for the impatient). You do this by wet blending a gradient of blue tones across the bottom. The deepest part of the pool being Citadel’s Teclis Blue and working up the highlights with a mix of Teclis and working P3 Morrow White. A 1/1 mix for the first transition and a 1/2 mix for the lightest highlight. I like to pick any large rocks with the highlight color brighter than it’s surroundings as it really makes the detail POP, when the underwater effect is applied.

When that paint has dried, it’s as simple as carefully mixing and pouring the 2 part resin and waiting for it to set. A word to the wise, most of the acrylic resins give off toxic/carcinogenic fumes, so it is a good idea to do the pouring and setting in a well ventilated area. Always make sure to follow the instructions on the tin when working with potentially hazardous substances. 

12-24 hours later, you’re ready to paint your piece. I recommend a triad drybrushing technique for ease of application and awesomeness of appearance. For the browns in the soil I start with a ample basecoating of Citadel’s Dryad Bark followed by a drybrush of Citadel’s Gothor Brown and a fine drybrushing of Steel Legion Drab. I use the same technique for the boulders and shale pieces, only in grayscale using Citadel’s Eshin Gray, Dawnstone and Administratum Gray, Respectively.

Now it’s time for some PVA glue and flock, got to mix in those grass elements!

Finally, and most dramatically… Snow. Snow is not a science, it is an art. I can give you the ingredient list, but not the ratios. Snow is not a static thing. There is wet snow, dry snow, powdery snow, yellow snow, compact show… you get the picture.

For wet snow, use a paintbrush to paint an area with realistic water effect then sprinkle a little baking soda on it. Use just a dash, and you’ve got a sheet of ice, a little more, wet/melting snow. Experimentation is key.

For dry snow, mix the baking soda with PVA glue, it will become doughy and hold its form, giving you ample time to shape it into a billowing snowbank or the dense snow swept aside by a passing tank. You’re limited by your imagination. As a word to the wise, if your snow seems too wet, sprinkle more baking soda on top, if it seems too dry, wet the edges with your acrylic resin or some gloss medium.

In the end, you should have something akin to this.