Sergeant finished

I recently finished my Sergeant from the Black Reach Box. And took that opportunity to take some pictures because I  learned (but still have to learn a lot) something about taking pictures from a tutorial.

selfmade weathering powder / pigments

In the last time I read some articles about using pigments for weathering models. And yesterday I found this wonderful article(s) at 'ultrawerke'. 

So I started reading some more about it and I decided to do this myself! But this month I have to save some money so I could not just go to my local hobby store and buy me some pigments from Vallejo oder MIG. So I came up with the idea of producing some pigments for weathering and to share this with you in this tutorial.

To be rigorous I should say that this tutorial will mainly be about doing a dust, some rust and a mud effect.

Notice: If you are interested in doing this yourself, always do a test-run first!

So here are the things I used:

1. a pencil

2*. a colored pencil

3. Vallejo Matt Varnish

4. Vallejo Thinner

5*. Water

6. Sandpaper

7*. a knife

8. some container

9. brushes

10. sharpener

* : alternative

It goes without saying that we need a model to paint on:

In this case I used a part of an old Rhino. It was only sprayed with Boltgun Metal and only the parts needed for this tutorial have been painted. Namely the exhaust pipes. (Just for the sake of completeness: it was drybrushed with Boltgunmetal, washed with Vallejo Humo+GW Badab Black, drybrushed with GW Tin Bitz and Vallejo Hammered Copper)

How does weathering with pigments work?

Usually one needs different supplies, one needs a thinner, for this task turpentine or white spirit is often used. And one needs a fixer and/or a varnish. There are different ways to apply the pigments, mixed with a thinner or dry.

To say this right away, I have not tried working with this stuff but I read a lot about it and I am just showing a cheap and fast idea how to do easy effects on your models. For more professional results one really should use the supplies named above. As soon as I will have them I will make a second tutorial. Nevertheless the results of this method are surprisingly good!

So first we need to make our pigments:

I used a pencil (HB) which has as we all know a graphite mine (which is is one of the allotropes of carbon - as diamond) and not of lead! 

It has a dark gray color. I also used a a colored pencil for some rust or mud, it has a light brown color. To make our pigments we first need to use a sharpener (or knife) to sharpen the pencil. Now one can either use a knife and scrape over the mine or -as I did- one uses sandpaper and runs the pencil over it and collect the pigments. 

To avoid wooden impurities one has to resharpen the pencil many times.

 

  

The pictures show how I used to make the pigments.

Applying the pigments:

I applied the pigments in different ways. For the dust effect on the exhaust pipe and the mud/rust effect on the chain I first applied some of the thinner

Now its time for the pigments. Use a dry brush to take them out of their container and put them on the thinner without blurring them much on the surface. I just dropped them on the thinner.

Notice: I am just showing the dust effect on this pictures, the mud on the chain works equivalent.

For the (spontaneous idea) rust effect at the 'door' I used a different technique: I mixed the thinner directly with the brown pigments and applied them on the surface.

Now wait some minutes to let the thinner dry. And maybe remove some not-fixed pigments.

Sealing the pigments:

Know we need to seal the pigments to make sure they stay where they are.

For this I mixed Matt varnish with thinner

 

and applied this now on the pigmented areas

I applied the varnish by dabbing it with the brush and tried not to blur the pigments.

Again let it dry. (And maybe seal them again later)

And here is the result:

So you may think "ok, why should I use pigments when I am able to do weathering with my colors too?"

The answer to this question - I asked myself the same - is very simple:

"They look amazing!" just take a look at some pictures in the further up mentioned article.

And most important they add structure to your weathering and look very realistic.

I am thinking of using this easy method on the barrels of my Space Marine weapons. I did it on my Heavy Bolter but since I am absolutely incapable of taking good pictures the effect can not be seen very good on the following picture

 

(seriously if anybody could tell me (via email) how to take good close up photos with my digicam I would be very grateful.)

Other possible applications would be the tank chains, dozer blades,...

Lack of Updates

Sorry for this lack of updates.
I am ill and I have to study for my last exam. But nevertheless I've been busy doing some work on my Iron Knights. Most of it was trying to find conversion ideas for my command squad ( will be used in the first mission of our campaign ) and my Stern Guard. Additionally I finished the 'rule book' for our campaign (up to some minor changes), it is about 9 pages. There are two reasons I will not give it free for download: 1. it is in German and 2. it contains graphics that would - if published - maybe violate some copy rights. But maybe if I will find some time in the next days I will translate it and post a version here without graphics.

Speaking of conversions I did start to convert my 'Champion of the Emperor'-Model to a company champion with power-sword and combat shield. The shield was made of plastic card and has the form of the chapter symbol a cross crosslet. Maybe some pics in a couple of days here.
But I also painted some Marines and assembled my Vindicator and my Drop Pod. I HATE DROP PODS !!!!! It was a absolute horror to build this thing up! There was a point where I was thinking about throwing this thing against the wall. But I decided to save this 25 €...

So again no pics, sorry they will follow, but at least a vital sign.

Pimp up my rhino II

It's been a while but here we go:

I've been very busy with my Mordheim Warband - maybe some off-topic pictures following up - and my new project my Night Goblin Army . But I also finished some Tactical Space Marines, assembled my Predator and I pimped my Rhino:

Actually I don't have a new Rhino but I have a new Razorback since in my early armylists I preferred Razorbacks. This changed but I did not want to buy me a new Rhino because in smaller games or alternative lists I may want to use the Razorback again. So I decided not to glue the Lascanons but leave it variable so that I can put it back in if I want to use a Razorback instead of a Rhino.
So but what to do with the hole in the top of the Razhino? So I started doing some experiments with plasticard and build me a fastening for the hole.

So this is how it is done:
You need some plasticard (go and see the next model making shop) some superglue, a printer, a Image Manipulation Program(I used open office drawing, its opensource) a sharp (!!!) knife, sand paper, a needle and some wood glue.

Start your software and draw a circle (inner) with a diameter of 2.6 cm - sorry guys I am using SI units :) no idea how many inches this is - and a second circle (outer) with a diameter of 2.8 cm and print them out.

Cut the circles out, this does not have to be very exactly just make sure you don't cut the circles into peaces.

After this, glue them on the plasticard with the super glue and make sure that the edges are glued. Now the cutting begins.
As mentioned before use a SHARP knife so the cutting is very easy - by the way sometimes you don't have to cut the plasticard all the way down because breaking works also very good. To get the circles, use small cuts tangential to the circles, the smaller your interval is the more exact the circles will be.

(Pic: some cutlines)

After you have cut out the two circles use the sand paper to round them up.
Know glue the inner circle onto the outer circle, glue it with super glue and glue it in the center of the side of the outer circle with the paper on.
So now you have your fastening, the rest is up to you, use some bits or make some detail with plasticard. I used to make some bolts, for this take the needle put it in the wood glue and simply use it to put small dips of wood glue in the right size on the plasticard and let it dry!



Similar to the fastening I constructed me some symbols for my tanks. Just print out the symbol (was given by a jpeg-file from the GW homepage) or copy it from a codex or so, cut it out and glue it on the plasticard. One should mention here that you do not have to glue it, you could use a permanent marker to copy it on the plasticard if you want to - i did not have a fine enough marker so i glued it - but gluing is no problem, you can get rid of the paper at the end very easily. Again cut it out, use some sand paper on it and ready!
I did these two :


So this was the homemade part of pimping my Rhino but I did something else.
As I mentioned in some earlier post I bought me some Forge World Stuff on the SUCKING Games Day 09 , a dozer blade and some extra armor. I also applied them to my Rhinoback and here we go (still some Green stuff work to do):



I think it looks pretty nice and as I said I can change to a Razorback in no time!

Other possibilities for doing the bolts are using Green Stuff or peaces of paper clips.

Give it a try!