Tinweasel

P.S. I figured out how to make translucent Lord Chompy Bits all "glowy." I'm not sure how well it will stand up post-washing and -shading, but it still ought to give him some visual impact compared to the other "rank 'n' file" Nightmares.

So here's some my WIP stuff from my new workspace next to the couch. I had planned on finishing Rasputina for the Frozen Moments painting comp, but I ended up going into the hospital for about a week. Seeing as how I'm laid up on the couch mostly now w/ my knee all jacked up from a bacterial infection, and I'm good for just about bugger all else, I might as well prep and base figures. Feel free to ask questions! (I have diabolical plans...)

Why hello there, Mr. Coppelius! You're next on the list!

I didn't get as crazy basing-wise as Ron did in his From the Warp writeup, but this is one of mine using cornmeal for a gritty texture/bulking things up, dirt from ant mounds on top for texture, and rigid high density polystyrene foam cut and shaped to boards. Post-sealing of figure and base, I applied Gale Force 9 static grass and Secret Weapon Minis leaf litter (the birch seed pods, etc.) with thinned PVA glue. Linky here to the post in my Showcase thread

From what I recall, the pin vise that GW sold/sells was of reasonable quality and had a swivel head handle... but was somewhat higher priced. I'd recommend any of the swivel head ones from either Micro-Mark - look for the swivel head ones as they are much less painful on the palm when doing a lot of drilling Sears/Craftsman - I've had the two-collet swivel head one for years and the ability to swap collets for different size drill bits is useful (although an adjustable collet pin vise would make that redundant - I just don't want to pay $30 for a hobby drill) So far as bits go, you can get them anywhere - I happen to have gathered an assortment over the years including some from my dad as a retired model-maker for GM. You really want the smaller ones, though, like size #50 and smaller (larger numbers). I think it's a size #70-something I can use for making rivet holes at Malifaux scale. Not specifically recommending it, but I found this one at the Micro-Mark site also. Something along those lines would set you right from using anything from paperclips on down to thinner gauges of beading wire for pinning, easy. (I have no organization caddy for my collections of bits, just numbered bags and a bunch of them in the body of a handle-less extra pin vise that's too painful to use.)

For most figures, unless you have some other means of attaching, I'd recommend pinning them to the base directly after you're completely done assembling your basing. What you probably should do pre-painting and decorating the base is decide where you're going to place your figures - you can make sure they're going to fit nice and snug. You probably should drill the holes for whatever you're going to use to pin the figures for a permanent fastening - I normally use paper clips, but I've found with a lot of Malifaux figures is that paper clips are too large a diameter for the feet so I've been using 30 gauge (or so, don't have the package handy) beading wire I picked up at a craft store ages ago. Like the tutorial you linked says, you probably want to mount all your basing material before you permanently glue your figure into place. I'd say that depends on how much you want the figure to fit in with the base - you could have the figure in place and build up moss/grit around the feet so they look like they're "sunk in" and then paint up the base separately; alternatively, you could decorate and paint the whole base separate and then just match up pins from the figure to the pinning holes in the base. The short answer to your first questions would be that the figure will not likely stick very well to a decorated base at all, and generally gluing plastic figures to resin bases is tricky without pinning at best. So far as varnish, I use several light coats of Krylon Gloss rattle can sealant and then for a super-matte finish, a coat of Testor's Dull Cote. You ideally want to put in your ground cover and flock and birch seed pods and everything after the base is already matte sealed. Citadel sprays are kinda wonky - you sometimes get bad cans. I'd recommend other brands over those, if for price reasons alone. (I had a can of their black primer that never dried on figures - very disappointing.) If you want to go back and touch things up (like metals) after the fact, you probably just want to get a bottle of brush-on gloss varnish - Vallejo make a good one. I use a mixture of water and Pledge/Future Floor Finish for brush-on stuff, myself. If you're using these for gaming, yes - always varnish. Gloss is a better sealant and more protective than matte. If we're talking display or competition figures, a lot of the pros don't even varnish at all. (GW for their catalog stuff, etc.) the only trouble comes in when you use anything glossy, but that's nothing that a brush-on matte can't fix. Hopefully this was some help. I've just recently done somewhat "outdoor" bases myself.

Pity I work almost every weekend - that and I don't have a crew painted up yet.

What's that? A vague mention of Ice Golem painting? Just browsing through looking for suggestions on how to play a Raspy crew, as I'm currently fixing one up...

Looks like you already bought some bases, but I figgered I'd put this out there as an idea in case you didn't want to use some with an excess of chains and such. I used rigid high density polyurethane foam instead of plasticard material-wise, but used the same technique of drawing a rib-back hobby saw along the surface a few times along cut-off strips to get grooves and then a hobby knife to rough up the edges and trim to shape to have seams/joins where board come together. I didn't want anything so rough as decking as it's supposed to represent the floor of a home in 19th Century Earthside, where The Dreamer lives when he's not sleeping. The paint scheme was fairly straightforward, with a few washes (including purple to tie things in with the translucent pink plastic and contrast the yellow-orange of the wood) and some light, thinned drybrushing over the basecoat and shading.

Sounds like a great idea and I'd love to get on board with this on my blog - 3 problems for me, though: 1) I don't have a LGS that sells Malifaux, 2) my painting time and expectations are such that I'm painting them to "my" standard (I'm a former competition painter trying to get back on the painting horse by working on stuff for myself with no deadline- or expectation-induced stress) as opposed to just "cranking them out" so I'm expecting I'd fail deadlines by default, and 3) I've already bought stuff I'd be painting at my last 2 GenCons. http://www.paintingbytinweasel.com I'll drop a mention of this on my blog, I still have regular readers even though I'm not the world's most timely poster - boost the signal a bit! Edit: Posted!

Edited my above post w/ update. No joy on my end.

Games Workshop's "heroic" 28mm scale corresponds roughly to something between 1:35th and 1:48th scale, if that's any help. I haven't done a size comparison since I've picked up any Malifaux stuff, but 1/4 sounds about right. (I'll check some of my military models when I get back from work.) Edit: 1:35 scale is a little overly large when compared to Malifaux figures, but some things like barrels and oil drums might be passable. I could find any of my other scale model historical stuff - all packed away still.