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Cracked and burned skin? - Witchling Stalkers


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Hi all,

I'm currently painting my Witchling Stalkers up at the moment and want to stay true to the fluff. I've therefore decided to go for a green flame glow effect from their eyes as opposed to the blue goggles in the most recent art. I am also considering painting their skin as if it's burned but not sure how to go about it technically. I've bought some Vallejo Crackle medium but testing it out on paper hasn't worked out so far. If anybody has painted cracked or burned skin before (not bases as the scale of cracks are different) I would be interested to know how you did it or if there are any useful tutorials on the matter

 

Edit: P.S I am having trouble deciding what kind of paintjob I should give the swords and feedback would be welcome though supplementary to the central issue

 

More info: using a mix of gw and P3 paints:

cloaks are coal black/traitor green and some grey, bandages and face masks are white with a transition to black into the hood

Goggles and any skin cracks will be a bright green (no bottle on hand)

Ideas for the swords: rusted, dull brass with heavy oxidation, white marble, black marble, standard silver/stone, burnt iron - these last ones would ideally reflect some of the green glow.

I've also seen people do their swords as if they are in a furnace (it's fluffy) white in the centre getting redder (cooler) on the edges. I think this a great Idea but wouldn't work with the rest of the colour scheme (I don't think - please tell me if you think it would/why)

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What kind of burns do you want? 1st degree is just reddish skin, 2nd degree reddish with blisters, 3rd degree is white/yellow/brown, 4th is black (charred). Only 4th would have anything resembling cracks, 1st and 2nd would flake after a while. I don't think any cracks/flakes would be visible at this scale though.

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i have no personal experience with the stuff I'm going to "recommend", but maybe someone else can comment on this (and proof me wrong^^ - or not!):

 

I wouldn't carve any lines in the arms. This will not come of very natural in terms of charring scars I guess and Malifaux miniatures are delicate as is, making this procedure pretty hard anyway.

 

What I'd try is using a crackle medium (like GW's technical Agrellan Earth which can be tinted - but I'm sure there are others out there for a cheaper price/better for tinting).

 

So you could go for a green base color (whatever color you want to shine through) and then apply the tinted technical paint as second layer. The technical will crack and boom, charred skin with green undertone.

 

Like I said, take this with a grain of salt since it's all theoretical and I think the medium might make the paint too thick, but that's what I'd try if I was going for such an effect.

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I'd check out Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Paint if I were you. If you brush it on thinly you get a really fine web of cracks. I use it mostly for bases... It's basically a paint that cracks to reveal the layer underneath, but you could easily paint over it if you want different colours...

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The Distress paint from the stamping section in hobby stores?  I've been meaning to try that.

For crackle paints, the size of your crackled pieces depends on how thickly you lay it on.  If you can lay it on super thin, you'll get lots of small spidery cracks -- maybe try mixing it with ink instead of paint.

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awesome! I had checked that guy out before but the thickness he was using produced way larger cracks than would be useful for tiny patches of skin. Good to know it might not be an issue. Worst case scenario I buy it and can only use it for basing.

 

Edit: Are Distress products stocked in Australia? Also, just watched the video in the link and was wondering whether the paints shown (which are significantly closer to usual paint than what I've previously seen from Distress) are crackle paints?

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Agrellan is brown/grey earth. Just got my hand on a jar, so testing it to compare with Distress Paint. Never tried a watered down layer of either, will post my results later today when dry. For me the main advantage of the Holz stuff is that the jar is much larger, and even with shipping fron the US when buying on eBay it's cheaper than buying a small jar of Agrellan from my LGS...

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I look forward to it! Distress also comes in a wider variety of colours than Agrellan Earth obviously but from what I've seen its consistency is that of toothpaste so I can't really see the product that I've seen from Distress working on a model.

 

To Viruk, Agrellan Earth is my second choice so far and I will give it a go if Tmod's tests get some results as mixing it with black/painting over it carefully, although cumbersome, would be worth it if the results were good enough.

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I've done some comparisons, and they're very similar. The main difference is that the Distress Paint is a little thinner than Agrellan (which is really, really thick!), and thus a little easier to make thinner layers and produce finer cracks, it may be a little easier to make thicker layers stick without peeling (still waiting for the final test to dry before I can say for sure), and the jar is 33ml instead of just 12ml for Agrellan. Oh, and you can get it in 24 different colours! Make no mistake though, Agrellan is really great, Distress is just better and cheaper. It might not be easy to get a thin enough layer, neither product cracks well when thinned with either water or acryllic medium. I think you'll get the effect you're looking for, but some practice beforehand wouldn't be amiss...

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Hi!

The full name of the product is Tim Holz' Distress Crackle Paint by Ranger. It's still relatively thick, but much more liquid than Agrellan.

 

By the way, my final tests have had time to dry, so a few more points of comparison.

The individual flakes of Agrellan will bend and curl a little more as the paint cracks. This looks great, but it makes it a lot harder to get the stuff to stay fixed on whatever surface you paint it on. For thick layers you'd need a really uneven surface to avoid peeling (like textured paint), and then you'd loose the curl effect at the same time. Distress can also flake in thick layers, so I'd use a highly textured surface for a thick layer of either.

 

Neither will crack when thinned with water of acryllic medium, so really the only way to get a thin layer is to paint it thin, using a small brush. Note that you may of course find a different brand medium which will in fact thin them both just fine, but I haven't found one yet.

To me it seems the Distress paint crackles easier, whereas Agrellan have wider cracks when it works. Now that I have both I can see myself possibly using Agrellan for some stuff, but I wouldn't miss it, and would rather bought Distress Crackle Paint when I need more.

 

Hope this helps!

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Thanks Tmod, some really useful stuff here. based on the surface area I have to work with on the witchlings and the thickness and flaking risks you've mentioned, I think I will hold off using it this time. Bit disappointing but we've had great input I hope other people hoping to do the same thing have found this thread useful.

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If you're painting it on thin I think you'll be able to pull this off. You just have to be a little careful. And as long as you paint it on thin, enough flaking is not really an issue. I won't guarantee you'll pull it off, but I think it's doable, and it'd be a really cool and original application of the effect!

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Thanks Tmod, some really useful stuff here. based on the surface area I have to work with on the witchlings and the thickness and flaking risks you've mentioned, I think I will hold off using it this time. Bit disappointing but we've had great input I hope other people hoping to do the same thing have found this thread useful.

 

Ok, I just had to try this out on a stalker, just to see if it's feasible...

 

I tried two different approaches: Vallejo crackle medium and brown Distress Crackle Paint painted black and washed with dark red.

 

First of all, there are really small surfaces to work with. Most of the skin is covered, and thus it's hard to get any sort of effects.

 

I still can't get the Vallejo to perform predictably, but here's what I did and how it worked. I first painted the hand in dark red, then painted the medium on, and after it had completely dried I painted a thinned layer of black. It didn't work as expected, but the crackle medium caused some of the black to flake off, which actually looked quite good for the effect you're after: Blackened skin with some patches of red getting through.

 

Second I tried brown Distress Crackle Paint (only colour I have!), and then painted it all black and added a thinned down (with plenty of flow improver) dark red ink. The result was very, very subtle, but not bad in any way. There's no way I can get it to show up on a photo, but I think you could get a more obvious result if you buy a jar of black Crackle Paint and paint it over a dark red backing. Probably even better, you could buy a red crackle paint, and just drybrush black on top. Should be dark red in the cracks, and black on top. I think you could definitively do it! :-)

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I admire your dedication Tmod! It looks be worth picking up some distress paint if not for skin then bases but we'll see... If I DO end up using it on skin (even if it's not on the witchlings) I'll be sure to post it here and I encourage anyone thinking of doing this or anyone who has done it to post also. Regardless I'm glad you found the result to your liking! My idea was actually for the cracks to be bright green as if the witchlings' fire is burning them from the inside out but this shouldn't add any complications to the process you've explained.

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