Wren's WIP - Iron Painter II, Round 1

[Wren]

I'm overly verbose at times, so rather than hijacking Malebolgia's thread, I thought I'd start my own.

As several of the other contestants have pointed out, choice of miniature for this theme is an interesting one. Whereas something like NMM has virtually limitless options, really showing off weathering is going to be better suited to some figures than others. My figure choice is probably a stereotypical one for weathering, but I like that it allows for a wide variety of weathering experiments - wood, multiple kinds of metal, and cloth. Also I figure it doesn't hurt me to paint a little outside of my comfort zone from time to time. And because I had purchased this mini intending to paint it up as a gift, a push in the pants to get around to painting it is nothing to complain about!

The theme became a factor, and a pleasant change, even during the preparation stages. Normally I feel like I have to fuss and stress about every single flaw and work to get the mini as smooth as possible. But with this I figured roughness and imperfections could only add to the weathering effect, right? ;-> There was definitely still prep involved, just less stressful prep. I use brush on primer because I live in a fairly humid area, but I also like it because it gives me a last chance to see and repair cast/sculpt issues. There were a few little areas I cleaned up on this one while I was priming, but again, much less stress than usual. More pinning than usual for me, though.

[Wren]

I started with the wood of the wagon. I was going for a look like old unpainted barn boards from 100 years ago, but I probably should have gone even grayer. In choosing colours, I really didn't want to use any browns with much red or orange to them, so if I paint on some red or orange for rust effects, it'll be apparent that it's rust not wood.

Step 1: Base coat in a cool or neutral brown. Reaper Master Series (RMS from here on out) Shield Brown in this case, but I've also used Reaper Pro Paint (RPP) Shield and Woodland Browns in the past.

Step 2: Wash in a dark brown (RMS Walnut) to bring out the texture and dinge things up a little. RMS Brown Liner or RPP Walnut work nicely too.

Step 3. Drybrush with the base colour. Mix a lighter colour of natural gray into the base in stages, drybrushing up. I used RMS Aged Bone and then just a touch of RMS Polished bone for the brightest highlights. RPP Stone Gray works well, as does Adikolor Battledust. You could probably use true neutral grays, but I figure these slightly browned grays give a more natural look.

It needs a few finishing touches that will be influenced by the weathering on the rest, but that's the basics of the wood done. At this point I have also base coated the areas that will be metal black, since I prime white.

[Wren]

Now it was time to get down to brass tacks, or copper cannons, rather. I had decided to use metallic paints for the metals to get a little more practice with RMM ('real metal metallics' ;->). I looked through issue #302 of White Dwarf magazine for inspiration and ideas, and then did an online search for images of antique cannons on Google and Yahoo. Turns out that there are avid collectors of antique cannons. Info to share next time someone in our lives complains about the amount of space/money the metal we collect takes up. ;-> So I found loads of examples (including some with mould lines, but I nonetheless filed the lines off mine), but the ones that most captured my fancy were copper ones rich with verdegris.

http://www.bottomoftheharbour.com/cannonVOCAetched.html

http://bronzecannon.net/PCvoca/Img117.jpg

The White Dwarf article included a similar effect, which had been achieved by painting the verdegris and then drybrushing up a few exposed metal areas, so I got to work on some verdegris.

Step 1: Base coat cannon with a 2:1 mix of RMS Marine Teal to RMS Grass Green. I stopped one or two coats short of what I would normally have done for a perfectly smooth base coat, so there were some small imperfections in the look already.

Step 2: Wash with a 2:1 mix of RMS Deep Ocean to RMS Forest Green. This just toned the colour slightly and added a bit of a patina.

Step 3: Shading around joints and inset areas with a mix of RMS Jungle Moss and RMS Walnut. The first round of that was mostly Jungle Moss, with 3-4 successive applications with additional RMS Walnut, then finally some lining and adding dents with straight thinned RMS Walnut.

[Wren]

The next step was to add the lighter, powdery look to the verdegris, and the bits of exposed metal, both of which I also used as highlighting for the cannon. As there was very little texture to bring out through drybrushing, the primary technique used was stippling. Load a ratty old brush as for drybrushing, but then gently tap down with the tip of brush where you want the colour applied instead of brushing the body of the brush across the area.

Step 1: The stippling started with the base coat from step 1 above, which was applied in a fairly large area. That was mixed half and half with a mix of 2:1 RMS Surf Aqua to RMS Leaf Green. Then the latter mix alone, and a couple of layers with successive amounts of RMS Ghost White mixed in. Lastly a dusting of Ghost White on its own, very sparingly.

Step 2: The exposed metal areas were also stippled, with some soft brushing to deposit the metal in specific areas from time to time. I started with a dark metal colour and worked up through the following paints, all RMS: Scorched Metal, Coppery Orange, Antique Gold, New Gold and a sparse dusting of Polished Silver.

Step 3: I went back in with the shading mixes from Step 3 above to reestablish some important shadow and patina areas.

Step 4: I sealed with RMS brush on sealer as I was concerned about the dry flakes of the metallic paints getting brushed off during handling and assembly.

[james9487]

This is really good. I like RMM; it's been needing an abbreviated name for a long time now.

[Nathan Caroland]

What exactly is the miniature if I may ask?

Oh, and damn good job on this and doing a tutorial, looking forward to seeing this through completion.

[Wren]

I'm glad people are liking this! I'm hoping I remember to take pictures through the rest of the stages and otherwise do see it through to completion. ;-> I guess there's no real value to suspense over the miniature, which this guy - http://www.reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=1231&cat=0&page=1

[supervike]

Overly Verbose?. Now that is a great term!!

I like it....its fun to see peoples insight as they work on a project. Well done Wren!

[Nathan Caroland]

Cool miniature, perfect for the weathering theme I think.

[DrEvilmonki]

That is amazingly well done. Do you have a brass monkey?

[Wren]

I feel embarassed to admit it, but I didn't know what a brass monkey is. So I looked it up, and then tried to look up some pictures. What I found is that it might be a myth! A couple of interesting links. http://www.townsvillemaritimemuseum.org.au/brassmonkey.htm, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htm.

I don't have any sort of cannon ball holder, but I did do up some GS cannonballs. If I had enough time I figured I'd add a pyramid of these to the base. I found a great picture of rusted up old cannonballs. I haven't really made the base shipboard, although I probably should have considered that option a little more. It's got a fine sand texture, so I was debating between sandy beach or just a sort of generic gray that could be a cave, fort pavement, what-have-you. The base is an area where I was mindful of our time limit. Also if given as a gift in the end, it'll be shipped and then it'll be handled by non-miniature aware types and I didn't want anything too fragile or pokey-outey on the base. I've had more problems with things on my bases falling apart or being damaged over time than with the minis themselves.

[Wren]

Mr. Bones felt it was time I put the accessories aside for a time and do some work on the main figure, so today I tackled the bones. I had done a little research on the topic. Apparently exposed bones usually become greyish-green, and buried bones somewhere in the yellow to brown spectrum. Whiter bone generally only occurs with bleaching, whether literally during treatment or from a desert sun. I wanted to leave the option open for using lots of grays in his clothes or to weather the cloth, so I went with the yellow-brown style bones. (For the record, my research was not super in-depth, just reading stuff from other people who've done more research or work with bone. Although I do live in the same city as the famous Body Farm, I'm pretty sure they don't give tours to random citizens with obscure hobbies. ;->)

Step 1: I painted the base coat in a dark ivory. I used RMS Stained Ivory, which I think is a little darker than GW Bleached Bone, but probably not a lot darker.

Step 2: I washed the entire bone area two or three times with Vallejo Smoke. I have never had much success with washes, and don't use them that often. I use Smoke, but I don't find it quite as all-purpose as some folks. One thing I have used both techniques on before was doing antique ivory/bone, so I thought I'd try it again here.

Step 3: Then I went in and did some controlled shading with a darkened orangey brown, in this case RMS Woodstain Brown with a touch of RMS Oiled leather.

Step 4: Lastly, I did a touch of darklining using RMS Walnut with a touch of Woodstain.

Hm, the end result of this does look a lot like mouldery old buried bones to my eye. It also looks like crappy painting. I can't remember for sure, but I might have done the last two steps after the photo. Certainly I darkened up the eye sockets after the photo. I had debating doing a glowy green kind of eye, but as I was doing the washes I liked the sinister look of the dark sockets, and I was concerned about the glowy green not working with the blue-greens of the copper verdegris.

[Wren]

Next step, highlighting Mr. Bones. The object in his one hand is a flame about to fire off his cannon, so I tried to do the highlighting with the location of that flame in mind, but also assuming a general light source. The theme of this round is weathering, so while I'll try my best with the source lighting, hopefully I won't get dinged too hard if I can't spend too much time on that part. ;->

Step 1: I started with a paint mix of 50/50 Stained Ivory and Oiled Leather, which is a rich orangey brown colour. With all the Smoke staining and shading of previous steps, I thought starting the layering with the base colour as I would normally do would be too stark. I used this layer to smooth and tie together the previous steps.

Step 2: Mostly Stained Ivory with just a touch of the previous mix. Then highlighting up with the lighter members of the RMS ivory triad - Yellowed Bone and Creamy Ivory. I stopped short of a pure Creamy Ivory or white layer, wanting to keep the bones looking old, and I don't think old bone like this is a particularly shiny texture. I'm actually thinking I might have gone a bit too smooth with this and I might go back in and do some smoke layers again to weather him up a bit more.

Step 3: I cleaned up the darklining where some of the highlighting had strayed.

Step 4: I picked out the teeth with a light bone gray, then highlighted them with a slightly grayed white.

[Ritual]

My, this is an ambitious entry! Looking very good so far!

[callumrice]

Yep, its looking decent. Im happy I didnt draw you out the hat!

[Wren]

I have been painting pretty steadily, but have fallen way behind in my WIP journal, so here’s a bit of catch-up.

The next thing I tackled was the last part of the wagon, the metal trim. First I had to decide what technique to use – sponged metals as presented on Brush Thralls (http://www.brushthralls.com/SpongedMetal/), or use the classic ink style and then add rust. While the sponged metals looked like a lot of fun to do, it seemed too similar to how I did the cannon, and too messy to use on a model that already had some finished bits. So I went with the inks, crossing my fingers because neither inks nor washes have been big strong areas for me in the past.

This picture is what everything looked like after completing the metals but prior to adding rust. Hopefully it looks well-used and a little worn. I’m not sure why the back wheel looks so much darker in the photo, the metal areas pretty much look the same in the hand.

Step 1: I did a base coat on the metal areas using RMS Shadowed Steel. This is a pretty dark colour, sort of like a Tin Bitz for steel, and if I were doing this again I might start with a more medium metal colour, I think this turned out a little too dark in the end.

Step 2: Next came 2-3 washes with a 50/50 mix of black and brown inks. I used Adikolor inks, I have had more luck with those than others I’ve tried so far, but my ink experience is fairly limited, so make of that what you will. After that I went in and did drops of ink around each of the rivets to make sure those got lined and looked like they had plenty of grunge around them. I did base coats on other sections while waiting for inks to dry.

Sidetrack: I used the ink mixture to add some dirt around the gizmos in the center of the wheels and for a little separation between boards on the wood, though I think both might need to be darkened even further.

Step 3: I went back to the metallics to do some layering, starting with a thinned layer of the original Shadowed Steel, then layers with the mid-tone, RMS Honed Steel, then a few touches of the fairly bright RMS Polished Silver.

Step 4: After thinning down the original ink wash mix a little, I did one more layer of that as a glaze to tie in the layered metallics.

Step 5: Two glazes of thinned Vallejo Smoke were applied to add a general dirt and bit of rust look. It’s subtle, but I think it really added a lot of depth to the metallic areas.

[Wren]

Then it was back to Mr. Bones for a while. I wanted to use muted, faded colours for his clothes to help with the impression that they’re really old and worn. I started with his pants. As with several other areas, the painting was a bit of a novel experience. Normally I’m going for as smooth and clean a look as I can. With the layering on the clothes, I wanted some rough edges, I wanted some streakiness and so on to foster the impression of wear and dirt. So the challenge came in controlling the effect to get the desired look rather than just being sloppy, and in resisting the urge to smooth and tidy. Oh, and I did do a light smoke glaze on the bone areas, so they might look a little different than in previous pictures.

Step 1: I applied a base coat of RMS Ghoul Skin, then darklined with RMS Grey Liner, which was also used to darken the holes in the pants.

Step 2: For a shade colour, I chose a brownish-gray colour that really didn’t ‘match’ - RMS Bone Shadow. I felt this would help give the impression of dirt and dull down the colour even more. Dabs of Grey Liner were added to the darkest shadows areas. I applied the shadows with a bit of a rougher, more visible edge than I would normally.

Step 3: Starting with the base colour, I did do a little smoothing, but primarily just to trim back the shading from areas I felt wouldn’t be that shadowed rather than to clean anything up. I layered up adding dabs of RMS Polished Bone, a light brownish-gray. Top highlights were done with RMS Leather White. During the highlighting stage, I tried to keep the location of the source lighting in mind, so the front of the pants are a fair bit lighter than the back, though I’m not sure if it’s as extreme as in the photos. I also tried to do the top few layers of highlights in little streaks with the brush rather than smooth strokes.

[Wren]

Next up came the vest, rope and leather straps and scabbard. The bandanna is only base coated in these pictures.

Vest

Step 1: I used RMS Dark Elf Skin for the base coat. This is a dull purple gray. I thought it was something that might look like a faded navy or black. I glazed this over with RMS Stormcover Grey to dull it even further

Step 2: I then used a thicker mix of the Stormcover Grey and then Black to establish some shadowed areas on the vest, though it’s a fairly flat surface so that wasn’t a lengthy or detailed process.

Step 3: I mixed in dabs of RMS Aged Bone (which I’m sure you’ll be shocked to read is a brownish-gray) to highlight up the vest.

Step 4: When I got to the top highlights I added a touch of RMS Polished Bone to the Aged Bone and thinned it down. Then I screwed up my courage and tried to paint the cross-hatching I’ve seen people do on cloth to suggest that it’s worn. I managed the brush control part of that better than I expected.

Step 5: But then I think I messed the overall effect up. It seemed too stark to me, so I did a glaze with the original colour to blend it in a little, and then a bit more blending with one of my earlier highlight mixes. I don’t think the original looked as nice as what I’ve seen other people do, but I think I should have just left it and thought about it a bit more to analyze what it was that didn’t match and how I might fix that. Now the effect is barely visible. If I have time I might go in and try to fix that.

Rope

Nothing really special or unusual here – base, wash, painted shadows, highlight up texture, all with mixes of dull browns and natural grays. I also added a touch of dark brown shading to black at the base of the flame to try to make it look like the rope is charred there.

Leather

For the leather base coat I took a drop of a dark reddish-brown (RMS Ruddy Leather) and added drops of RMS Bone Shadow (my old friend brownish-gray, this one a fairly dark one) until I had sucked out enough colour for it to look worn. Turned out that took about 6 drops of the gray to 1 of the Ruddy Leather. Then to tone down the colour even further, I glazed with RMS Stormcover Gray, then highlighted up by mixing Polished Bone into the base colour. I let the brush get on the dryish side while highlighting to dry to build up that scuffed look that old leather will get. I probably should have highlighted up a bit brighter on the leather, though.