28mm Vehicles #3: Marx and ZombieSmith (Redemption)

 The last time I had a set of painted cars to present was july....2018. Having lurked in the tray of shame for far too long I have managed to deliver the first items into the tray....OF REDEMPTION! Yes folks, hence forth anything that is escaping from the prison of shame shall graduate into the light of redemption. 

Anyway, I wanted to have a bunch of cars to use as scenery on urban boards. I was inspired by another blogger......maybe Cheet0r? Marx future cars took a while to source off of ebay. Zombie smith makes some very reasonably priced resin cars (I spent an age and a half waiting for delivery due to them moving and the molds needing to be rebuilt).

 

 

 

 

 The lights are all penned in with a fine tip sharpie before painting. I think this was one of the long standing blocks on this one......it was just a mass of blue otherwise. Also the canopy I didn't know what to do. I briefly tried painting silhouttes of tall buildings and quickly scrubbed that (literally wiping away the attempt) *shudder*.

 

 

I can't remember in the slightest what the hold up on the marx car was. I was contemplating trying to put in windows......definitely a bit of a nightmare to do. I incidentally noticed the headlights hadn't been done as I was setting up for the photo, so zipped off to put in a touch of paint. Maybe that was the road block? Sometimes the smallest things can throw sand in the gears of productivity......

In the storage container I found the following which have not even been primed: 2 more marx, 4 more zombiesmith cars, 2 black cat taxis, 2 microart studio buses. I'm dubious any will see the light of 2022 due to the priority on the trays of shame.

 

28mm Vehicles #2: Marx and ZombieSmith

 Another set of cars to add to the tiny carpool. I'm hoping to eventually get enough 'traffic' to make a small urban table look reasonable. I suspect this will take some time. This time we have one car from Zombie smith (they have a set of 3 resin vehicles for very reasonable pricing). I tried a newer type of window effect. I'm not sure I'm sold on it......though I may just have to fill in some of the white better next time before inking. Ideally the idea is that it's reflecting some of the inner lighting from a dark car interior.

The marx future car I'm not entirely happy with. Orange is a bit of a beast for me to paint, I have trouble with coverage and smoothness. The turqoise seating I like, and the mirror effect. The metallic detailing is quite what I'm happy with. Probably it's too uniform and either needs to be dirtied up a bit, or heat modulated (which sounds challenging) or something. I doubt I'll get to it any time soon as other projects beckon....

28mm Sci Fi Cars: Marx Future Cars

Inspired by Cheetor at sho3box blog  I tracked down some of these fine 'marx future cars' in order to add some much needed street traffic to my 28mm sci fi terrain boards. They've been a easy item to bang out when taking breaks from batch painting other things. I have to say I'm slightly embarrassed to realize I used a green paint scheme on the SAME CAR as Cheetor. Perhaps the sculpt just screams green in a subconscious way. 

The windows remain to be done......in some way. I contacted Roebeast to see about some sweet vaccum made ones, but apparantly you can't track down the clear sheets of vacuum forming plastic anymore. Alas. Some of the hard clear plastic on almost any toy packaging was suggested to me which I will eventually get around to attempting.

6MMRPC Week 10: Ainsty Furniture

My painting efforts continue to be stymied with weddings and birthdays cropping up in the late summer. I did, however, manage to finish off some bits I've been picking away at for a couple of weeks.

Up this week are tables, kegs, chairs, and part of a store set from Ainsty. Ainsty has some very cool ranges, all in resin, and are located in the UK. Naturally this means fairly steep shipping for those of us in North America (to be honest, it's getting crushing from everywhere to anywhere it seems). 

6MMRPC Week 3: Follow the light!

 It's nice to get to bash out some simple terrain pieces from time to time. These light poles were part of a large order I made from Critical mass games a very (very) long time ago. They have since been removed from their catalogue, but I sorta like them.

It took me forever to decide on the colours, do a image search for light poles, and there's really not that much that is interesting/inspiring. I eventually decided to go for the colours of my human sci fi force. Also the poles around here are mostly green if not mounted off of treated wood.

Brightstone Keep: Highlighting and Fungus (3)

I ended up needing to replace my metallics to finish off the tower. The old 'bolter shell' pots of GW paint are abysmal for not drying out. Once I was reequiped I did the metal work around the wheel of magic in gold, with a brown wash, and picked out the symbols themselves with a silver. 

The clockwork I was/am a little torn on. I do like it in a copper, but there isn't really enough going on in there. I think I was the black background roughly coloured (drybrushed perhaps?) in copper as well in an internet pic, and think I might like that. But I can imagine if I don't do it right it will look awful and detract from the gears themselves. At least it is mostly hidden in shadow when the tower is assembled. 

I did like the bricked up archway with the hidden symbol. For those in the know this is obviously a sigil to tzeentch, the changer of ways. This chaos god is closely aligned with magic, and I like to think that this helps explain what has gone wrong in the tower and resulted in it's partial destruction.

Afterwards I tried to add some fungal/lichen growth where I thought it would be (I live in a damp climate, so it makes sense to me that there will be green crap growing in cracks everywhere it's wet. 

The obvious one was by the drainage hole at the base. I also did a bit in a few other parts of the base. The few remaining wood singles got a dose as well. 

I remember seeing old 'eavy metal pics from white dwarf that had a fuzzy fungus thing used. I had a hell of a time finding any information on how to do it though. The closest I got was in the hobby store the woman said that painters used to use pastels and shave them with blades and mix them with glue. I ended up using a vallejo earth tone/pigment mixed with some ink and white glue. It gives a bit of texture...not as much as I had hoped though. I may just need to add more and build up layers though. 








Here is the final (ish) product. I doubt I'll get around to doing much more besides sealing it at some point in varnish. Perhaps when I bring it out on the table comments from the gamers might inspire (or shame!) me into doing some more though.

Blightstone Keep: Wheel of Magic and Rusting! (2)

I continue to make progress on the tower. I've managed to paint the wheel of magic (having some warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books to consult helped). I'm hoping with some ink washes and adding some metalics for the trim it will help this pop.

My yellows ended up being a total disappointment and hard to work with. I ended up tossing 3 paints (I vaguely remember trying to paint with yellow and being totally disappointed in my skill......I now realize it's both hard to paint with yellow AND I had totally sub par equipment).

 I've started to add some colour to other interesting bits on the tower. I wanted it to look as if it was poorly painted over the stone, or that the paint has faded.

The problem with this is that it may also just look like I have no idea how to paint. *Sigh*. I do think it is better to have some subtle colour on there instead of bold murals on the outside. I'd like the strongest colour to come from the circle inside.

You can see the terrible coverage of the yellow on the griffon on the second story. This is when I basically gave up with my current paint and decided to toss it.

I was also delayed in my progress waiting for this gem to arrive. Rust effects by Model mates. I can't remember how I stumbled across this link, but the short youtube video had me very interested. I ended up ordering through Firestorm games, as finding a supplier in North America seemed challenging and they offered free worldwide shipping with a minimum order (*cough cough, not hard to be twisted into that*).

I tested on the exposed bands of iron on the top floor. Painted right over black primer I was fairly pleased with how easy and good this looks. It's a fairly thick fluid, but certainly not gloopy or sludgey. I think you can continue to build up the effect, but a single heavy application got the effect I was looking for.

 I proceeded to apply the rust effects to all the iron rings, chains, and the front gate. I aimed to have obvious runoff from the disintegrating iron that is staining other places. Not sure If I'm totally happy with the threshold under the gate, but it will be fine for the time being.

Blightstone Keep: Base coating the stonework (1)

I'm pretty happy with the amount of crafting nerdery I've been doing already this year. It's classic for me (and I assume other folks with lead mountains in their closets) to plan and buy and just not DO. I've been pretty decent about assembly and prepping, but actually pulling it together to get some painting done.....it's a hard start and it's a habit that easily gets broken. Things are looking positive this year so far though (Jan 24 hahahah).

The GW paintjob

Anyway, I've been working on this semi destroyed tower I bought about a year ago during boxing week (2011 Dec). Truth be known it's for a gaming project that may never see the light of day, so I will only talk about it as it gets more realized.

I like this piece because it's got hints of what disaster befell it. There is some sort of ritual magic circle (with all the colours of magic on it) and clockwork. Perhaps the user was attempting to combine the winds to create some sort of high magic? Or perhaps something more malevolent....there are hints of chaos in there too. I must saw that there are far too many skulls (grumble grumble GW). I can handle some architectural skulls, even ones in the walls (which I imagine might be carved stone, similar to the many gargoyles of various european cathedrals), but the scores of skulls in the foundation..BAH!. I meant to fill them in with some putty, but forgot before I had made some progress. Oh well......at least they are mostly hidden in shadow and I didn't pick them out in white, so they are hard to see.

Basic grey craft paint over black primer

Another angle

Post highlights after a black wash

another angle

Apparently I forgot to take photos of the tower after the black ink (I think it was 3 separate sessions to base coat, ink, and highlight). I ended up buying some new ink for this...it was plain artist black ink (Downer and Roley? Decent quality) and after inking it I think I was a bit worried it went too dark. It's possible not too clear in these photos, but it does definitely give more depth and grubbiness to the stone work.  I think it's a bit more obvious on the wood work (which I gave a layer of one of the brown GW inks).