Tutorial: Craters and Explosions (Part Two)

As a follow up to Part One of the Craters and Explosions tutorial, here is how I paint it.

After priming the pieces black, I drybrush grey over it. I used VMC Dark Blue Grey, but the likes of GW Codex Grey work fine. I use grey just because my marines are Urban-themed and the board Alex and I play on is also Urban (and he's building a new, sturdier, one. Here's his first post if you missed it).





Next I drybrush a coat of VMC Flat Earth (GW Graveyard Earth works great here too). From here I'm going to just going to be putting down muddy colors that would be under the ashy urban surface mimicking what would happen if a shell fell down and thrust the ground underneath upward.





After that I drybrush on some GW Bestial Brown...





Then a light coat of GW Desert Yellow for a primary highlight.





Finally I put a very light drybrush of GW Bleached Bone on the crater just to make the piece "pop" a bit more.




And a size comparison with a Space Hulk Terminator:




So that's it. If you want to make a more smoky explosion, you can just use Steel Wool and paint a bit of fire on the bottom. I'll probably pick some up and do a tutorial when there is a bit of lull in my schoolwork.

Tutorial: How I Paint Space Hulk Terminators

A slew of how-to's and tutorials coming your way this week it seems! First the part one of the Craters and Explosions (with part two later this week) and now this one. I've really been getting stuff done lately, feels good!

Now to the tutorial...

Conventional painting tutorials are generally very bland and monotonous. They attempt to show you the method of painting (which, of course, has its own merit) but most fail to explain why steps were chosen and why things were painted the way they were. Everyone has their own painting style and instead of just showing you how I paint my Space Hulk Terminators, I’ll explain why I chose the paints and techniques I did in an attempt to give you a new point of view when tackling a new mini.

First I must note that this technique was developed to be quick and conducive to bulk painting (thus the inks and washes). Anyways, lets begin!

Step one involved a simple base coat of Mechrite Red slightly watered down. Watering down your paints, especially foundation paints, is incredibly important because otherwise they will be very thick and ruin details on your model. Granted my method doesn’t really make the most of the incredible details on the models, I still urge you to water down your paints slightly. I chose Mechrite because, like all the foundation paints, it provides a very solid base color and only requires one coat.


Step two I used some Brown Caligraphy Ink and washed it over the model. Caligraphy Ink, unlike normal hobby inks, is not water proof. This means if you get water on the model, the ink will begin to run. On that same token, these inks were free because I found them sitting in my basement so I made the most of them. If you have Caligraphy inks you can counter-act the fact that it’s water-proof by mixing in some Matte Medium. I failed to do this on one of the later steps and you’ll be able to see what happens when you don’t. I chose a Brown Ink over, say, Black because Browns tend to deepen Reds more whereas Blacks tend to just dull models down.



Step three involved a drybrush of 50/50 Mechrite Red to Blood Red. This simply serves as a primary highlight.


Step four is a secondary highlight of a straight Blood Red drybrush. At this point the brightness of the Blood Red is meant to accentuate the edges and provide a nice contrast with the browns in the recesses. The armor begins to come together at this point.


Step five is a Baal red Wash. I do this to to not only blend the highlights together but also to emphasis the reds in the model.


Step six is a final highlight and is a very light drybrush of 60/40 Blood Red to Fiery Orange. This final highlight provides a noticeable contrast between itself and not only the recesses but the red of the armor itself. I wanted the models to be noticeable and eye-catching on the Space Hulk board so this highlight serves to do just that.


Now here, step seven, is where I screwed up. I apply Red Caligraphy Ink here in order to deepen the reds and give the model a slight gloss. However, I failed to mix in any Matte Medium and as you will end up seeing in step nine, the red starts to show through a bit.



Here’s where the detailing begins: step eight. I decided to paint any metallic silver parts first as that seemed to be the most prominent color on the model other than red (obviously). I used Boltgun Metal for this, but Chainmail would suffice as well.


Step nine involved base coating any gold or parchment colored surface with Bestial Brown. I decided on Bestial as it is, more or less, a bridge between Snakebite Leather (good for golds) and Graveyard Earth (good for parchments). I decided on using this middle-road color in order to maintain some uniformity over the model and helping to blend the details in a little to make them more subtle (and thus increasing the appeal of the red armor on the table). Next I drybrushed any gold surface over with Shining Gold (for obvious reasons) and then a very light highlight drybrush of 2:1 Shining Gold to Mithril Silver. This just accentuates to extreme edges producing a more vibrant gold color. The Purity Seals were simply painted in Bleached Bone with a highlight of 50/50 Bleached Bone to Skull White. I then used Black to draw small writing on the seals. Finally, over all of the gold and parchment surfaces, I applied a Gryphonne Sepia wash to them. This, like the Bestial Brown undercoat, serves to tie the different details together (and also adds a nice weathering effect to the parchment).


The final step is to highlight the gun with grey (I did a line highlight of Codex Grey with another Fortress Grey highlight just to make the gun ‘pop’ a bit more) and paint the lenses. What I did (for the eyes) was base coat Dark Angels Green, highlight 50/50 Dark Angels to Scorpion Green and finished the highlight off with a straight Scorpion green line in the front of the lens. To top it off I placed a small Skull White dot in the rear of the eye to simulate a reflecting effect that optics would have.




And that’s about it. When I finish my Genestealers (perhaps next week or so) I will post a how-to on them as well!

Tutorial: Craters and Explosions (Part One)

So here is a very simple method to create craters and explosion effects. I do warn you, though, the tissue paper takes FOREVER to dry completely so if you need a piece of terrain immediately, look elsewhere. Otherwise if you have about ten or fifteen minutes to kill in a day and don't mind leaving it to sit for a few days, this method is ace.

Step one, cut out a frame. It can be anything. I suggest foamcore, but I use posterboard here. You're just using it so you can place the wet paper down and be able to move it around so the material isn't a huge deal.


Step two is to mix some Elmer's Glue with water (it should be mostly water. I'd say about at least 5:1 water:glue)and gather your materials. I have my paste mix, some Toilet Paper, some paper clips, an old pen shell and some super glue.


CRATER
First I'll start with the crater. Simply tear of lines of toilet paper, dip in you paste substance, and create a circle with them on your base. Be sure to slope the outer edges!


Next, if you want, sprinkle on some sand to give it an extra texture.


Bam! Done with the crater construction. Now onto...

EXPLOSION
First glue your pen shell upright. This will be the main debris flying from the impact of the exploding shell on the ground.


Next, bend your paperclips and glue them around your pen shell. These will be the debris strands flying outward from the center of explosion.


Now dip small strands of Toilet Paper into your paste substance and begin to wrap it around each debris strand. Make sure you fiddle with it to make it look chaotic (like an explosion) and be sure if you have any loose strands that they point up in the direction of the debris. It is inevitable that some will fall off and some will need to be adjusted, but if you are patient it's not a big deal. The beauty of the long dry time of this paste is that it directly results in a longer work time meaning you can change anything you want for a long time after the original build.



The next step i don't have a picture for, but just like the "Crater" part of this tutorial, create a small crater directly around the debris strands. It will produce an effect as if a shell just hit the ground causing a crater and all the crap flying upwards is the displaced ground.

Now sprinkle sand on it. This will further add to the effect of ground being blown upward.



Part Two can be found here!

Quick Barbed/Razor Wire Tutorial

To fit in with my Urban Space Marine theme, I wanted to put some barbed or razor wire on bases. Thing is, I had no idea how to do it until I got this idea after looking at GW's Razor Wire that they sell... taking soldering wire and twisting it. Here's my method:

1) Grab hand-drill and solder (powered drill just puts out too much torque and it's hard to gauge where your wire is. I twisted mine too much sometimes that it just stretched and broke)


2) Cut soldering wire and fold in half. Put the folded end into the drill and secure tightly.


3) Tie loose ends of soldering wire to a fixed position (I use my lamp post) and begin to twist. It is very important you pull the solder so it is nice and tight.


4) Twist until you get it looking roughly like this picture.


5) Cut it from your fixed position and take the end of a brush or pen and begin wrapping it around.


6) There we go... now to make it look like barbed or razor wire (whichever you prefer).


BARBED WIRE

Take pieces of solder and wrap it twice around equidistant (or whatever your eye thinks is equidistant... this is a poor example of that :p) points and then cut so a small bit hangs off each end. Do this as many times as desired.


RAZOR WIRE

Take a hobby knife and carefully cut about half-way into the solder and then twist your knife upwards to get the shard to stick out. I do this all around the wire and it looks pretty good (in my opinion at least).



All you half to remember is be careful not to overdo it. It's a really easy and fast method and works great. Just remember that when you're done you must coat the wire in superglue to make sure it's nice and hardened, otherwise your hardwork will fall apart!

Hope you enjoyed this short tutorial and expect more in the future!

Nova Cannon Tutorial

Hey everyone, Kevin here. I decided to do a tutorial on how I build a Nova Cannon for the new Leman Russ Eradicator. Obviously since there is, at the time of writing this, no Eradicator model we have to use our imagination. My idea is a basically a slightly longer and tapered version of the demolisher.

Here we go!

First, gather all your materials:
-Leman Russ Battle Cannon Turret
-Fuel Barrels (two of the SAME halves)
-A Pen
-Hobby Knife
-Hobby File
-Glue



Take the two halves of the barrel. You will see these overlapping notches:


And cut them/file them down. They just prevent the two halves from going together.


Now glue 'em! See those gaps? We'll deal with them later!


If you look at the tops and bottoms of this barrel now, you will see this weird circle jutting out which will prevent us from gluing anything flat down onto it:


Just cut them off


Next, grab your Battle Cannon and cut as shown (I suggest gluing the two halves together first. It seems odd, but it prevent you from accidentally bending the plastic out of shape):





File that smaller piece down so it is perfectly flat. Ok, good. Now take that barrel we made earlier and glue her on the end of this piece like so:


Now take the end of the original Battle Cannon turret and cut the end right off





Then cut this piece even smaller, so we only have the two elongated air holes left:


Now glue this to the barrel (I hope you can see where this is headed by now?)


Ok...almost there...

Grab your pen. Now Kevin, you are probably asking, why the hell do I need a pen? Well what you're going to do is take everything out of it, the ink think, the ball head, everything. What you're left with is a round tube of plastic.
And guess what?


It fits into our turret!


Eye-up how big you want the end. Since it is a short range cannon (36") obviously make it rather short!



Ok, that's it for the gun, sort of. Remember those gaps on the barrel? Let's fix 'em up a bit...
Roll up two small things of greenstuff and plop them in the middle of the gap.


Then, using your sculpting tool (your finger works fine) spread it out. Remember to moisten whatever tools you're using so the greenstuff doesn't stick to them!


Assemble your turret....


And now you have a Leman Russ Eradicator, congrats!



That is just my personal take on the turret, and I really hope some more tutorials/ideas pop up as more and more people get their hands on the new Imperial Guard codex.

Hope you guys enjoyed this little tutorial!