Friday Quick Tip: Ork Trukk

Today's Quick Tip is more of a declaration; a result of a realization I recently put together. The light shone down and all the past little tid bits and pictures I've seen in the past suddenly came together into a realization.

The Ork Trukk is the best model that GW makes.

Here's the thing: in an army there's all sorts of fighting vehicles and most of them are well represented. But when an army goes to war there are probably just as many support vehicles as there are tanks. And army needs trucks-- trucks of all kinds. And while there are big tanks, little tanks, grav tanks, open-topped tanks, APCs, and all sorts of self-propelled artillery pieces made by GW there aren't very many trucks.

Luckily the Ork Trukk is extremely flexible and makes the basis for everything from four wheels to ten. Here are a few Trukks that have inspired me in my latest creation.




Dave Taylor's Ork Trukk reversion was one of the first conversions that started me thinking about the potential of the Trukk. Dave's vision was to create the original Imperial Guard truck that was the basis for the looted Ork Trukk. He's since started a three part tutorial and set of downloadable templates for this conversion.




Another fantastic Trukk conversion is Warboss GargDregga's Tanker Trukk. Multiple Trukk kits and extensive plasticard and tube was used in this incredible piece.




The Trukk is good for more than 6 wheel trucks, too. By inverting the axles, removing one of the sets of rear tires and cutting down the overhang you get a real nice car chassis. kenshin138's hotrod styled Trukk is a fantastic testament to how flexible and recyclable the Ork Trukk kit pieces are.




Here's the basis of the car conversion. In this case I've mid mounted the engine for my Formula Waaaghn project. Movement of the gas tank is optional, the key is to mount the axles upside down to get a lower vehicle. For this car I also cut the frame to fit the axles since it was too high below the frame and too low when mounted above.

To balance the ride height adjust the angle of the front axle to get the rank that look to you. Don't glue the wheels until the axles are glued and secured. Once the axles are set you can rotate the irregular shaped Ork wheels to get and even balance on the car, so that each of the wheels sit on the road evenly.

I'll do a full write up on my car at a later date, but after building a few normal Trukks I just can't see anything but all sorts of new conversion ideas. Besides all sorts of military support vehicles, I can't wait to build an El Camino Trukk!

What other ideas are out there for truck-based vehicles? And if you think there's a model as flexible as the Ork Trukk, let me know!

A Years Worth of Tips

As of this past weekend, TPC has had the Friday Quick Tip running for an entire year, without interruption! I don't have to tell you how rough it can be to come up with a tip to post every single week of the year. There are a lot of late nights and hectic tip brainstorming days, even a few weeks where we were well planned out and ahead!

In the end it's extremely satisfying to have such a well of tips for the community to draw from and to help guide new and old painters alike to new techniques and methods.

And as cliche as it sounds, this wouldn't be possible without you, the reader. You guys are the driving force behind it all. With the great ideas and questions you submit to us at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com, to your insight in Ask the Corps, it's all about building community and putting out the best and most in depth information we can.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported what we're trying to do here on TPC. And to all the Corpsmen (and women!) out there, followers or not, thank you for reading.

Friday Quick Tip: Tree Templates

When it comes to trees, I've always wanted to do a set that were extremely functional. And when I put together my Autumn Foothills mini-board, I had the chance to make that wish a reality. When I started thinking about how to go about them I came up with a great way to make them look great and remain game friendly by using Woodland Scenics Fantastic Trees.

Some of what you'll need:

• Woodland Scenics Trees
  
• MDF
• White Glue
• Sand/Ballast
• Lichen/foliage
• Flock/Static Grass
• Spackle
  
• Paints
• Tools
  

To start off I used a piece of paper to rough out the size and shape of the template I was going to create. I know it seems like a step you might be able to skip, but for my foothills, space was a commodity I wasn't rolling around in. So using this method helped me be sure my templates would fit the table with ease.


Using the template made from paper I traced its outline to the MDF board using a sharpie. When cutting my templates I usually use a Hand Saw
to rough cut my shapes and a Rasp to help the curves along.


Using a mouse sander I put a nice bevel to the edge to help give it a more 'finished' appearance. I also use the Rasp to rough this step out.


Place your trees and glue them down using some white glue or super glue. Once dry, remove the trees from their trunks. It will make the base much easier to work with from here out.


I used spackle to create a root system and sand to rough the surface. When making the spackle roots, use your forefinger and thumb to squeeze the spackle into the board and drag it along to create 'veins' along the roots. Sharpen the details using a sculpting tool of some sort when dry. After creating the roots, paint on some white glue and sand much of the surface for a nice rough texture.


I used a Bestial Brown color followed by a quick drybrush of Snakebite Leather and an even lighter drybrush of Bleached Bone for the trunks and trees. Rocks were picked out with Codex and Fortress Grey, again drybrushed with Bleached Bone. Woodland Scenics Turf was also added after painting.


All in all the finished product follows much of the same conventions as my hill tutorial. I highly suggest you check that out as well if you've got a bit of time on your hands!!

One upgrade you may consider for this project would be to magnetize your tree trunks. I did this by using a magnet in the trunk and in the tree (making sure their facing the right direction!!) and hiding them using some Testors Contour Putty and sculpting it to fit the details in the tree trunks. They do work just fine as they come though, and I highly suggest the Woodland Scenics Trees to anyone looking for a quick effective forest!

So I've shown my favorite method for creating forest templates, what's yours?

LBursley's Wash Recipe - Released!

 

After running into a legal wall (ACMI), Les has decided to release his inexpensive wash recipe to the public to help the community since he can no longer offer them via an online shop. (Edit: Les has worked out the legal issues and offers his full range of washes on AwesomePaintjob.com for those without the time or patience to make your own!)

(Edit: The Video is no longer available, but the recipe still works!)



WASH RECIPE:

You will need:

• Distilled Water (grocery store)
• Liquitex Matte Medium
  
• Liquitex Flow-Aid Fluid Additive
  
• Plastic Squeeze Bottle
• Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artist's Ink
• Large Plastic Squeeze Filler Bottles
• Recipe notebook so you can write down custom mixes

All recipes use 1 oz bottles. Adjust to whatever size you decide to go with.

Preparation:

• Fill 1 filler bottle with Matte Medium, the other with a 10:1 Distilled Water and Flow Aid.
• Fill the 1oz Dropper Bottle half way with Matte Medium then fill the rest of the way with the Water/Flow Aid mix leaving a little room for the ink drops so you dont over flow.
• Every bottle uses this combination to start with.
• Shake inks well before adding them to the mix.

Colors:

My mixes will give you a starting point and you can customize to your liking from there.

Soft Body Black: 20 drops Black


Heavy Body Black: 60 drops Black


Parchment: 40 Drops Flesh Tint


Flesh Wash: 40 Drops Burnt Umber


Dark Sepia: 40 Drops Sepia


Blue: 40 Drops Rowney Blue


Green: 40 Drops Dark Green


Purple: 40 Drops Purple Lake


You can mix the ink colors to make infinate amounts of custom colors for your own purpose. Never buy washes with limited color choices. You now have the recipe to the most flexible wash production that you can do at home.

Enjoy! -Les

Friday Quick Tip: Weathering Washes

It's still Friday on the West Coast!!! And, I have a good one from our good buddy Les on making your own quick weathering washes. Check it out:

Friday Quick Tip: Wet Dry Sandpaper

As many of you might know by now, I've taken some baby steps into the world of green stuff sculpting. It's a very fickle medium that takes a lot of what you might have learned in clay sculpture and turns it on it's head. The tools are the same, but different at the same time. The methods you need to employ, all the while seeming as though they are familiar, are a different beast entirely! This has led me to solicit help from my friend CMDante on the subject. In his Tutorial he has shown a lot of great tools and tips to get everyone off and running. One of those tools is Wet Dry Sandpaper!

I had a heck of a time figuring out just where I should get this essential sculpting tool. Turns out, Wet Dry Sandpaper is a common automobile painting and touch up tool! So I headed out to my local PepBoys and picked up a set of 1500 and 2000 grit sand paper for about $8. This set should last me quite a while, and gives me extra options for smoothness.


Cutting off a small square and picking out a good project to show it's worth on, I got to work. My original test was on a piece I can't tell you about just yet ( it's for my Dakka Painting Challenge entry! ), but luckily I had the test model I started working on last week!


As you can see, there is a bit of a dent in the shoulder pad. I want it to be a bit smoother with a more 'finished' look. So I got to sanding it down.


Use the sandpaper lightly as you start and press a bit more as you find the spots you need worked out more. I suggest folding it to fit the section you are working it. Be sure to pull back and see how your sanding is going every so often as you don't want to wear it down too much and damage other areas of the model!


Here you see the results of my initial sanding effort. The lighter areas are raised spots that caught the sandpaper with the darker green areas being recessed still even after a good bit of sanding. I highly suggest you start off like this before moving onto the next step as you can really get a feel for what needs to be filed down more.


Since I don't want to be here all day, I broke out a regular file and used the spotting from above as a guide as I worked the raised areas down and made the putty flush. You really need to watch what you are doing when filing down an area like this. Pull away after every two or three strokes of the file to see where you stand. Then make a decision on angle and hit it again. Do these extremely lightly as this can easily destroy all of your hard work!


To finish the putty off I hit it again with the 1500 grit sandpaper to smooth out any rough file marks that were still showing. A fast light pass over the entire area should do it, but again, it's up to you to watch your progress and pick out the areas that need more attention than others.

All in all, a super easy tool to use with amazing results. You can say bye-bye to all those seams and rough edges from here on out! And don't limit your use of the sandpaper to just putty! You can use it to get rid of mold lines on plastic and metal models too! I'm specifically reminded of a tip Lunchbox ( a golden demon winner ) shared once, that he uses wet dry sandpaper to remove those difficult and pesky mold lines on his models, like in between a Space Marines fingers.

I'd love to hear others experience in smoothing joins and lines in Green Stuff. If you've got a tip, we want to hear about it!

Sculpting Basics I

A Guest Article by CMDante

Following his recent acquisition of some colour shapers, coupled with his first forays into sculpting with Green Stuff, Grey_Death was kind enough to ask me to contribute a tutorial or two on sculpting. Having never written a proper tutorial before, I hope you will all forgive the inevitable mistakes I will make along the way!

This tutorial will cover some old ground and hopefully a few new insights as well. First, the old ground:

Tools

There are a few core sculpting tools that all sculptors should have. Below is a list of the tools I use along with their uses (See image 1. below).

• 1. Pin Vice - Used to drill holes for pinning and creating holes (for mesh, gun barrels etc).
• 2. Jewelers Files - Nice, small files for filing down plastic/resin/metal/cured putty. Good for making sharp edges in cured putty.
• 3. Clay Shapers - Used to shape putty and smooth surfaces. I mainly use the white chisel headed one to do most of the shaping and smoothing, with the bullet headed one being used for concave shapes and creating folds etc.
• 4. Metal Sculpting Tools - These are from a cheap Gale Force 9 set. The tool with a half round on one end and a blade on the other gets used a lot to blend putty into other surfaces (cured putty/resin/metal/plastic etc). The pointed tool is used to create fine details and small holes, hair, rips etc.
• 5. Scalpel - Used to cut plastic/resin/cured putty into shape and to remove any excess putty.
• 6. Paper Clips - Used as pins for pinning figures and as armatures for sculpting over.

Above is also a list of a selection of putties I use for sculpting (Image 2.):

• 1. Fimo (Champagne) - I haven't actually used this yet, but it comes highly recommended. A good material to practice with as it doesn't cure unless baked. When working with it, keep your work sealed in a jar in a shaded area to avoid any dust getting on the putty, or any accidental smudging. (Staedtler Fimo Classic Polymer Clay)
• 2. Green Stuff - The putty of choice for most sculptors. A 2 part epoxy resin that requires mixing before use. Can be mixed in different ratios in order to achieve a variety of sculpting times. The more yellow, the softer the mix will be and the longer the curing time, the more blue, the harder the mix will be and a shorter curing time. Knead thoroughly to ensure no lumps of yellow or blue otherwise they will ruin the finish as they won't cure properly.
• 3. Brown Stuff - Like Green Stuff, but a much firmer putty and more solid when cured, making it better for doing hard edged surfaces and mechanical parts.
• 4. Milliput - Super Fine - Used to bulk work on bases and also for making "Milliput washes" (milliput mixed with water), which are used to fill small impurities in resin and metal sufaces, and also in putty work. Washes can also be used in a thicker mix to fill small gaps and seams in sculpting and conversion work.
• 5. 1200 Grit Wet Dry Paper - Not a putty, but another tool used in conjunction with the putty. Used to sand surfaces to get a super smooth finish. I tend to sand all surfaces with this before painting in order to have a perfect surface to paint over. When sculpting, it can be used to sand out and seams and get a flush surface between putty and plastic/resin/metal/cured putty.

Now that, that is out of the road, on with the sculpting!

The Subject

The subject for this tutorial is a Victrix plastic Napoleonic Frenchman (example 1. below) which I am converting into a Rogue Trader. As the Victrix figures are a good deal smaller and thinner than Games Workshop's plastic figures, I will be using Green Stuff to bulk the figure out and to sculpt new feet in order to add some height to the figure.


The Sculpting

As can be seen in example 2 above, I have started by creating a rough base shape to work over for the feet. This was created by removing the original figures feet and putting two paper clip pins into the legs, running all the way down into the cork base. The rough shape of the feet was then built up over the paper clips and left to cure overnight. I always use a cork as a holder for sculpting projects as it is easy to push the pinned feet of models into, providing a nice large surface to hold onto that keeps your fingers away from the putty while you work on it. Champagne corks are best as they are nice and wide and have a nice flat, wide base to provide a stable surface for your work to stand on when you leave it to cure.


Putty is then added to the base work (See example 1 above) in order to add volume to the shape along with some basic details. The putty is then shaped and smoothed to form the shape of a booted foot (See example 2 above). No folds or creases are added on the boot at this stage as I find it easier to add these seperately once the shape is formed and cured. Where the freshly applied putty meets cured putty from the previous stage, the edges are smoothed into the previous layer using the half round end of the metal sculpting tool (See example 3 above). This is done with the metal tool as clay shapers aren't hard enough to press the putty flush, therefore leaving a fine seam that can show up in painting. The result of the smoothing with the metal tool can be seen in image (See example 4 above).


I began bulking out the legs, applying putty to one area at a time in order to provide room to work (1). The edges were smoothed with a metal tool before the bullet tipped clay shaper was used to add some folds around the knee and groin (See example 2 above and 1 below).


There are a few small imperfections in the putty on the thighs (See example 1 above), these will be filled with a milliput wash later and then sanded smooth. Putty was then applied to bulk out the jacket, pressed on into shape first with fingers (See example 2 above). The putty was then shaped as above, using the chisel tool to shape and smooth, the metal half round to smooth the edges into the plastic, and the bullet tool to create some light folds (See example 3 above).


As you can see, there is still a lot of work to do before the figure is finished, there is still a fair bit of shaping and volume to be added, along with the all important details, however these will be covered at a later time in a future tutorial on sculpting details.

Thanks again to Grey_Death for the opportunity, and thank you for reading. I hope that whether you are just starting out at sculpting, or if you have been sculpting for a while now, you will have picked up something of use here.

Cheers,

Dante