Roll Call: Win an Army, Do Some Good

Santa Cruz Warhammer is spearheading a charity army build to collect money for Doctors Without Borders.  Each dollar you donate enters you in a chance to win the finished army.

Why would you donate?  Oh, how about the chance to win an army built and painted by Dave Taylor, Thomas Wynn, Jawaballs, Ron Saikowski, Mister Justin, Mik and Mike & John from Santa Cruz Warhammer.

Sounds like a good deal to me!  Head over to SCW and donate using the widget in the upper right hand corner.

This is a great cause and a fantastic chance to win what is sure to be an awesome and unique army. This trooper has made his donation; have you?

Friday Quick Tip: Weathering Pigment Bases

Here's another quick tip I picked up from one of my classes at Adepticon.  I admit, at first I was not that excited with the results when Mathieu Fontaine showed this technique for using weathering pigments for basing in his Weathering class.  But once I got home and was able to try it for myself, I found I really liked it.  I think the long drying time for the pigment fixer makes it difficult to fully appreciate in a short class time.  Anyway, here's my first experiment using weathering pigments for basing.

Here are the tools you'll need for the job: one brush for the pigment, one brush for the fixer, Mig Pigment Fixer and some pigments.  I'm using the APJ Weathering Pigments Les sent to me to check out.  (Note these are the older-style APJ containers, check out the new ones in the APJ Store.)  For this quick rust look I'm using Rust 1 and Rust 3 pigments.

First start with a primed base.  I've got a model on this one, but you can just as easily start with a blank base.  (Or make up a whole bunch of bases for the next time you need to create a squad.)  With this base I wanted the contrast of a granite rock, so I dry-brushed a piece of slate I'd glued down before coating the base with fine masonry sand.

Pick up some of the pigments on your brush and tap the brush on the rim to remove the excess.  It is easy to put more pigment on if you need it, but harder to remove.  And I'm clumsy, so if I load up too much I'm bound to get it all over my desk, making a mess.

Give the base a good coat.  Since this is the foundation layer, make it a little heavier and a little more even.  I'll layer more pigment on top later for some variety.

Once you get the pigments down it is time for the pigment fixer.  Dip your other brush in the fixer and then just touch the brush to the side of the base, letting the capillary action of the fixer soak into the base pigments.  You'll probably have to work around the base, touching the brush in multiple places, to make sure it is completely wet.

Here's what it looks like wet.  Don't worry, it will dry lighter and matte.

Once the first layer is dry (maybe a half to an hour or more, depending on how much you used and the humidity), lay down a second color of pigment in some areas of the base.  In this case I'm using the Rust 1 as a highlight.  APJ and other pigment makes often have several colors of rust, so you can go for more depth by using more layers than just the two I'm using here.

There you have it.  I'm no geologist, so I'm not sure what sort of rusty lava flow over granite boulders this planet will be, but the base choices were made to complement the red, black and white color scheme of the model.  (On some I'll be picking up the blue hue of the granite in the plasma weapons.)  But use whatever color you like.  Pigments are available in a wide variety of colors from earth to clay to sulfur and even brighter colors; there's enough choice out there for any color of base.

One last note on clean-up: I rinsed the pigment brush out in my painting water, but I used soap and water in the sink to clean up the pigment fixer brush.  It was still pretty supple after basing 20 models, but I'd keep around a dedicated brush for both pigments and pigment fixer just in case.

Have questions? We've got answers! We want to help! If you want to see something covered here on TPC, let us know at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com or on our Twitter or Facebook page!

On The Table: Sicarius

I had already planned to paint up this Sicarius model once my Angels Sanguine Terminators were done.  After seeing Ron's fantastic version, I'm definitely inspired to get him painted up.  This piece is for a good friend of mine as part of a collection of character models I've been working on for him.  He'll be standard Ultramarines colors, I know it's not exactly exciting for many, but the model is really neat, and I've not painted the scheme in a while so it will be a fun little break.

If you want to see the other models I've done for him check out the links below:

Ultramarines Terminator Chaplain
Ultramarines Scout Sergeant Telion
Ultramarines Chaplain Cassius

I'll be taking photos along the way, so we'll see what sort of tips come from painting this one!  Stay tuned!

Field Report: Raven Guard Sicarius

Ron over at From The Warp has been doing a fantastic set of conversions of Space Marine characters to Raven Guard (bonus Shrike link).  They have all been great, but his latest, Captain Sicarius, is just incredible.  Everything on this model works for me; from the head and hand swaps to the color scheme, it is all just perfect.

Got an article you'd like to see featured here on TPC?  Send us a link at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com and we'll see about getting it up! 

Reinforcements: Angels Sanguine Terminator Squad

After some marathon painting sessions, the last of which I pulled an all nighter, the first squad of terminators are finished for my Angels Sanguine.  I painted the four new models all at once to save a little time along the way, and while I'm sure I did, it started to bog me down some when it came to the details.  Early on the batch painting was showing it's bonus.  The base colors went down quickly and efficiently, even highlights weren't an issue, but when I got to working on the metallic sections things slowed down considerably.  But in the end, I've got four models to complete out the squad!  

The basing was developed more with these models and additional bits and extras were added to the mix in the form of plastic tubing and metal mesh.  All of the models are magnetized for double duty on the 40k battlefield and in the confines of a Space Hulk.  I believe the look I was after was successfully captured with them. 

The genestealer spine was a big bonus in painting the above model.  It gave me a chance to lay out an idea for my genestealer color scheme without committing to an entire model.  I didn't want to just go normal 'stealer colors for them, and wanted to give a truly alien feel while keeping them grounded in a realistic palette.  I went with a VMC Brown Violet base highlighted a few times by mixing successive amounts of VMC Ivory in to a very thin highlight of pure Ivory.  I went back in with Thraka Green and washed everything and when dry, I hit the fleshy bits with Devlin Mud.  For the gory bits I mixed Devlin Mud with some VMC Flat Red and washed it on. 

Each terminator followed much the same 'recipe' of the first terminator I finished.  It was actually a bit hard to get the colors to match just right, mostly because of the difference in the base zenith white/black base coat.  A bit too much white lead to my models being a bit brighter than I had intended.  A few additional washes helped to tone the models back down, but left them extremely shiny.  I had to use painted on matt varnish, watered down of course, to kill the shine. I hope to work out that issue with the next set of Angels I work on. 

The face on the sergeant was a point of concern when I started this project.  I wasn't up for doing a head change to 'fit the fluff' but figured I could give the model a disturbing look to attribute the fluff to.  I went at the face by first painting VMC Ivory and then washed it with a violet I mixed up from VMC Medium Blue and VMC Flat Red and watered down.  I started picking out the details in thin layers of Ivory and eventually washed it very lightly to punch up the contrast with Devlin Mud.  The eye was painted in with a pale blue to give it a cold almost dead look with no pupil to help reinforce the idea.  I'm really really happy with how it all turned out and capped the head off with by painting the hair with VMC German Grey and picking out the details, along with creating some, with pure Ivory.

I can't wait to start on another squad for these guys, the color scheme is just so striking when finished and was actually a lot of fun to paint.  I've got a Sanguinor on the way from Santa Cruz Warhammer that I'm looking forward to painting up for the force as well as some Assault Marines I've had since BoLSCon waiting for an appropriate project to come along, not to mention the rest of the Space Hulk Terminators to finish off!  For the moment I'll be taking a breather and finishing up another piece that I've been holding off on for a while now.

If you've got a question feel free to leave it here in the comments section!  C&C is as always very welcome!