The Painting Shop – Miniature Painting and Modelling

I have been thinking about base a lot recently. Wanted to have a modern urban base or sort for my Sedition Wars miniatures. Been looking at couples of brands and design for base. Just too many to choose from.

Then I thought why don’t I test and make a base of my own. I imagined my base having a steel plating flooring. Took some tamiya 1.5mm plastic cards and trim it to the size of a typical base. Took the base and scratch it on a rough ground surface to create some texture and scratches. Score a shallow groove on it and glue some small dot of 0.75mm rods dot to represent rivets.

Got it painted with Citadel Gunmetal, washed with Bedab Black, followed by dry brushed of Mithril Silver. Wash the edges with tiny amount of Sephia to have the rust feel. And, wow, I got a steel plated base. But the base does feel kind of blank, think I will run through my bits and see what I can enhanced it with. Probably I will use this tested base and enhanced it as an objective marker.

Now that my test seems good, Hmm… planning for some science fiction steel plating corridors terrain or diorama…. Cheers!

Just to sidetrack a little. I been playing this video game Skylanders with my son since his birthday. It a simple kids hack and slash game with characters levels and such. It’s unique feature is where the characters are toy figures where you can place them on a portal (wireless) and the character appears in the game with you controlling it. Its pretty fun with all sort of characters, powers and leveling ups. See the Skylanders site.

Now, as usual, most toy figures are just usually mass painted in a single base colour tone with no shading and details. Some of the figures has a little texture in them, I thought maybe I should give one of these little Skylanders a make over, haha.

I been playing this character called Voodood with my son, so I thought I shall give him a make over and have him painted to that he goes into battle with honor and style. Besides, the animated character in the game looks better than the toy, haha. So here goes, this is my Skylanders Voodood…

So much for the distraction, now back to my Dark Eldar Wyches, Sedition war and another diorama… SO many things to paint… oh no… Cheers!

Was packing up my painting table the other day, when I reflected at the state of my current painting brushes. I am currently using Games Workshop detail and fine detail brushes for most of my painting.

So far, I must say, the brushes are doing a great job and line works and details with the brushes are great too. Come to think of it, since my last post in Oct 2010 which I mentioned about upgrading to GW brushes, it was like a year passed already. Time flies when you are painting… And the state of these brushes are still good and sharp tipped. I guess it all contributes to taking care of the brushes, after all they are also kolinsky bristles as well. Nowadays usually and faithfully, I would wash my brushes with shampoo after each paint session. I guess the shampoo help to keep the bristles clean and conditioned, as they are real hair after all.

Of recent, I been wanting to the try the popular kolinsky sable series 7 brushes from Windsor and Newton. They have 2 types, the normal series 7 range and the series 7 miniature range. The different is in the length of the bristles, where the miniature range having a shorter one. I am tempted to get the 2 types to try out the feel of it.

Meantime, anyone have any experience or comments about using Windsor and Newton series 7 brushes, or difference between series 7 and series 7 miniature? Cheers!