Fighting the Gray Tide (Miniature Painting)

I’ve been dissatisfied with my use of pigments as dried mud. Here’s my latest test.

This is part of a Baneblade model for Warhammer 40k. The Baneblade is the largest tank in the Imperial Guard's arsenal and is a whopping $170 retail. I bring the price up because a lot of people can be intimidated by large expensive models (I should have put something in there for scale). Five years ago, I never would have purchased this model. Okay, five years ago I hadn't played 40k in almost 20 years, so there's that, but I wouldn't have bought a model like this because it intimidated me. I simply didn't believe I had the skill to paint this to any decent standard and it would be a waste of both time and money.

With many large models, I find it best to paint in sections prior to assemble. The grey plastic you see isn't actually glued yet, I will paint it in the same manner as the rest of the tank before I glue it on. Once this section is painted, I'll apply some oil paints to put down some streaking from rain and grime and then I'll start assembling the main body and turret in pieces.

I had originally painted the Imperial symbol in a very colorful yellow transitioning to orange and I though it looked fairly pretty. But this is supposed to be an engine of war, not some Space Marine vehicle given to fanciful colors and other such fripperies, so I painted over it with a very light grey instead. You can still see a little yellow bleeding through, but another layer of grey will take care of that, or I might just let the weathering muddle it up and bit and you won't notice it anyway. Instead of using decals, I'm attempting to paint letters and numbers on whenever possible. I found a nice little set of stencils designed for use with models and it's working out well so far.

Some more progress on the Baneblade tank and there's a chimera troop trasnport next to it for scale. Overall, my intention was to paint a rather drab weapon of war similar to a WWII American tank. But Warhammer 40k decided it was necessary to put a religious shrine on the back of the Baneblade, so here we are.

I think I need to start applying weathering effects prior to assembling all the painted parts. This is the scariest point in a project because I think the paint job is looking pretty good and I'm always afraid weathering will ruin what I have. I'll just have to put on my big boy pants and plow straight ahead.

Because I needed to start another project...

I'm currently working in a factory that makes high pressure medical tubing. Like pretty much all plastics extrusion, the stuff we make the tubes from comes in the form of little pellets that get melted down and pushed through a machine.

Sometimes we have a number of situations where, for whatever reason, the core around which we form the tubes (almost identical to the cord on a weedwhacker) snaps, gets burnt, etc., and the melted plastic ends up pouring out of the machine in large globs...

Brought this puppy home a few days ago, and preliminary tests seem to indicate that despite being on the softish side, Reaper paints seem to stick to it fairly well. So now I'm going to saw the bottom of it flat, and take off the angled part of the upright bit... Maybe cut off some of the right side of the base around that vertical part as well since it's not sitting flat at all...
I'm thinking a water base, with the vertical part being a rock pillar, probably with a scantily clad woman chained to it. I have an ankheg mini that might work for a sea monster if I cut it down a bit and do some aesthetic modifications.

Woohoo! Next round of the Box o' Goodwill is starting soon on the Reaper forum...

(Not like I've ever gotten around to painting anything I've pulled out of any of the boxes I've been involved in so far, but it's fun to participate in - I get more of a kick seeing people pull stuff out that I put in...)

Mad_Jack said:

Sometimes we have a number of situations where, for whatever reason, the core around which we form the tubes (almost identical to the cord on a weedwhacker) snaps, gets burnt, etc., and the melted plastic ends up pouring out of the machine in large globs...

Click to expand...

I had the same thing happen once to a printer at work that spewed out a bunch of black gunk that hardened up...which I use to this day as a black pudding mini.

Johnathan

HeroQuest zombies painted.

And a pair of minotaurs.

Ooh, nice.

I’ve started the weathering process using oils. I’ll move on to pigments next. This will be the first vehicle I’ve ever made without decals. Really going with a minimalist approach.