Musings: Let us talk about the weather(ing)

Welcome to the second iteration of "Musings". The topic for today is the weathering that I did on my Sicaran Battle Tank that was posted a few days ago. I chose to focus mainly on the dirt, dust and grime for this post since the weathering for the paint is mainly in the paint job itself (gotta love "Iron Hands recipe, by FW). The amount of work that can get done by someone just asking me to make something like this.

Note, this blog was meant to drop earlier but.. The gaming news have been quite clogged up due to something in the U.K.. a reopening of some sort.

And now, the weather:

As mentioned in the intro, this post will focus on the dirt, dust and grime on my Sicaran. The sponsons and part of the main gun barrels were weathered with a sponging technique.

Materials used:
   * Smoke wash (Vallejo)
   * Mixed Weathering powder made from dry pastels (Dark/light/mid tone-earth and black)
   * Light Earth Weathering powder(Forgeworld)
   * Dark Earth Weathering powder (Forgeworld)
   * Burnt Umber oil paint (W&N)
   * White/Mineral spirits, low odour
   * Matte Varnish (water based, store brand)
   - Supplies listed in the previous Musing blog not listed here

In the mixing "bowl": Mixed weathering powder and a dot of smoke wash. Right: Supplies!

Starting from a similar point as last time (but with and added "grille-bit" to serve as a track piece in lieu of a proper track piece), the entire model was given a black base coat. Following the base coat, pewter rub'n'buff wax was applied to the left side as a solid coat while it was just drybrushed on to the right side. The grille got a drybrushed covering of Formula p3 Pig Iron. After the base coats had dried properly (hours and hours...) a black wash was given to the coated left side while the drybrushed right side received the "Iron Hands" treatment.

The coated area received two coats of varnish (for reasons to be explained) and a wash of smoke, powders, a drop of varnish and water was mixed up and applied in the fashion seen above. I do this as a base colour for the rest of the weathering process.

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Time to focus on the coated side. Thinned burnt umber oil paint was applied (1) and while this was still wet, Dark Earth weathering powder was "pushed" into the oil paint to give it texture. A small amount of Light Earth was mixed into the Dark Earth and the process was repeated (3).

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To finish the coated side, a small amount of Light Earth powder was blended into the existing coat using a drop of mineral spirits. Note: keep the liquid amount to a minimum. Or splash it on and get miserable and have to redo it all (sadly speaking from experience here...).

On the Iron Hands side, Dark Earth powder and white spirit were mixed in a similar manner to the oil-and-powder previously mentioned (2). This was later given a dusting of Light Earth and blended together with a mix of Light and Dark powder (3). Then a small amount of white spirits was applied to affix the powder to the wall.

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On to the grille. The same "oil-wash" as previous was applied in the recesses of the grille followed with a sprinkling of the mixed powder (1). More powder (Light and Dark) was added on and pushed into the oil paint to create a mottled, muddy effect (2).

Excessive powder got dusted off (and added to my "mixed bowl). the grille got clean up a bit on the raised parts and a subsequent dusting of graphite powder was rubbed on to create the effect of metal shining through after wear. Graphite dust like this is obtained by more or less...scraping a pencil and can be used to create worn metal effects on tanks, gun barrels and girlfriends... I mean, whatever miniature surface you can think of. It can be messy to apply though.

I hope this post have been helpful. This is by no means an be-all-end-all post, and the colouring can of course be changed depending on the colouring and dust type you are after.

//Nevindar

Heresy and the ETL (Gallery post)

Currently participating in the E Tenebrae Lux challenge over at the Bolter and Chainsword forums and... This is my completed first vow! Fancy that eh. More reinforcements to my X Legion Astartes "Iron Hands" in the shape of Castrmen Orth, his cyber-familiar puppy and his pimped out  Sicaran Battle Tank.

Yes; that is, in fact, the old Necromunda Enforcer Cyber-Mastiff.

Time to sort the second vow! The Iron Hands grind ever onwards. Bow before the Tenth, traitor!

//Nevindar

Musings: A moment to wax lyrical about.... wax?

Welcome to a new segment for this blog. There might be more of these, but this one was born from a question I got regarding the usage of gilding wax for my miniatures (this is a product I started to use with my 30k Iron Hands). There could just have been a short and quick answer to this but.. If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing! Well, on to the main act of the evening, time to wax lyrical about.... wax (also there's a "treat" at the end).

Gilding wax is a product used for adding a metallic sheen to a surface and it can be polished when dry. I use it for miniatures like infantry and vehicles, but it can equally be used to enhance wood or other materials with a metallic look (also wallpaper, but my girlfriend hasn't noticed yet so...shhhh).

Above are pictured the "main items" I used in making this hobbyist approach using these waxes.
1: Cire a Dorer gilding wax, Tin and Renaissance Gold colours
2: Burnt Umber oil paint and low odour thinner/mineral spirits
3: Forge World earth and rust coloured pigments (although other pigments might just work fine)

A spare piece of wall was sacrificed for this blogpost [insert mournful wail as applicable] due to having different textures and large, flat areas.

Doomed wall, we hardly knew ye.

From the left: Solid Coat, Drybrush, "Iron Hands recipe"-brushing

From the left: Solid Coat, Drybrushes

After the black primer had cured, the two different waxes got applied. The time it takes for these waxes to dry is the downside with this method (hours upon hours..), but the downtime can always be used for other things, like other miniatures, reading or trying to get the wax off the wallpaper. A thing to note is that  the wax is soluble using the mineral spirits I mentioned earlier, so keep that in mind when using this.

Drybrushing with a wax can be done with the usual "apply paint-wipe on cloth/paper"-technique, but bear in mind that it is a good idea to practise on a test miniature before "going live", the covering capacity of these waxes are high.

From the left: "IH"-mid wash, "IH"-after final wash, Oil paint and weathering powder "mud"

The first image above pictures the tin wax on the side panel after half of the "Iron Hands Recipe"-washes are done (yellowysmoke-wash followed by purple wash splotches)- The second image is taken after a green wash got applied in splotches (most probably the cause of all the green tinted Iron Hands out there) and then a covering wash of a smoke coloured wash. Sadly it is hard to showcase the reflective effect of the metal wax when photographing these miniatures, and certainly so with my current photo setup.

The last picture shows the covered surface after the wax had dried and a coat of varnish got applied. After this, thinned burnt umber oil paint and weathering powders were applied to make a muddy effect.

I currently use the gold wax as an accent on my minis, but it too can be used to great effect. On the right is the base coat of gold. The middle picture shows gold with a black wash and the last picture shows the gold after both the black and a sepia wash.

As I promised, a "treat" at the end. A wip photo of what is currently on my desk. All of the above techniques feature on this Sicaran Battle Tank from Forge World. 

Really need to finish this tank...

I hope you, the reader, enjoyed this. It might have been a bit brief but these waxes are quite easy to use after practise.

//Nevindar

This blogpost is Heresy (Gallery post)

This blogpost is to showcase my Iron Hands "Warhammer 30k" army so far. It has been a joy to paint these minis and a lot of new techniques learned (more on this in a future post). The green tinge is still on these minis, although this is more of a lighting problem when taking the photos rather than them being mainly green.

Without further ado, rollcall!

First up, my Iron Hands Iron Father. Lovely mini mounted on an arm from an Emperor's Children Dreadnought.

Regular Praetor

And the sword that refuses to straighten properly

Iron Hands Immortals (with reinforcements to a legal squad coming to make them a legal squad)

Iron Hands Tactical Support Squad with Volkite Calivers

And a Forge Lord/Iron Father/Techmarine guy!

The Contemptor was featured in the last blogpost.

/Nevindar