Painting Wood Grain, Hussar style

~Painting Wood Grain~

Hussar style.

Well, hello everyone ^^

And welcome to a new, short guide of mine. I've recently discovered a way to paint some quite nice looking wood and thought i'd it with you. I've had troubles painting wood grain for about 2 years now, checking guide from guide, but never really getting it. The thing that was the most trouble for me was the ACTUAL painting of the grains. I mean, how do wood look? Well, let's put it like this, looking at pictures of it didn't help me at all. I say this: Throw reality out the window and just paint something that looks like wood, for starters, at least.

But how do we get going then?
Let me show you.

Ruined City Bases, Hussar style - Part 2

Continuation on the guide:

Step 5

Now, once it has dried, you will feel like it's just a bit to smooth of a surface to be totaly believable. To solve this, mix some more of the same sand + PVA as before, and smear it on in bigger lumps at chosen locations. This will give a more bumpy and realistic look to the base later on. Once you've done this it should look something like this:

Step 6

Now, once this is dry it should look something like this (I've also cut up some of the thinner guitar wire and put it in the pole, simply attached with a drop of super glue) :

Now, once it look like this we should start checking where our models feet are going to be, and in most cases (especially in the case of metal models) drill a hole for one of the feet to pin it to the base. I do theese with all my models though, seeing as this raises them of the base a bit and works against that sunk-in feeling. Unles you want this, of course. Here's the model i'm putting on this base. A lone, worn Cadian survivor:

But, once we've checked where he's supposed to go, it's time for the texture.

Take some PVA glue and mix it up with water, in a 2:1 mix. Spread this all over where you want the sand etc. If you want some on the brick, fine, put it there, just try to think about how dirt stacks up around objects. For a sense of realism, some should be attached to the concrete to, but it's not necessary. I've done this though, around the "light-pole" bottom. Altough this doesn't show in this picture, (Sorry...) it wil in the later ones.
Once this is finished, I had something like this:

The hole will be covered up now, but try and poke it up while you've put the stuff on.

The exact way I get this nice varied sense of stuff on the base, is by simply doing this:

I use three different kinds of base material on my base:
GW Small slate (Found in their 40K basing set)
GW Modelling sand (The one with the almost round grains)
Common, sandbox sand.

After you've spread out the glue, I spread out some of the slate. I try to keep this concentrated on some areas, like around the concrete and brick, while at the same time putting a few around the rest of the base. After this, we spread SOME of the GW-sand on. Just a little bit though, to add variation. To much of this I find start looking unnatural. After this, we simply drop some sand all over the rest. Just simply cover ALL of the base in this, it will only stick wher you have the glue, and once it' on you can just pour back/blow off the excess.

If you want to add more bumps to the base, simply add more PVA+water mix on it where you want the "bump" to be and do the same on this.

Step 7

Now it's time for the model to be mounted. Pin it on the base and attach him with super glue. Once he's there, we go to the final stage. Mix some PVA with water in a 1:6-8 mix. Now, this will turn the PVA into something simillar to milk, looking something like this:


Now, this we will spread all over the basing material (sand/slate, that is). This will sink into the recesses and only bind the material to the base. A second coat might be neeed sometimes, simply check this by rubbing your finger against a part of the base. If stuff comes of, go at it again.

Step 8

Now, admire your spiffy base that truly makes your standard trooper *pop*, and look like a propper threatening being! (Still Cadian, but think whatever model you'll put on it ;) )
And throw old Hussar a thought and a thank ^^



Cheers everyone ^^

Gloria Imperator, the Firstborn Stand!

Ruined City Bases, Hussar style - Part 1

Well, it's been asked of me to make a tutorial for the bases, so, I thought i'd make one ^^
This is about, well, 4/7 of the total progress you do on the base. The rest will be added later ^^
Now, without further ado, I bring you...

Ruined City Bases; Hussar Style - Part 1

Step 1

So, theese are the things i'm going to use to make the base interesting.
We have a brick made out of a piece of sprue (top left) by simply making it somewhat square and then making it look weathered.

In the middle we have what you might see as, "white stuff". This is my home made concrete that will function nicely as a piece of a road. I've made this by using FIMO-clay (A clay that takes shape very easily, perfect for sculpting and is then baked in the oven to harden). The process is quite simple, you just take some baking paper and flatten some of the clay inbetween them to get the desired thickness (mine's around 2-3mm). Now, we need to get this nice "roady" surface to it. To get this, I use a small, small pebble, and simply gently roll this around over the surface of the clay. Try not to press to hard, seeing as this might case to deep indentations. But, ofc, this could look nice as some damage on it, but i'd rather model that myself once it's cured.
Anyways, i've taken this and cut it up into several small pieces, two of them visible here. I'm going to attach theese to eachother with the guitar string lying next to them. How I do this will be explained later.

Under the concrete we have two pieces of plasticard tubing and some more guitar wire, altough this is THIN. This will be attached to the larger of the pieces of concrete to look like somekind of broken of lamp-post or something, with some wires hanging out of it.

Then, at the top right, we have some GW razorwire. Need any explenation? ^^

Step 2:

Theese are the first things we'll concentrate on. This will all be formed into a single entity, and therefore has to be put together before the base is made. Firstly, we'll drill a hole in the side of each piece of concreate to attach the wire into. We glue the wire in with some super glue, and once one end of it is in, you can position the other as you'd like. After this, we drill a hole in the top of the bigger one, to attach the plasticard tubes. We'll now have something like this:


Now, we start weathering up one end of both of the tubes, that being the end that will be upwards. Once both are done, we put a tad bit of PVA-glue (I use something called Allround Glue, but I think they're quite simillar) and push in the thinner of the tubes. Once that's there, we put some more glue on the bottom of it and then slide the larger tube over it, creating the bottom part of it. We'll now have something looking like this instead:

Step 3

Now it's time to start the real work of building up the base. To get the right and proper height and general, well, "movement" on the base I start by building it up with a mix. This mix is quite a simple one consisting of:
PVA-Glue and sand in a 1:1 mix. It's supposed to get to the stage were you find it a bit to hard to work with, then you mix in a drop of water. The sand I use is just your normal fine sand found in something like a sandbox (I got it from mine ;)). Once your done it should look something like this:



This is the consistency I find best. It will be, ever so slightly floaty so it will create a nice "smooth" base to work on. I simply put this on the base, just covering it in a layer of a thickness of your own choice, altough, as of the consistency, it will only get so high before floating out. Therefore be a bit careful so it won't overflow over the sides of the base.

Step 4

Once this is put on, I start putting on the things I want to be slightly sunken into the ground, meaning, in this case, everything shown so far ^^'

Try not to truly submerge this inot the mix, as that would look wierd. The concrete I put so it sits slightly on top. It's own weight will later work it into the base to a proper amount. The brick gets stuck in and the same goes for the razorwire. Once it's all in there, I got this:



If you want the things to be more on top or less sunken into it, just wait a few minutes for it to dry partially, then you can press it into it instead. This won't lead to the same "hugging" from the ground though.

Now, this is as far as i've gotten so far. I'm waiting for this to dry, so the rest of the guide will hopefully be up later tonight. But, if this won't happen, you'll have to wait 'til Thursday evening. I'm going to my GF on Wednesday and visiting her school on Thursday, so I'm away from the modelling, so to speak ^^

Part 2 of the Tutorial can be found here:
http://refraintofsanity.blogspot.com/2010/01/ruined-city-bases-hussar-style-part-2.html

Now, until later, cheers! ^^

Gloria Imperator!