Paintin'- Nurgle-Nators: fun with translucent colors

So on my favorite subreddit today, someone mentioned they wanted to see more experimental painting.. the point was made that many blogs show you how to duplicate techniques that are already out there, and thats totally cool and shit, but how about trying different things?

Well ladies and gents, thats exactly what the Wargaming Anarchist is about... I have been told I do things in somewhat different (read: wrong) ways, but I have found there is no ONE right way.  I think thats what discourages newcomers to the hobby... being told how to paint, what colors to use, etc... what works for one might not work for another... Heres a great example of how I like to try different things with my models, even if it doesnt always make sense...

So, I have some terminators, who with the aid of my trusty dremel have been thoroughly beat up (Nurgle-ized I call it)... I think I might have gone a little overboard, but hey, whats a 50 dollar box of models between friends if you cant basically destroy them with a power tool???

Heres my first homeboy Nurgle-Nator... I wanted to actually paint him a bright sickly greenish yellow.. I thought out loud, how can I do this?  To myself I said, how can I make my yellow nice and bright?  So far I havent had much luck with yellows, so I came up with a new plan...

First I start by painting on a nice icey blue color... one thing I always tend to do is mix paints on the model when they are wet... so I started with a darker blue, and added brighter blue over it while it is wet... blending the lighter shade onto the higher parts of the model... wet brushing I guess.  Yeah, lets call it that.  Even tho that makes no freakin sense.

I keep adding more white to my light blue mix, brushing it over the model while the coat below is still wet, this blends it and makes it look a little less harsh then straight up drybrushing.  I sort of swipe my brush at it, making wooshing sounds with my mouth with each pass.  WOOSH WOOSH.  This helps me to concentrate.  I think its important to make silly sounds when you paint.  Centers the chi.

Ok, so I work up till I get to just straight white.  All up on that fool.  Now I bust out the blue wash and dabble it on the armor, working to avoid the trim of the armor.  Dabble, dabble, dabble.  I love washin models.

Now I let all the dry.  At this point you are wondering if im fuckin color blind, cause I said I wanted to do this guy in a yellow green... ahhhh, well we need the secret ingredient:

Booyah, yellow ink beyatch... now I got to be honest, I dont think they even make this shit anymore... Im pretty sure you can get inks from other companies, but as far as I know, citadel doesnt offer inks... I dont know why, cause inks are awesome.  Really the whole gist of this write up is to show nifty things you can do with stuff like this.  I like to think of colors in layers on my models... each layer can be translucent, effecting the colors beneath it.  You can get some cool effects this way, and add tons of depth and interest to a model.  Im going to use this to change my blue into a nice green color... why not just paint it green you ask?  'Cuase thats fuckin boring!

Magic color change Terminators!  It kinda reminds me of that blue fundip that turns green when you lick it... or is it green and then turns blue?  Fuck, I dont remember... all I know is that fun-dip is just about the best shit ever.  This is just the yellow ink, painted straight onto the model...

for a minute I almost left him half and half like this... but maybe thats a little too bright?  Might work better for those actual space marines that want a cool split paint job...

Hes lookin Nurgly already.  So now I figured I would paint on some details and whatnot.

YES I USED BRONZE AGAIN.  Fuckin love bronze.  His shoulder pads and little details get some bronze here and there... im trying not to go apeshit with bronze like I normally do.

cables, ribbed (for your pleasure) parts of the joints and other little bits here and there get some light grey.  I think its really important to pick out these little details.  Even without shading if you do parts like these cleanly enough they will make the model look way better... but we are going to wash this'n of course.

Some black wash does the trick... meanwhile I keep painting other details like the skull hanging from his belt, and the gears and shit in the lightening claws.

AWWWWW YEAH MUD TIME.  Ok, just a little bit of Devlan Mud goes on the bronze parts, and a few bits on the armor itself that I want to make darker, the grill in the center of the chest and some under the trim of his leg armor.

this is a shitty pic but you get the gist.  Im feeling pretty good and emotionally attached to this fella now.  His green color is indeed sickly and yellow as I desired.  His claws still look a little too clean tho.  I was tempted at this point to go ahead and go over them with bronze or silver, but fuck it, lets keep em greenish-yellow.  Not a lot of greenish yellow claws out there.  Unless you are a tyranid.  And if you are a tyranid why in the holy dog fuck are you reading this?  You should be out digesting whole planets and what-not.  Furthermore, Tyranids cannot read, so I can insult them with impunity.  Screw you and your little hooved feet, tyranids.

I washed some sepia onto his claws to give them a nice dirty look... even his claws drip with nastyness and filth... one scratch from these bad boys and BAM! Cancer.  Sorry buddy, thats how we Nurgles roll.

So the skull gets some highlighting, then a final wash of sepia since I have the bottle open.  Why not.  Oh yeah, maybe I ought to paint this fuckers eyes.  Nice and red.  Scary.

This picture is way bright, but you get the gist.  So hes pretty much done... maybe I ought to put him on a base or something cool like that... hmmmm

One new terminator to slice fools up in the name of Father Nurgle!  Also handy for chopping vegetables, hedge trimming, and striking down followers of the false Emperor.  Good times.

-DAN

The Plague Grows...

Awwwww yeah.  So I finally met someone here in the remote location of Hoth that plays 40K.  So getting geared up for a game this weekend.  It will be the 3rd game with my new CSM army so im frantically getting my models together.

Up till now I have been sort of building a few pieces here and there, painting a model here and there, but havent really concentrated on getting whole units done... well I guess now is the time... heres some of the units I worked on this week:

NURG-ZERKERS:

Honestly, I really hate the Khorne Berzerker models... nothing against good ol Khorne, I just dont like the way the models look... especially the funny rabbit ears they all have hehe... so here are my Nurg-zerkers... Khorne Berzerkers who musta caught something from their Nurgle friends... they are a jumble of standard marine parts, chaos parts, and my favorite, the chain axe.  Also grabbed a bunch of the hooded dark angel heads cause I think they look bad ass.  I wanted to give them something that signified they were a unit and I thought the hoods was a nice touch...

Of course they are in varying stages of paint, and if you look close, the fella in the middle has a hood made of green stuff... Green stuff, is there anything it cant do?  I ran out of hooded heads and decided to just green stuff them instead of pay another 7 bucks or so for a few heads... good call I think, they came out pretty decent... Also, Im toying around with a new basing idea, the pools of blood and gore is actually a colored hot glue... the hot glue sticks come in different colors and ive found the red to be most useful... what do you think?  Sometimes I think it looks goofy, so maybe the next few wont have quite so much on there, but I wanted some red to signify that they still get down with the blood god.

PLAGUE MARINES:

what more is there to say?  These fuckers are takin me a while since I want to make sure I get every little bit of mold lines and shit that I can.  I spend quite a while just cleaning parts, and im still sure I missed things here and there... well here is the first squad ready to roll... just need some paint.  I hate playing with unpainted models, but I dont have time to get these lookin nice before my game on saturday.

some plasma gunners... the homeboy on the left is using the plasma gun from the space wolves, so hes gettin some extra power from the space wolf rune on there hahaha... Ive found that special weapons are expensive to buy as bits, and the space wolves sprue was a lot cheaper... so some of these guys have SW weapons, but its all good... they probably stole them from some foolish space wolf.  The fella on the right has the appropriately chaos-y plasma.  Its got spikes and shit, so you know its chaos.  Ouch!

As you can see I am very well organized... I have some terminators ready for paint... I just cant decide on a good paint scheme... I actually had two of them painted up but then I decided I hated it, so in the Simple Green they went.... I just cant decide what colors to paint them... I want to mix it up and just not do more brown and green... im thinking black?  Any ideas?  you can also see the last raptor I have to paint up, but going to wait on that so I can do a write up on how to paint em...

Thats it for now, just wanted to do a quick update.  I have a metric shit ton of stuff to construct and paint as usual... the followers of Nurgle hit the table soon!  Im stoked!

-DAN, HERALD OF NURGLE

Resin all the things- Objective Marker!

So someone on Reddit asked how to make an objective marker.  I had never really considered making objective markers, cause well, we usually just use a nice glass bead, or a random model or something... so the need for one has never really come up... then I thought, why not make one, and why not make it so I can produce as many as I need, with my most favorite thing ever: MUH FUCKIN RESIN!!!

Resin is just some fancy liquid that comes in two parts, you mix it, it gets hard, you paint that shit.  Easy as that.  Forgeworld does all of its kits in Resin, and GW is jumping on the Finecast wagon and producing resin models as well... goodbye lead!  I like resin, its lighter, easier to glue together, and when I drop a model, unlike metal, the glued parts dont go flying off everywhere.

Ok, so for my objective marker, I looked around my little room here and decided I would use this nondescript cyclops skull as the main part of my marker.  As you can see I added an eye and a sweet ass horn... Im imagining it will be some sort of golden idol, laying in a pile of rubble.. perhaps the remnants of a chaotic statue of questionable power?  The bust of particularly succesful plagubearer?  A sculpture created by an annoying art student and imbued with mystical forces?  Is it the fucking CRYSTAL SKULL and now each game will be met with a hokey ass jump the shark plot twist like the last Indiana Jones movie??  Who knows!

Ok so I have a 40mm base that I will use.  It has some Nurgly stuff molded onto it with milliput that I have already made a cast of, so Im just going to glue shit on top of it.  Thats how I roll.

Time to cut up some sprue to make "girders" and things... this will be the basis for the rubble that our Golden Skull is laying in... I also have some guitar string laying around so im going to cut that up too...

Now I glue it all on the base with supah gloo... I really just drown that shit in super glue and let it sort of fall naturally onto the base... I throw in some cut up pieces of guitar string, and I even sneak a knife in there, cause it just happened to be sitting here...



Now I get crazy with even more super glue... I add some random blobs of super glue here and there, trying to focus on the bottom most parts of the model... now I grab my coarse ballast and pour it on there.. just like fruit loops in a bowl.

Now we have this mess:

I set that bad boy aside to dry... then get ready for the good shit... the RESIN.

I use Alumilite resin.  Its the bee knees:

And alumilite mold making putty:

I got my little plastic cups, and my popsicle sticks... also I use measuring spoons for resin-ing things... the resin comes with little measuring cups, but I hate them!  The marks are hard to read and they get dirty very easily... these spoons are much easier to clean and give me better accuracy when measuring.  I recommend them.

so first I got to make a mold... I grab equal parts of the modeling putty... I get it as close as I can just by feel, but this stuff is pretty forgiving, so if theres more of one than the other by a little bit it will still work fine...

mix it together, and get it so its a nice even color all the way thru... that looks about right:

Ok, so now its time to squish this shit all over the model... I start by rolling out a long piece of it, and wrap it around the base, pushing it into the model nice and snug, then I use pieces to build up my mold around the rest of the model, taking care to push the putty down into and around the details.. eventually you have this pink cacoon looking thing:

Ok so I got to let that harden... I go and google naked pictures of celebrities for 15 minutes or so.  After a while it should be good to go and I can remove the model from inside... things look good:

RESIN TIME!!  So I measure out the thicker resin first... it takes me a little longer to get it all off of the spoon, so I always throw it in first...

Now the clear stuff...

mix that shit till its got a nice even color... Im careful not to get all crazy with it, stirring too vigorously will add bubbles and we dont want that.  No sir.

Now as I pour it into my mold, I use the popsicle stick to "push" the resin into the details... just sort of spread it on in there... this helps me reduce the amount of bubbles... the little tiny details usually get bubbles in them if I dont make a point to do this... but for rubble and anything nurgle, Im not too worried about it...

I just have to let it set and soon we will have an awesome objective marker.  Sometimes I stare at it, willing it to set faster... this usually doesnt work.

About 15-20 minutes later, its ready to go!  I carefully pull it out of the mold, and there we have a brand new shiny objevtive marker of the chaos gods.  I forgotten golden idol, sitting innocently in the rusted rubble of some far away structure...

A quick paintjob and some weathering powder later, this marker is ready for the battlefield:

This picture is kind of crappy, but I finished off the base with some nice DA green, and in real life, its actually quite nice.  Now that I have a mold I can bust out as many of these suckers as I need.  A few bubbles aside this one came out pretty good I think.  Now I must go retrieve the Idol before the Inquisitors get to it first. 

-DAN

Paintin the Plague...

So in my last post I constructed one of my brand new shiny Plague Marines... now I have to paint this badboy.

Someone asked me what I use for a base coat, sometimes I use spray paint, more often I use my airbrush, I just mix up a color I like and go for it... but today, since im just painting this single model, im going to do the base coat with a brush, the old fashioned way... the way of our forefathers.

So I use mostly Americana brand paints that I buy at the hobby store.  Now, there is a matter of taste and opinion based around what paints to buy.  Yes, there are other paints out there.  They are probably nicer and fancier and make you coffee and give you a reach around and whatever else... but this is what I use.  They are cheaper, I get more, and I dont care if I use a shit ton of it cause its more affordable.  I dont think this has really had much effect on the quality of my painting really... I also use Citadel paints, and I really think you would be hard pressed to guess what kind of paint I used.  Bottom line, experiement, use what you like, and if people give you shit about it thats their problem.  Moooooooooooooving on...

I mixed up a nice bright green using an off white and bright green.  I add some water onto the brush to make it nice and milky... I simply dip my brush  in my water, and mix it in.  No measuring or droppers or anything... I just go by feel I guess.  Works for me, but if you feel the need to measure things go right ahead.  So I just cover the model with the mixture... let it dry and add another coat just to be sure.  The key here is thinning the paint.  I end up doing a number of layers of paint on the model, and each time I always add some water.  There are different kinds of mediums available to thin paints, but im pretty lo-tech (and very lazy) so I use plain ol water. 



So after two coats I get it nice and even.  Now something to note here, I tend to start off with brighter colors, because I know in the end he will be much darker once he is washed a few times.  I tend to shade down more than highlight up.  I think this is just another preference thing... you got to find what works for you I spose.  This is how I do it, maybe its lazier, Im not really sure.  I just like the way it looks much better than tons of painted on highlights... so I usually start off with a much lighter shade of the color I am going for.... In this case I want this guy to be pretty damn bright, so hes a light minty green color.  Speaking of, mint chocolate chip used to be my favorite ice cream until I had Blue Bell Bannana Pudding ice cream.  Holy fuck, that is the best thing ever.  So after you are done painting go get some.  But I digress...

So like I was rambling on about before, I shade down, as opposed to highlighting up, so in this next step I apply some highlights... I go around the edges of the armor with straight off-white.  I apply highlights to the toesies, his helmet, legs, etc... anywhere on the armor that is raised or an edge of some sort... just paint it on there, it looks crappy now but thats ok it will all be made right soon....



I start painting the armor trim with light brown... I was using a bronze color, but I find that I use way too much fucking bronze on everything, so I wanted to try something different... so brown it is.  I figure Nurgles like brown... who doesnt?

Now that we got the basic shit done, Im going to start washing the armor.  Someone asked me how you do this... well its really simple!  Dip your brush in the wash, and just dab it on... in this case, I want to tint my armor green, so I bust out the Thraka Green... dip your brush in the wash, and dab it all over the model, making sure to get it down in the recesses of the armor... you can achieve different effects depending on how you apply it really... you can use a thinner brush and just get in the edges of the model to get a nice clean shadow, or like Ive done here, use it to drastically change the color of the model.  This first wash starts to bring out the texture of the model:

now I throw on a second wash.. same as before, I use a heavy wash, dabbing my brush over the entire model... this deepens my green and gives him a nice dirty look.  woot.



Now I get to work on the bronze.  Thats right, I said I use too much bronze, but Im using it anyway.  The bolter gets some love with two coats of the bronze stuff, as well as his shoulder ball thingys and some parts of the backpack.  I also mix up some nice pepto bismol looking color for his face tubes and the base.  Ahh, face tubes.  Nurgle does like to face-tube folks.

Now comes the good stuff... the MUD.  Fuckin Devlan Mud, is there anything it cant do?  I apply a heavy wash onto the boltgun, the armor trim, the backpack and the bronze shoulder balls.  Awwww yeah.

Now I throw on some leviathan purple to his face tubes, and pick out the horns and things with more white... a little teeny bit of drybrushing to the edges happens here.  I try not to use too much drybrushing, casue honestly, I used to drybrush waaaaaaaaaay to much, and it left my models looking kinda dusty, so I really watch what im doing these days.  Just some straight white to the very edges of things... the face tubes get a light drybrush of the off white color, and the boltgun gets some mithril silver drybrushed onto the edges... the shoulder balls get some of that sweet action as well... 

I paint some highlights on the skulls on his armor:

I also go along and pick out the details such as the boils all over his shoulders and stomach, these were painted with a slighty darker pink than the face tubes and washed with leviathan purple, I go back over them with pure red... the wound on his stomach gets a bit of off white filled into it, then washed with Baal Red, with a final dot or two of pure red to finish it off...

For the final steps I make sure that I havent missed any little details... I paint the bolts on his armor with the same offwhite color, wash them with sepia then finish off the tips with white.  I paint in the visor of his helmet and add a few dots of white for highlights... the base gets a super wash of leviathan purple... the base edge gets painted with Dark Angel Green...  now he is done, ready to serve Father Nurgle.

Now only 17 more to go... so hide yo wife, hide yo kids, we Nurglin' everybody over here.

-DAN