Dip Shading Warhammer 40k Miniatures With a Wood Stain (Specifically ORKS!!!)

I've completed the first half of the Independent Characters' 2014 Hobby Challenge, and I'll put some cool ravenwing pictures up soon, but after six months of painting inside the lines, it's time to let loose with some Orks that I recently came into from a friend.

I'm very excited to get to work on da boyz, but it's intimidating to move from Deathwing to Orks, who will field at least 100 more models for the same point value!  Preferring to minimize any tedious repetition, I sought suggestions from friends and the internet on how best to build and paint this army.  Todays post explores the latter. (The basics of the process are down by all of the images, but I've included some backstory directly below as well - for those with nothing better to do.)

My top priority was to devise a quick method of painting ork flesh that would still be "high quality" in my eyes.  Secondarily, I wanted this process to be modifiable, so that I could introduce variations in shades with minimal effort.

Washes

The first recommendation made to me by a friend was to employ the method used by thoume2 in a youtube video called "Warhammer 40k Painting Tutorial - Orks with (mostly) washes."  Let me pause here and provide a spoiler for you: the process works great and (I think) it looks amazing.  Go check it out!

So at this point, I was pretty certain I wanted to emulate this process with my greenskins and I took my first 20 boyz out into the backyard for a foundation spray of Army Painter's bone color.  Next came a layer of Devlan Mud by brush, and this is where things hit a snag.

Dip Shading

Washing 140+ boyz by hand, then washing them some more, then basing them does not sound fun to me.  After one round of brushed-on brown wash, I decided this step could be replaced by a much faster but somewhat unconvincing process I'd heard of: dipping.

I first heard of the method from Matthew, on this very blog (here and here), when he was experimenting with some eldar and tyranids back in 2010.  Since then, I had heard that Army Painter released a line of dip shaders, but at the time that I was thinking about this, I was completely unwilling to put the process off for days while I waited for my dip to arrive from an online order.  Thankfully, I had also heard of people using wood stains in lieu of one made for miniatures.  As fate would have it, there is an Ace Hardware at the corner of my street, so Minwax Polyshades (Stain and Polyurethane in 1) Tudor satin wood stain was my weapon of choice.  Spoiler number two: Army Painter dips may or may not work better, but the wood stain has worked excellent for me so far!

Experimentation

This post is going to get a little bit convoluted, so please stick with me.  In the images below, I have documented three distinct methods of painting an ork.

Ork A is the "control" ork.  He was sprayed with bone and hand-washed with a layer of devlan mud before anything else was painted.

Ork B represents the process I expected to use, and would recommend for highly detailed models.  Ork B was sprayed bone and dipped in wood stain before anything else was painted.

Ork C represents the method that I'd recommend for the majority of "troop" models in a horde army.  This Ork was similarly boned and then I painted all of his clothes and gear - except i didn't shade or highlight anything - before dipping him in the wood stain.  

Below, I have a video and a few photos addressing the process of completing Orks A and B in a parallel process.  

First things first: materials.  I have 20 boyz, a box top to function as my surface area, the Minwax 2-in-1 polyshade (Tudor color), a rubber glove, some paper towels, and a box to shake excess stain into.  

As you can see below, the process is quick.  Spoiler number three: people sometimes use a drill to spin excess stain off of minis: I suspect this would be a waste of time for most people.  By simply hand-shaking, I'm avoiding the hassle of attaching minis to the drill and am probably saving a lot of time - which is the point, after all.

Once my Orks B were stained, it was time to get painting.  The following two photos offer a bit of insight into that process, and reveal that the end results of Orks A and B were very similar.  (I apologize for the learn-to-draw-an-owl two-step tutorial.)

Anyway, Ork B was pretty rad!  That said, I ended up painting over a ton of shading on the boots, gun, and other gear that the stain had already done for me.  Thus Ork C was conceived!

You may recall from a comment in the video that many people online finish their model before dipping them.  Turns out those people are smart.  My plan for Ork C was to paint anything that was going to get something more than a wash (i.e. not the skin or the bone-colored shirt, etc) before dipping it, so that the stain would do even more work for me.  Following the dip, four things would happen: washes, highlights, a matte spray of the entire mini (for protection and to eliminate the gloss created by the dip), and a quick application of 'ardcoat (a brushed-on gloss) where I still wanted things to shine.  The process went approximately as follows:

Spray with bone and begin to paint basic colors.

Add more colors, including metals.  Avoid painting any of the areas that will later receive a wash.

Dip Da Boyz.  

Next step: apply green and brown washes to the skin and shirt, respectively, forget to take individual pictures.  Done.

Unfortunately, I don't have a solo pic of Ork C complete, but I do have a group shot of all Da Boyz for comparison below!

As can be seen, there is no significant difference between the different styles once a matte finish and a bit of 'ardcoat are added to each.  The only difference comes in to amount of time saved!  With Ork C, my dip provided the shading for everything other than the skin and shirt, which took two layers of green wash and a single layer of devlan mud, respectively.  I hope to time the process soon, and will be back with an update on that!

Another point that I hope to check back about is the feasibility of using different sprays or brushed paints under the dip and green wash for different final flesh tones.  Specifically, I think a white or gray base spray will bring out different fleshtones from the bone without any real change in the process.  Other options include painting the flesh green or brown or something before the dips and washes.

Anyway, that's it for this one, hope you liked it!

Daggerburg

New Lightbox: Belial, Librarian, Dark Angels & Deathwing Pics

I've moved three or four times since I made my first lightbox, and I have no earthly idea where it could be, so I made a new one last night with great ease!  The first time around, I wanted to use wax paper to diffuse several lights coming from above, right and left, but I only have one decent light right now, so I decided to go with an aluminum foil-based reflective box.

The process was refreshingly simple:

1. Cut the flaps off of a small-to-medium sized box.

2. Using tape, apply aluminum foil to the sides and top with the matte side facing toward the miniature.

3. Using a thumb tack or some other fastener, put a piece of paper on the back wall that will be your back drop.

**Cool Tip!**  To avoid any visible corners or creases, use a legal-sized piece of paper and stick it so that it's half on the back wall and half on the bottom, under the miniatures.  This way, the paper will gradually curve in front of the bottom rear corner and provide a seamless backdrop!

4. I have no specialized knowledge of photography, but I think that a fluorescent bulbed desk lamp is probably preferable to a yellowish incandescent.  (Though these days those are going away anyway, right?)  Regardless, the "more natural" the light the better.  I happen to have picked up this cool light/magnifier hobby lamp and it's working well.

5. Take pictures and adjust the white balance/exposure/metering settings on your camera to optimize your results!

**Camera Phone Tip!**  My camera hated the white background that I was using and really dimmed the models at first.  Even upping the exposure didn't make a substantial enough difference, but then I learned about metering.  My phone has three settings: Matrix, Center-Weighted, and Spot.  Matrix was the default, and it basically looks all over the view-able area to determine how to brighten or focus or whatever, and since it was seeing a lot of white background, it was being a jerk.  For small models, the Spot setting was ideal.  Choosing to look only at the center of the view-able area allowed me to take reasonable images based on the lighting conditions of the model, not the blazing sun behind it.  Center-weighted is some mix of the two and may be useful for vehicles or monstrous creatures or something?

Anyway here are some fruits of my labor! (Sorry, these are basically all models depicted previously, but now with greater quality!)

ACTION SHOT!

A common terminator

Some tactical dudes

Dark Angel Terminator Librarian (traditional librarian with a converted Halberd of Caliban and Ravenwing swag book)

Belial (conversion with marneus calgar and some dark angels/deathwing/kinghts bits)

40K Miniature Basing For Beginners

After buying and painting miniatures for about fifteen years, it strikes me as remarkable that I’ve only bothered to make a handful of custom bases. Even more notably, I now realize I avoided it because I was a bit intimidated by the process—even the simple sand and glue approach. There’s probably no good reason for this, and this post isn’t about my psychological reticence to basing, so I’ll say this last bit and move on:

This is [yet another] brief tutorial describing an easy method to make custom bases for Warhammer [and other] miniatures, using simple techniques and easily acquired materials.

Right then. First, a picture, because you always need a “before.”

As can be seen, I have a Dark Angel army and I am now working to bring its Deathwing Company into full operation after a year of professional, domestic and social upheaval that has distracted me from the hobby. Part of that process involves establishing the fluff around my force – which I plan to mold into a full second founding, the “Angels Ascendant,” but there will be more about them later. For now, the point is that I’m building out force organization charts and establishing squad insignias, etc, so it’s high time that I belly up to the [kitchen] table and give these guys some legitimate bases.

In the vein of making this a comprehensive approach to building my army up, I want the bases to be an aesthetic test-run for the table that I intend to make next year. Furthermore, I want the bases to reflect – at least vaguely – the existing terrain I own and to look plausible when held next to other bases in the same squad, even to the point of coordinating features according to likely deployments formation.
Thusly, I will be creating a grayish-brown wasteland motif with some sludgy, polluted liquid in the lowlands, and dryer, blue sand and stone in the highlands. The Imperial cruiser below will likely have crashed into a highland section of my imaginary table:

BEGIN TUTORIAL: Supplies
I initially gathered these supplies for my endeavor. As I worked, I wanted to add different textures and decided to add some rough-ground coffee grinds into the sand and eventually bothered my girlfriend for some shiny, colorless nail polish for the polluted run-off. I did not end up using the corks this time.

STEP ONE: Planning

First, I planned out the sort of features that I wanted to include and roughly sketched with a pencil where my models’ feet would need to be glued.

Observation 1A: Accidentally letting glue and sand get into the spots where feet are supposed to be was unwelcome, but presented me with options to make a more interesting base by trouble-shooting the error. I don’t encourage winging it, because you want your mini to be secure, but a little flexibility moving forward may serve you well.


STEP TWO: Glue Stuff to Your Base

Next, I used a piece of wax paper for a mixing surface and created a solution of water and glue, with roughly 1 part glue to 2 parts water.

Observation 2A: This does not need to be an exact science; I continually added glue or water to this supply with general disregard for the ratio and found that it worked fine as long as some glue was involved. In fact, I didn’t even mix the two very much, choosing, in later steps, to use more or less watery parts of the mixture whenever I felt like it might strengthen a hold or let the glue seep into a crack more easily, etc. Ultimately, it seemed pretty fool-proof, so don’t over think it.

Anyway, in this step, I used a cheap plastic kids’ brush to apply the glue-water to the base where I wanted, and then sprinkled sand and grounds onto the glue. When I got more comfortable with how the glue was behaving, I began dipping the bases, or setting them into a container and gently shaking the sand and grounds onto them. Again, not an exact science. After the first coat, you can apply additional layers of glue and particles where you want to raise the ground a bit, and directly paint glue onto larger rocks or objects before placing them.

Observation 2B: White glue won’t dry as quickly as superglue, but it appears to take hold enough for there to be almost no wait-time between layers - maybe wait 30 seconds before you start painting more glue on and, as long as you are gentle, you shouldn’t have many particles pulling away. If you do, I guess you’ll need to use more glue in your solution, or use smaller particles, or find a better blog.


STEP THREE: Drying & Base-Coating

I’m not particularly impatient, but I’m close enough to death that I don’t want to be waiting for white child’s glue to dry all night. Thanks to my girlfriend and my past dalliance in long hair, a blow-dryer was on hand to expedite this process. While I’d encourage caution not to blow your bases across the room, 30 seconds or so under the hair dryer seemed effective enough for me to move on with the confidence that the stuff on my bases wasn't going anywhere without some convincing.

However, I’m risk-averse and decided that a moderate base-coat of primer would help to keep everything in place and provide a much better surface for painting – thusly I cannot speak to the absorbency of coffee grounds – specifically chicory.

Again, I did not want to wait for the primer to dry, so I brought the blow-dryer back out.

Observation 3A: Before anything settles too solidly, and before you base-coat, you’ll want to be sure that your miniature fits onto your base as intended. This is the last chance to make really easy changes to your base, so double-check before moving forward!


STEP FOUR: Foundation Colors & Surface Glue

Next, I laid down the foundation colors that I wanted in each base (for me this was mostly Citadel’s Charadon Granite with patches of Calthan Brown near my sludge streams). I also added a brown wash liberally at this point to establish depth and get a sense for the lighting that I wanted to simulate.

Observation 4A: I recommend using a larger, old or otherwise expendable brush for this. In many cases, the terrain you are creating will have jagged edges and be fairly rough on a brush, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time just getting a foundation paint onto it.

In addition to paint, I applied more glue-water to the bases where I wanted to create a smooth surface that would become my stream of sludge. This process sometimes involved waiting and/or blow-drying, as I wanted to apply several layers in order to raise the level of the liquid (as shown below) while still allowing the glue to dry quickly and colorlessly-if you use too much glue or don’t dilute it, you will likely get a white or very cloudy result.

STEP FIVE: Shading and Highlights

This is probably the least “new” step in basing for a person who paints miniatures. Use washes or darker paints as needed to create the shadows and crevices you desire while using lighter colors to create peaks.

Observation 5A: Experiment with white as a highlight. I was a longstanding holdout against creating lighting effects that veered too far into glaring white or shadowy black, because I figure miniatures are always going to have light on them to accentuate things for me. However, over time I've stubbornly come to recognize that light sources, which cast shadows or create glare on a life-sized thing, will provide a lighting effect that is too consistent to accurately impart these details on a miniature, which is diminutive compared to the light source. As such, shadows and glare should be created and fun should be had.


STEP SIX: Details and Finishing

Similar to step five, this is mostly about tweaking your base to look the way you want. I sometimes chose to add more glue at this point and ultimately decided to paint my streams with Tin Bitz, because the glue alone wasn’t creating the effect I wanted.

Below, you can see the changes in four different bases throughout the process. Notably, the bases in which I was using glue were a bit slower-going, so you can see that they were generally a step behind.

And here is a (poorly photographed) glimpse of the before-and-afters! In the next couple months, I hope to be moving to a new kitchen table and workshop, where I’ll make a new light box, so please bear with me for now!

That's all for now, I'll be back with some more miniature work soon!

An Unsolicited Tutorial on Painting My Space Marines

Anytime I go to the coffee shop, or grocery store, or nail salon, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll overhear a conversation about how drab the Dark Angels (DA) army can be. Dark green doesn’t leave a lot of room for details or shadow, unless you want to lighten up the green – but eldar already exist, so we don't need another army that looks gay. (ZING!!) Even in junior high, I recognized this was a problem and embraced the [silly] predisposition that space marines have toward bright red guns. Not only were my guns red, but my shoulder and knee pads too. This was a fine secondary color, I felt, until someone conjured up some yuletide insults. I pondered this for a little while (10 years) and have decided to go in a new direction.
















Intrigued by the inclusion of bleached bone for deathwing terminators (exclusive to the DA chapter) but never quite able to make it work in the past, I have now decided to incorporate that end of the palette, save red for a blood angels army some day, and tackle the european renaissance-esque split color paint scheme for my modern tactical marines and a “newly” purchased dreadnought. I feel this successfully maintains the DA namesake color, introduces the tans that I avoided in my youth, and stands to give the army a more mature appearance too.

For consideration and critique, I’ve included a rudimentary rundown of my updated tactical marine painting process below.

Stage 1 – Miniature prep and priming. Using standard nail clippers with a file, I trim excess material and file convexities down to a satisfactory level. I’m not much for puddying or modification yet, so sometimes I have little pits where the plastic tore away with the sprue etc. I’ll generally try to fill these concavities in using a little extra paint later on. (Microsoft word has just confirmed for me that convexities and concavities ARE both words.)

Once the mini is smooth, it’s time to prime – sorry for the rhyme… again. I haven’t always used primer, but in recent years I’ve grown to appreciate it for its dry humor and aid in applying brush-delivered paint more evenly - raw plastic and pewter will sometimes absorb or otherwise weird-out some paint, and the primer gives you a consistently cooperative foundation.

I’m a big fan of gray primer because it allows for the tones that I grew used to from painting plastic directly rather than brightening (white) the colors or adding shadow (black). If the entire mini were going to be the same color, I’d probably just prime it DA green. Lastly, I prime very lightly, because there is nothing more frustrating than losing detail before you’ve even laid brush to space murderer. I apply just a dash so that I can see the detail and muck it up on my own later.


Stage 2 – Base coats. This stage involves a bit less talking but a steadier hand. As can be seen here, I’ve decided to split the marines down the middle and alternate their shoulder pads. I recommend visualising your middle line and using whatever method allows a steadier hand to sketch a boundary to one side of that imaginary midline. Once my green boundary is there, I’ll carefully fill in near it and then fill in the rest of that surface with general recklessness. Adding the second color WILL disturb your boundary, but as long as you have a straight line near the middle, it’s best not to stress over it - touch it up a bit and move on. I’m using two citadel foundation colors that are actually darker than the classic citadel bleached bone and dark angels green (I start with Devlan Mud and Orkhide Shade). Citadel’s Foundation line of paints is meant for base coating and goes on strong in one coat with minimal fuss. They are awesome.


Stage 3 – Uhh, Main stage? This is sort of like the “Standard Action” of painting. The Dark Angels Green and Bleached bone go on to lighten the foundation colors, adding some depth, and I add warlock purple to the eye lenses, black trim, and some manner of gold for the Aquila (its latin for eagle, read a book). The bulk of satisfaction comes here, as the mini really takes shape. In the spirit of self-advocacy, I’ll point out that I love the black “crest” on the top of the helmet and how it breaks up the division of tan and green. Something about that region of the mini really does it for me in what might be described as an artistic way if I had any artistic credentials whatsoever.


Stage 4 – Finishing touches. Some black and brown washes find their way onto the green and tan surfaces, respectively, and it turns out space marines want hands and a gun, so I’d better whip those up too!

Newsflash: guns are black.

For fun, and to give some detail distinction, I’ll drybrush silver over the gun edges and hit up some of the bolts. I’m sort of boring with my bases, so no flock or rocks, et cetera, just some green paint, and I haven’t finished a backpack for him yet because I sort of hate painting these backpacks.

In case you forgot the four stages already.

And lastly, a look at my old scheme and new scheme flanking my fancypants scheme for veteran DA marines.