Because power floats

Hello again, readers.  It's time once more to take a look at what I've gotten done today.  Finished up another figure, have a couple of things to talk about with him - including something that I wasn't planning on talking about for a while.  And, for the first time on this blog, I have an informal poll for you all.

First off, let's talk about creating a sandy desert base.  The steps leading up to this are the same as for most of the other bases I do - glue sand to the base, prime, then paint the miniature.  The main difference here is what colors I use for the base itself - if I'm going for a fine sand beach, I would use a Reaper Bone triad for coloring the base, stone is their Stone Gray triad, and standard earth is their Soil triad.

But for Deserts, I like to use a trio of Citadel paints - Zamesi Desert:

 Followed by drybrushing on a layer of Ushabti Bone:

And finally drybrushing on an even lighter layer of Screaming Skull:

If you notice the bottom of the base on that last one, you'll see that I also like to apply a black ink around the bottom of the base.  This cleans up the edge of the base, and helps set the piece apart from whatever terrain that it may be standing on.

Another thing you'll notice on this figure over some others that I have done is that thin black (actually a very dark blue courtesy of Reaper's  Blue Liner).  This is a technique that I have found that helps separate out two separate but similar colors, and really helps differentiate different parts of the figure.  It can come out looking a touch cartoony if you're not careful, but it can really be a godsend in touching up areas you've missed and separating out two different parts of the figure.

Now for the informal poll in this section.  I've decided I'm going to tackle one of the larger figures that I have ready to paint, and I would like your input on which one I start on this weekend.  Do I go with:

Wild West Exodus: Judgement

Warhammer 40k Tau Riptide battlesuit

Wild West Exodus Fire Eagle

Reaper Miniatures Nethyrmaul

Post your choices in the comments below.  I'll make the final decision on Friday (I may have another piece completed for you all tomorrow).  Also, if any of you have a particular subject that you want me to talk about, let me know, and chances are I'll include the subject in one of my updates.  Until then, keep painting!

Projects Update - 04/27/2014

Good evening once again, readers.  I haven't managed to finish anything other than Jack Rider's base today (pictures later, as promised), but I did do a little on a large number of things.
First off, I started getting washes on my Tau forces, along with some of the other miniatures that I've been working on (including that Fire Eagle teased earlier:

Here's some Tau.

And, yes, some more Tau

One of the Heavy Support vehicles from Wild West Exodus

And her's the fire eagle, all washed and waiting for painting!

I've also done a bit of a step by step for the Plains base that I discussed yesterday.

First, apply the white glue over the painted base.  Remember to leave any areas that you want peaking through unglued.

Step two, just dump the static grass mix onto the base.  You can see the mix that I've gone with - perhaps a bit heavy on the talus, but it does create a nice textured effect to the base that really makes the figure stand out.

And this is the final product.  Nice, easy, and very quick to do.

Now, something that I should probably have started out with, but will cover now.  Pictures of applying sand to a base - and what it can do for your figure.  As you can see below, this is very useful, particularly if the figure has parts that attack to the base without being part of the base itself, allowing them to blend together much more easily without hacking the figure apart (particularly if you are working with one of the Reaper pewter miniatures with the so-called integrated Broccoli  base):

Step one: apply the white glue to the base.  Make sure that you minimize the amount of glue that  gets on the figure itself, but don't worry about it too much as you can clean it up after dipping the base in the sand.

Here's what it looks like after applying the sand and cleaning off the edges and miniature.  Pay close attention to the bit under the lower right arm, and notice how the raise blends with the rest of the base now, rather than being as obviously a separate piece.

Now, finally, we have my current WIP.  Meet Karzoug, by Reaper Miniatures.  Great figure, and is really looking good so far (even though it's only about half way done).

And that does it for today.  Tune in tomorrow to see what I've managed to get done, and I'll talk about painting the base different colors for the basing - I think I'll give this one a desert color scheme.