Thar be cheese in these here waters!

Greetings once again, my readers.  As promised yesterday, I'm going to talk about sealing your miniatures.  But before we get to that, here's the latest in my miniatures collection - the pirate mousling.  Yarr!

I used a different color for the base, to give it a more beach-like sand color on the base.  It came out a bit darker than I would like, but still lets you see what you can do with different colors even with the same basic texture.

Now, for the important bit:  sealing your miniatures.  Sealing your miniatures is a very important part of the process, as not doing so makes your figures significantly more vulnerable to damage.  Going with a gloss sealer will give you greater durability, but in most cases will leave the figure far too shiny to look good, while using a matte sealer (such as Testor's Dullcote) will look significantly better, but be more prone to damage.

Which brings us to the style that I like to use - the Bullet Coat.  This method works by layering Gloss and Matte sealers to maximize the protection and minimize the glare given off by the figure.  I like to take it up a step by using the following:

From left to right: Gloss Laquer, Gloss Acrylic, Matte Laquer, Matte Acrylic.

By alternating between Laquer and Acrylic, it makes the figure even more durable as it is significantly less likely to wear through or chip multiple levels at once, and comes out looking like you have hardly done anything to the figure itself.

Of course, sometimes the matte sealer doesn't kick in for a few days, while it cures, but it usually works out in the end.





And that's that for today.  Hopefully, I'll have a few WIP pictures of my next competition piece to show you all - and once that is finished off, we shall start on the process of conquering the dragon!  And I'll start talking about various painting techniques that I have used and learned to love.
Until then, keep painting.

A Wintry Grasp

Hello once again, readers mine.  Who's ready to look at what a bit of plasticard and some craft store scenic snow paint can accomplish?

In terms of difficulty to use, Plasticard - which is to say, sheets of plastic sheet molded into a variety of shapes, is a small step up from using a sculpted base in terms of difficulty to use.  The only additional item that you need to be aware of when using it is that you will need to cut the material to fit on top of the base that you're using.  After that, you'll apply the miniature, fill in any gaps between the base and the card (optional, but I do recommend it, even if I didn't do that myself...), and paint as normal.  Straightforward and fairly easy to use, but you can end up with a fairly flat result if you're not careful.

There are a number of other materials that you can use for similar purposes - fiberglass screen door screen works very well for creating a mesh walk type of texture, for example.  Just look at what's available, and you should be able to find something worth using.

The next bit to talk on tonight (I know, I know, lots of talking tonight, but I'll get to the pictures here shortly) is applying snow to a base.  There are a number of good-to-great products that you can use to do this - you can use the classic Baking Soda/White Glue/White Paint mixture to give you a fairly smooth creamy snow look, or you can look for (or make your own) one of the craft store snow mixes that are basically white paint and sand mixed together (which gives you a very lumpy heavy sleet look to the base).  In either case, you will paint the material directly on the base, giving a nice coat over a solid chunk of the base.

But, now for what you've been waiting for - the Hound of Tindalos has been completed, and, as promised, I have put snow and ice on most of the base:

Unlike the other figures up to this point, however, this figure is not yet finished.  There is a pearlescent agent that I will apply to the snow, as well as a brush-on glaze that I will apply to the icey patches after I seal the miniature, which will really give the base a nice looking sparkle and glare, before I can say the figure is completely done.  But this is as far as it will get before then.

And now, as a special bonus, now for something completely different: my next WIP (and something to talk about in the next entry) is the Pirate Mousling by Reaper Miniatures - a figure that makes great use of Drybrushing in order to paint:

Finally, voting is now closed on the painting contest that I have been taking part in.  I won't know the results until tomorrow, but I'm hopeful that I will emerge victorious!  Or, at least in the top 3.  If I don't win, then I'll definitely redouble my efforts for the next contest, and emerge the victor then!
Until tomorrow, then - paint on!