Laserburn project WIP11 - finished buildings, started buildings.

These astoundingly cheap Amera buildings have been a joy to paint.

In this post, I'll run you through how I did them, start to finish:

1: Purchase buildings. These are vac-formed, £1.50 for the small ones, £1.75 for the larger.

2: Raid your bitz boxes for suitable add-ons. Halford's grey primer.

3: Drybrush white all over, then follow that with a yellow ochre wash (Americana yellow ochre, thinned)

4: Brown ink wash. (Vallejo Game Color Smokey ink). Black inks pin washed into the windows and painted into shadowy areas (Chromacryl Black).

5: Highlight/drybrush with a mix of yellow ochre and unbleached titanium (Liquitex Heavy Body unbleached titanium)

6: More brown washing with smokey ink. Further highlighting with unbleached titanium

Paints I used in this process so far

7: Yet more inking

8: And here's the selection of paint markers I used to finish off the detail. I also scoured my decal envelope and added a selection of further details. Most of the decals are from old 1:100 Macross kits, the numerals by each door are from an original land raider.

Here's Building 1. The doorway effect is black and two brown tones. The paving slabs are all done with markers. The water effects is clear granular gel with an ink wash. The aircon (?) unit is from an old USS Grissom miniature

Building 3. I wanted the buildings 'the same but different'. Turning into a bit of a motto for me, that.

This building sports an alternative roof protrusion, and an odd solar panel thing with branding in an alien script. The alien decals are from Macross Zentraedi models.

Building 5 has something industrial going on at the top of their steps. The 'No step' decal is from some aircraft kit.

Building 7 is fairly bog-standard apart from that massive unit strapped on the side. It's an old Klingon d18 that got cannibalised at some point. The rear stairs feature a raised fin for some reason.

A view of the home improvements

Compare the stairs, the hilarious new game show.

Side walls

That's the finished buildings, now for the one I've started, you saw it flat packed in the second photo.

Phase one, make it, and stick more bits on.

Not sure about the green cap. I haven't stuck it yet, and I may mount something else there.

Phase 2: grey undercoat, ready for a similar treatment to the others.

Whilst we're on a Laserburn tip, some of the decals I got to complete my vehicles

So, four things off the painting table, which is looking a bit crowded at the moment.

More soon, lilliputian aficionados.

Laserburn project WIP09 - Another toy, more vehicle painting

Scouring the toy shelves of local shops recently netted discovery of this little beaut for a mere £3.50. Looking distinctly like a 15mm ground attack aerodyne, it's heading for the painting table forthwith.

It's a Matchbox sky busters 'Strato saucer'. I believe they are re-releasing it in green too, but no-doubt it will require a repaint.

I've done a bit more work on my other vehicles. As you probably saw, I had masked the side of the pat-wagon in the last post. I used a high pigment liquitex ink to darken the stripes, for a nice low contrast effect. I did similar for the Imperial warthog, using chocolate brown on khaki.

After this, I worked on some lighting effects for the pat-wagon

That's all for now.

Firestorm Armada: Rense System Navy WIP 4 - Surmountable problems

This project has proved more tricky than others recently.

My choice of colours/materials has led to unforeseen problems, and the sheer number of models in this project has proved daunting (6 frigates, 6 escorts, 4 destroyers, 1 Dreadnought = 17 models – the last project was 5!)

The Escorts. Not sure about the orange energy thing now.

Virtually finished Bulwarks

The beginnings of a freehand snake

The Slate blue brilliant watercolour a) soaked straight in to grey undercoat – it worked fine over interference purple and b) ‘sours’ any white that I try to paint onto it, leaving a dull pale blue. Not so good when I was planning lots of white lines.

As a result I’ve gone over the white lines with liquitex fluorescent purple – but even that isn’t as bright as I’d have liked. It’s almost been a case of ‘back to the drawing board’

Overhead view of a Bulwark frigate.
They're quite slim from that angle.

Anyway, even with those setbacks, I’ve been soldiering on. I corrected the grey undercoat/slate blue problem by switching it for Citadel Asurmen Blue wash (which I daresay I won’t be able to get any more of – might as well use it up.

This gave the effect I was looking for on the engines – a nice slate grey. I highlighted afterwards with a 0.7mm POSCA Metallic blue pen.

Another frigate with black/green/white motif

It was also useful for achieving the dull glow on the top of the gun nacelles on the Bulwark Frigates.

I decided the pale green looked a bit bland, so I have added a little bit of design to the undersides – at first with a Liquitex Green Gold – an olive green colour that, if applied lightly, becomes a dark greeny yellow – but the difference between that and the original Basil Green was negligible, so I over painted with Secret weapon washes’ ‘Baby Poop’ – another olive green (and not at all like the colour they show on their webpage).

I’m really hoping to have some finished models to show you all next time – so fingers crossed!

Fin detail on the frigates

The phoenix destroyers with a test 'rense' logo on the upper example

I continued the same lower body pattern across all four Phoenix destroyers

The power cascades light up on the dreadnought

Rear view. I still have to work on the engines.

Close up of power cascades. I need to brighten these - they've suffered from the watercolour basecoat and darkened.

The main bridge. I've had to bite the bullet and opt for
multiple coats of white on the bridge window areas.

Front fork and main weapon detail

Three-quarter side view of the dreadnought

View from the front

The engines are starting to get there

I'm saving all the fancy bits on this 'til last -
I'd like this one to be right

Overhead Phoenix - a classic crucifix.

The flight of the... [gets coat]

Firestorm Armada: Tarakian flotilla

The Tarakian ships are finally finished. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I painted the engines using Fluorescent blue paint, highlighted with white, then turquoise ink

Close up of the Battleship bridge

Front bridge and weapon array detail

Here it comes

I should perhaps touch up the bronze colour here. It does sort of give a lighting effect though.

Another front view. The prongs were drybrushed with pearlescent green.

Battleship approaching.

Top detail.

Ganak class battleship

Engines. I used white POSCA marker, dotted to simulate aenergy

And there it is, your classic side view.

Here's the underside

Here's one of the Sulan cruisers. The white lines were POSCA again. The fluo orange design at the front was white POSCA on brown, overpainted with the semi-translucent fluorescent orange.

More detail of the same ship

And a view from the other side

The main weapon array. After drybrushing pearlescent green, I used a metallic green POSCA to touch things up, then a Staedtler pigment liner to detail.

I deliberately made the cruisers look as though they'd been fighting/travelling for some time.

There are subtle differences on each cruiser - panels, patterns

From the other side, facing away

And another of that ship

Classic pose.

Here's the third example

Some lovely detail on these ships.

Markings clearly visible on the forward fins

Outgoing!

Incoming!

I used the Staedtler pigment marker to add markings. Simple boxes and dots.

I added markings to the front of the orange side stripe and behind the bridge on the battleship

The flotilla approaches

Overhead view

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That was my first foray into Firestorm Armada, but I have some RSN ships to work on, and a small Marauder force. They will probably be coming after I've done some work on my Covenant of Antarctica forces for Dystopian Wars, though.