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.

Firestorm Armada: Tarakian flotilla WIP2

These are taking longer than I expected, but I’m quite pleased at how they’re coming along.

I’m now using fluorescent orange to really brighten some of the detail.

The most important thing that you need to do when working with fluorescent paints is to undercoat the areas that they will be used on with white. Many of them are semi translucent (more on that later) and will just appear murky if painted on anything else.

I’ve also added more interference orange, as the effect of that had faded somewhat with the ink washes that I’d been using.

The fluorescent paints I’ve used on these models are Chromacryl - £2.40 per tube (75ml) from Lawrence’s, my local art shop.

The interference paints are by Liquitex.

POSCA markers in Orange, Metallic Orange, Black and White, and a Montana Brown (POSCA’s browns are feeble, at best) were used to make many of the straight lines you see.

I use Staedtler pigment black liners in 0.05mm size for much of the detailing

After fluo orange

Before fluo orange

A similar effect on a cruiser

To create the two-tone fluorescent effects on the forward fins, I used a white marker to draw lines on the brown base. Then, after the white was dry, I painted over the whole fin with fluorescent orange – the translucent colour allowed the design to show through.

I’m heading for the final furlong with these miniatures now, and I’m hoping to complete them (maybe only the battleship and two cruisers) to enter into the painting competition at Salute 2012, this coming weekend.

The 'Should Know Better'

The 'Bog Standard'

The 'Tramp Steamer'

The 'Impetuous Pig'

The fronts

Here the spars on the underside and
 the front corner are painted white
to prepare for fluorescent orange

The whole flotilla at present

The fluorescent spars and front completed

Firestorm Armada: Tarakian battleship and cruisers WIP

Top view

I couldn't resist these beauties when I saw them. Lovely design from those talented people at Spartan Games.

The flotilla

As you can see from the unpainted shots, these are hybrid white metal and resin miniatures. I guess that this is to prevent those prongs breaking off at the front.

Size comparison

Cruiser top view

Battleship Front View

You can see how the white drybrush
really picks the detail out

To start, I used a grey primer, and once that was dry, I drybrushed the ships all over with white. This really makes all the detail stand out, and is an ideal start for ink washes, which is what I'll be doing on these models.

With the grey undercoat and white drybrush,
the detail comes out naturally when ink is applied

Here you see the first coats of ink going on. I invariably use slightly different shades of a colour when painting models at tiny scales such as these. I've helpfully taken shots of the colours I used.

Sminky pinky

Dinky thingy

Here I've added a coat of sepia ink over the
orange parts to add depth

Linky stinky

Inky inky

More with sepia

As you will have seen in my other posts, I use a variety of brands. I do think that many of the brands sold to wargamers and modellers are overpriced. A visit to your local art shop can save vast amounts of money if you're a prolific painter. Of course, it could mean you just spend the same, but get more :)

I've also used Liquitex interference paint, having achieved good results on my Covenant forces for Dystopian Wars. The paints themselves don't seem anything special on application, but with a wash over them, the interference effect shines through.

more orange

more brown

My original concept was to have a striking black and orange force - some of the colours have strayed toward a raw sienna however. I used sepia and blue inks mixed to produce a bluey-black.

more sienna

pale orange/sienna mix

After the darker ink washes, some areas still didn't have the right amount of darkness - this is where I started using my pens. Pigment markers from pilot and staedtler, plus POSCA ain't markets for some of the larger holes ensured a deep black. The metallic orange (or copper to you and I) marker made a fine highlight for the interference areas. An orange POSCA was good for fine lining, and the white POSCA was good for clean engine base coat.

here they come

walkin' down the street

they're the spaciest people

you'd ever want to meet

In the next installment, I'll be super-detailing and possibly adding some design to these otherwise fairly bland paint jobs.

Overhead shot of a cruiser,
the forward grille has been picked out with a POSCA marker

Front view of same

Panels picked out with orange POSCA

Battleship underside

Bridge lights picked out with POSCA
- super-detailing still to be done

The Bridge and engines