Material Reference Photos

 Whenever I've embarked on most of my painting or modeling projects in the past few years, if the subject is something that has reference to anything in the real world or if there's materials or patterns or any other specifics that I'm not outright familiar with, I've generally done research or image searching online to get a bit more comfortable with things before I start the actual work. This was especially true when I modeled and painted my 2007 Chicago GW Golden Demon Painting Competition entry, Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm. I must've watched The Fellowship of the Ring film itself about 10 times for general inspiration, the combat sequence between Gandalf and the Balrog alone at least twice that many times for details on posing and atmosphere, and looked up a ton of reference images online in preparation. I covered a lot of relevant subject material in researching online, even down to the particular weaving of Gandalf's robes; granted, the movie watching was much more enjoyable than the apparel writeups, but it's all good. (I must have done something right, because the finished figure went over much better than I expected at the Golden Demons!)

 At any rate, one of the things that I think helped me win an award was the specific attention to detail - this isn't anything that I was told by the judges, or anything that I've read or referenced elsewhere, simply personal opinion. Things like the particular color of the robes illuminated in the scene, or the angle of his arm holding the staff, or the color of the rocklight in the background of the scene; details that if they weren't there, the scene would've still been complete, but would've been missing out on its authenticity or "realism". It's with this same idea in mind that I've since been researching particulars about different materials that I might paint or model up in fine scale on a miniature figure or display base, things like aged brass or chipping paint, the colors and plants found in a generic near-tropical swamp or the ground texture of a washed-out ash wasteland at the edges of a desert - places or things I might not necessarily have been to or seen firsthand, or have readily available for reference, but am trying to replicate on a small scale through paint or modeled appearance.

 Now some of these materials and images might be a little more disturbing or graphic than the pictures of weathering I posted some time ago, so if anyone is sensitive or squeamish, consider yourself warned (I've left the somewhat more unsettling subject matter until towards the end):


Expanse of ash waste, with the ocean in the background - taken from the Internet, used without permission


Weathered and sunbleached tree - taken from the Internet, used without permission


Waterlogged dead willow tree - taken from the Internet, used without permission


Generic swamp with brackish water, presumably southeastern United States - image originally from iStockphoto.com, used without permission


Brass pipes and fittings with patina - unnamed southeastern Michigan restaurant


Interestingly shaped new-fallen snow "spikes" on a stainless steel gate - casa Tinweasel, Feb. 2010


Fire-charred paper - World Trade Center Ground Zero, taken from the Internet, used without permission


Tank with battle damage - taken from the Internet, used without permission


Destroyed apartment buildings in downtown Beiruit - taken from the Internet, used without permission


Destroyed city street in downtown Beiruit - taken from the Internet, used without permission


 This would be the point where the pictures start to get a little unsettling in subject matter so, again, consider yourself warned.


A cooked turkey wishbone with dried blood - casa Tinweasel


A burned corpse in a military vehicle - taken from the Internet, used without permission


A live human brain infested with housefly maggots - taken from Snopes.com, used without permission

 If the owners/original photographers of any of these "material reference" images would prefer me not to have a particular picture posted, let me know and I will certainly take it down.

Hobby Tip: On My Word, Unleash Nurgle!

 It's somewhat sloppy and disgusting work (isn't that the Nurgle way of it?), but here's a few ways to get your plastic or metal figures looking like they've given over to Papa Nurgle in no time. (For those not familiar, Nurgle in Warhammer 40K is the Chaos god of disease, decay, pestilence, entropy, and fearlessness of death.)

Supplies for adding disgusting texture to your figures:

•  You'll need some type of PVA glue. I'm partial to Elmer's Wood Glue as it's a bit "stiffer" in consistency than regular White Glue and comes in larger containers by comparison especially if you buy it at a DIY or building surplus store - then again, you can probably find cheap (as in inexpensive) glue, like Elmer's or another good brand name, at some of the higher end dollar stores (Dollar General, Dollar Tree, etc.) especially if they have a school supply section.
•  You'll probably want some sort of thickener, which ought to serve the added bonus of giving your infected areas some gross texture as well. Anything along the lines of talcum powder, baby powder, or extra-fine grit will do - ideally you want something inert and non-food based (although I've always used cornmeal as a basing material, and I've never had any figure bases turn, um, Nurgly). The thicker the "grain" of your material, the more textured the final result will be - in the example pictures, I used a mixture of fine grit, cornmeal, and baby powder.
•  Last but not least, you'll want to pick up an assortment of smaller-sized beads. If you get coupons in your weekend paper (JoAnn's) or subscribe online (Michael's, Hobby Lobby) you can probably get 40% off a decent-sized container of seed beads - the kind with tiny holes in them so as to resemble pustules on a figure. In the example pictures, I used a mixture of the larger dessicant beads from a few packets of silica gel (the sort you find in new boxed home items or clothing pockets when bought at the store) as well as the tiny plastic ionized beads from the inside of a water purifying pitcher filter (they are a pain to separate out from the activated charcoal, but well worth it!)

Here's the step-by-step on applying a disgusting texture to your figure:

•  Sort out your beads first, making sure you have the sizes and appearances you want - maybe even divvying 'em up in groupings according to where you'll be placing them. (It's not rocket science, granted, but I'm all about having stuff at hand and ready to go when you need it as opposed to sorting through piles of beads while your glue slowly dries unused on the figure.)
•  Mix some powdery thickener into your PVA glue and apply it in a smallish amount where you want your pustules to sprout, preferably not with a good paintbrush unless you want to accidentally make Father Nurgle extra proud.
•  Stick your beads where you want 'em, making sure they're aligned (sprouting?) just the way you want the final product (crop?) to look.
•  Slather on more of your glue and thickener mixture around or even on your groupings of pustules, trying to be sloppy but careful - there's an oxymoron for you, but I'm thinking you can picture what I mean. You probably want to steer clear of the tops of your pustules-to-be, unless you want the areas near the top of the sores to be grainy textured - I'd think smooth would be the way to go (like pus-distended skin stretched sickeningly taut by the diseased innar... er, yeah).

 As the glue dries, it'll tighten everything into place and your powdery/gritty thickener ought to generally make a mess of the appearance around and between your pustules, as well as smoothing out reasonably well where the diseased areas meet the "unblessed by Papa Nurgle" portions. You might make several applications (like I did in the example pictures), using more coarsely grained thickener to glue the beads down and then going back with a thickener like baby powder to smooth things out a bit.

A mixture of PVA glue and baby powder:

A mixture of PVA glue, fine grit, and cornmeal:

Adding a look of disease and decay to your figures:

•  Gather an assortment of fine drill bits, the smaller the better. (In the example pictures, I used drill bits from 1/78" all the way up to 1/8" in size.
•  Make sure you have a sturdy base to mount your drill bits for use - a good pin vise should have a chuck for extra-small bits or be otherwise adjustable to hold even smaller-sized ones. If your pin vise is not nearly as adjustable for tiny drill bits (my first one wasn't, for example), you can take a short cut-off length of dowel and make a relatively deep hole in it a little larger in diameter than a drill bit you want to mount (I used a pair of locking pliers to grip one of my smaller drill bits initially - it was hard work, but I finally got a nice deep hole to set my 1/78" bit into with room to spare for glue.) Once your preferred drill bit will fit in the dowel, try roughing up the non-spiraling end of it with a file or sandpaper to ensure a good grip for glue. Slather the roughed-up end of the bit with glue and set it in the hole you drilled - I'd recommend epoxy glue since CA glue (AKA "Super Glue") is overly brittle, but even something like rubber cement would work in a pinch.
•  Drill holes in various sizes across the areas you want to look especially diseased on your figure. It's probably best not to clump larger holes together, but a larger one surrounded by an assortment of smaller-sized ones generally looks good. Make sure not to repeat any particular pattern over the surface of your figure, since this is ideally supposed to be random.
•  Tidy up any burrs on the edges of your drill holes with a quick, light drag from a scalpel or hobby knife (unless you want the holes to look somewhat inflamed as well).

And here's the finished detail on a figure, a combination of added texture and tiny drilled holes:

Weathering Reference Photos

 Last Friday on the way home from work at a new position in downtown Detroit, I figured I'd take my time driving and snap some photos of examples of environmental weathering, paint chipping, collapsed buildings, fire-damaged structures, and some unfortunate examples of "urban decay." I've had a number of jobs around Detroit over the years and have seen a lot of sights similar to the images further down - while I can't say it's not somewhat saddening, I also think these images make for good reference pictures for modeling different weathering/environmental effects. I added a few more pictures to the lot en route to other destinations this week, but essentially they are all in relative time/place order if one were to follow a slightly wandering path.

 Just for information's sake, I don't generally pick up a camera to go and shoot images of "urban decay" as a matter of course. Our cell phone plan allowed us to upgrade to Blackberry phones, and this initially began as me testing out the surprisingly good built-in camera after taking a detour past a major backup on the I-75 expressway. Another reason I went through areas I've been through many times before taking reference pictures of this kind of stuff is that I plan on replicating similar environmental effects as a basing theme of sorts for any figures I finish on several small 40K "armies" currently in progress.

 While there's a lot of nice parts of the city, by and large they are along the main roads and mostly centered around buildings/areas of significance. Sad, really, as there's a lot of cultural significance to many parts of Detroit. In contrast to "built up" areas, there's a great many midtown Detroit neighborhoods that have reverted back to a quasi-rural state, mostly from population relocation/abandonment. About a half mile from one of the "built up" areas of the city, for example, you might find yourself in an area of boarded-up buildings, razed plots of overgrown land, vacant properties used as dumping grounds, and the occasional long-term resident with no "neighbors" visible in any direction - that's essentially the case in the progression of photos here. I took most of these pictures along a trip north on Mack Ave from Woodward in midtown, west along Brush St to near Interstate 94, detoured slightly off the service drive of I-94 near Mt. Elliot, and then through one of the neighborhoods off northbound Gratiot about a mile or two south of 8 Mile Rd - essentially the rough boundary of northern Wayne County.

(Click on the thumbnails for 1024x768 res pics - 56K users beware!)

Corrugated metal, weathered wood and cinder block, likely gang tags, and (hopefully not visible) a family of feral cats amongst the trees/undergrowth



Closeup of weathered cinder block and rusted/heat damaged sheet metal vent


Rusted metal, weathered stacked plywood, overgrown concrete and damaged fencing


Burnt out timber and roofing, chipping painted wood


Overgrown burnt out building/vehicle w/ several overgrown gravel mounds in foreground


Collapsed building due to fire damage w/ collateral fire damage to adjacent brick


Burnt down structure being overgrown - surprised the heck out of me, but in stopping there briefly I flushed out a huge pheasant from the undergrowth nearest the former building


Naturally decaying brick facade due to exposure w/ staining/exposure on adjacent structure


Collapsing brick wall, chipping/peeling paint


Distance view of derelict factory-type structure


Images of effects of weathering/paint chipping/rusting/fire on various materials


Large patterned gold surface in daylight (I've been impressed with the appearance of the roof for a while, but never had a camera)


(Same as above, but from a different light/camera angle)


 I drove by some shady/depressing stuff for some of these pics - a few crack houses, a likely prostitute who noticed me parked and started towards the car before I drove on, the "bread van" making the rounds at one of the 24-hour warming centers for the city's homeless/indigent, a seagull exploding in a cloud of feathers in the middle of the street after being hit dead-on by a car and an outright not-so-subtle drug deal going down on one of the residential streets that (coincidentally?) had one of the better examples of a burned out building when I turned the corner at the end of the same block. Probably the only cheerful thing out of the whole lot would be the "donut 'n' coffee" shop, so I saved that for the end - it's been there for ages (and so is presumably good - dunno, I've never stopped in) but the golden metallic-paneled overhangs are a recent addition (past year or two) and look positively amazing on a nice day with sun.

If by some chance the owners of some of these "reference materials" would prefer me not to have a particular picture posted, lemme know and I will certainly take it down.

Hobby Tip - Making Raised Details

 One way to achieve fine, raised detail on a figure (short of natural sculpting talent) is to get creative with alternative materials. Sort of like what scrapbookers do with stamps, ink, and embossing powder, a similar, raised effect can fairly easily be accomplished with a fine-grain natural desiccant, such as talc, baby powder (same thing, only scented), or corn starch (same thing, only organic- and not mineral-based) - essentially you want something like these both for their moisture absorbing properties and their fine consistency.

 Using thinned-down PVA glue and a brush, you can essentially "paint" a design, shape, or pattern onto a miniature and then sprinkle on a small, precise amount of your talc over the wet lines or shapes. The moisture in the glue will be absorbed by the powder, which will "bloat" slightly over your added design - if you do this in small amounts or over small areas, you shouldn't have to worry too much about evaporation or your glue firming up before you've finished. When completely dry, your new raised detailing will be permanently set by the glue. I've been using this process in a modified manner for building up ground cover on scenery lately, the primary difference is that I've been using materials with a larger "grain" - you could apply multiple applications of this process if you want variable heights or a final result that is noticeably raised from its base surface, but an easier method might be to use something with a slightly larger "grain" for an underlying layer and then smooth out and blend in the outer surface with thinned PVA glue and a desiccant powder. Any leftover powder will easily clean up when you wash your figure before priming, and should be set firm enough to avoid being rubbed off by a gentle rubbing/scrubbing.

 The only reason I would recommend PVA glue (or thinned Future Floor Finish, alternatively) over something like CA glue is primarily the aspect of drying time - PVA glue sets much slower - but also the ability to accurately "paint on" the design you want added to a figure. Some CA glue bottle applicator tips are small, but don't have quite the level of accuracy (or ease of quick removal if you make a mistake) as a fine brush point. If you want something quick and easy, like lined scarring or patchy, leprous skin, and aren't so concerned about precision in the manner that a unit insignia would need, then CA glue ought to likewise work excellently.