Testing GW Contrast Paints on 15mm

There have been miles of column inches (and the youtube equivalent) produced over the past months about Games Workshops new "revolutionary" Contrast paint range, promising to base and shade in one easy quick coat. Well after watching another YT video the other day the one comment that stuck in my mind was "not good for large flat areas" - so good for 15mm then? I'll give it a bash...

A Change is as Good as a Rest: pt1

I've still been struggling to get on with painting for the last whole, so I've decided to do something else for a bit. I'd found some printouts that had been put to the side of David Graffam's Wizard's House and Hovel designs and put to work getting them constructed. So far so simple.

No Paint City Construction

Update on my new pieces for a Wild West town. After showing you the Mine Wheelhouse building  I became a bit enthusiastic and ordered up the Burlesque and Shacks kits from TT Combat as well, but more of those later.

Painting Amera's Ruined Tower and Amphitheatre.

Itching to make a start on my Amera plastic I picked out the Amphitheatre and Ruined Tower (as couldn't resist the latter!). This is not so much a tutorial but more a work log, as everything did not go exactly to plan.

A Walk In The Park

A pleasant sunny day in the city park.

Skirmish Board: Fantasy Village - Construction

In hopeful anticipation of some folk picking up a skirmish board set or two I thought I'd best put up a "how to..." guide for the pack.

PSC 15mm Cromwell IV

As part of my new found "tank mania" (as MacSver likes to call it!) I picked up a trio of Plastic Soldier Company Cromwell tanks from Ebay to give me the options on the "Hell Hath No Fury" reinforcement table.

This is the first time I've come across that much (and rightly) maligned practice of printing the instructions on the inside of the box. In this case there weren't even instructions, just a picture of a the sprue with the gun options highlighted. Despite what PSC think, the construction wasn't as obvious as they think, to me.

Handily though I was sitting next to my PC, and a quick google gave me the PSC construction video! I'll refrain from making general comment but it was useful for me, so may be useful for any other folk planning to make the purchase.

The kit's are nice, by the way, just lacking in instruction.

 

Industrial Wild West Part 6 - Extras & Final Pictures

Nearly there now.

The ramps are still outstanding. A simple bit of construction and bare wood paint job as the other pieces. I had thought about taking the foot off one of the sections to bridge a river I have (keeping the bridge surface level) but decided it was more flexible as it came. If I really want to I can snip away in the future.

The whole kit comes with various extra bits'n'bobs but the only ones that I made up were the crates. I glued one of the lids askew to remind use that they are crates not old Terrahawks Cubes.

All done, so here is a hastily arranged set (with not ground sheet!) to show coverage, etc. I embarrassingly don't have a painted cowboy yet, hence the unwelcome colonial intervention.

The entire industrial zone isn't finished yet. I still have a sawmill to construct and some workers tents to craft, but this is the Troll Trader set. I have to say it was great fun to do.

Industrial Wild West Part 5 - Water Wheel System

Time to give my water works some attention (I'm not getting an younger!)

The main challenge with the water wheel is the painting. All sides are visible, but not very accessible once built, so it was a double sides paint job before construction, using the same bare wood technique as the mine entrances.

Once painted the construction could begin. Pretty straight forward as long as you notice the there are 2 different sizes of parts to form the internals of the wheel. The joining of the two halves is a bit of a fiddle with so many tabs looks to be housed, but manageable.

The finished construction.

Now the waterway that feeds the wheel has always looks a bit flat and 2-D for me so I thought I'd build up the sides to stop the water running out. Out came the lolly sticks and coffee stirrers.

Strangely the water section of the piece is laser cur all the way through with only 4 small tabs to hold it on. I don't think it is maens to come off at all (no instructions remember) so I added a couple of stirrers to the underside to cover the gap. It also adds to the constructed look to the piece which is good.

Coffee stirrers to the flat and lolly sticks to hold the water in. I didn't run the "planks" as a single piece down the length to give a more constructed feel again. The small joining board halfway down the side is really only cosmetic, but helps with the strength. The whole thing was then painted as the wheel above.

All this extra work had made the already narrow based scenery more top heavy, so I glued it to a wider piece of plastic. nice and steady now.

For the water I mixed a little blue paint with PVA and gave it a couple of coats. Before anyone starts to make a fuss, water is blue, OK. Ask any small child!;)

Industrial Wild West Part 4 - Track and Carts

The main attraction of this set has to be the Mine Carts and Track. These are the pieces that shout "Industry" here. I didn't expect them to take quite so long however...(hence the delay in update)

There are quite a few track pieces included in the kit split up in the ground boards and separate rails to go on top. The wooden sections were painted just as the Mine Entrances. I flipped over a couple of the tight turns to make sure that all my tracks didn't have to turn to the left.

I only put the final "sandy" dry brush on the outside of the tracks to leave a darker, "well trod" section down the middle.

The rails were seperately painted black and brushed with gunbolt metal before being glued to the bases.

Once dry I gave the rails a weak wash of rust and a light drybrush of chainmail. These tracks will be in use, so not completely rusted over.

The cart pieces are over quite a few sheets, so I thought it more useful to lay the required components out as above.

The carts go together nicely, but it takes a couple of drying time breaks to allow the undercarraige and the wheels to become attached. The wheels are just flat surfaces gluing onto the assembly so its best to have the cart on its side and attach one side then, once dry, the other.

I also decided to sand down the lips the cart side.

I've read many times in painting articles how painters use salt crystals to add a chipped paint effect to their vehicles, etc. This seemed like a good opportunity to try it out for myself. The carts were undercoated brown and then gunbolt metal. They were then sprayed with hair spray, sea salt crystals stuck on, and another covering of the hair spray (i found the crystals fell off without this second spray).

The carts were then painted using the same 3 base colour technique as the office building and a weak brown wash. I used yellow as the base to match in with the building. Once all that wash dry I brushed off the salt crystals to expose the metal surface underneath.

I then mixed up some weak rust mix, dotted it under the chipped areas and smudged it down the cart side with my finger. Sometimes a couple of applications looked best. I also did this on the cart rims and gave a dry brush of chainmail for recently exposed areas.

The final touch was some white glue soaked tissue paper in the bottoms of the carts and glue over that a couple of layers of Javis Coal scatter that I had. This was given a quick dry brush of brown (we're not mining coal)

Not that I have a picture of it, but for those that are curious the cart wheels snugly straddle the rails so they won't be falling off during gaming.

Industrial Wild West Part 3 - Mine Entrances

Next up in the build are the 2 Mine Entrances. These come from sheets 4 & 8 of the kit.

These were given a rough base coat of Burnt Umber. As you can see there is some of the MDF still showing through. These shacks should be looking very worn as far as I'm concerned.

As per the set technique, here is the result after the 3 lighter shades have been added. Note that there are a couple of support pieces for the doors in this picture, as looking at the website photo I realised I'd missed them out at the start. They are on Sheets 1 & 5.

Continuing down the technique list, I've assembled the huts and given them a weak wash of black and brown. After a bit of a debate I decided to take the doors off as well (before construction). The felt hinges worked well in the Prospectors hut and although I don't plan to have the interior accessible to figures, having the flexibility to have the entrance open for mining carts or just shut was better.

The finished Entrance Shacks. All pieces were drybrushed with a mixed up dusty colour again and the doors attached.

And here they are again alongside the Prospectors Office.

Industrial Wild West Part 2 - Prospector's Office

I thought the first building I'd make was the Prospectors Office. There are quite a few "mystery " components on the mdf sheets, so I will be starting with the more obvious builds and hope to figure out what the mystery pieces are for by a process of elimination. The sections for this come from Sheets 1 & 4 of the kit post.

I decided that base sections would be easier to paint un-assembled before any weathering was added.

For painting I will be following the tutorial instructions from Lead Adventures forum member "Michi". The results from shown in this thread will tell you why. I hope mine come out half as good.

For my own reference as much as yours, the technique is:

• No primer is necessary. 
• Choose a base colour and apply it with rough strokes of a flat brush. That will leave some wood (MDF) shining through. 
• Repeat that with increasingly lighter shades of that colour (three or four layers). 
• Wash the entire building with a very watery black wash. 
• Apply another wash of a dust colour of your choice. This wash should be rich with pigments. You can take away too thick areas with fresh water while the wash is still wet or with alcohol when it has already dried.
• Finally apply a rather light drybrush of sand or light grey colour.

As ever I got a bit carried away and painted them up without inbetween shots. You've not missed much though. Here I've done the base coat and 3 lighter layers. The sign was painted in after this process.

A big decision was whether to make the doors "open-able". As most the other scenic pieces in the set a obstructions it was decided that having a building to duck into would be good, so off they came. More on how they are re-attached later.

The Front roof segment sits tight tot the front signage so was glued in place. The rear roof section just slots over tabs on its own. The tabs were slightly thinned to make removing\replacing the roof section easier to get the figure in the building that bit easier.

The section in place.

The construction so far before any washes are added.

 Another missed photo didn't document the buidling after the 2 washes (One thin black and other a thin  burnt umber\sienna mix), but here I've applied the light dry brush of a mixed sandy brown colour.

To hinge the doors I though some fabric would be the best bet. I initially cut some thing lengths of denim, but they frayed and fell apart. Luckily I have small felt offcuts from another project which hadn't been thrown out yet, so they were pressed into service with white glue. (At time of writing the dried results have not been fully tested!) The hut interior was also given a quick layer of white.

And here is the finished structure.

Raft Making

The next "Song Of..." campaign battle takes part on a river, with the warbands on boats or rafts, so I thought it was a good incentive to make some simple, roughly hewn rafts.

 For the body I was going to need some "logs". I know that a walk in the woods can produce a bundle of sticks, but I rarely see any thin and straight enough for a raft (or 4 in this case). I also had a bag of sticks that I'd bought ages ago with view to making a wooden palasade (which never got past the whittling stage). These are from a Pet Store and are sold in a bundle for Rabbits,etc to gnaw on.

I decided that 6 stciks would make a raft of suitable width. 2 logs (nominally the thickest) were chosen to be the edge logs and had one length sanded to make a better gluing surface. The remain 4 logs had 2 sides sanded so that they would press up together and glue more effectively.

 Glue alone would still be a bit brittle, so holes were drilled through the logs (fore and aft) and wire threaded through (I used a straightened paper clip). The Edge logs were not drilled all the way through to hide the scratchy wire ends.

The raft was assembled with the wire and white glue between the logs.

To strengthen the bond I also squeezed white glue in the joins on the underside of the raft, using a finger to push the glue down into the gap and wipe off excess. It was all left to dry.

 The raft needs some sort of basic steering mechanism. To represent this a couple of pieces of matchstick were assembled on the back of the raft as a rudder handle (the back of the handle dipping to table\water level). The "oar" was then given a quick light brown wash and (once dry) the whole lot given a quick spray of matt varnish to cover any shine from any visible dry glue.

Here is the end result with prospective crew. Ideally some sort of string could be glued across the width as binding rope, but I couldn't find any thin enough that didn't look out of place. Once the models are on the effect is good enough to work anyway I feel.