Display base experiment - Part 4

Colour scheme and painting

I envisioned the scene on this base as being the ruined remains of a long forgotten statue. Infact without the dino body they could be the legs of a humanoid. When, why or how it got there no one knows. It's a desert scene where red sand stretches as far as the eye can see and only nomads occassionally pass through.

Here it is in progress, grey stone legs and red sand.

I played around with a few colours and a pigment until I found a brightness I was happy with.

Colours:

• P3 Sanguine Base
• P3 Ironhull Grey
• Army Painter Ash Grey
• GW Carroburg Crimson Shade
• Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown
• Vallejo Dark Red Ochre

I tried washing the reds and drybrushing the greys.

 

Display base experiment - Part 3

Plaster legs and base composition

I've poured my plaster and now it's dried but there's no way I can get the legs out without destroying the mould. But that's ok because it's composimold and it's reusable!

Using a stanley knife I split the edges and carefully removed the plaster. 2 dinosaur legs, fantastic! It's not perfect and there's a few lessons learnt here:

• The plaster is not that strong. It's ok for large volumes but smaller finer details like the tips of the claws broke a little when removing from the mould. Composimold did sell a composistone product which sets harder or other products like resin might be more suitable
• There are some bubbling imprints on the mould. Again composimold sell another product for this to help prevent bubblings staying on the surface of the piece being cast. Also they recommend using a brush to wipe bubbles off the surface after pouring the liquid.

So now to create the base:

1. I bought a small bonsai vase at a hardware store, filled it with plaster

2. Glued the dinosaur legs into position

3. Glued down a sandy mixture over the entire base and over the feet

4. Undercoated black then white

 

 

Display base experiment - Part 2

Making a mould and casting plaster

With my dinosaur legs set and sealed in the plastic container I set about using composimold for the first time. The instructions said to heat the product for 30 seconds, stir, then repeat whilst being careful not to overheat to avoid bubbles.

This was easy, the composimold melted to a nice easily pourable liquid. I wore gloves for safety, propped up the container and the t-rex. I poured in the liquid but it didn't cover the feet! So I dropped in balls of clay to force the liquid up.

I let it set and cool overnight and pulled the dino out quite easily. I then mixed up some plaster and poured it in.

Display base experiment - Part 1

I recently participated in a miniature painting competition - The Crystal Dragon. I hadn't initially planned to enter the comp with the miniature that I did as I was just practicing painting flesh at the time. But the format of the comp was not the traditional podium finish where a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place are given overall. They use the 'open system' where each and every piece is judge on it's merits, thus I felt like I had a slim chance.

I didn't manage to snag even a bronze but I received some really good feedback. So my plan now is to experiment, to create a more scenic display base and achieve the following:

1. Create focus on the head of the mini
2. Create focus on the mini on the base
3. Tell a story

Preparation

I browsed around for inspiration and decided I wanted statue ruins of some kind. I wanted to make this myself and eventually settled on using Composimold as it's a reusable product, I also bought plaster.

I searched around in cheap shops for a statue or bust of some kind but found nothing. Eventually I found some dinosaur toys, a picture formed in my mind - someone walking through the ancient ruined legs of a T-Rex statue.

Figuring out how to create the mould took some thought as I wanted to capture the feet and  suspending the dinosaur above the bottom on a container seemed difficult. I cut the bottom  of a plastic container and used clay to form a seal then tape to hold the dinosaur in place.

Next step...create the mould!

In the beginning

Hello World

I’ve returned to the hobby of miniature painting after more than 10 years and boy have things changed!

I was initially lured back by some mini gaming action but I've found I'm more eager to paint my minis rather than play games with them. This is mostly due to the fact that there are some amazing painters out there pulling off some astounding paint jobs. They truly are works of art and they provide inspiration to become a better painter. Youtube has also been a game changer, I don't know if I would have ever invested in DVDs, but streaming painting guides is awesome, heck I've even started supporting Painting Buddah via Patreon.

The purpose of this blog is simple - document my efforts to improve in this craft. I've painted a few things so far and entered one competition, the feedback from that has led me to further reading and research. So far with that research I've realised there is a tonne of information out there that covers everything and anything, it can be practical, theoretical, simple, complex and confusing. Overall it's helpful, but it's hard to not get swamped by it all.

So what now? Well I've had a brainwave, I'll filter out the noise, I'll pick a theory or something practical and challenge myself to apply it. After doing this hopefully I will understand and learn the theory more deeply. If I stray from this objective or lose my blogging mojo completely then so be it.

Massive disclaimer: Everything I write on here are my experiences and opinions. If I do happen to provide any advice then please take it with a massive grain of salt.

TLDR: This is just my opinion, do whatever the **** you wanna do!