Monday 28 October 2013

Weathering 101


 Been asked a few times Now on some Forums how I go about weathering my world eaters stuff. So rather than make a half ass reply to people, I thought it best I do a little Tutorial to show you guys how I do it. And like anything in this hobby eventually you will work out your own ways of doing things that work best for you. Now this tutorial took me all of 30 minutes to do, from spraying the model to finish. That gives you some sort of idea at just how fast you can achieve the heavily weathered look. Spending a little more time on Parts will obviously give better results, but for a basic 101 in World Eater weathering this will do.




Now you will need a few things here, most important is High density foam, the sort you fined in the back of old metal blister packs, of packing foam. A cheap Washing up sponge also works. And secondly Cotton swabs, these are a must, if you are in the UK you can grab a pack of 500 for 99p. 
Then you are going to need a half decent brush, if you have a brush that you use for edging models, that is the brush you want to use. Then there are the optional tool, craft knife, pin drill and something to make scrapes/gouges, I use an old Airbrush needle. These items depends on if you want to add some damage to your Models. 






So the first step is to get your model Painted like it would be if it rolled off the production line, And Built, if you are like me and paint everything before you glue it together. For this tutorial I am using a Rhino side section, as you get a few spare when you buy the MKI Rhinos from forgeworld, so these sides give you and excellent practise piece. And for this I'm just going to leave it on the Sprue, as its never going to get used, and will most likely end up in the bin after I finish this. 




So its time to give it a warn paint look. Easiest way to do this is using some high density foam. You want to rip a small piece off that you can pinch between your fingers, and then you can start to shape your self a little tool, I fined a Domed shape is best to use, and then make one that goes to a point, for smaller hard to reach places.







Now what colour to use............... If you have a two colour paint scheme this is very easy to choose, you just use the colour that there is the most of on the model, in the case of my world eaters this is White. The reason for this is we have to imagine that the colour with the less percentage is going to be painted over the main colour. So with my World Eaters, this will be the Blue painted over the white, So when the blue paint is damaged and chipped or just worn down the white paint will start to show through. 



So as you can see below on the blue areas i have sponged on some White Scar, to give the effect of the blue paint worn down, or chipped away.




The next stage is deeper amount of damage, we can assume that in the 41st millennium, they did not bother to make indestructible paint. SO we need to add the effect that in places the paint has worn off so much that we are down to the bare metal.  or for what passes for metal in the 41st millennium. So the next stage is to take Leadbelcher or Bolt Gun metal for the old school paint. and sponge it on.




 When applying the Silver paint you want to sponge over the white that you have created on the blue sections as well. sponge all the edges you want to, you can go for very subtle amounts or like I do with my world eaters, go very heavy. The sponging will naturally pick out edges, but after you finish with the sponge you want to use your edging brush and make sharp edges just as you would if you where to highlight the edges of your models. you only want to do this on the areas that you applied sponging too, I suggest making it heavier on the front edges and the bottom edges.



Now we want to highlight that silver with a lighter silver, for this I use Iron breaker, this give the appearance of a just scuffed of damaged part, or an area that is constantly being hit or rubbed against, so areas like around the door, and the front and lower edges especially.






Now this next step is not for everyone, For reasons I will explain at the end. But for now, this is how i make my rust effects. This consists of Vallejo Light red, and Vallejo Burnt Umber. You want to get a lot of red down first and then add a single drop of Burnt umber at a time, as light red is a very washy colour, and burnt umber easily overpowers it. so just add what you need, don't just splodge some on and hope when its mixed it works as it wont, "GO EASY WITH THE UMBER YA HEAR" .

Once you get a colour that you like, Then you can go up a notch and add in some weathering powder, this gives a deeper colour, and if you don't mix it in perfectly you get a change in colour on parts that also gives a better rust effect.














 Again sponge this on, but do it sparingly, and only do it on areas of silver. if you apply to much here you can wait till it drys and go back over it with silver, and you will get the same effect, Sometimes I do this step before the silver, but its entirely up to you and how you work with it.




 After you have done all of that its time to tie the whole thing together, And like any lazy Painters a wash is the best way to do this, but also add more weathering effects at the same time. For my world eaters, I use a mix of 70% Agrax Earthshade and 20% Nuln Oil, depending on your colour scheme you may need to adjust this, for yellow like Imperial fists I would be looking at a 50/50 mix, and maybe add in a medium as well, as to much Agrax earth shade will turn yellow very brown. I have a few pots ready mixed of this, and ready to go.




Applying the wash is simple, get ya biggest brush, and paste the model in it, cove everything in it, metal work, etc. even things like purity seals. Worst thing I have seen weathering wise, was a nicely weathered tank, but with bright and clean purity seals and emblems. Its like the Servs, decided to only clean parts of the tank on to save time. So at this stage everything gets it.




 
 Now the most important bit, removing that wash. This is where a ton of cotton swabs comes into play. you want to remove that wash you just splatted over the model by rolling the swabs back and forth, changing them over for clean ones regularly. Then on the high spots, you want to use a clean swab and rub hard, this will bring more of the base colour through the wash and in some respects give it a sort of highlight. the wash also tones down all of the rust effects and brings out the difference between the two tones of Metals you applied.



And that peeps, is that, a very very fast way to weather your models using my world eaters technique as an example. Now I mentioned earlier about the rust effects, If you happen to play with a bunch of guys that for some reason know the ins and outs of the particles that make up Ceremite, you may wish to skip the rust effects, hell skip the metal effects. we all know our self's that in the 41st millennium they probably wont use a material that rusts, hell if the name has anything to do with it then Ceremite is some sort of ceramic material hardened by the hairs from L337 Neck beards from the virgin stock of basement dwellers. and as such probably is not silver in colour even though th colour of Grey knights can be argued here as there armour is apparently bare Ceremite. and it wont rust. however we want a look to our models that says they have been through hell and back, and the easiest way to do this is by giving them chipped paint and rusty metal.

Tuesday 22 October 2013

World Eaters Sicaran Battle Tank.

Got the Bulk of the Sicaran done tonight, Just need to Hit it with the weathering powders, And she is done, ended up going with Heavy Bolters for the Sponson Weapons. The extra point's cost of the Lascannons are not worth it considering the amount of Heavy Weapons available to me with this army.







Saturday 5 October 2013

World Eaters Work Log: No 1 "the catch up"

So I have been proper rubbish, rubbish in the sense that for a couple of months I have had an absolute hall of Forge World Resin, in the guise of Pre Heresy World Eaters. Quite laterally the entire army is resin, All be it for one drop pod, That as of Games day, I have thrown to the side, and am now waiting for the Dread Claw Drop Pod to act as my army's Deep Striking assault crafts. So I guess I should start with exactly what I have purchased over the last few months.

So here goes.

2X 30 man MKIII Iron armour sets including weapons and command upgrades.
1X 30 man MKIV Legion armour set including weapons and command upgrades.
1 X 20 man Tartarus pattern Terminators set, with special weapon set, storm bolters, and power Axe's
2 X Fellblade super heavy Tanks.
1 X Legion Glaive super heavy Tank.
2 X Spartan Assault Tanks.
2 X Land Raider Proteus
6 X MKI Demios Pattern Rhinos
2 X Cestus Assualt rams
1 X Scicaran Battle Tank
1 X Warhound Mars Pattern Titan, (to replace the second hand one i brought, and just don't have the time to fix it up)


Yes I know............... a lot of resin

So where did I start, Well i hate painting space marines with a passion, so I forced my self to start on the bulk of the troops. after doing the first two sets of 5 marines, i had the technique to get them done fast, but without dropping to much quality from the paint Job. I can probably now do 5 marines in 4 hours. so not that long at all. so I did 40 to start with, enough to play most games, well more than enough, but there are 20 more of the MKIII armour left to do, and the MKIV's are being used for a second project that will explain in a bit.











Next on the update can only be described as a Beast. The Fellblade. The tank is Huge, to my knowledge its the biggest Tank that you can get. It even dwarfs the Shadow Sword  in the size compartment. And when your rubbling through the volcanic Ash on Istvaan III, size matters.

Here's a size comparison with a Demios Pattern Rhino.




I went for it with the first of the Fellblades, I think it took me 3 or 4 day on and off to get it done. Lots of masking up, lots of weathering, and in total 6 different layers of clear coat.











 The Rust effect, I created using a Mixture of Orange Rust from the Forge World weathering Powder set and Burnt Umber and Light red from the Vallejo Model Air set. The effect is Gained from sponging on White over the blue to give the worn off paint effect, then I use the rust mixture, and combine both brush and sponge, sponging to give feathered edges and larger flat areas, and the Brush to achieve hard edges over detailed areas. After that I hit those areas with Bolt gun metal again using both sponge and brush. I think the effect can out OK, i could of made it more realistic by using the dremel to create small holes in those areas that have rusted through, But in the 41st Millennium, Ceremite plating probably doesn't even rust, but it gave it that " I have actually been to war" look. 

After I did the rust effect I hit it with a mix of Agrax  Earth shade, and Nuln Oil 75% Agrax 25% Nuln. And covered the Tank on it completely, And then taking off the excess with Que Tips. This weathered the white and toned it down a lot, and also blended in the "rust" with the paint work on the tank. 

Since that first lot of Pictures where taken I have given the tank 2 more coats of Clear varnish, Before hitting it with Black Soot Weathering Powder, again from the Forge World set. Black soot is basically the closest thing I could get the the grayish black sands of the Istvaan system planets. That are covered in dark volcanic ash from Melania of volcanic activity, And you can take that as fact as I got it From Ben Counter, after moaning to him about a lack of description, I mean how is one supposed to base there models without this info eh?


Below is the weathers Track, its got a heavy dusting of Black Soot, and them clear coated, The pics below that are of the sides and the mud and ash sticking to the lower sections of the tanks hull.










Next Up a few WIP. First of all the Awesome looking tank, the Sicaran. Will be ordering a few of these. The tank was very simple to build and had no issues hardly needed any cleaning up either, the joys of buying a model that hasn't had many cast yet.







Also on the Tank theme is one of the Land Raider Armoured Proteus tanks. All i have done so far is Pin it all together and undercoated it. then i will be taking it apart again to paint. as there are some parts that are un reachable via air brush or paint brush.



And then we get to my special weapon Termies. Only 5 Special weapon termies,  And will be distributed probably among two groups of 10. This is where the Cestus Assault rams come into play, there is nothing more World Eaterish than ramming tons of Ceramite craft into the side of something and pouring a loud of White and Blue termies with daddy issues in.



And that About wraps it up for my world Eaters thus far. I will start doing regular updates on them If and when I actually do some more painting. I have decided to hang up the air brush for a little wile and get back to enjoying the game, as well as the many other non GW games I have been buying up lately. Mars Attacks anyone? :P

Review: 40K Hardback Small Rule Book

OK less of a review more of a small rant. Yeah the book looks great stunning cover, Black chrome edged pages, and a use full feature of having 3 different coloured Ribbons to mark some of the pages you refer to the most, in my case the first few pages of How To Play The Game.

But there is a LARGE flaw in this rule Book. Apart from the fact it £30 the same cost of a fully fledged Hard cover Codex. And that's important. GW charge us £30 for a Hard back Codex that has had Brand new rules written loads of Fluff and stunning new Artwork. This Rule book however is nothing more than the Tiny rulebook you get in dark vengeance. This would not be that bad I could of been happy with that if it wasn't for the fact that GW are so Bloody Lazy they could not even be bothered to update the Book with the latest FAQ. They have literally just wrapped cardboard around the Dark Vengeance Rule book added some Ribbons to it. And charged the same price as a fully fledged Codex. More full me for buying it, But it does look rather nice sat on the shelf Next to Betrayal And Massacre.