The tamiya extra thin also works really well to smooth out any areas/mould lines you sand or carve down.

It can certainly help with limiting the 'drybrush texture' look that can happen, which is undoubtedly useful if you're doing large areas and want to tint with paint afterwards etc, I don't for bases though because I actually want that texture there. Most important part of drybrushing is how much pressure you apply, it's usually much less than people think

Can confirm that would work really well, I used a variation on the technique then went over with coloured washes and gloss varnish for a bunch of board game tokens a while back. Green works well as it can look a bit like jade once it's done.

Absolutely, for a smaller plastic miniature a couple of drops of superglue on the feet is enough, for anything space marine sized or bigger, you'd be better off pinning it. You'll need what's called a pin vise or small hand drill, some paper clips, a drill bit the same diameter as the paperclip and some spare clippers (don't use the ones you use for your miniatures, cutting paperclips will damage them eventually so you want either cheap spares or tougher ones specifically for wire. Drill into the thickest part of the underside of one foot of the model (usually it's towards the rear directly in line with the leg) about 5mm deep is enough but if you have the space on the mini go a bit further. Figure out where on the base you want the figure to stand and drill a corresponding hole into the base all the way through. Superglue a straight piece of paper clip into the hole in the floor, let the glue dry and test fit your model. If that looks good take it off, pop some glue on the feet and the length of paper clip sticking out then glue it down. Once it's all dry trim off any wire sticking out underneath the base (hold the model not the base when you clip this bit) and you're all done!

Thanks!

I tried recording the process but failed miserably 🤣 set up changes are being done as I speak. In all honesty it's pretty close to the way cult of paint did their version, except with a different way of doing the dents and chips, which I'll do a video on soon.

Thank you so much 😀

Designed it myself in Blender a while ago, once I dig out the original file and make some alterations so it prints a little nicer I'll pop it up as a download somewhere.

@ very cool!

My official recommendation though is to probably not try eating it 🤣

I 'think' the Vallejo varnish has a different binder than the tamiya (polyurethane I think in Vallejo) so that's entirely possible! I still think there's some finessing to be done with the tutorial, some people can get it to work, others can't, and I'd like it to work a little more consistently for folks.

It's not something I've tried no, but now it's on the list to have a play with!

Thanks! Hope you slept well 🤣

I'd suggest lots of different sized sand, and bits of rubble for something as big as a joytoy 40k figure. Glue on a few bigger bits with superglue, then when you do sand, sprinkle largest pieces first very sparsely so there's lots of big gaps, then go a size down and fill in some of the gaps and then with smallest sand fill in the rest of it. Should look a bit more realistic for a large scale figure, and avoids the occasional problem of mixing up sand types, that you just get an unintentional scoop of one type of sand .

@nofixedcourse appreciate the steer. Many thx👊

Glad it's helped! Hope you enjoy painting them

Yeah it breaks up the surface tension. You can also pop some isopropyl alcohol over before you apply the top layer of PVA, that works really well but obviously not as accessible for a beginner or someone younger.

Drill a hole when you're done painting the base if you're going to pin the figure, or glue the unpainted figure to the base before you start basing. There are multiple ways to go about it. Some small, light plastic figures can just be superglued straight onto a base like this with no issues.

Interesting, I think you'd probably want to start with something like ushabti bone or even screaming skull and then work up from that to just slightly off white. White sand looks warm in tone still so you'd want to keep away from anything with too much blue or green in it because that will cool it down too much and it'll start to look more like ice or snow.

I picked up some UV resin this weekend which I've been playing around with ironically, definitely a future video as an alternative to this, but I like having stuff like this so that someone younger getting into the hobby can just go into Hobbycraft and get what they need without parents worrying about them using toxic resins. Or someone allergic to resin for example might need something like this.

@@nofixedcourse make sense in that regard.

Good luck! I'm sure it'll be fine, there's plenty of references around for green marble. It's usually a cold green so that's worth remembering.

@@nofixedcourse I was planning on replacing your administratum grey with Vallejo Dark Green (keeping the white the same), and maybe doing a glaze of polished gold (either in the vein or all over) to give it the sparkle of mica that real granite has. I guess I'm making white granite instead of marble. Thank you for the excellent videos, I've learned a lot.

I think if you put the rocks and some gravel on part of the base before you do anything (a small section or something, just to suggest the edge of a frozen lake or pool) and then paint the blue over everything as I show in the video, that way you should still be able to see some of the smaller pieces but the colour will suggest that they're deeper underwater, then any of the larger rocks that stick out once you've added the varnish or resin (you may want it a little thicker to cover the sand or gravel so a UV resin might do the job better) can be painted in a neutral grey as you've suggested (also depends on the colour of the model going on the base, if there's a lot of red on the model, adding a touch of green to the rocks with a wash or by mixing green into the grey before you highlight, will go well. Hope that helps, it's difficult to describe what I'm thinking though 🤣

@@nofixedcourse Thank you so much, I will definetly be trying that!

I live in Vietnam and model terrain stuff isn’t exactly easy to get a hold of so aquarium decoration is exactly what I use

I'd hazard a guess at enamel paint, that was the go-to for lead figures many years ago and can be extraordinarily tough in some cases.

Then help me understand so I can make something suitable for beginners. which bit of this would you say is too advanced?

For a base it really doesn't matter. Priming is just a method to make paint stick better, and as paint will stick well to the textured surface of a base it's all good. sometimes I don't even prime plastic miniatures if they're prepped correctly (that one is more painter dependant, some like it, some don't).

I do have 'some' footage of painting the ghoul skin, the whole thing was meant to be a 'how difficult is it to paint like Craftworld studio' exercise and video, but I've had so many technical issues with the camera, the set up and then getting really ill, that it's not the best footage in the world. But you are correct, there's a transition from red through purple into blue going top to bottom.

The long form video that's linked to this one explains it in greater detail (should literally be a link straight to it at the bottom of the screen when you watch this short), but essentially I take a photo of the model when it's primed black, this gives me a guide of where at least the main highlights will look best, and the layers are blended with 50/50 glaze mixes of each tone, but the longer video goes into far better detail than I can put here.

Ok, what's too hard? The painting or the basing itself? There are ways to simplify everything if needed while you're learning. As for gluing a figure to it, just super glue will do the trick (pinning helps especially if it's a metal figure) , or glue the figure to the base first with plastic glue, then follow all the steps here to finish the base before you paint the figure.