Custom Bases for the Ultramarines and the Deathwing Terminators

I have created a few new bases for the Ultramarine Terminators I posted last week.

For the white bases I used sculpey oven hardening clay. I rolled out a strip of the clay and used a sponge to add texture to the top. After baking the strip and it hardening, I then broke it into the pieces I wanted for the bottom half of the base, and glued it to the base. I then I broke smaller pieces off to form the top layers. After the glue set I used Liquitex Basics Modeling Paste to fill in the crevices between the pieces on top to simulate dirt filling in the crack. While the modeling paste was still wet I also used some small ballast and pressed it into the paste for rocks in the dirt. The brown base is made completely out of cork. I cut the pieces to size and used a sculpting tool to dig pieces out of the cork. I think I like the sculpey bases better.

I have also created custom bases for the Deathwing Terminators I was working on, when I began this blog. 

For three of these I just picked up some bark that had fallen off of the tree outside my house. Although this is wood I intend to paint it to look like rock. The one on the left I just wrapped a scrap of cork around it. The front base is a chunk of cork, with a sculpey disk on top of it. I used a scultpting tool to carve a Dark Angels chapter symbol into the disk. This wasn't really visible and since I wanted it to be seen in these pictures I gave it a quick brown wash to bring out the carving. aroung the cork I spread some white PVA glue and added the small ballast to fill out the base. Once I am done painting the other three, I will be adding my homemade sawdust flock to the base. I would do it before painting, but I have already tinted it and it looks better added after painting.

Lady Justice crew started. Lady J done.

I have started the lady justice crew for Malifaux. All are primed and most have a base coat. Lady Justice on the other hand was begging to be finished. So here she is.

Christmas project for a friend

Here are some WIP photos of some Terminators, I am painting for a friend as a Christmas present. I am about done with general color blocking. When that is done they will get a coat of gloss varnish and then I will begin washing.

Kirai crew finished

It appears it is time to post the final pictures of my work on my Kirai crew. Here they are the Onryo and Datsue-Ba. One turned out a little Christmasy but I like the color combination.

As for Datsue-Ba, after a bath in Simple Green to remove my first attempt at painting her, she is now ready for a fight.

And just for giggles I'll post a group photo so they can all be seen together.

Now on to my next crew. Looks like Lady Justice is chomping at the bit for a touch of paint.

Custom bases for New Crew and Finished Seishin

My team lost to day so what better to do, to drown my sorrows, than work on miniatures. I have a new crew coming in hopefully next week and am making some custom bases for them. These will be stone themed. I made the larger stones from Sculpey and then broke them into the pieces I wanted. I then glued them to the bases. One base didn't look right so I decided to shave it down with a X-Acto knife. As I got to the bottom it broke in a few places and I had to fill in with smaller ballast stones. It actually turned out looking pretty good though. Another broke in a shape smaller than the recess in the base, so I decided to fill it with the smaller rocks too, and it turned out quite good as well. Here is a shot of the final product.

I am going to make casts of these, and since someone asked nicely, I will put up a how-to on it. After the bases were done I decided to work on the Seishin for my Kirai crew instead of finishing my Onryo. When I originally based it, I used Green stuff to hold it in place because the glue wasn't holding. Using the green stuff, I created a "mist" that the Seishin spirit was materializing from. I wasn't sure how this would look until I painted it. Now I have to say it turned out better than I had expected. The paint job was supposed to make it look like it started from a mist and then became the solid dragon at the top. I did this by airbrushing the lighter color as a base coat and then used darker coats as I went up the model. Similar to the technique I used on the cloak on the Ikiryo. This gave it a good blended transition as the spirit manifested.

As you might be able to see, I also created some mist tendrils coming up from the base. I still need to spray it with matte varnish but other than that it is done. Well that is all for now. Soon I should have the Onryo finished and posted. If you would rather me post these more in a step by step format so my progress can be seen let me know and I will try to do that instead. Otherwise I will continue to do this as a gallery of my finished work. Thanks for reading.