So, I was going batty this weekend. In more ways than one. First, because it was the Fourth of July Weekend holiday here I didn't have a lot of time to paint, so I picked a simple figure to work on: the Bat Swarm. And, secondly, a recent post on The Miniatures Page (See:
TMP. I strongly recommend you read this.) has me rather confused about priming and finishing my figures. It seems some folks are having an issue with their spray primers turning the figures sticky. So far, I have sprayed a few with Krylon Flat Black Camouflage with Fusion spray paint (designed for use on plastics) and have had no issues with tackiness. So fingers crossed I'm okay on that front. I'm concerned as well about my final spray using Testor's Dullcote. The figures I've showcased so far, that I used Dullcote on are all fine so far. But I think I'll stop using it for a while and let a couple weeks pass, and make sure the figures I've already done are okay, before continuing spraying with it.
After soaking in some dish soap, and scrubbing with an old toothbrush, and then rinsing and drying, I actually primed these bats by painting on black craft paint with a brush, not because I was afraid of the spray paint at that point, but because I felt trying to spray into the many nooks and crannies created by the wings and mashed-together bodies would make spraying very difficult.
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| Apologies, for some reason I photographed the back of this figure here, not the front. |
After this base primer coat dried I drybrushed the bats with my standard black drybursh: GW 'Shadow Grey'. I then did a slightly lighter drybrush on the bats with Apple Barrel 'Apple Scotch Blue' to provide some highlights. Then I gave a heavy drybrush to the gravestone using GW 'Codex Grey', followed by a lighter drybrush of GW 'Fortress Grey' to pick out some highlights. I tried to be as careful as possible working around the areas where the wings were sculpted to the gravestone itself, but as you can see in the picture below, there were places where I needed to go and touch up the wings with black and a hand painted 'Shadow Grey' highlight.
Next I gave the earth around the gravestone a heavy drybrush with Americana 'Charcoal Grey', followed by a highlighting drybrush of Americana 'Missippii Mud'. I then picked out the upturned bones with Americana buttermilk, followed with brushed on highlights with pure white.
Finally, when all the paint had dried overnight, I painted the figure with Ceramcoat Matte Varnish, and then when that had dried, I flocked the base by painting with with a mix of white glue and brown paint and then quickly dunking it into a tub of flock. As I mentioned in my first paragraph, I didn't spray with Testor's Dullcoate until I have let a couple weeks pass and make sure it doesn't have any ill effect on the figures I've already done.
Figure 4 of 264: Complete
Love the blog so far, I'll be watching this one all the way through. The figures you've do to date are all looking great. Makes me anticipate my own shipment all the more.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I hope you don't have to wait long for yours!
DeleteSince you can paint on cleaned Bones, Bones don't need primer. (I noticed you painted Mr. Bones black rather than priming it black.)
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, thanks for the drybrushing tutorial! Black's hard to paint and I've always heard to use blue, but haven't seen it before. (In old comic books, they often use dark blue as black!)