Tutorial: Rust Effect

August 9, 2022August 3, 2022 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I recently experimented with some rusty barrels on a diorama and decided I would write a tutorial on it for a couple of reasons: One, so other people can create the same effect should they want to. Two, so I can look it up when I want to do so again in the future and can remember how it’s done.

Equipment: Typhus Corrosion, Skagg Brown, Jokero Orange, Leadbelcher, Agrax Earthshade, Nihilakh Oxide.

I have used a wall for this, but it would work well on pipes or anything that might get rusty!

Step 1:

Paint the entire surface with Typhus Corrosion – this will add the rusty texture which we need for the next steps.

Step 2:

Drybrush with Skagg brown – those texture areas will start to show up in this and the next steps.

Step 3:

Looking a bit corroded there.

Step 4:

Stipple on silver, or other metallic colour, to show fresh chips in the rust.

Step 5:

Use Agrax Earthshade to put in some darker areas where crud might run.

Step 6:

Use Nihilakh Oxide to add a bit of colour to the deeper parts – maybe these were made of copper and are now tarnished!

Finished! Simple way to make an effective rust pattern!

miniatures.

Tutorial: Washes

July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 DebbieForster1 Comment

So, I want to talk about washes. A friend of mine who has just started painting was asking me about washes and I thought it would be easier to make a post about it for reference.

First off, let’s talk about the consistency of the wash style paint itself. It’s thin, high in pigment and will run if you let it. Paint in general wants to go into the lowest part of a miniature and will try its best to get there if it can. The thinner the paint, the more it wants to do this. Something to keep in mind while using a wash.

Second. The purpose of washes: It’s to alter the shade of a paint that is already on a miniature. This creates shaded areas and adds depth to the miniature in question. When you apply a wash, you’re changing the colour underneath to a darker tone, regardless of the colour you are using to wash with.

Still with me? Good.

I am going to use one of the Gellerpox Infected to show what I mean. I will be using a wet palette, Carroburg Crimson and Nuln Oil. I am focusing on his stomach adn the great big tear in it:

First thing I am going to do use the Nuln Oil to recess shade the tear in his stomach. I am using one of the smaller brushes I own and putting the wash in that gap only. I am being careful with it, but I do not need to put the brush in every spot on the gap because the paint is thin enough to run along it by itself. Capillary Action Baby!!

I have also gone aorund the staples too!!

Next, I am placing some of the Carroburg onto the wet palette and watering the wash into a shade. I do not want to put the neat wash onto the miniature at this point because the pigment is too strong. I don’t want to kick off the lovely base colour too much, so I thinned the wash. I then applied the much thinner colour over the entirety of the stomach.

The shade is at the bottom underneath the red!

My next step is to create a redder effect around the cut itself and I do this by layering up the colour gradually. Here are a couple of the stages. I used the shade for doing this:

Last of all, I wanted a real red sting around the cut itself, so using a smaller brush, I used neat Carroburg in select places to bring out the colour.

I have a lot of work left on this guy, I want to blend out those lines where the red is a bit harsh and of course, there is the rest of the mini to consider as well. I hope this has helped though.

If there are any questions, feel free to get in touch!

miniatures.

Tutorial: Neon Green

June 24, 2020 DebbieForster2 Comments

The paints you will need are:

Naggaroth Nightshade (GW), Stegadon Scale Green (GW), Huldra blue (Scale/Fantasy and Game), Moot Green (GW), Flurescent Yellow (Model colour) and Ivory (model colour). You will also need a dry palette and a good drybrush.

The only technique for painting that this neon green requires is drybrushing.

Step 1: After undercoating your miniature, heavy dry brush the entire miniature in Naggaroth Nightshade – make sure you get into all the cracks and recesses, as this will provide shadows.

Step 2: Drybrush the miniatures with Huldra blue.

Step 3: Drybrush with Stegadon Scale Green:

Step 4: Drybrush with Moot Green. At this point, I started to just do the top part of the miniatures to show that the bugs are in the light, however you could also do the whole miniature if you wanted to.

The one in the middle has a heavier dry brush than the one on the left

Step 5: This is where the flurescent paint comes in. It is too transparent to really be used on its own, so mix it with the Moot Green at about 50/50 to start with, then dry brush it onto the miniature

Step 6: Mix the flourescent yellow with the ivory again at about 50/50 and lightly drybrush over the top of the miniatures for the really vibrant green. The lighter you want it, the more ivory you need to add to the mix. The last two steps can be repeated for a brighter effect.

miniatures.

An Experiment in Drybrushing

June 6, 2020June 5, 2020 DebbieForster1 Comment

The other day, I watched a video online by Artis Opus. I don’t usually watch videos at all but this one was on and it drew my attention. They talked about using neon paints to create bright, vibrant effects on buildings and I thought it was rather interesting. I liked the lighting effect and wondered if I coould give it a go.

I didn’t have any scenery undercoated or ready, but I did have the bird in a tree thing I made a few weeks ago in another experiment. I grabbed the colours, which I happened to have in the house anyway and got to playing around with the idea.

I followed the tutorial roughly from memory, adding my own thoughts in as I went along and I was pleased with the result:

Now, I know this is not a building, but I followed the ideas as best as I could. I want to try and experiment with other neon colours, and I have some other miniatures that I can do it with. I like the technique, and I will also be trying it on some buildings in the near future!

miniatures. · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial: Skin Tones – Method 1

February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 DebbieForster2 Comments

The Daily Head seems to have been rather successful on twitter and so I have decided to share how I am doing the skintone practice with others. This is the method I learned at Seige Studios on their course. I have others I want to try out as well, but seeing how I have already got a few heads base coated, I wanted to stick with this way until I need to make some more.

Step 1: Base Coat.

I airbrushed the bases of all the heads starting with Cadian flesh, moving on to Kislev flesh and then a final highlight of Flayed One Flesh

Step 2:

Wash the entire head with a very watered down Seraphim Sepia.

Step 3:

Recess shade all the recesses with neat Seraphim Sepia.

Step 4

Recess shade two thirds of the recesses with Agrax Earthshade – not watered down/thinned.

Step 5:

Recess shade one third of the recesses – started from the nose/centre of the face, with Nuln Oil.

Step 6:

Black out everything that is not the face – this will stop the mind getting confused while you focus on the face. We are trained to know faces from birth, so keeping the face upright will also really help with this. Also shade in the eyes! I use black 70.950 by model colour for this as it is a nice matt black, but Abaddon Black will also suffice.

Step 7:

I have a special brush for eyes. It’s a fine detail brush with the point cut off to make it flat – this makes excellent dots without the point slipping and creating a mess. Use this amazing dot brush to place a dot at the two sides of each eye, as shown. Most of the time, this gets rid of the boogly eye that you get when you dot the black in the middle.

Also, highlight the ‘T Zones’ of the face with thinned down Kislev flesh. If you want a paler look, Flayed One Flesh would work here too.

Here is my progress so far. I know my brush control has improved from the first one. Things can only get better from here too. Just keep practicing!

miniatures. · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial – Battle Damage

August 30, 2019August 29, 2019 DebbieForster1 Comment

I started to practice battle damage on one of my tanks during some personal hobby time the other evening and someone asked if I would be able to tell them how I did it. Here is my step by step guide to creating battle damage on vehicles:

Step 1: Basecoat and edgehighlight the tank. Don’t worry about being super duper neat with the edge highlights, those parts that are a bit thicker or smudgy you can create chips with later. I am going to focus on the one panel for the purpose of this tutorial.

Step 2 – Take a piece of sponge and dip it into the highlihgt colour. Wipe most of the paint off, as though you were drybrushing, and spot it over the panel which is to be damaged.

Step 3: Using the edge highlight colour, paint in sharp, jagged shapes within the panel. Jagged is important. Don’t use soft lines!

Step 4 – Paint inside the jagged shapes with Dark Brown – I have used Doombull in this case. Do not paint over the edge of the highlight colour, you want a small edge between the base colour and the brown.

Step 5 – Paint inside the brown with a darker brown – here I have used Dryad Bark.

Step 6 – Paint another layer of darker brown inside what you have done already. I have used Dryad bark mixed with Black 50/50.

Step 7 – Use Seraphim Sepia to paint lines of rust from the lowest point of the damaged space. This creates the effect of running gunk from the battle damage.

Step 7 – This effect can be used over decals as well.

I hope that helps! I would love to see people’s attempts at battle damage if they decide to try it out.

miniatures. · painting · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial: Lava glow (Abaddon’s Cloak)

July 29, 2019July 29, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

A lot of people have asked me how I painted ABaddon’s cloak, so instead of explaining it all individually, I decided to find a mini and do a tutorial on it instead. This technique comes down to two things; time and effort. It took a long time for me to do Abaddon’s cloak and no small amount of effort either. Now, that said, here is how I did it.

Equipment:

Paints are: Abaddon Black, Khorne Red, Evil Sons Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, Fire Dragon Orange, Flash Gitz Yellow and White Scar. There is a lot of mixing involved in this as well, so a good palette is useful to have too.

Step 1 – Paint the cloak ABaddon Black, when the paint is dry, sketch on the design lightly. I have gone for an eye this time around. I didn’t photgraph this, we have all seen a black cloak before I assume.

Step 2: Mix 50/50 Abaddon black and Khorne Red and paint over the pencil lines. I also go over the edge of the cloak and around any holes. I’ve added a few fancy bits in here and there. Don’t worry about the lines being thick, each layer needs to be a tiny bit thinner than the last to build up the glow effect.

Step 3: Paint over the same lines with Khorne Red.

Step 4: mix 50/50 Khorne Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet and paint over the lines.

Step 5: Paint over the lines with Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Step 6 Mix 50/50 Evil Sunz Scarlet and Wild Rider Red and paint over the lines, trying to make them thinner than the last layer.

Step 7: Paint the lines with Wild Rider Red

Step 8: Paint with 50/50 mix of Wild Rider Red and Fire Dragon Orange.

Step 9: Paint with Fire Dragon Orange.

Step 10: Mix 50/50 Fire Dragon Orange and Flash Gitz Yellow

Step 11: Paint with Flash Gitz Yellow. I have neglected to take a picture of this stage, for which I am very sorry!

Step 12: Paint with 50/50 Flash Gitz Yellow and White Scar. By now the layers should be very thin and that glow should be showing up.

Step 12: Touch up and pin highlight with white – don’t go too beserk with the white otherwise it looks odd.

I hope this answers all the questions you may have, if not feel free to get in touch and ask, I will try and answer them as best as I can. I would love to see any results of using this tutorial as well, so please send me pictures!!

40K · fine detail · miniatures. · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial: Freehand Skulls

June 19, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

So, building on what I wrote about painting bone, I thought I would share how I paint freehand skulls next. This is just my thoughts on the subject, and I am sure there are countless others out there. This is what works for me.

First off, you’re going to need the following:

As well as a wet pallette, brushes, paint thinner and clean water. You will also need a picture to follow. I used the Legio Mortis one I used the other day for the freehand on the top of the Reaver, but there are plenty of good pictures out there on Google too.

Step 1:

Use the pencil to sketch the outline of the image on the panel you’re going to be painting on:

The shape does not have to be perfect, so long as it is a guide.

Step 3: Shade the skull shape in with thinned Rakarth flesh

Don’t worry about the thinner parts, they will be covered up as we layer the paint!

Step 4: Mix Ushabti bone with Rakarth flesh 50/50 and start picking out the bits that are going to be highlighted.

Step 5: Add extra highlights to the lighter spaces with Ushabti Bone – wet blending comes in handy here.

Step 6: Mix Ushabti bone and Screaming Skull 50/50 and continue to add lighter patches, they should be getting smaller each time. You might want to add some white in as well, depending on how light you want the skull to be. I only added a tiny bit to this stage, but neglected to take a picture.

Step 7: Mix 75/25 Rakarth flesh and XV-88 and start shading down the darker parts of the skull.

Some of the blends here look a little harsh, that will be fixed next stage.

Step 8: Add a little more XV-88 to the mix and keep shading down those key areas in the design – refer to the picture as a guide as well, it is what it is there for after all.

Step 9: The final stage is to use black to define the eye sockets, the nose and to tidy up around the edges as well, seeing how this is on a near black backing.

My main points when doing freehand would be: don’t rush it, thin layers are always better, and have a picture to refer to as well!

Like my tutorials? Consider funding my terrible coffee addiction: Ko-fi.com/hereticdeb

miniatures. · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial: Bones

June 13, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

A friend of mine recently asked me how I painted bone, so instead of telling them, I said I would create a tutorial for them to have so they can refer back to it. This is how I paint bone on skeletons and other actual bones, rather than freehand. I will do a seperate tutorial for freehand as it is slightly different.

Step 1: I use these paints for bone:

Step 2: Collect the miniature and apply a base coar of Rakarth Flesh.

Step 3: Wash with Agrax Earthshade and let dry

Step 4: Drybrush with Ushabti Bone.

Step 5: Drubrush with Screaming Skull.

Done.

Of course, you can go lighter than this but I like my skeletons to look a bit dirty. Nothing comes out the ground clean after all.

miniatures. · Painting Tutorial · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Resin Wash 101

May 22, 2019 DebbieForster2 Comments

I make a daily to do list on twitter so I can keep myself focused and know I am achieving things. On my list today was wash and assemble the NL guy, and I was asked about how to clean resin. I decided to do so in a blog post in case there are other people out there who don’t know how to do this but don’t want to ask. Here we go, a step by step guide to cleaning up resin:

1 – Equipment: You need the following – A bowl of luke-warm water, an old toothbrush, some washing up liquid and a tea-towel or other type of towel and the mini you want to clean up:

2 – Put a small drop of the detergent into the water.

3 – Add the mini to be cleaned up.

4 – Use the toothbrush to scrub over all parts of the mini. Try not to be too vigorous else you’ll end up with breakages and that would be a disaster. There are no pictures of this as using a phone with wet hands is going to be troublesome.

5 – Place clean parts on tea-towel to dry.

6 – Throw away the water and wash your hands. Resin tasting water is gross and leaves a weird taste in your mouth as well.

I hope this helps. I may well write one on bending miniatures back into shape. Resin is pretty easy to reform and it is oddly satisfying as well.

I also realise that my Reaver Titan is made of resin… it has many, many parts, some large… I need a bigger bowl.