Flotsam and Jetsam

[margaret]

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this!

[tauster]

I'll continue rambling about my airbrush learning curve here (instead of the miniatures thread, even if it is minis I'm torturing painting right now.

I started with a giant skeleton and a mykonid (both from reaper's first bones kickstarter) because I figured its easiest to start with learning how to prime with an airbrush.

This time I used regular miniature/model colors instead of homebrewing with craft paint (I'll leave that for later, when I have more experience with micing and thinning colors). I already learned that the degree of thinning your color depends on (among others, probably) the air pressure. I work with 1,8 bar (26 psi) atm, because that's what was reommended in a beginner's tutorial from Table and beyond.

Using a color named 'screaming skull' seems very appropriate for this guy.

I added a wash on the base in a whim, trying how the aforementioned homebrew color would behave. It turned out that it needed  much more water to act as a proper wash, but now at least I have the base covered and can get an idea how all the details look.

The mykonid got two layers of vallejo dark flesh as priming. I didn't achieve a complete coverage, as the air pressure pushed the wet color away. In afterthought, I might have been too close to the miniature... After both layers were dry, I added a bit of the brighter screaming scul from different high angles, trying to get a grip on zenital lighting, i.e. light from above (even if that isn't really intuitive for an underdark native). The overall effect is not visible after drying, I guess I was too near with the nozzle and the air pressure blew the lighter color away from where I wanted to have it.

Lesson learned:

Priming large pieces might be faster with an airbrush than with a regular brush, but only if you don't add preparation and cleaning times in the calculation. The mykonid would have been covered much faster, while I'm not so sure on the giant skellie. Where the airbrush really shines, compared to paintbrush painting, is that you get a much thinner and uniform layer of color. I probably wouldn't prime most terrain pieces, but if I don't want to lose small details on a mini, that's where I'll use an airbrush from now on.

[update]

I primed the other two mykonids as well, and got the same problem: The first layer of priming just doesn't want to cover the mini. I tried less pressure (1.4 bar / 20 psi) and more distance between mini and nozzle, which helped but didn't completely solve the problem. I suppose I just have to do more layers. Which is a pain in the behind because it still takes me a lot of time (and guesswork) cleaning the airbrush during the drying time of the layers. Any idea what I do wrong, or can do better? (yes, I properly cleaned the minis before painting)

The homebrewed wash on the skellie's base didn't turn out so good. It tinted the whole base instead of accentuating only the recesses:

Guess I'll have to do this one again, which is no biggie.

On the bright side, I blockpainted the first mykonid to get some progress:

 

[tauster]

Not sure how well known this technique is. Haven't tried it so far, but I definitely will soon.

how to create random organic texture with PVA and superglue

[sgtslag]

I've seen this effect, myself, as I discovered mixing Super Glue with PVA causes both to dry quickly, but I never saw it done to this degree... That could truly be disgusting if painted with blood and guts colors... I like it! Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

[tauster]

Feb 11, 2019 14:29:12 GMT sgtslag said:

I've seen this effect, myself, as I discovered mixing Super Glue with PVA causes both to dry quickly, but I never saw it done to this degree... That could truly be disgusting if painted with blood and guts colors... I like it! Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

And that is exactly what I'M aiming at.

[skunkape]

Read the tutorial, I can see how that can make really disturbing minis/terrain.

Thanks for posting, I think?!

[tauster]

I got greenstuffworld's spider web serum recently, but haven't tried it so far. If you don't know what this stuff is, watch this tutorial:

Now I haven't tested the stuff so far, but I discovered today that there's an alternative: 4 parts crackle varnish/finish/lacquer mixed with 1 part water. See here for the details.

Has anybody tried crackle varnish before to make spiderwebs? I'm extremely curious to do a side by side comparison and will share the results here.

[tauster]

Just stumbled over two ways of creating fleshfolds-like textures:

Basically simply cook puddles of PVA glue on a flat plastic sheet in the microwave until the upper half gets wrinkled and the lower half is still elastic, then drape it around your mini or wherever you want the stuff:

fantasygames.com.pl/nurgle-daemonic-skin/

On the other hand, the texture below is created just by letting a large puddle of superglue (cyanoacrylate) dry out. It looks like brain folds or funghi. I'd make a silicone mold of it, then duplicate the hell out of it with hotglue and make some underdark terrain pieces overgrown with fungus. Also, works great for myconid bases I guess.

massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2014/02/tutorial-using-superglue-for-structure.html?m=1

[The Brave]

It looks sorta like a spider nest.

[erho]

That texture is incredible! Just a big puddle of it?

Iknow the PVA and CA glue mix trick to get a gross texture, but this seems cleaner and easier.

[tauster]

I have lots and lots of paint different containers that I don't have space for on my craft desk, so I researched what commercial solutions are available online. Some were quite good but costly, others look nice but waste too much precious space. This one belongs to the latter group but inspired me to do my own version (which in the end looked totally different, ironicaly).

We have a CNC mill at work, and I have nice colleagues that milled me some boards-with-holes from scrap PVC plates that would have othehrwise have gone to the trash. The stand is made of scrap wood and MDF scraps. I used wood glue and screws to fasten the different parts.

The final thing. I made multiple designs with different diameters, to fit in Vallejo bottles, GW pots and other color containers I use. Each board is in A4 format, i.e. 297 x 210 mm. Which means I can switch the boards and use the same stand for another set of containers.

In hindsight I would have made more space between the PVC board and the MDF board so that the bottles slide in deeper, making them a more stable and less prone to slide out of their hole, but that is a minor issue. I am quite happy with the result and will make more stands for the rest of the containers I have around.

Happy easter, all!

[tauster]

Revived a lot of old threads those last days, although I'm not doing this on purpose. It's just that I get a lot of input suddenly, and find some time slots to get some things done. ...which is pretty cool, as I'd hate seeing them dissappear into oblivion

I got a stack of Simopor from work that would have gone to the trash otherwise. Simopor are sheets of PVC-free based foam, in my case 8mm thick. They bend and flex a bit but not much, enough to use a, say 30x30cm plate as a base for a terrain piece. I'm sure larger dimensions would still work. Interestingly the sheets flex a bit more in one direction than the other. Not enough to be relevant, but still... funny.

You can cut them with a saw or break them after scoring them with a blade (though you'd have to clean up the edges then). Cutting through with a knife isn'v viable. 4-5 cuts will go only 2-3mm deep, the material is too sturdy for blade-cutting.

More details for the technically inclined here.

I treaded it with the heat gun to see of I can get a half-melted bubbly structure, but that didn't work...

...but it got soft enough to bend it over (do carefully so you don't burn your hands!). After bending, I cooled it down in cold water and repeated the heating a bit nearer to the center of the piece.

Next questions:

- can it be painted with acrylics, and do they stick?

- which glue sticks to the surface? I'm pretty optimistic with hotglue, but I don't think that PVA will hold, because this stuff will probably not let it soak in

It takes acrylics well. The brown I smeared from thick to thin has, on the thinnest end, dried after 1 min. The pink wash doesn't stick immediately (it draws itself together because of surface tension) but after a while seems to grip on the simopor. Not sure how it looks tomorrow morning (dito the PVA-glued styrofoam).

Hotglue adheres very well. I could peel off the blobs with some force, but it is definitively strong enough to glue something to it - the left piece of styrofoam broke when I tried to peel it away. Peeling the thin hotglue off is extremely hard; I tried to use a xcacto knife - it worked but I slightly cut into the simopor.

So, any ideas what to do with this stuff? I can get several m² every month, so let's brainstorm!

[sgtslag]

Captain Obvious, here. Use it to construct buildings: print off PDF buildings, like Fat Dragon Games cardstock designs, on full-sheet label paper. Cut them out, apply them to pieces of this material, Hot Glue the wall sections together. I do this with 3mm thick cardboard, from a frame shop. Problem with the 3mm cardboard, is that it flexes, so I end up gluing in square dowels, to keep the wall sections straight and true. These would not require reinforcements/bracing. Cheers!

[tauster]

Poppy capsules...

Anyone else thinking of an army of giant beholders? Poor PCs...

These can be used for giant flowers, large monster eyes and whatnot. The only important thing is to shake out every(!) seed before crafting, and/or sealing the openings in the capsules. You really want the tiny seeds in your house, even if they don't sprout!

[tauster]

Marigold seeds: I have harvested a metric ton of them, and they seem to make really cool toothed mandibles. I can also see them as spikes on a beast's natural armor, or all kinds of nasty outgrowths.

[margaret]

Lovely find! that is absolutely cool!

FYI for readers interested in acquiring it, whose garden stores may not stock this species: this is the plant native to Europe named Calendula officinalis. Nowadays called pot marigold in order to distinguish it from the American genus Tagetes whose cultivars are now more commonly grown throughout the world. Tagetes inherited the same common name because of the similarity in flower color - its seeds are very different

[tauster]

margaret ist right, Tagetes might look similar, but the seeds are not:

[sgtslag]

Those are really neat, and intriguing, but I suspect that Calendula officinalis, cannot be imported to the USA, legally. The Ag Dept. is very serious about stopping importation of seeds, and plants, due to the agricultural risks they pose.

I remember reading, many years ago, about seeds recovered from an Egyption pyramid, estimated to be 3,000 years old. They planted some of these 3,000 year old seeds, and they sprouted, and they grew! Fascinating stuff, but it underscores the risks of shipping seeds, even if they're painted, and sealed... They still pose a potential risk of growing, and becoming a problem, in lands they are not native to. They're fantastic for crafting possibilities, though. Cheers!

[margaret]

sgtslag, you are absolutely right about seed importation being more challenging these days for some species, but pot marigold came to the Americas with the first European settlers, having been cultivated in European gardens for centuries. Some of the nurseries in my area carry it - others do not. They all carry Tagetes marigolds and packets of Tagetes seeds, though.

I just didn't want anyone spending money on a packet of Tagetes "marigold" seeds for crafting and finding that they had the wrong seeds.

I think the seeds would make excellent monster worms and monster larvae, too.

[sgtslag]

Cool! Thanks for clarifying

US Customs (Canada Customs, New Zealand Customs, etc...) takes seed importation very seriously... I would hate for any crafter to be charged with a federal offense for importing crafting supplies... I've watched Border Patrol, seeing how a few different nations deal with such things. I am m-u-c-h more careful going through Customs, now -- never lie on the customs form!  That is a serious offence!  Be honest, and you won't get fined; lie, on the form, or to the officer, and you will be lucky if all you suffer is a fine of hundreds of dollars! I did not realize some of the foods I brought home could be so dangerous -- or how serious the offenses are... Thank you, again. Cheers!