A few days off for Thanksgiving allowed for some hobby time.
I managed to get some primer on a commission I am working on – a unit of 10 Goblin Spider Riders, ready to put paint to them.
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| Ten primed Goblin Spider Riders for a commission. |
In an effort to (finally) finish my Han Chinese DBA army, I put some time in on the three bases of Spearmen, replacing the "spaghetti" lead spears with brass wire ones that I shaped using the wife's jewelry anvil.
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| Telephone-pole-thick, spaghetti-flimsy original lead spears. |
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| Spear removed. |
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| Two units of the Spear with brass wire replacement weapons. Nice and sturdy. |
Bushido Terrain
I also started work on a Bushido terrain piece, testing out a new method, a GW ink called Nihilakh Oxide, to simulate bronze oxidation – a patina or veridigris – on a bronze statue. So far, its working out nice on my test piece. The steps I take to the finished piece are detailed below.
I searched eBay for some appropriate Bushido type statuary, searching for both Japanese and Chinese dragons, and happened to come across this neat little set of six in a red resin finish. They looked nice on their own but I intended to repaint them both as bronze statuary using the GW ink, and some stone statuary (think "
Great Stone Dragon" from Mulan!). But to actually own the set became an ordeal...
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| Six red resin dragons in their flimsy, vacu-formed packaging. |
I won the auction and only paid less than $12 including shipping. However, the crappy plastic vacu-formed holder and flimsy cardboard box was placed in a bubble-pack envelope and mailed. Needless to say, the package arrived and all but one piece had been broken.
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| All but one dragon busted and broken! |
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| Heads and Tails! |
Not an issue for what I was gonna use them for, the repair would be covered up by my repaint, but I felt the shoddy packaging deserved a discount so I contacted the seller about it. She gave me a full refund so ended up getting them at no charge! Woot! Next I repaired the pieces with super glue and left off the fiddly little bits, accepting that these stones dragons could have been
chipped and broken in a war torn Bushido setting.
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| Fixed. |
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| Fixed, but showing small broken scales for "Mushu" effect. |
For my test piece of the bronze finish, I chose the sculpt that had a duplicate in the set (just in case I "messed it up"), and primed it black. It's a neat little turtle dragon with a little turtle on its back.
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| The duplicate piece primed black with automobile primer. |
Next, came a dry brush with a bronze craft paint to pick out all the details. The color I used was DecoArt Dazzling Metallics Rich Espresso Craft Paint.
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| Dry brushed. |
I'll post more details later...
