Friday, May 29, 2015

Tectonic Craft Studios bases pt. 1

I picked up a bunch of Tectonic Craft Studios bases for use with my Deadzone Plague, and boy have they been a dream. The pre-textured bases mean that you can speed-paint a whole clutch of them and base an entire army in no time flat, while having them look amazing. Here's what I did for my Plague.

I grabbed the 25mm and 40mm base toppers for the deck plating and hulk plating, since I'm going for a sci-fi aesthetic. Then I primed them black.


Then I simply gave them a heavy drybrush of P3 Pig Iron. I considered doing something fancier like a bronze or something, but these are for a horde of space monsters, so I wanted to keep this simple.

 To give it an aged and rusted look I thinned down P3 Bloodstone and gave them all a thorough wash. I like Bloodstone for rust because it has a natural tendency to separate when watered down into yellow and brown parts when it pools, which gives a mottled rusted effect. I've also used Secret Weapon Miniatures rust pigment suspended in water, which is also really good, but gives a very different look.


I wanted to break up the brown rust, so I decided that some parts of this would be more likely to develop a blue patina. I just washed them heavily in GW Nihilakh Oxide where I wanted to break up the pattern, mainly using it to pick out any details like bolts or grates.


Finally a tore a small piece of blister foam and stippled on GW Ryza Rust anywhere it looked "broken" to emphasize where the metal was most worn.


And that's pretty much it! I'll do part 2 after I get the Plague models on the bases and do a few finishing touches like blood or slime. Hopefully get to that later this weekend.