Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Boom Bombs go BOOM!

Boom Bombs

     Before you are the two "Boom Bombs" for the Blitza-Bommer that I've been working on.  I didn't spend a heap load of time on them since they're both mostly concealed by the actual flyer.  Magnets were added so that I can remove them during play as the bombs are obviously one use only.   I did take it as an opportunity to try out a few techniques while painting these:



  • Steel Wool to dab on paint to make scratches - This seemed simple enough but steel wool outside of using it wet to get rust and hard grime off of things is a real mess.  The steel wool is loaded with flakes of a dried cleaning agent.  I had to spend some time trying to shake all these bits out of the wool because I had no idea what this agent would do to the paint.  If you can find steel wool without this additive, choose that.  The effect I was hoping to get was a less grouped chipping pattern than the sponge.  I was a little disappointed, to be honest.  Perhaps I just need a bit more practice.  In the end I went back to the tried and true sponge.
  • Bit more complex checkers and jaggies - I followed my simple technique of using a fine pencil to very lightly trace out my checkers but I also used a design template that I had laying about.  This template has circular holes of varied sizes, so I placed the nose of the bomb in the circles to make the sketch marks that went around the nose.  This was fairly successful but needed a bit of adjustment.  I then did one reference circle on the white and orange bomb nose, and used the rivets around the nose cone to space my jaggies.  Pretty simple really.
  • Typhus Corrosion GW Technical Paint - I recently picked up a pot of Typhus Corrosion and Blood for the Blood God and I was itching to try the Corrosion out.  The effect is fairly subtle here only because I noticed how strong it can be.  Though it resembles a wash to a degree, it is much more opaque.  Fair warning there.  I found that if I applied it, then quickly washed my brush and went back with just a little water on the brush, I was able to smear the paint to blend the effect and this allowed for a bit more translucent look.  I really enjoyed the paint but with great paint comes great responsibility.  Test before slathering it all over your Rhinos or what have you.
  • Striped cables - I painted the cables on the bombs yellow and black striped.  I've seen this style done quite often so I wanted to see how much of a pain it might be.  I based with a light orange, then layered on some yellow.  Once this had dried, I just took straight black and eye-balled it from there.  I was careful to try and make the stripes look even.  Working around a thin element like a wire on a model can get you into a bit of trouble if you start getting sloppy with the brush control.  That said, I found this look to be easy to achieve with moderate accuracy.  Might have to use this on some future Ork models.
     Other than that, this was a pretty straight forward bit of fun.  One thing I would like to add: never under-estimate the blending effect that a full matte coat can provide.  When I was done with all the weathering, and before I applied the matte coat, these things looked a bit more like a hot mess.  All the different washes and the technical paint had left various levels of gloss across the models.  By applying a quick matte coat, all that was gone and the effects were blended together.  Should you want some weathering to be glossy (like oil drips and such) it might be best to either apply those after your sealing coat, or apply just a bit of gloss coat in those areas after the matte coat has been applied and dried.

     Just the base left to go.  Here is a little preview:



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