Welcome to tutorial for modelling Flames. Here I will present to you a Step-by-step guide on how to create fantastic, highly detailed flames for miniatures in a matter of seconds.
Blazing flamethrowers, crackling braziers, torches or balls of magical fire – in the world of miniatures wargames flames add a lot of character and dynamic to our favorite tiny characters. With 3d printing prevalence and a lot of bitz selling companies getting your hands on some awesome parts has never been easier. Still why pay and wait, when you can make your own flames of chosen size and shape in a matter of seconds and from materials you probably already have at home!
Before we start, as usual, please take note that what works for me might not necessarily work for you.
Step one: Foundation
It is best to start by finding a base shape to build the flame around. It can be anything solid including toothpick, wire, piece of plastic, or even the miniatures themselves. In this case, with an idea of flames gushing out of a flamethrower, I cut a small piece of a toothpick.
Step two: Ingredients
Next I poured few small drops of PVA glue onto the piece of toothpick. Just enough to cover the wider end. Right after that, while PVA was still wet, I poured Super Glue on top and moved the shape around so that Super Glue covered entire PVA beneath.
Step three: Shape
Here’s where modelling kicks in. I used another toothpick to mix both glues and guide a quickly hardening ‘paste’ around and finally in one direction to form a cone. The mix creates an organic, irregular texture when drying, which provided additional detail to the flame.
It might seem difficult at first, but once you get how the ‘paste’ behaves it will be as simple as barely few moves of a toothpick to get a desired cone.
Three steps, that’s all it takes. With a bit of practice the process takes less than a minute and can be applied to any surface. Below are just some examples of the results:
I hope you find this tutorial interesting. Be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments below or via Facebook or Instagram. I would also appreciate if you considered sharing this content with your friends, who might find it useful. Finally if you are looking for a professional miniatures painting service, be sure to contact me with this contact form. I always reply within 24 hours, after which please check out your spam folder.
Forget about tiresome Greenstuff rolling! From now on, when modelling Lava bases, the only thing you’ll need to do is to pick a ready-to-use tiny ball from a box! Below is a short guide on how to gain access to unlimited tiny modelling balls.
Remember that time when you laboriously rolled about three dozen Greenstuff balls only to drop half of them on the messy floor and then accidentally squash the rest to a pulp? From this day onward traumatic events like this are forever left behind you. No more rolling, no more squashing! As of now you will be able to draw an unlimited number of tiny balls, perfect for any kind of miniatures modelling, from these three sources:
Most clothes and shoes comes pack with a tiny bag of Desiccant. Inside you will find few dozen Silica Gel balls of varied sizes. These work well with typical miniatures hobby paints and are perfect for overall modelling.
These super tiny glass balls come in small packs and can be obtained from many places including cosmetic stores, Amazon and Ali-express. Different sizes and colors make it a perfect modelling material.
Yup, you read this correctly. Air Soft Gun ammo is just a bunch of tiny balls. Usually ceramic, plastic or metal sold in packs of hundreds. The latter might be a bit expensive and inconvenient, but ceramics and plastics are great for our hobby.
Below some practical use examples:
I hope you find this article entertaining. Be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments below or via Facebook or Instagram. I would also appreciate if you considered sharing this content with your hobby buds, who might find it useful. Finally if you are looking for a professional miniatures painting service be sure to contact me via this contact form. I always reply within 24 hours, after which please check out your spam folder.
Cheers!
In this step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to create Cityfight bases same way I did for Gallery: Tau Sa’Cea.
I used:
Step one: Special detail
Using a hobby knife I cut all the sticks, sprues, toothpicks, plasticard and tube into small pieces. I made sure to cut one side of each piece at an angle, to better position each piece on the base. I then glued random pieces on top of a base using Super glue.
Step two: Gravel
I applied PVA glue around previously glued pieces. I then applied Super glue on top of it and, before super glue hardened, covered entire thing with thick sand mixed with hobby gravel.
Step three: Texture
I then textured rest of the base using Games Workshop Astrogranite and Astrogranite Debris paints.
I started with Black Undercoat, then airbrushed a layer of Vallejo Cold Grey, followed short by Vallejo Stonewall Grey. I then washed everything black using Army Painter Dark Tone Ink and once it dried I drybrushed entire base with Games Workshop Administratum Grey.
For metal debris elements I used a mix of Games Workshop Warplock Bronze and Army Painter Gun Metal, followed by a highlight of Army Painter Shining Silver. I then washed all the pieces brown with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink.
For additional depth and effects I blended in some watered Vallejo Earth. Next I washed all metal debris with a mix of Vallejo Dark Red Ochre Pigment and Army Painter Soft Tone Ink. Lastly I drybrushed grey areas with Vallejo Ghost Grey.
Edges repainted black and job done!
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Wet Palette – a hobby tool every or at least a vast majority of pro painters has. A Wet Palette is simply a piece of parchment sitting on a wet sponge that keeps your paints thin and allows you to “save” a certain colour mix to go back to without the necessity to mix the paints anew in hope to achieve same results. In this article I will show you how to make your own Wet Palette.
Picking a right box for the job is very important. For best results it should be hermetic, rather shallow and as wide and long as you prefer. I know a very good painter who uses a Ferrero Rocher box, I preffer to use a more hermetic and smaller Games Workshop Turf box. It suits my needs better, as I don’t use Wet Palette too often. Either way…
Step one:
I measured the insides of my box of choice and cut a piece of kitchen sponge to be approximately 5mm smaller. This is to leave some space for a sponge that might grow a bit once filled with water.
Step two:
Next I cut a piece of baking paper to fit the sponge, again leaving about 5mm space between the edge of the sponge and the paper itself.
Step three:
I filled the “palette” with water until the sponge couldn’t take anymore. The key is to avoid water outside the sponge.
Step four:
I then put a piece of baking paper on top of the sponge and held it in place, so that it took a little bit of water and flattened. That’s actually it – Wet Palette complete and ready for action!
Now I can “save” the paints for later use…
Important tip: You will be switching the piece of baking paper every now and then, but I advise you to occasionally switch the sponge too. Depending on what kind of soft sponge you’ll use it might get smelly after long use. It’s because nowadays kitchen sponges are made out of algae and similar organic material. Just saying 😉
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The idea of introducing cars to my Infinity gaming board is one to haunt me for quite some time now. Many times I found myself in a toy store, standing before a toy car shelf and trying to pick a right car to fit Infinity the Game scale and sci-fi theme. Easy to say that all my efforts were futile, thus I postponed the idea time and time again, slowly loosing hope. This state of things changed drastically just few days ago…
I was visiting the post office, when all of a sudden I saw it! The postal worker was playing with an ideal toy car. Wait!? She wasn’t playing at all! That was a PC Mouse! Imagine my shock, when that realization struck me. Shaped like a car, with lights glowing bright, the PC Mouse was just perfect!
Two days later I was in possession of half a dozen PC Mouse cars. This was where “Infinity Cars” Special Project actually started. After a good look at the cars features I figured that apart of awesome futuristic design, the cars had translucent light covers, black mirrored glass, chrom elements plus some of them had battery powered interior glowing lights. These were key features I wanted to transfer onto final form. I started dismantling the cars to pieces…
It didn’t took long, as parts came off pretty easily. Depending on a car type there were either one or two screws that needed handling, other than that I only needed to pull parts gently for them to come apart.
Every piece being separated, I prepared everything for a proper paint job. I didn’t modify the cars too much. Removed “scroll buttons” and glued in some Warhammer 40k bitz to add Sci-fi looks instead, glued left and right buttons firm, removed “the insides” of cable mouses. Didn’t even bother to strip the paint.
Afterwards the cars got undercoated and soon after I applied a paint job with bright, juicy colours. I decided to keep the paint job simple, with no decals, freehands and other stuff that could have spoiled the perfect shape of these futuristic cars bodies. These are scenery pieces after all, too much is not always same as better.
The “Infinity Cars” are nowe done and I cannot wait to use them in the upcoming games of Infinity. I do hope you like the idea of using PC Mouse as an Infinity scenery piece. If you want to grab your own, just look for “PC Mouse Car” at E-bay or google. In the meantime I invite you tocheck out the “Infinity Cars” Gallery… and tell me what you think in the comments below 😉
Cheers!
In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a Desert Scenery as could be found in “Gallery: Gaslands”.
* I started by cutting foamed PCV (or styrofoam) into basic rocky blocks.
* I then used lighter to gently heat blocks on the sides, avoiding heating up top and bottom surfaces.
* Next, using a hobby knife, I cut bases from 3mm thick plasticard.
* I then glued rocky blocks on top of the bases with basing (PVA) glue. I also glued some blocks on top of one another for the scenery to look more diverse and interresting.
* Next I crumbled a sheet of cork into small pieces and glued them on top of the blocks with basing glue, sanding them before glue dried out to fill the gaps inbetween separate cork pieces.
* I then used plaster (gypsum) to build a gentle transition between bases and blocks.
* A time has come for me to add some detail. Not much, just some texture to bring more life to the wasteland. I cut pieces of plasticard and used toothpicks, MDF leftovers and a toy car to create ragtag barricades and post-apo racing signs.
* Lastly, with a regular brush, I applied basing glue then sanded all the plaster, sides of the bases and some areas around cork pieces on top of the blocks.
Couple of hours later I have painted this stuff and added some tuftsthe end result looks like this:
In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a Toxic Sludge Base. I designed these bases for Warhammer 40,000 Death Guuard Plague Marines.
**Where I’m from there’s a small paper bag filled with moist absorbsion balls in every shoe box. If you can’t get that, just use some grains or make small balls out of green stuff or modeling clay.
* I started by covering entire base with a layer of basing glue.
* I then put couple of tiny balls onto the base, creating 'buubbles' and let it all dry.
* Once dry, I covered are around the bubbles with another layer of basing glue.
* I let it all dry for about an hour, then undercoated entire base black.
* I then airbrushed a layer of Vallejo Interior Green over entire base.
* Next I airbrushed a layer of Duck Egg Green concentrating on bubbles and surrounding areas.
* Last thing to do was to airbrush two layers of Light Livery Green over entire bases and paint the sides black.
In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a Lush Base. I designed these bases to fit Infinity the Game Tohaa ‘tactical rocks’ – you can see how it turned out at Infinity TOHAA ‘Witness Me!’ gallery.
* I started by separating Grape mounts from the dried out Grape branch. Being rather soft, their topf have been removed to improove durability and shape.
* I then applied a drop of basing glue onto the base, followed up shortly by another drop - this time super glue.
* Before mixed glue drop was able to dry out I've planted Grape mount on top of it, creating strange looking plant.
* Once glue dried up I've painted the bases following choosen colour scheme (see below). I then added some texture on top of them with Stirland Battlemire texture paint.
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* Last step was to apply regular tufts. I used some noname tufts in large numbers filling most of the flat areas. Job done.
Black Undercoat,
Stirland Battlemire (GW), texture
Karak Stone (GW), stones & plants
Flayed One Flesh (GW), flatbrush stones & plants
Mix Strong Tone Ink (AP) 1:1 Soft Tone Ink (AP), wash
In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to create and paint a Lava Bases. I used these bases for Infinity the Game Combined Army – you can see how it turned out at Infinity COMBINED ARMY ‘Witness Me!’ gallery.
**Where I’m from there’s a small paper bag filled with moist absorbsion balls in every shoe box. If you can’t get that, just use some grains or make small balls out of green stuff or even modeling clay.
* I started by breaking a piece of Cork into smaller bitz.
* I then applied Super Glue over the bases in a random pattern. No need to be precise here.
* Pieces of Cork followed to form 'volcanic rocks' and future spots for the miniatures to be mounted on.
* Once Super Glue dried out I covered entire base with Basing Glue.
* I then dropped tiny balls (shoe moist absorbers) oon top of the Basing Glue, between 'volcanic rocks' to create an effect boiling lava bubbles.
* Next I applied Basing Glue over the bubbles.
* Black Undercoat.
* Mahogany (Val) airbrushed all over the base.
* Gorthror Brown (GW) drybrush over the Rocks.
* Gory Red (Val) airbrushed over Lava.
* Scrofulous Brown (Val) airbrushed over Lava.
* Scrofulous Brown (Val) + White airbrushed over Lava.
* Black spots added around Rocks
* Scrofulous Brown (Val) airbrushed over Black spots.
* Lamenters Yellow (GW) airbrushed over Lava.
* Hot Orange (Val) spots airbrushed over Black spots, White airbrushed over bubbles.
* Scrofulous Brown (Val) + Black, then pure Black glaze applied oved the Rocks.
* Gloss Varnish applied over Lava.
“The Mirrored City of Shadespire is a nightmare plane of illusions and madness, an ever-changing labyrinth of endless stairs, cramped streets and soaring archways. The original city is drained of all color and life, and for thousands of years, it has rested as a foreboding ruin. Those unfortunate, brave, or foolhardy adventurers that set foot within its walls are drawn through the veil between realms and trapped within the Mirrored City. For such wayward souls, all hope seems lost. Yet there are those who will not accept their fate without a fight.”
Whenever I pick a new title I always crave to have an ultimate gaming set – the same happened with Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire. It started when I’ve finished working on a small Shadespire commission and was instantly drawn into the game. Two days later I was already painting my first warband – the Sepulchral Guard, but it wasn’t enough to quench my hobbystic thirst. I moved to another warband, being Garrek’s Reavers, all the while my hype was kept strong by Shadespire facebook group – full of awesome inspiration. Somewhere in the middle of Garrek’s Reavers paint job I let myself be overwhelmed by hype and decided to go for a Shadespire scenery set. The idea was to keep it as crazy cool as I am capable of. Concept was there – inside my head – all along, fueled by Shadespire’s background story and insanely sweet art from the rulebook. So, the scenery was to fit the board with a ‘ruined city of sorcery and mysticism’ theme in mind. Most important part: ‘Shadeglass’ – broken, ghostly lit mirrors incorporated to a variety of trinkets, statues, pools, wells etc.
The way I see scenery making is this:
I faced “Shadeglass Scenery” Project following these key points. Started by preparing all the stuff that seemed usable and/or necessary. I like my scenery to be light, durable and painting friendly, so I picked 3mm plasticard to become both bases and baseline shape. Used hot water to bend some pieces, then cut ‘walls’ and hex bases out of the stuff…
Plasticard is very easy to work with. Adding texture all over newly created ‘pieces’ was a matter of using a right tool, rather than sophisticated and time consuming techniques…
With texturized walls and bases I was ready to move to major features – Shadeglass vessels of all sorts and sizes. For this purpose I used perfume cups plundered from my wife’s collection. (At the point when I’m writing this article she already noticed all the missing cups – fortunately the scenery is done and we played with it so she’s more like – ‘for the greater good’)…
Throughout about twenty years in the hobby I accumulated a vast collection of bitz, although until recently skulls where a rare commodity in the collection – Praise Nagash, Games Workshop released a set of skulls thus rendering them near to unlimited. Skulls backstory aside – I used some bitz to add detail and points of focus to the scenery…
I then used self prepared Hobby Gravel to add more detail and make the scenery pieces look ‘ruined’. Once I was sure that each piece is telling it’s own story – final polish followed and all was ready to get painted…
Painting a ruined city of sorcery and ghosts was an interesting transition between a color recipe I use for Shadespire warband’s bases and working on a much more bigger scale. I decided to follow my guts – start as usual and then see where it would take me. Somewhere along the way I started adding blends of purple to compliment incoming ghostly green’ish-turquoise hum. This turned out to be a bullseye hit, creating an illusion of morbid, colorful lights dancing across the ruins…
The ghostly hum of Shadeglass was a real challenge. I feel very comfortable with toxic green light, but going turquoise is moving away from warm color spectrum – my sphere of comfort. Still a hobbyist gotta do what a hobbyist gotta do – I braved the unknown with a mix of Vallejo’s Jade Green and White.
Broken Shadeglass mirrors – a special feature and main theme of the scenery. Decided to approach this in two different ways. First are the hand painted broken mirrors, adorning walls. I simply airbrushed hard angles with a mix of Jade Green and White using a Scarhandpaing’s business card like a stencil. I then adjusted transitions of particular ‘pieces’ of glass and made them more distinct with sharp white lining. Other vessels were a different story. I cut translucent plastic into shards and tossed them into resin-filled vessels. Some sunk instantly, while others stayed afloat – creating a really nice effect – which unfortunately looks much more badass in real life, than in the pictures.
The “Shadeglass Scenery” set is done and it have already seen some Shadespire action. Who knows what will come next if the hype continues? Either way – if you plan to venture into the Mirrored City – be sure to head there through “SHADEGLASS SCENERY” SPECIAL PROJECT gallery…
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