Dipped orcs finished

Another unit of orcs joins the army of darkness.

 

Restoring Army Painter Dip

Lately my dip has become troublesome, I had tried putting paint thinner in a tin a while ago, but this was a mistake. So with past results going awry I was hesitant to try another substance. 

However, I had this Turpentine from my wars with the lead rust on my Dark elves. On reading the label it said it was good for thinning varnishes. Well, the Dip is based on wood stain which is a kind of varnish, so I gave it a blast. I’m very happy to report it worked a treat and has given a lot more life to my old tins. A good result in my books, recommended!

 

Tweaking Terrain

Terrain update, I had a late night burst of inspiration and tackled the grit. Once finished  I decided to go back and add some mid sized gravel. Hopefully the piles of debris should look better now with more brick sized stones in them.

I also managed to find my bolsa wood and this became old doors and beams.

 Once done I covered the new grit in watered down wood glue to keep everything locked in place.

I also placed a large stone in the corner of the balcony, this will allow me to place one of my 60mm x 60mm bases up there. Ignore the vile orcs, this is meant for archers of Lake Town.

Creating the City of Dale

I bought another nice piece from Two sheds Fred after I was so impressed with the first one. I saw they had this walled piece and thought the two might go together to create a bit of a ruined city scape.

The base has been made from an MDF model with gravel and grit added.

 It has a nice Lord of the Rings tome in the middle of it. I started to build up the corners just to shape the building a bit more.

 Some pebbles from the drive way make for fallen debris. I will also add some smaller gravel but these stones make a good base to build on. Some bits of bolsa wood would be good too, I’ll have to check my bits box.

I didn’t want to go too crazy again as it’s important to leave room from my big unit bases. 

Here is first Dale base with my little tweaks. Some brown and green washes make the ruins look a lot older and more weathered.

The extra little stones and grit really made a difference with the detail. I might add a few tufts of grass in places just to help with an aged look.  This particular base would make for good church ruins for a ECW game too. Very nice.

Orcs

The latest batch of orcs gets a dip in Dark tone. I tried this

 technique first on the Wolf riders a little while ago. Although there maybe a little loss of detail the effect is still good. I was a little shocked to find my Dark tone was a congealed mass and wasn’t really flowing. However, I broke through the thick skin of the dip and painted on the thickened stain. Although thicker, I think it still worked. A little disappointed that the stuff doesn’t last longer but I have managed to paint a lot with it so far, so I suppose it’s not all bad.

Very quick paint jobs again with a lot of use from my new best friends…the contrast paints.

These orcs were inspired by the release of Wargames Atlantic’s goblin box coming out. I even managed to paint up a few conversations I had from a while ago using Kings of war goblins. Now with too many for my two bases, I will need to paint another eight to create a full unit of twenty four. These orcs can multiply quickly once you start painting them.

 The old Dip still seems to be working okay even if I did have to use a screw driver to reach it. 

Update; here are the remaining orcs to finish the unit. Ironically, I think using this Dark tone actually produces brighter painted models. I think it’s because I leave a lot of base colours untouched and just let the dip do the work.

I like the effect the dip has on the armour.

Tweaking Terrain

 

I’m just putting a few extras of these nice pieces from Two Sheds Fred.  Being a trampled corn field I thought it would be good to see some crushed crop, this was made from mixed herbs and a dark green flock.

Although the ruins are very nice I couldn’t help myself fiddling with it and sticking on some more detail. I was conscious not to put too much on and tried to keep the spaces clear for figure bases to go. When dry I’ll paint to blend in with the existing base.

The patches of dark green flock really helped with the trodden crop look. I coated the herbs with watered down Wood glue to make them bomb proof.

I was also careful to leave some of that nice earth showing through.