Painting Real-Metallic Metals (RMM)

"Real" is a term I've dubbed in regards to painting Metallic Metals using paint that actually contains metal.

This means you can paint something with iron and have it rust or use copper that patinas green. Even if you don't want to age it, there's value in having a finish that actually looks like Pewter, Brass or Gold.

Want to see how this crazy stuff works? Click on through.

Creating the Mountain King's River

In the last post on my Elemental King, I discussed building the Mountain King's base. Today, you can read a comprehensive tutorial on how I created the water on his base. I'll admit: I'm pretty proud of this one. It turned out beautifully and the ripples I made in the water seem spot on.

Included are some money saving tips and details on a slight hiccup, which you'll have to read the post to find out about.

Basing the Mountain King

Often overlooked is the importance of the base for your model. It's not the focus, but it should accent what you've created and cheaping out will detract. I'm also a firm believer in using as many natural items to base with as you can to place your miniature in a believable context.

This becomes extra important on a project the scale of the Elemental King. Last week I looked at applying terrain on the Mountain King's body and today we'll apply it to the base.

The Plan

The whole time I'd intended to have him striding through a river that came up to roughly his ankles. So the base needs to be a rocky/sandy bed that ended at a shoreline. The wood was planned the whole time, but here I have to blend the land and water together.

Basing the Mountain King's Body

One of the parts of the Elemental King Project was that he's supposed to be covered in moss / grass. Originally, I was going to go overboard - if it was skin, it was going to be covered in moss. As he came together, my vision changed. I really liked how his skin turned out and didn't want to hide that. Instead, I decided to have the moss growing from the stone outcroppings, thicker where it met the skin.

The neat thing about an elemental, is I'm mixing my basing techniques with the actual body of a miniature. This creates a unique dynamic not often seen in miniatures.

Object Source Lighting on the Elemental King

Last week I covered how I painted and gel'd the special effects for the whelps on my Elemental King project. The thing about some special effects, like fire, is that they can cast light which has to be taken in to consideration. Today I'll demonstrate how I achieved that on the Mountain King. I've also covered Object Source Lighting previously.

The tricky thing about OSL is always that there's no going back. Here you have a nicely painted object and then suddenly it's time to paint over it all and dramatically change how it looks. It's intimidating. But also rewarding.

So, read on to learn how I use just a few paints to turn the fire elemental whelp on a chain into a sort of lantern for the King.

Painting and Gelling Elemental Whelps

The Elemental King project involves covering him in a bunch of whelps. Some are perched on him, others are bursting forth from his body! Lets look at how I've painted them and added some extra flair too.

When working on this scale and around a larger project, sometimes it's easier to paint these smaller details separate. Pictured here, you can see that I've got this whelp glued to a toothpick. This lets me paint him away from the King while getting under and around into the hard to reach places and still hold him in place to see how it looks.

Because of the elemental theme, I'll be displaying how I've painted the Whelps in styles of Fire, Earth, Water and Wind as well as creating special effects to go along with these themes.

Painting the Mountain King's Loin Cloth

Next up in the saga of the Elemental King, I've got a brief article on his loin cloth. (haha) Not really anything fancy going on here, but I'll cover it nonetheless.


Base Coat

As I've demonstrated before, stippling / sponging is a great way to paint leather because of the texture it adds. So as an undercoat, I've painted some layers of mixed size dots by changing up how firm I'm pressing the sponge onto the surface. I want the cloth to be red when I'm done, so I use a number of red and browns of different brightnesses. Because of the nature of leather, don't even wait for paint to dry - let it mix.

At this stage, don't worry about the details of stitching that hold the sections together. That'll get painted later.

Painting the Mountain King's Stones

After painting the Mountain King's skin, his stones were the other large task I was faced with. It meant a lot of airbrushing, time consuming edge highlighting and possibly the most tedious task I have ever done in my time painting.

All well worth it and along the way his "stones" became more "crystal." The artistic process is a fluid one. Allow your vision to shift if things start veering away from your original destination as long as you're pleased with how it's coming together.

Take a look at the Elemental King's completed photos and an outline.

Painting the Mountain King's Skin

Today I'm going to demonstrate the number 1 question I received during the Mountain King project - How I painted his skin.

There were a lot of steps to it, but I'll show the ones that stand out. Most of the photos are hi-res so you can click them to get a more detailed view.

Overall, it basically came down to:

- Stippling with a sponge.
- Airbrushing.
- Painting deep shadows.
- Highlighting with weathering powders.
- Shading subtle shadows.
- Varnish.

Mountain King's Chipped Pearl Mani-Pedi

Another change I decided to make to the Mountain King was to replace all his finger and toe nails with real chipped pearl.

The other thing I'll show off here is using a Dremel to make the process easier.

You can see an example here of how it looks when I finished.

I had considered replacing his teeth with stones, but that was looking a little logistically crazy and to be honest, I liked how his teeth looked. While rooting through my terrain bits I came across the pearl chips and it all came together.

You can also carve the nails out with a knife, but a rotary tool is just tons easier and faster.

Sculpting the Mountain King

When I decided to prop the Mountain King's hand up on a log, the last thing I was expecting was it to turn into the mass amount of resculpting this project required. The model was designed to go together in a specific way, with no allowance for repositioning.

It was a blast to do all the work though. I learned more about sculpting with green stuff on a larger scale as well as how to blend it seamlessly into the actual model.

Without further ado, lets look at what was involved...

Pinning Heavy / Large Models to Bases (and Mountain King WIP)

"Overkill is my style...
and I think big." *

Today I'm going to look at a couple ways to attach models to their bases that'll be more secure than just gluing them down. On larger scale models or those that are heavy, you really want to make sure they're firmly attached to their base, won't rock around, snap if they're jostled or apply too much pressure to the terrain around their feet. You'll also get to see more photos of how the Mountain King project came together.

I've discussed simple and advanced pinning before, which is the act of drilling holes in the joints of larger models so that when you glue it together, you can stick metal rods in and strengthen the connection.

* Don't feel bad if you don't get this sci-fi reference. It's super obscure and Canadian. Although, yes, that's the Human Centipede guy.

The Elemental King Surfaces

Followers of My Facebook are aware that since the beginning of February, I've been working on the Trollblood Gargantuan model, the "Mountain King." (For the game Hordes from Privateer Press.)

I'm proud to say that 4 months later, my Elemental King is complete and a fearsome addition to my Hordebloods Project. I've posted some pics around, but this page contains the high resolution photos, including close ups of some of the detail. (I'd appreciate votes on CoolMiniOrNot and feel free to comment on DeviantArt.) He's also currently entered in the Golden Vinci 2015 and Bananalicious 2 contests.

Much of the process to create him was photographed and documented. I'll be posting some detailed WIP's over the next while.

Noteworthy Details:

• Painting his Skin
• This was the most asked question I received during his WIP.
• Prime black, use a sponge to stipple grey and white layers, highlight with light airbrushing, a little more sponging, larger cracks and crevices painted black, then washes to deepen the subtle wrinkles, highlight with white pigment, (weathering powder) then finished with a can of satin hard coat and a layer of airbrushed matte varnish.
• Painting the Crystals
• I liked the stone I painted for Mulg and was going for a similar look here.
• Prime black, airbrushed dark to light, shaded using dabs of wet paint blended with an eyeliner brush and finally edge highlighted.
• Sculpting
• His gut and left shoulder were resculpted to compensate for having to raise his lower arm up on that log.
• Rust Effect on his collar, chains and brackets.



The original inspiration for this beast.

• Painting a cold-blue/grey NMM, then layering real paint on iron, covered in multiple coats of an oxidizing (rust causing) chemical.
• The 2 Turtles
• A green-stuff base covered in pieces of real turtle scutes naturally shed by my turtles.
• Special Effects
• Heavy artists gel was used in layers to sculpt the special effects like water, flames, etc.
• Plant Life
• It's all real.
• The greenery is hobby moss and there's mushroom like white growths.
• Lots of small flowers, plants and buds collected from Windsor, Ontario, Canada surround the Water Whelp on his right side.
• Pearly Nails
• His finger and toenails were carved out with a Dremel and replaced with pearl chips.
• Watery Base
• Boxed in with overhead (transparency) paper and heavy gel to close the gaps.
• Filled with Woodland Scenics Realistic Water, some gravel and sand added to different layers so the ground looks disturbed.
• Topped with heavy gel to create waves and ripples.

Again, I'll go into specifics on how all this was achieved over the next while. In the meantime, be patient :)

High Res Photos: