Urban Basing with Vallejo Magic

Hello Good people

To start with i want to say a big sorry to all those that have been expecting something from me recently. Life has gotten in the way quite a lot as my school will be starting in about 2 weeks and a lot of papers and things going on between us with payments and all that crap bla bla bla etc etc. Not gonna go into too much detail, but you get the idea :D

Anyway, today i will be doing a base tutorial. I have always loved urban bases. I guess this is because i feel it seems very logical to have the warhammer universe taking place in war torn cities across space where the whole battlefield is nothing but rubble. So therefore through out my years in the hobby i have tried to do them in many different ways. They all turn out quite well in the end and there are ltos of different ways to do them, but here is a very easy way that i do them. If you do use this method though try and maybe do it in bulk, because certain things take a while to dry and this will help maximize productivity!!! So ya. wouldnt want you to waste too much time eh???

Ok so straight to it!

Apart from the standard stuff like paints, brushes etc etc here is a list of what you need.

Now As you can see here there are things that most people may not have in their tool box. But i assure you all these things are very worthy investments. Not only do alot of these things last a long time, but the thing is that i think that bases are just as important a part of the model as the model itself. Why would you spend 40 hours on a character model just to put him on a regular base with just a bit of sand on it?? wont that be a little boring? (this is up to debate ofcourse as people say thats good and makes sure all the attention is on the model itself. I however think thats stupid.)

But here is a list of things

1) Vallejo Still water

2) Vallejo Surface Primer

3) one of the Vallejo Textures (this as you can see is red oxide)

4) 4 or 5 of the Vallejo Pigments and a pigment setting solution

5) a little piece of plasticard

6) a little bit of PVC Tubing

7) Some random military accessories from any hobby store. Here i have Barbed wire (15mm scale) and a metal beam or support of some kind. (these things add nice character to the base once completed.)

8) VERY IMPORTANT SLOTTA BASE

OK! So now. The base itself. well to start with you need to make sure its a slotta base. Ofcourse this isnt necessary but it will make it easier for you later on.

HERE WE GO. HANG ON TO YOUR HATS.

1)

First you need to carve out the base. As seen on the picture above use the slot as a measuring point for where the future water will be. Cut carefully and make sure that you dont end up snapping the base, coz the plastic is thick and if you apply too much pressure it will break in half. (for those that have been in the hobby a while you know it happens sometimes when the models where still in pewter that you would get a broken base. That sucked:(

2)

Glue the Base to the Plasticard Piece!

3)

Trim the sides of the plasticard sheet. Be careful when you do this. Try to cut it as close as possible to the base and then the rest you need to file down to get a nice and smooth finish. Try to not use a regular modelling file for this because they are quite rough and this will result in you getting very small nice scratches on the base which i think looks horrible later on. So what i do is i actualyl use a very soft nail file. They get the job done, are cheap and work very very nicely when you need a smooth finish. Anyway once you are done your base should look a little like this. 

4) 

Now on top of the base we are going to start placing down some thing which will help to add some shape to the finished base. In this case i just used a random piece of sprue that has been lying around and irritating me. But being as lazy as i am i haven thrown it away, but i guess that was good afterall. muahahaha. But as you can see here i added that piece to the base after i cut it in half. Then after that i also a small piece of pvc tubing which i also glued onto the base sticking out over the pit. Also at this point try to mount it on something like an old paint pot or a piece of cork or something

5) 

Now its time to break out the Vallejo Textures. I did a peoduct review on this earlier so you can check that out and see what type of texture you want to use as they are all slightly different. But i used Vallejo Red Oxide as i think the size is quite good. So once you are at this point jsut slap it on pretty much anywhere and everywhere (dont cover the pipe ofcourse silly) and then leave this to dry for a while. To apply this just use an old brush and dip it in and palce it on the base. As i said in my review of this stuff you can sculpt into it a bit as it is gel based so thats also really good. Try to not make it too smooth and all as we are trying to go for an organic and natural look with lots of bumps and crap and stuffs. so ya u see what i mean. Also its important to get inside the crater/pit. 

6)

Right  now this is an optional step. It is definitly not necessary but i just think it adds a nice little amount of detail to the base. So i added some small barbed wire (oh ya as i said use 15mm scale barbed wire) and also a small piece of the Beam and jsut kinda throw it in there somewhere, Mine is kinda in the pit. Reason i use 15mm scale wire is because its perfect size. Its very small and it you were to think of it, in regards to the 28mm figures that this base is for, if you put most other types of barbed wire by other large companies (no names mentioned hihihihi) then the barbed wire will pretty much be as thick as a electrical wire on a telephone pole. And thats not what we want. We want THIN and small Barbed wire. Something that looks real. So use this! But again as i said though its not necessary ofcourse not. So if you dont have the chance to use this well thats fine then. Skip this stage :) This is where the idea of doing this basing in bulk comes into play because now you have to Leave it to dry!

7) 

Next step is priming. First i based it with Vallejo Grey Primer, and then i just gave it a quick coat of Vallejo Black. Did this stage with an airbrush to speed it up. 

8)

First over this black coat i added a heavy drybrush of Black and white mix to the baseAt this point it was time to add some other colors to the base so to start with i used Vallejo Cold Grey, and gave it a nice drybrush of this color, then i continued with Vallejo Model Air White to do the next lightest dry brush.

Then after this it was time to work on the metallics! 

9) 

So first when you work with metallic keep in mind that your base can be a similar color but dont make it too similar coz you will loose the detail of the metallics. So what i did was i used Vallejo Model air Steel and mixed in a small amount of black to give it a nice darker steel look. leave this to dry for a while and this is where things start to get interesting ;) BRING OUT THE PIGMENTS!

10)

Pigments are fun to work with and always give great results even if you arent an expert at using them so they are very user friendly. Especially the Vallejo Pigments. Some pigments set quite hard without any setting solutions and if you do screw up are a B*tch of get off. These however are quite good. Much more forgiving than some others i have tried before. So here what i did was that i did some brief highlighting work on the metallics then i did the pigments. For the pipe i used the Vallejo Natural Iron Oxide Pigment. Its a nice dark blackish grey color which looks very good on pipes, and then i used a fifty fifty mix of the dark red and burnt sienna pigments on the beam. Once this was done i set them and left that to dry for a minute! Once this is done, paint the rim of the base black as well. 

11) 

Vallejo still water. Closest thing you can come to liquid gold. Absolutely wonderful to work with. What i did was that for this specific example i mixed it with a brownish pigment. This adds a realyl nice effect later on as you will see. However bear in midn that this makes it murky, so you wont be able to see much through it later. This lets you be in control of what you want as a result. Ofcourse you can add things like green inks instead, this still leaves is see through and you will be able to see the bottom of the pit or if you have something like maybe a body or whatever underneath it can still be seen. So keep this is mind. 

You dont need too much pigment, but add enough to get what you want. Also when doing this step try to avoid wasting. So do a little first and if its not enough make some more :) But basically at this point once you have mixed in the pigment it should look a little like this! Then this is pretty much the last stage. Just pour this mix into the pit and let it dry! it takes a pretty long time so leave it over night atleast.

12)

TADAAAAAAAA

This is what it looks like when its done!

Some things to bear in mind. When you are doing the pit, try to make the whole look as natural as possible. This tutorial doesnt really showcase this well as i made this specifically for the sake of the tutorial and i didnt have time to do all this properly but where in the hell are you going to see a battefield where there is a carter/pit that is a perfect semi circle????!!!!??? Nowhere right??? so jsut keep these things in mind ok! Be creative and do what you want! Try new things, and so on. You have the freedom to do what you want here so just have fun!!!

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(Product Review) Vallejo Textures and a Few washes - more wash reviews will come soon.

Hi guys!

So today we will be doing our ever product review!! Exciting indeed! Today we will be reviewing a few of Vallejos Textured paints and two of their washes! This is what we used:

The products used

1)Vallejo Red Oxide Texture
2)Vallejo Desert sand Texture
3)Vallejo Brown Earth Texture
4) Vallejo Brown Wash
5) Vallejo Terran Earth Wash

Firstly, the products themselves. They are all absolutely wonderful to work with. Very easy to use and they cope very well with your demands of them. The textures can be applied in a number of ways. They can be painted on with a brush, or scooped onto the base with a small spatula of some sort or a toothpick. They are also gel based products that allow you to do a small amount of shaping and sculpting to the texture when applying them onto the base if you are going for a specific look. For each Texture we showed the effects of washing and also drybrushing, for the drybrushing we used Vallejo Bonewhite.

The three Textures straight from the pot

Vallejo Red Oxide Texture:
Color of the red oxide is as you can probably guess red. It is a very deep red that is absolutely perfect if you are looking for a Mars type base or a red desert type of theme (think grand canyon!) and so on. The  texture itself is also very fine which is great as for scale modelling regular sand is pretty big if you do actually put it to scale. One grain of sand will be the size of a toilet paper roll, which i dont think is very realistic. Anyway back to the point, when the base was drybrushed with bonewhite, it gives a wonderful effect. The two colors compliment each other very very well and also the drybrush helps strengthen the textures, LOTS. So if you decide to do any minor sculpting in the base for whatever reason, this is a very useful product. Also we decided to wash the base. The wash is applied without any brybrush and we also have a result from first drybrushing and then washing. The first one without the drybrush gives a very unique look. It doesnt really change the tone of the red too much but rather adds texture in a different way than the dry brushing. The wash gives a texture that comes more from under the grains in the texture. This gives shading and a very natural feel. Great for people that dont want a too elaborate base that will not pull too much attention from the model itself and focus on the base, but while still maintaining a very nice Table top level base. The next one is the drybrush first and then the wash. This is gives a wonderful end result that is of a very high quality. It gives a very nice soft tone on the top layer of the grains which highlights the base and adds a nice warm feel to the base. it also breaks the heavy red color and adds a bit of variation.

Brown Earth and Red oxide bases Drybrushed with Bonewhite

Being a color that is not very common on bases unless you are doing themed Mars type of bases, it is still a wonderful product. Depending on how you play with the colors and how you work with it, you can still achieve very nice and realistic outcomes that dont look too "odd." In fact they dont look odd at all! Most outcomes even the product just from the bottle gives a very nice color and natural feel to it. VERY Useful. Can be magical and gives a huge variety of results.

Red oxide Base and Brown Earth Base washed with Brown

Vallejo Desert Sand Texture:
The Vallejo desert sand texture is interesting. It is also quite fine grained again giving it some more realism rather than actual sand in regards to scale, and also the color is already a very warm Bonewhite type of color. Therefore this texture does limit you in terms of drybrushing for lighter colors. HOWEVER, you can be very adventurous and drybrush darker colors. This doesnt really work for all people, as it doesnt really work in theory being that a light source (most often the sky) hits from above, therefore making the drybrush normally be a lighter color. But to each their own, and to some people it may work and some it may not. Since the texture however is a light color, it gives alot of room to paly with when it comes to washes! The possibility of washes you can use on this are endless and each one gives very different results. Some subtle, some strong. It all comes down to the how you wish to wash them.

Left: Brown Wash    Right: Terran Earth Wash

For our examples, we have done two washes. We first washed with brown and then Terran earth. Both are earthy natural colors. They are a little similar but they both look great on this base. Same concept applies that it gives the base a beautiful texutre from the bottom up. But since the original texture is such a bright color it does make it darker (which is often what you want when you wash) but you once the wash is dry you are able to drybrush a white color on top for maximum brightness possible if you are looking for that!

Unfortunately, personal preference limits me a little with this base. I am not a huge fan of light bases. The most I will go to is light brown, and that is still really pushing the limits. But everybody has their own preferences!

Vallejo Brown Earth:
My favorite of all these three textures by far. The color is beautiful. A very warm brown color that looks alot like Vallejo Beasty Brown (maybe it is? I don't know :P) and this gives you so much space to work with. The color can be washed in many different colors and they all give very nice different results. Drybrushing is also easy to perform on this texture as the grains are jsut the right size for basing and the capture paint well when given a light dry brush. This alone gives you endless possibilities. It allows you to drybrush a variety of colors that can later be altered with washes, or it can be left just dry brushed! Very worth trying out.

First we drybrushed again with Bonewhite and after that we also washed a base without a drybrush. The drybrush gives a nice finish and is already good enough for any table top figures wether it be display pieces or table top armies as a whole. Adding washes to the drybrushed gives a very nice contrast that makes the base look outstanding while also giving nice dark and natural crevices. do try this out. Well worth it!


The Textures in general:
The textures are a very useful tool in your toolbox. They work very well in many different ways. And great thing about them is that they are already in a gel medium. This saves you plent of time in your basing stage as you dont need to worry about first painting on pva glue, then applying sand and waiting for that to dry and then coating it in another layer of pva to lock the grains in so the dont fall off (thats how i base atleast). This saves you alot of time. And the fact that the textures are colored also take a huge load of your back as you dont have to worry about basecoating the base with a model already painted and on the base or however you do it. I beleive you get the point. There are also many other textures such as the Grey and White Pumice textures and also the Black lava (WHICH IS AWESOME) and all these textures have their own pros and cons.

The only honest problem I can find with the textures is the coloring. MAKE SURE YOU DONT GET IT ON YOUR CLOTHES. That can ruin a very fun day of painting very very fast. And it is extremely hard to wash out. But I guess that's good in a way coz I presume that means it sticks really well to the base ;) Silver lining people!

Vallejo Brown Wash:
This is a very nice wash. It can be used straight from the bottle or diluted to your prference. Gives a very nice even coat and doesnt really pool very much apart from the intended areas. If mistakes do happen it is also very easy to clean up wit ha cotton swab. They work very well with the bases and the washes arent so sharp either. Some other washes are very dark and give shadows that seem a little unnatural to me. But then agian i presume that is personal preference.

Vallejo Terran Earth:
Also a very nice wash to work with. This brown has a more brownish tint to it while the brown wash has a bit of a greenish feel to it. These two different tints compliment both washes very well. The terran earth also works the same way as the Brown wash. Easy to use straight from the bottle, and doesnt get in the way at all when you work. Great color to use for washing leather and cloaks or anything else brown for that matter. Thinned down it can also be used to make water and rust streaks when it comes to weathering! Well worth the try. But if you do this, make sure you thin the paint down and build up layers slowly. It takes about 4 or 5 layers for the streaking to really give full effect.

The Washes in General:
The washes are great. Not much to say about them other than TRY THEM. Very handy tools. Also the Vallejo range of washes is extremely varied and gives you very many options in natural tones. And the thing is that often in each color section they have different shades of the wash which i think is wonderful and lets you choose what you are looking for. By this i mean that under the black section for example, you can find the Vallejo Black wash which is very dark and firm. perfect for oil and grease stains mixed with some brown wash, but they also have grey wash which is a little lighter than the black, it lets you shade things with a softer color which is wonderful. And as the stated examples about, i would put them under the Brown category, and they are different shades. There are also many other shades of brown that they offer. When using the washes though, make sure you shake them well before using. If the bottle stands around for a while the pigments collect at the bottom of the bottle and you will not really get your desired tone out of the wash. Also, if you dont shake well enough you may pick up those grains of pigment which have not been dissolved properly and accidently slap em on your models, whci hyou dont want. It looks very weird have a nice subtle shade and all of a sudden a spot of really dark brown/black/whatever color you are using. Also and last but not least, the amount of wash you are getting for the price you are paying is great, high quantity of high quality paint for a good deal!


Alright guys!!! That's pretyy much it for our first review! Will be posting some more soon once we have the time! If you have any questions, do feel Free to ask or visit us on our
Juggernaut Painting facebook page

Thanks!

Juggernaut

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