Dr. DDevil: Doing Spooky Fancy Basing Without Fear

Hey hey people, Dr. D here. Ready to talk about something that is also not on a color wheel, but you could technically make it any color you want…….if that makes any sense.

It’s that time of year where people wanna be spooky and scare their neighbors in legal ways. I figured I would take some of that spirit in the air, since its clogging up my dehumidifier, and put it onto a model. Recently, a very consistent viewer of this network, Rusty, gave me a gift of models, and in return he requested that I give him a painted model in return.

He had no idea what he got himself into on this one.

Never to be outdone by someone’s act of kindness, I decided I was going to really push some skills on this model. Mr. The Rusty requested I paint him a Wesley Snipes. Anyone who has seen the classic Blade movies will be able to perfectly imagine him in that role since they were very iconic. They were SO iconic, that the Blade character was changed in the comic books to be more like his movie portrayal. The fine vintage of wine that were the Blade Movies will give us plenty of material to work with when it comes to painting up our favorite daywalker. I decided I wouldn’t mess with the iconic outfit too much, but I realized that an entire outfit of black clothing was going to be tricky to get any contrast out of. Thankfully, some disgusting hobo made some painting cool and warm black guides.

Full disclosure, I get bored painting models for other people alot of the time, but I actually surprised myself with how much fun I had with this model. Figuring out how to get the most out of all the black while still making the model fun to look at was really intuitive. I have to say that, generally, the AMG model sculptors really know what they are doing, and I have to tip my daredevil helmet to the hard work that they do. Thankfully, as discussed before, black is the perfect accessory color. If the main color of a model is black, it just means all the bright primary colors around the model are really going to stand out. Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE bright primary colors. Let my enjoyment be your enjoyment!

Blade’s pose includes some kind of downward motion of him getting the drop on some ghosts or bloodsuckers. It seemed only natural to lean into that and create a ghost portal/well that would help explain why some random hands would be on in the middle of a New York City sidewalk. So, this article is more of a proof of concept and guide on creating an effect instead of a hard-lined painting guide. Alot of the painting was with wet paint, and that creates some challenges when it comes to writing an article. How about YOU try and take some pictures of wet paint blending and see if YOU can make it interesting!

Ok, proof of concept time.

I did a couple test models to see if I was going to be able to achieve my desired effect. I wanted to see if the material would be capable of being tall and thinner pieces that looked like flames or waves, and maintain a level of durability that wouldn’t break easily. A local convention, Armorcon, was having a Song of Ice and Fire event, and they “forgot” to do any Marvel Crisis Protocol. I saw my opportunity and decided to jump on it. Since I enjoy playing the the sea-faring Greyjoys, I knew I wanted to do something to simulate the water they fully depend on. Other than the color of the water, I knew that this was going to be a perfect direct skill transfer for building up the ghost well. Since I am ever-prepared to continue the long war against the grey, plastic hordes, I worked on these ocean bases while I was waiting for paint to dry or I was finished with painting Blade for the night.

As you can see in the pictures above, I think it came out PERFECTLY! Learning what I needed to learn, I then proceeded to finish up with Blade. The only thing that I will say now is that you are going to want to make SURE the model you are doing these effects on is completely painted. Once the resin goes on top of something you will not be able to put the color on the model anymore. While doing these fancy effects might be too exciting to handle, you must temper yourself when it comes to doing the really fancy stuff.

I used an Atlantic Ocean Colored version of the gel for the Greyjoys, and I decided that clear gel would be perfect for Blade since I knew I wanted to tint the flames.

First, we need a model!

If you are smart, you could even get a discount on this model if you went to Bearded Dragon Games and used the code PCME10 at checkout. Only true chads would know how to do that though. Tell them that Dr. D sent you.

Ok, so all you have to do is put a little paint on the brush and get the brush really close to the model and…….

…..ah, perfect! When you have as much practice as I do, you can manage to do all of that with a single poke of a brush. I am so glad I sold my soul to the painting devil in order to fight against the every-growing pile of unpainted models. You guys should be thanking me.

But in all seriousness, the very dominant black motif of this model is easy to handle if you can paint your blacks in a few different ways. I painted this model just like in my warm and cool black painting guides. Make sure you alternate where you put each of these types of black to make sure they do not bleed together. You want to make sure that each black item stands on its own. The best way to determine which black to use would be the base it on the texture of whatever you are painting. Black leather would have a much more blue sheen to it, and tougher more course material would be warmer.

African-american skin can be a tricky, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t too dark since the rest of the color palette is so dark. Once you get a few practice models in, it can become second nature just like everything else. The skin is a basecoat of Citadel Rhinox Hide and progressively highlighted with Scale 75 Kalahari Orange mixed on my wet palate. I find that blending the paints like that can help with any stark, harsh lines that we don’t want on the skin. When painting skin you want to make sure that any harshness on a face is where you want something like a scar or bruise to be since skin doesn’t have very many hard edges. Scale 75 paint is perfect for this type of stuff since it blends SUPER easily. I would never recommended using Scale 75 paints as a basecoat though.

The reds were Citadel Mephiston Red mixed with Citadel Abbadon Black as a very dark basecoat, worked up to MH Bold Pyrrole Red, and then to S75 Alderaan Red. The greens on the model are MH Black Green to MH Green to MH Bright Green.

So with a finished model I had to decide how to portray the spooky well.

So to get the effect that I am thinking, we need to build up some kind of flamy looking border around the edge of the circle inside the base. You could make it out of green stuff, but that would take a long time to mix and sculpt and get to a point where it looks like flames licking up into the air. I like my effects to look more natural, so I was thinking of using something like a clear resin. I was watching a YouTube tutorial in the background while I was painting one night and it started the ticker in the back of my head to start scheming. Inspiration hit me while he was making a river out of something called Heavy Clear Gel. Now that this stuff is in my life, I will probably never need food again. It will sustain me in all ways.

I used a metal tool with a sharp edge to scoop it out. My goal was to get it looking like a flame licking up into the sky, so I had to make sure I pulled it in the direction I wanted it to point. I took the tool with some goop on it, poked the base with it, and just lifted it up. I then did this around the base and just feathered it in the areas that needed to be pulled up more. Even before it dries it has enough weight to it that it held up little licks of flame that would dry in that position. I was very impressed already.

Once it dried, I was thinking it needed a little more volume and some extra height since Blade was so far into the air. Thankfully, when the gel dries it will be clear and doesn’t maintains a very similar volume to wherever you put the gel. To add some height I just did the exact same thing on top of the dried gel. I took my tool and just globed it wherever I wanted to make it taller or thicker. I was worried that putting the gel on top of already dried gel may cause some kind of issue where you could tell where one layer dried and where the next layer started, but everything came out nice and clear and uniform.

Next, we have to add some color to it. I wanted to go for a lime green that was going to be very transparent to make it look more magical, but I found the coverage was not great with the acrylic paints that I was using. It may have been better if I used a transparent or contrast line, but I did not have a green that I thought was bright enough for what I wanted.

So I essentially treated it more like a wash, and just watered down my MH Bright Green and did about 2 layers of the paint to get a nice evenish coat. It doesn’t have to be perfect coverage since we want some uniformity.

After the second layer, I decided it was a little flat. The little delicious pockets and unevenness of the gel were speaking to me and begging me to give them some depth. to give it some depth. I use a very watered down Citadel Athoneian Camoshade to give it some love. While it was still wet and moist, I went in with some MH Bright Green to try and give it a more blended look.

And there you have it, Sunny Jim. Another model for the books and a very satisfied customer. I even got this amazing compliment after he received it in the mail.

Sorry this wasn’t a little more detailed in regards to paint ratios and measurements, but I just wanted to dedicate most of the article to the actual effect so you guys could give it a try on your own. It was actually surprisingly easy, and I am excited to see more people do stuff with it in the future. It’s pretty firm when its fully dried, so it may be a great alternative to to sculpting if you don’t like using green stuff. It could very easily be used to add volume to something if you wanted to make something look taller or thicker.

My first thought is using this gel on a base if I wanted to do something like a sand dune or a pile of debris. The possibilities may not be limitless, but they are very open to creating some really cool different thematic bases. I am excited to see if anyone out there has as much fun as I did using this stuff.

Well that’s enough rambling from me for one article. I hope you guys have a wonderful Halloween season. You will see me in the next one. I think I should return to actually talking about how to paint colors again. Maybe something to make you GREEN with envy.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to me at Furypainting@gmail.com if you have any questions or ideas for future content. I am always down to clown.