Better Living Through Chemistry!

Another NWA Napoleonic member, Tony (see Sheppavara post), has made a very useful Pinterest page of all the paints, washes and other solutions and work-arounds he uses for his figures and terrain projects.

I'm sure there will be international versions of the things we have here in Australia. The beauty of this little collection is that there are pictures! You can compare them to local versions I'm sure, or at least Google the generic terms for your local brand.

See more at My Chemical Romance

Procrastination Project #2- - 1st (Royal) Dragoons

Horses all painted up, riders mounted and both shaded/varnished using the Aldi dark varnish. Next job, basing.

I've been reading about ancient Rome recently (review coming), and find that I've got a hankering to paint Romans and Goths. Probably more for my own indulgence than gaming, but you never know.

If I do go down that path should the blog be called Monsieur le Rosbif, Johnny Frog and Bigus Dickus?! Maybe I'll just make a separate page for Bigus Dickus and his wife Maxima.....Buttocks (pfffff..ahhahahahaha!!)

Aldi Quickshade

This is the result of the Aldi-bought shading experiment on the British Dragoon conversion figure from a couple of posts ago. 

The dark wood stain comes out roughly equivalent to AP Quickshade Strong. It is a warmer, less harsh contrast compared to my home-grown mix; useful for flesh and lighter colours, I'd reckon.

In Your Face, AP Quickshade!

I found a 1 litre tin of dark wood stain at Aldi here in Australia for $8.00, works out at something like GBP 5.15, EUR 6.30, $US 8.40. As AP are still flogging the 250 ml. cans on their website for EUR 25.00 I think you can safley say I won't be buying any more AP Quickshade!

Chasseurs project nearing completion

This is the finished chasseur after application of the Wattyl matt estapol spray that I use to dull down the initial gloss shading varnish. He still looks a little glossy, but that's because he's in the direct glare of the halogen light from my lamp. Otherwise, he's good to go! All that's required is basing and he and his companions should be ready for my next venture onto the tabletop.

Speaking of basing, I've got quite a bit to do; the chasseurs, Jim's Soviets, my Royal Marines and dismounted French dragoons. Then after all that, I need to get stuck into my British dragoons! First things first, though; I REALLY need to pull my finger out and finish my dull and boring assignment and resist the urge to get distracted by much more satisfying activities like painting (even doing the dishes is more exciting!).

The first figure fully varnished awaiting basing

Home-made shading varnish and unwanted guests!

I've created an AP Quickshade-type varnish for about half the price using a 250ml tin of Wattyl estapol and a small bottle of Prooftint. After decanting a small amount of estapol into a glass jar and adding about half a capful of prooftint I've got the shade I wanted for varnishing my creations. I toyed with buying some pre-mixed varnish, but not being sure of the shade in the containers I didn't feel like shelling out for something that wasn't what I was expecting. Plus the pre-mixed shades were all around the $AU35 mark (still cheaper than the $AU45 asking price for AP Quickshade).

My method, though, came in $AU26 ; the estapol was $16 and the prooftint $10. Substantially cheaper than the asking price for AP Quickshade.

I'm happy with the results too; the varnish pools in the folds and crevices, but where the surface is flat, the original colour is still clearly visible. Maybe I let my last can of AP Quickshade get too gluggy, but I found it was obscuring a lot of the detail, especially of dark colours. I'd have to compare it with some of my earlier figures using the AP product to make a fair comparison.

Some of this...

...plus a little of that...

...equals this...

...and this!

Below is one of the unwelcome guests I spotted in the shed when I opened the garage door. It's partner scuttled away under the lawn-mower, but this one stayed in it's nook pretending it wasn't there. I was going to put something close to it for a size reference, but thought the better of it seeing it's a venomous Red-Back Spider, related to the North American Black Widow, apparently!

This one is about the size of the end of my thumb, from knuckle to thumb-tip, approx. 2cm.

Whatever you do, don't tell Mrs. Rosbif as she'll probably burn the shed down to get rid of them and then fumigate the ashes before setting fire to them again, just to be sure ;-)!

Incy-wincy spider and her killer fangs!