Painting Test – Oxidized Metal COMPLETED

For reasons I don’t rightly understand, this article is usually one of my most read, according to the stat tracking I have available here on the blog. I’m not sure if it’s because of readers’ interest in my painting technique, or maybe just some random combination of words that give Google the vapors, but it consistently gets read more than any of my other articles. Therefore, just before packing up every thing I own in the whole world and moving into our new house, I decided to shoot photos of the finished figure.

The finished steam golem

I’m pretty happy with how he turned out. I used a bunch of different techniques to make this paintjob work and look properly like distressed and oxidized metal. I used a number 2 pencil on some of the sharper edges to make the edges look worn, and I used some of the Tamiya powders to make the crevices have some rust build-up in them. I also tried to add a little patina with some light green watered-down paint. The important thing about treatments like these is that you have to varnish them quickly or they’ll rub off, especially the powders.

Overall, I learned some things about simulating corrosion  and oxidized metal surfaces (which will be very helpful for my brand new non-Tau secret project) and I look forward to (someday) painting the other two figures I bought from this set.

Painting Test – Oxidized Metal

A long, long time ago, a company came up with the idea to make a miniatures game with pre-painted plastic miniatures, and they would sell those miniatures as random allotments in sets of seven in sealed boxes. They called it Mage Knight (WizKids Games). Like baseball cards, the rare ones were the good ones, and there were tons and tons of commons. They sold a bunch and made a good deal of money. Then they thought, “Hey, I bet if we make metal versions that players have to construct and paint, they’ll sell great, too!”

They were quite wrong.

So, years later I find three neat metal figures in the super-discount bin at a gaming store north of town. A Steam Golem, a Brass Golem (or maybe a Bronze Golem, I don’t remember) and a Storm Golem. Back when I played the game, the Storm Golem was a rare, and really powerful. But the Steam Golem, though kind of a pud as golems go, was a really cool sculpt. So I’ve started to paint him up.

The rusty Steam Golem

I positioned him on a fancy resin base I bought at Gen Con this year. I brush primed him with black gesso (I’ll explain that another time, perhaps) and then coated him with cheap Delta Ceramcoat acrylic from Hobby Lobby. The color is Brown Iron Oxide, because I want him to look rusty and corroded. Then I covered him with another Delta Ceramcoat color, Hippo Grey.

I don’t know if I got a bad batch of this particular paint or what, but the stuff doesn’t cover well at all. Normally, that would make me angry, but what it means here is that this grey color allows the color you paint under it to really bleed through in an interesting way. In this case, these two simple colors and a sepia wash have made this figure look rusty and covered in a slightly green patina, which is what I was hoping for.

I’ll have more on the progress of this figure as it goes.