14 years done

A year of trying out new stuff

All in all this previous year of Project Mumblings has been an example of trying out some new stuff. I got properly started playing with the oil paints, dared to try out the jeweling effects and even the Jump Jet nozzles. Despite that I've left the OSL and NMM off my traveling workstation, and I felt those two would be much more at home in a more fantasy-themed paintings.

https://deathgenerator.com/#mi1

Oil paints

Yup. I did bring the oil paints up a year ago, and now they felt like they had sat nicely into my toolbox and hobbying processes. Of course there was a lot to learn, and I didn't do anything special with them yet, but there was space for that.

Jeweling

This thing I had avoided long but started pretty happily with my Heavy Star's numerous death ray lenses and even continued even happier on Morgan Kell's Archer and of course I kept at it for the Doomguy Urbie and Grendel A. On an insane moment I also gave this a shot on a more serious model, the mine-clearing T-34's side lamp.

As a decorative detail this was astonishingly much more fun and suitable than I had ever dared to imagine. My own requirement level was of course a tiny bit lower than what the actually skilled mini painters had for themselves, but I was content myself.

The non-weapon lenses, like laser pointers, cameras or who knew what sensor lenses, needed a specific colour. I didn't want them to be confused at a quick glance with S/M/L Lasers or PPCs. Otherwise the grey I used on the T-34's lamp was fine, but that wouldn't stand out from the common grey surfaces on the 'Mechs. Or maybe it would, I had to try it out somehow.

Chipping

Also the first time I dared to try out the self-made scratches on the tank, as the mine-clearing tank sounded like a prime candidate for uglier dents and such. This, too, proved to be incredibly fun to paint, even relaxing. The biggest challenge was to keep the chipping and my evergrowing excitement in check so the model wouldn't look like it stood in a heavy meteor shower.

At some point in history I read / listened to / watched some other modeler's thoughts and they always said they painted radial scratches around their turret openings to do exactly what I had done: to depict what had happened with random rocks, tuna tins or squirrels being lodged between the hull and the turret. So yeah, I felt this validated my idea and that it wasn't a complete brainfart as I wasn't the only one doing it.

Surface texturing

This trick was just freshly on my table and I didn't have any results on how it looked with paint. My first feeling was that just the paintbrush-stippling might be enough for my very basic needs. In the second stage the quickly drying putty was way too quick to kick, so that didn't build my confidence. Maybe I'd try this extended method with a different (and fresher) putty before tossing it into /dev/null.

It was worth noting that soon I'd have a layer or two of paint over this attempt, so it'd give me a better viewpoint on how this worked out. The future was always in motion, but I was confident in being much wiser about both stages of this method by the 15th anniversary of the 'mumblings.