paints a surplus combat car.
Next, we will do the shark-mouth design. I did this to give the fella more of a predatory feel... then again, it might have been in homage to the AVG. Who knows, it was many beers ago. The bottom line is it looks cool, and that's good enough for me.
Now, a word of warning here
Getting your mouth shape to match up perfectly on both sides is a massive pain in the jaxie. Near enough is good enough this time, people. Don't send yourself mad and the figure hurtling towards the wall trying to make it perfection.
Here is a series of step-by-step photos with some blabble about it:
First, make the mouth shape using a black line. Then fill the centre with white. You may need a few coats of white, so take your time and allow for each layer to dry before applying the next one.
OK - now add red in a zigzag pattern to the centre of the mouth. Note the top left teeth have been done like this, leaving a white sawtooth pattern. For the above example, the others have then been carefully finished off . This is done by making a fine line with a skerrick of red in each valley between the teeth, making them look more like individual teeth than one big mass.
The finished results look like this:
I guess if anything is to be learnt here, it's filling from the outside into the 'line' is easier than painting fine detail between the 'lines' and not straying out of them.
OK - sealing the fig with varnish next, then basing
I will have to go and take pics of this again, 'cus the first ones stunk on ice. While I'm there, I will take some pics of the development of my painting style (from first fig to last), so you can see anyone can become proficient with this stuff.
With sealing my figs, I use this paint-on stuff called Jo Sonjas Matte Varnish (water-based polyurethane). I mix it with water to about a 50/50, as although it says "Matte," it does give a semi-gloss effect and some water helps tone this down.
Paint the whole fig using a big brush, being careful not to slap it on thick or go over the same part again and again, as it does leave a slight build-up. (To make your life easy, use that Klingon Spray Varnish or whatever they call it. You know the one, it's what everyone else on the planet uses.)
After this has dried (one coat makes 'em pretty bulletproof with this stuff), then paint your textured base matt black. Mix a micron's worth of white to this to make a slate-grey colour, and lightly drybrush it over the base. This will give it a faint highlight a la ashfelt road. If you get some black or grey on the fig, quickly dip a brush in water and use this to dilute the offending paint, then simply wipe off with finger or brush leaving no trace of the stuff up. (This is why I seal the fig before the base.)
After the ashfelt road was painted, I then gave it a mix of full Jo Sonja to give it that sheen those roads have. Then 2 little blobs of PVA (woodwork glue) and a dusting of green flock, and some weeds poking up from the road was complete.
Then sit back, crack a beer and say to yourself "well done, laddie."