Incoming Transmission: „Soldiers and all brave men from Terra and the Helican Subsector. The Emperor needs you. After assuring a strong hold on Ocarius IX you have secured ammunition and fuel ressources. And more glory for you and the Emperor waits! The abandoned Industrial Sector Mechanicus Infernialis has started it’s operation and supplies nearby strong holds and factories with power. But the Xeon danger is still imminent.
Protect the Power House, Plasma Coil and Power Generator! Keep the facility running!
The God Emperor may bless you.“
Construction Phase
Thingiverse has an abundancy of SciFi terrain tile. To find the right ones is the challenge. I have decided to go with the designs of Seven United – Low Poly Sector Mechanicus for EPIC. There are many many different tiles and I have chosen to first restrict myself to pipelines, a power generator and a plasma coil. I also tried a power house.
Power Generator and Power House
The Power Generator was printed in 0.2mm (follow link to files). The question is how to print it. I chose to print it with separate tiles. Watch out, that when printing the base (with the bottom flat to the sheet) you need supports. The details on the sides are awesome (I was using here a 0.4mm nozzle).
I prime the parts in black. I want to have a warm yellowish brown. So I start to mix some light grey and add yellow and red until I have a mix I want. I apply this in two coats, but after drying the color looks more like salmon than orange. So I give it a thin coat of transparent orange.
The pipe and base, lower part, I paint in a khaki like, warm grey (same color as the pipelines).
Then I apply a heavy dry brush with Citadel Leadbelcher on the grey and black parts of the lower side. Then I do a very faint dry brush on the edges as well as on the plain surfaces with the Citadel Leadbelcher.
I tried to use Vallejo Metal Steel for dry brushing, but the color started to travel more and more inside of the brush. So that after some time, even when picking up new paint, where barey came something off: Do not use the Metallic (Air) paints for dry brushing.
However, the Vallejo Steel comes in handy when painting various elements with full metal, instead of relying on some brushed on color. Several smaller pipes I paint with this. Also the rim of the bigger pipe(line) ends. Other pipes I paint with Vallejo Metal Gold and some few with Aluminium.
There are wobbled cords, tubes, that I paint with light grey and then use Citadel Black Templar. The outer ring has „little plasma coils“: Those I paint first white, then cover it with a transparent blue. Final step is to use a white oil wash. I remove with a q-tip the white from the top of those coils.
A little bit of rust is painted on the pipeline ends. But I elaborate on this later.
Plasma Coil
The print files for the plasma coil are located here. I printed it as a complete block in 0.2mm without any supports.
The plasma coil should get a light emitting style. So I prime it in black and then spray white on the ribs that shall be emitting light. I dry brush the sides and lower part, that is still dark with Citadel Leadbelcher. Then I continue with some transparent blue mixed with lead belcher and paint the sides to the top with it. Then I use a bright blue and paint all the „ribs“. I then use a white oil wash and paint it into the coil’s recesses. I do this several times, as the wash did not cover everything (blue was still shining through). Then I removed white excess on top of the ridges.
I also use some VMC Dark Sea Blue and start glazing in the shadows to get more contrast.
Pipelines
Before I prime the pipes, I glue magents to the sides. I also use Vallejo Dark Earth to start the weathering. Then I prime the parts in black. I do mix a warm, brownish grey that I apply in two coats. Luckily the models to do not have so small details that the color makes them disappear. Due to the 0.2mm print heigt, one can still see the black primed structures.
Instead of using a third coat of that warm grey, I do a heavy dry brush with Citadel Leadbelcher.
Next step is to use Vallejo Steel and paint the rims and metal bands around the pipes. Smaller pipes are then paint with copper.
Rust
This is the very same approach as described in Kill Team Sector Munitorum. I use Vallejo Dark Earth, which is (after priming). painted with VMC Cavalry Brown, then VMC Orange Brown and some few of VMC Bright Orange.
Initially I planned to do this with washes, but a first try resulted in the wash flowing too much into the crevices, vertical lines, that were caused by the print.
General Conclusions
What works
- using a fire lighter to soften and meld „plasticards“ works awesome
- using a fire lighter to soften the print to form dents
- Typhus Corrosion looks really great (better than the dark earth – which also works)
- drilling holes for bullet holes and then painting them
- painting with dark colors on non primed (dark) plastic/PLA works
- heavy „dry“ brushing coarsely on black primed terrain works great and fast
What does not work
- Oil washes on (0.2mm) PLA prints leaves so tiny little (horizontal) lines that the oil wash uses to travel along. This conflicts with the edges that one wants to highlight
- Stippling with a mask if you want to have clean edges does not work
- Metal / dry brushing on metal on the red primer does not look great
- painting bright colors on black plastic takes multiple layers
- dry brushing with Vallejo Metal colors does not work
My Miniature Painting Diary 