You won't like the wasteland when it's angry!

This Is Not A Test Wasteland Hulk

Base Model

Reaper Bones Clay Golem

With more regular blog updates planned, I needed to come up with projects to complete. I thought to start with something that I could use for This Is Not a Test and coincidence has it that the Baltimore City Jail was closed this week, which I put together in my head for a project. I figured the one thing every nuclear wasteland makes is a gigantic hulking monster and where might one of these come from? A prison of course...so let's make a monster.

I have as stock selections the Reaper Bones I and II Kickstarter miniatures, which gives a few hundred to select as starters. There are a couple that may work as suitable base figures, but all would need to be adapted to some extent. I selected the Clay Golem (77170 $2.79), He simply had muscles on top of muscles which seems like a good mutation and one that would let you thrive as a hulking beast, potentially working under some gang leader.

Painting Process

Base Color

Recently, there was a step-by-step guide for a Librarian posted posted by Dave Taylor (Battle for the Craftworld - Painting the Librarian) that used a technique that I wanted to copy and it will work for this figure.

Base Color. As with all Bones miniatures, make sure you have washed it well with soapy and water before starting anything. There are plenty of posts on the Reaper forums about whether you should prime the miniature or not and what primers work. I have not attempted to prime any of my Bones. I started with a base color of Reaper MSP Sunburn Flesh on the entire miniature. Since I did not prime the figure, I just used the paint as it came. I had no issues with the hydrophobic nature of the Bones.

First wash

Depth. With the base color on the figure, I started to add the layers of depth to the miniature. There are lots of muscles, more than a typical humanoid and that creates lots of small spaces between the muscles. In addition to these spaces between the muscles, the larger muscles have some stretching to them that creates some extra grooves. Another complaint about the Bones material is a loss of detail. I have found that most of these complaints are because of the white color which makes seeing details hard. There are some smaller miniatures where the really fine details that were on the original metal version are lost, but by and large these are great figures.

I used the Citadel Devlan Mud Wash over all of the painted surface. The hydrophobic nature of the Bones is not an issue once a layer of paint is applies. I applied the wash liberally over the figure so a good amount of the wash would stay in the grooves and cracks.

Pants

Pants. After the wash was added, I realized that there was something significant missing from the figure. While it would have been fine with the small loin cloth bottom; it didn't hit the Hulk vision I had, I also did not think it wasteland enough. It also occurred to me that this would be perfect if this was the result of a nuclear radiation mutation on a prison inmate. Well to achieve the inmate look and to add some additional character to the miniature, I decided to add some pants. Well to be more precise the remnants of his prison jumpsuit.

Pants (Rear)

I used some Gale Force Nine green stuff to create the pants. Working is green stuff is still not something I have mastered, but as with all things more practice helps. I rolled out very thin sheets of green stuff since I wanted it to be close to the same thickness of pants. I actually woke up in the middle of the night thinking of this. I also wanted to make sure there was going to be some space between the pants and the leg.

Once the sheets were added, they were too long, so using one of my trusty dental picks, I started to cut off some of the extra. This worked out pretty well because the green stuff was just about 10 minutes old and very pliable. When I cut into it the green stuff stretched and pulled a little when cut which gave a great torn close look.

First Highlight

Getting deeper. I had to leave the figure overnight to let the green stuff set up and harden a bit more before proceeding. After about 12 hours, I started to add some of the up-coloring. I do not know if that is a real work or what the actual technique is called, but I started adding layers of lighter shades on top of the base coat. This is the technique outlined in Dave Taylor's Librarian paint job.

Second Highlight

I started by mixing a 3:1 paint mix of Reaper MSP Sunburn Flesh:Reaper MSP Suntan Flesh. I laid the color onto all of the muscle groups and any elevated surface. I applied this layer mostly to the top half of the figure, but did hit some of the exposed parts of the heel and ankle.

The next layer up was a 1:3 paint mix of Reaper MSP Sunbutn Flesh:Reaper MSP Suntan Flesh. For this, I tried to be a lot more cautious with the application. I started by adding to the top parts of the muscles and head and to the elbows. The second highlight made the entire figure look a lot like a painting of some sort and not all that natural because I did not do any wet blending. I would, but I don't know how. So to get this to look better blended, I used an additional wash of the Citadel Devlan Mud Wash. This took off the edges of the paint transitions and added some better shadow/depth to the muscle beds.

Finishing up. I, unwisely, did not follow Meg Maples' 6-Step Eye technique (blog post). As a result of not planning ahead, I had to use the magnifying glass to help me out (I really need a new contact prescription). I used the Reaper MSP Aged Bone as the base color for the eyes and an incredibly old Citadel Enchanted Blue for the iris. I didn't put in a pupil because I thought it made the figure a little crazier looking.

The pants took a lot to paint. Because I had to blend the color of the pants from the green stuff to the Bones materials and neither were primed, I used a bunch of layers. This just layer on layers of Reaper MSP Fire Orange to get a uniform color. The connection of the green stuff and the loin cloth of the Bones material was not perfect, so I used a very watered down Devlan Mud wash to the pants to add some depth/dirt and to cover up some of those areas.

Final Model (Front)

 The base was painted with Reaper MSP Ash Grey to give it the concrete look of the prison. A dry brush of a lightened Ash Grey. I got this by mixing the Ash Grey with some of the Aged Bone at about a 1:1.5 ratio. While this could have been a suitable finish, I wanted to do a bit more. I mixed up a yellow green color, but combining some Vallejo Game Color Flat Yellow with Citadel Goblin Green at about a 1:1 ratio. This went down as the base color for the toxic spill and was used as the nail color. Then a layer of the flat yellow was applied to the top of the toxic spill.

Final Model (Rear)

I attempted to use realistic scenic water, but there are not dips or anything to the base so it did not sit correctly. I had to come up with an alternate plan. I did not have any other model water materials, so I used what I had on hand, Citadel Plastic Glue Thick. This gave the right texture to the base and because of the thickness, it obscured the lines of the paint on the base and stayed where it was applied. The only minor difficulty was making sure there was no glue on the base that would make it adhere to the surface where it sat to dry.

I am happy with this model and the speed with which I was able to get it completed (48 hours). This has a lot less tiny details, but that allowed me to use a new technique which I appreciate. Looking forward to more Bones work for the wasteland bestiary.