Time for some dumpster diving...then shooting people

Time to get dirty with Secret Weapon Weathering Pigments in the Reaper BONES Dumpster

I covered modifying the Reaper BONES Dumpster ($4.99) so that the lid stayed open in my Reaper Miniatures Halloween Tricks and Treats! post. So let's take a look at the next steps to making this ready for tabletop use or for a diorama.

In the Baltimore-DC metro area, our trash services are managed largely by Waste Management. This company has a trademarked look which is green dumpsters with the logo on the front. The spur to purchase this dumpster was for added scatter terrain for This Is Not A Test which takes place here and the surrounding area. I immediately went to the interwebs to find more on these ubiquitous and often overlooked waste bins. I thought it would be too weird to be out and about taking photos of dumpsters, which is what I would normally do for other pieces. So move along with a search strategy.

Painted Dumpster

Now, I am color blind (red green) and making a perfect match isn't exactly possible for me and I decided since it was scatter terrain decided that I didn't need the wife or kids to get me the exact color match in the number of green paints that I have. I went with the U.S. Dark Green from Vallejo Model Color. The lid was painted up with a standard black, again the Vallejo Model Color paint.

Finished Dumpster (Right Front)

Now that the base colors have been done on the dumpster it is time to make it look like a real world dumpster and not a brand new one. So off to the set of Secret Weapon Weathering Pigments to get started. If you have not taken the opportunity to use pigments or would like to know a bit more about how they are used, you can read more about them in my Hands-on Weathering Pigments with Mr. Justin post from AdeptiCon 2015. I spent a good amount of the last AdeptiCon helping out at the Secret Weapon booth and was able to realize the entire set of weathering pigments as a result and am just really getting into the use of them, but now can't wait to see what I can do next. For all of my application, I used the additive method for weathering.

Finished Dumpster (Left Rear)

I didn't take any in-process pictures of how I got to the end with the dumpster because that would simply be too many photos to try to post and describe. I did though take a set of photos that show all of the sides of the dumpster and the interior and will go through what was done on the various surfaces.

I started with an idea that any dumpster left unattended will end up on fire, I think that is one of the thermal laws. I didn't want to make the entire dumpster look like it was on fire, so I focused on the left rear corner of the dumpster. To give it the burned look, I started with the Exhaust black and made burned areas on the exterior and interior corners. I tried to make them cover the same space on both sides. This gave the base for the burned area which I went back to with the Ash Grey which is necessary to give the difference in the heat marks and adds depth to the weathering. The Ash Grey is first rubbed onto the area and then stippled on to leave some texture to the weathering.

Close-up Interior Fire Weathering

Next on the process was to add rust. The second law of thermodumpsternamics is that all dumpsters are rusted to some level. For the future wastes, it is more than other spaces but I couldn't just coat the entire thing in rust because it may get life in other games as well specifically the upcoming Jupiter City Marvel campaign.

For the rust effects I went mostly with the set-up that Justin covered in depth during the weathering seminar. The base color was Rust Brown. For the most part I applied this almost like a paint because it was deep rust but I didn't want a lot of texture. One thing I did do though was to load up the brush directly on the side of the area to be weathered. This allowed some of the pigment to fall to the base as would happen with flaking rust. The next level of the rust up is Rust Orange. This is slightly less old and immediately gives a lot of depth. I applied this as a mix of brushing and stippling to give it some varying texture and depth. The final pigment is to give it the "new" rust look in smaller areas. This is done with Dark Yellow. This is almost entirely stippled onto the area with little to no brushing. You can also hold between your thumb and middle finger the loaded brush above the area then tap with your pointer finger to apply the pigment in a random spread area.

Finished Dumpster (Bottom Interior)

It important to remember that rust runs with water, so in areas where the water would run off and down, the rust should follow along. To do this start with the deepest color (Rust Brown) then drag down along the water line. Follow that up with some of the Rust Orange at the location where the water may accumulate and along the edges. The Dark Yellow can be dappled around it for those hold out locations.

For the interior, I added some of the Rust Red to the walls to add a bit more depth and to mix up the brown/green rusting. For the floor interior it was necessary to have some dirt. I mean what dumpster doesn't have at least a little dirt in it. I applied the Rust Red as the Rust Brown on the interior so that both fell to the bottom as well.  To add a little more depth to these, I included some Dark Earth sporadically across the floor to break up the Black base color. The colors in this photo are much brighter than they appear in person, but that is from the LED light that is on them.

Close-up Interior Floor Rust/Dirt 

When all of the weathering is done, follow the following application method to fix the pigments to the dumpster. Load up a brush with the Pigment Fixer. I used a square acrylic brush. Then just touch the flat side of the brush to the area. The light touch will allow the fixer to flow from the brush to the area by gravity feed. Applying too much may cause the pigment that is there for texture to move, but it usually isn't too bad. After applied it takes about 20 minutes to dry unless it is thick. Where the fixer flowed down to the bottom of the dumpster it took a little longer. I am not sure how long because I went to bed while it dried.

I am quite pleased with this Dumpster and am looking forward to many, many more projects to use these pigments and to try some others for comparison, specifically the products offered by BrokenToad. That will be coming soon with some Car Wars Mods...it's time to start thinking about my Geek Nation Tours trip to AdeptiCon 2016 after all.