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.

Jupiter City's Newest S.E.n.T.R.I. Response Team

Sunday, September 18, 2046 

Jupiter Gazetteer

Jupiter City's superfits S.E.n.T.R.I. RaReTe in Glasston 

Hardesich Enterprises protecting tomorrow

By: SANDRA THOMPSON and MARTIN FALLSWAY

Captain

Yesterday, at the entry gate to the Hardesich Enterprises complex, Mayor Mason presented the latest in the S.E.n.T.R.I. defense system for Jupiter City. A new S.E.n.T.R.I Rapid Response Team (RaReTe) to provide a more advanced tactical response and force protection was activated in Jupiter City's Glasston area. The team is loaded with the latest technologies from Hardesich Enterprises.

According to Mayor Mason, "This team will bring merge the latest in defense capabilities from Hardesich and communications integration by NexTek to ensure rapid, focused, integrated response to any emergency." While it was clear that the unit is part of S.E.n.T.R.I., Commissioner Browning indicated that his staff were fully integrated into the response system and would have access to this team as a new resource to better protect the city and greater metropolitan area. S.E.n.T.R.I staff did not make comments or take any questions at the event.   Following the announcement, RaReTe loaded into a set of custom trucks and departed for the S.E.n.T.R.I. operations center.

CONTINUED AFTER THE BREAK


Jupiter City Sparks Sign A Prospect  - The Sparks offered a development deal to baseball superstar, Noah Layfield, this week signing him right after his 2015 Fall season debut with Lake Shore Blue Bombers. Noah skills were on display as he went 2-2 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs. Not a one-sided player and definitely a sign of confidence, he excelled at multiple positions on the Sunday afternoon game. He started at center field, played catcher, and finished up as the game's closer. The Blue Bombers played the Blue Blast in what turned out to be a hitters duel ending in a 30-30 tie after five innings.

READ MORE IN SPORTS C-2.

Making of RaReTe  

Sergeant

The RaReTe team is composed of a six-man strike force, that will be supplemented and grown to meet the current needs of Jupiter City. So let's talk about how this team was assembled. I previously provided the base model information in the Defending the Pacific Northwest from Jupiter City...S.E.n.T.R.I forces article. These figures have also been used for almost all of the This Is Not A Test games as my Gardia force.

All of the models wear a base uniform, which was painted up with Reaper MSP HD Military Grey. These tactical uniforms are designed to keep the body cool with a composite polymer which includes a Kevlar-like fabric to protect against bullets and blades. All of the officers are equipped with some amount of armor. For the standard officers, the armor is a lighter body armor, suitable for most engagements. The tactical officer equipped with the flamethrower has some armor which is supplemented by sets of flame retardant pads to protect against heat and fire. The sergeant of team is equipped with similar light weight gear, but has his helmet clipped to his belt. The last of the unit, is the Captain, who is geared up completely with heavy tactical armor. The armor base is a Vallejo Model Color Black Grey. This armor was washed with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black to add depth.

Flamethrower

All of the weapons had a base coat of Reaper MSP HD Midnight Black which has a purplish color to it. This works well with the black weapons. I went back over them with some Vallejo Gunmetal Grey to add some weathering. For the flamethrower, some Vallejo Model Color Gunmetal Blue was also dry brushed onto the ends to give it the look of metal that has reached very high temperatures.

The helmets were painted up with Reaper MSP HD Ash Grey.
These were washed with Vallejo Dark Grey Wash.The googles/visors of the helmets were painted first with Vallejo Grey Blue then hit with a highlight of Reaper MSP HD Concrete Grey. The trim on the lenses and other trim was painted with the Gunmetal Grey to give a metallic look.

Officer

The Captain and Officers have backpacks with some equipment. The air canisters were painted up with Citadel Chainmail as were the badges on the chests. The main part of the backpack was painted with Reaper MSP HD Field Grey as were the ties on what look to be sleeping bags or something similar. These were painted Reaper MSP HD Woodland Brown.

The tanks on the flamethrower's back were painted with Citadel Fiery Red. These tanks have highlights of Citadel Chainmail. All of the backpacks has some little lighted screens/buttons which were painted Citadel Mechrite Red or Citadel Enchanted Blue. Touches of ammunition and other things were painted up with various

All of the models were based on the Techtonic Craft Studios TekDech base crowns. I wrote up how these were painted and give a review of these base crowns in the I'm all about that base, bout that base, it's Techtonic article.

Officer

For This Is Not A Test, these officers represent Road Marshal O'Halihan's Gardia, a Peacekeeper warband. What is labeled as Captain above is Road Marshal O'Halihan who is a rough and tumble character, but with all the best intentions. He is motivated as a protector and one who wants to get back to the ancient times. In other circumstances, he would have been a Preservationist. But when the need was greatest he stepped up and to protect those who needed it most.

The Sergeant figure is what I use as my K-9 Handler, Mutt. This is a great figure and gives the appropriate look of a specialist for the police. Mutt is in charge of two K-9 units, Dawg and Cagney. Dawg is a Reaper BONES miniature which was previously discussed in the Marshal's Report: The Night Has Eyes. I have a slew of additional dogs from various manufacturers that will be added to the unit as I can get them painted, but the first to get done is a representation of Cagney.

Officer

The last three that are used are regularly are the officers. These are the Rank & File Officers of This Is Not A Test. These officers are your typical group and I have a cadres, named Flynn, Murphy, O'Brien. I usually use the flamethrower officer for Officer Scullin, but this won't work much longer. Officer Scullin uses a shotgun, but recently I picked up a flamethrower and will be adding a tactical officer to the mix soon.

New BONES will be painted up soon to grow the Gardia/RaReTe units. Protecting the wasteland or future Marvel city take tenacity and guns and these guys have both.

Defending the Pacific Northwest from Jupiter City...S.E.n.T.R.I forces

Marvel Role Playing Game

With the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is hard not to be excited about superheroes, but in all honesty; I've always been a geek for superheroes. If use the way back button we can all remember a time when superheros were the fodder of Saturday morning cartoons and later the introduction of the Marvel Superheros RPG. Unfortunately this was not a great system. This was an RPG that suffered mainly because it had to deal with everything from the weakest to the infinite and mechanically that is a beast especially when trying to play the game...I mean what do you do if a player character can run 50 miles in one turn or use a laser to cut a building in half? Even when you played a rather weak-sided set of heroes there was the issue of frustrated players because it was so difficult to increase a power or to adapt a power to a new use. Though my and my Nerdherd friends tried many times to make a go of it, but never made it very far...well super speed up to today and we have matured, are more learned, and have tons of superhero stuff as fodder. Add to that the universe of other middle-aged geeks who were in a similar situation, but now have the internet to share everything they have done and boom updated and hopefully workable Marvel campaign setting.

Jupiter City

My very good friend, Rob McDonald, has been hard at work building the Marvel campaign setting when he takes time away from The Fall of the House of Usher. We will be based in a place called Jupiter City in the Pacific Northwest. This started as the dream child of a well-known architect and the heart of the old city has a retro-futuristic design to it. This has since been eclipsed by all of the other modern parts of the city. I'll check with Rob to see if I can release more of his materials on here for people to read and be inspired.

S.E.n.T.R.I

S.E.n.T.R.I unit

Our home is protected by a sub-unit of S.H.I.E.L.D, called S.E.n.T.R.I. This unit is responsible for managing all of the superheroes in and around Jupiter City as well maintaining intelligence on all of the nefarious villains. As with all good police units, S.E.n.T.R.I needs some police, especially advanced looking tactical units. To fill this need, I quickly combed through the Reaper BONES Kickstarter sets and starting identifying and pulling figures.

I was able to quickly identify 10 suitable figures that had the right mix of futuristic armor and weapons to look appropriate in a Marvel campaign. The base models are the IMEF troopers and NOVA Corp BONES. Top Row: NOVA Corp Rifleman, Jazz Jenkins; Second Row: Garvin Marcus,  Torch McHough; Bottom Row: NOVA Corp. Sgt, NOVA Corp. Guard.

Pictured so far are the group with some basic color blocking. The base clothing is Reaper MSP HSD Military Grey. The body armor is Vallejo Model Color Black Grey.

Transportation is always a priority. I was out at RiteAid getting a couple of things and noticed a rack of cars. The vehicles looked to be pretty close to scale, but of course I didn't have a miniature in my pocket and they weren't labeled with the scale information. I looked up the company online and found out that these vehicles are in 1:39 scale, so not too far off the mark. Also the cost was pretty appealing at $4.99 each it was a minor investment.

Vehicles with models for scale

I picked up a couple of these Chevy Suburbans as a test. The picture here shows that they are pretty close  to the right scale. Would be a little better at 1:43, but this will work. The close figure is Torch McHough sitting on top of a Tectonic Studios Base Crown (review), but without the base that will also be added. The far figure is my Wasteland Hulk. You can see that these figures are not at full height and both are a bit squatted, so the scale works rather well. Also since the Marvel campaign is a role playing game and not a skirmish/wargame, everything is for representative purposes only so all of this works well. This will also work for future use in any This Is Not A Test games, though perhaps not if used with other O-scale terrain.