The Return of She Who Milks! (Part 3)

With the main model pretty much finished it was time to work on the base. This is one of the new Hero Bases that I thought would make an impressive pedestal for She Who Milks, my venerable Keeper of Secrets minature.

The first thing I did was basecoat the turret using Graphite which is made by Craftsmart. I pretty much have this color scheme memorized having perfected it around the year 2000, but I still wanted to reference it to be sure. So I dug out one of my Imperial Guard tanks from it's place of storage..

Long lost cousins: a comparison.

I knew that GW retooled the Leman Russ Battle Tank almost a decade ago, but I was unaware that the turret was so radically altered. The design features are all present, with exception to that bit that comes out on the side that I put the smoke launcher on, it's just clearly wider. Now, I realized that this new turret isn't from the actual tank model, it's a base, but it's still very interesting to compare the two.

The original Leman Russ tank.

Another reason to pull out this old tank was to see how I detailed it, what decals I used, etc. I hope to get back to my Imperial Guard at some point and when I do I would like them all to match!

Pewter Grey.

Pewter Grey was washed on to the turret over the Graphite. By washing, what I did was mix the paint 50/50 with water and dab the color on by going from the edges of a given surface toward the center leaving the Graphite exposed in center and around rivets. I then went in an applied thick concentrations of Pewter Grey around the edges.

Country Grey dabbling.

 Using water I thinned down some Apple Barrel Country Grey and dabbed it onto turret. This created a faux blending effect giving the model a faux sense of depth. I then hit the edges with a thicker layer of this paint.

White Scar highlights.

Finally I applied a thick dot of White Scar to all the rivets and bolt head. I next slightly thinned some White Scar for the final highlight.

Next came the insignia on the side of the turret. I wanted it to resemble my finished Russ so I hand painted a red square and after digging through my vast decal collection found a mailed fist holding a sythe that I thought went well with the older Russ.

Badge added.

As I typically do I once again used Microsol to wet the transfer. After that I dry brushed, in very strong strokes, the mud. I wanted it to appear like a splatter effect as if this turret smashed hard into the mud. It's a subtle effect, as I didn't want it to distract too much from the whole model.

Mud splatter.

You'll also notice that I finished the blown out gun barrel. I used Niln oil and Abaddon Black to achieve this look. Bolt Gun metal (the shiney mid- '90s version) was applied to the break points along the barrel.

With that I was done with the turret. Next I figued out where She Who Milks would stand and drilled a hole for her foot peg. After I tore her off of her previous base, I painted a Worm Purple dot on the bottom of her foot to mark where the other pin should go, then quickly placed her on the turret. The wet paint marked exactly where I needed the pinhole to go.

Mounting prep.

Next I drilled and pinned a bit of brass rod into place.

Foot pinned.

 And finally, after a bit of work and some super glue, she was now mounted!

Mounted!

It seems that this post is running long, so I'll reveal her in all her glory in the next post (part 4), so I hope you come back and check out the final model.