So after the last post we are ready to start painting the base.
Preshading
- First I prime in black the diorama, including the clock that makes up the base.
- Second I white prime the diorama, excluding the base this time, from a high angle. These two steps make for easy shadows. Near the border between the desert and base I use a curved piece of cardboard to keep the white paint (and all future layers of paint) off the black base.
Base Colours and onwards
Next I’m applying the desert colours.
- Base coat the desert in Mr Colour Tan,
- Then highlight the raise areas with a 50/50 mix of Tan and white,
- Shade the sunken areas with a mix of Tan with Hull Red. Looking at the results of this step, however, Hull Red was a poor choice to darken the Tan, I should have gone with Burnt Umber maybe? Will try this next time.
- I use cotton wool to simulate dust clouds. To apply these I held the wool against the desert and spray the bottom of it with gloss coat until there was enough for it to stick. Two mistakes I made here: I could have skipped the gloss coat and used Tan instead. The second mistake: I pressed the wool into the desert, breaking off the top layer and exposing some unglued bicarbonate soda, I’ll need to rethink how I lay the bicarbonate in future.
- Once fixed in place, I spread the wool around into the shape of clouds (well, as best as I can tell)
- I give the entire base (and the bottom of the dust clouds) a light coat of the original Tan to tie everything together.
That’s it for the base, next post will show the finished RG Freedom soaring across the desert.
Thanks for reading!