On The Desk - The Nurse Part 7

Last week we ended up with a built base sadly lacking any paint, time to rectify that!

I started off with a zenithal black/white prime, I then promptly remembered that the miniature comes with some syringes for the base so I glued those on after.

Once again I did some research for the floor, I was torn between either using an all white/faded white for the tiles or alternating dark and light. I decided to go with the dark and light option because it mirrored the light and dark of the skin/coat on the miniature. I used an off black (mixing in some dark sea blue to pull in another colour I'd used on the miniature)

I tried a little loaded brush on the dark tiles working some light areas at the top of the tiles. The light tiles were painted with an off-white colour and then I used some glazes of watered down brown washes (Army Painter Strong, Agrax Earthshade and a little Nuln Oil in places) to dirty them up.

I painted the tiles on the wall in a similar way, I think I actually went straight to the glazing over the zenithal prime rather than doing any base.

The column was painted with various shades of grey, using both careful drybrushing and selected glazing. I also washed some brown in places to add some variation. I also did the same techniques on the exposed concrete around the edges of the tiles except I also glazed some blue in with Drakenhoff Nightshade.

You can't really see it from the photos but if you'll remember from last week's assembly article the base below the floor was pretty much just cork. I had intended to just leave this a dark colour as it's pretty much all in shade. However after priming I realised that even painted dark it still looks too much like cork. I sometimes like to use earth in basing, one of the many tips I've picked up from the amazing painters at Massive Voodoo. I used some PVA glue on the areas I wanted to be earth and then just pressed dried soil from the garden into it. (You can find more details of this technique here) Always remember to dry the earth out first (can either do this in an oven or just wait) When using earth before I have mostly used superglue, it sets hard but I wanted to try something different this time. I used PVA and then when dry I used some pigment fixer over the top to try and fix the top layer, seems to work!

For painting the exposed rebars I wanted them to look suitably aged. Also most rebar is shown as being ribbed poles, so I tried to paint that effect on. I used a striped black and black/tank brown mix. Also painted some cracks onto the tiles, some were pre cut in the building stage, some just painted on. A dark scratch with a lighter highlight line below it, using very thin brush strokes. Much of this will be covered by the miniature but good to practice!

Finally we have the syringes. I used yellow to match with the yellow on the dolls skirt on the mini and red because...well it seems traditional! A white line painted down the vial makes it look like a glass reflection. I then used my standard Black Metal up to Speed metal Scale 75 set for the rest of the syringe.

We're sooooo close to the finish line. Next week's article will be adding the mini to the base and then seeing if there are any final touches needed to really finish the scene off.