Squaduary 2020 Week One Progress

New bases!  This week I worked on the bases for my challenge.  Inspired by work over on the White Metal Games flickr site, I ordered up a bunch of GW Necromunda bases and tried my own take on a similar look.  I started by taping the bases down with double sided tape and basing them with Vallejo Surface Primer Black. When that dried, I sprayed a layer of Vallejo Game Color Electric Blue (72.723) over all. Next, I sprayed a little Vallejo Surface Primer White on the "grill" looking bits where I wanted some luminescence and a pop of color.  Here's how things looked at this point.

30mm bases

1st lot of 25mm bases

2nd lot of 25mm bases

Next, I carefully shaded all of the blue areas with GW Agrax Earth Shade trying to avoid the white areas. In the future, I'll shade the blue first, and THEN spray on the white...I brushed on some Secret Weapon Miniatures Purple wash carefully over the white, allowing some overlap around the edges where white meets blue for a little bit of OSL effect (a very little). This left a bit of a purple glow in the recessed vent areas.  The effect is a bit washed out in the pics here, but it more evident in the picks with models attached.

30mm bases

1st lot of 25mm bases

2nd lot of 25mm bases

At this point, GW Abbaddon Black was painted around the edges and the bases were ready for models.  I spent a good amount of time carefully removing the Ur-Ghuls and Spindle Drones from their original bases (Boy, I wish I thought of this basing idea BEFORE assembling these guys on the slotta bases) using flush-cutters and a sharp hobby knife.  No fingers were harmed in this process miraculously.  I made sure to leave plastic pins on the bottoms of the Ur-Ghul's feet as I cut away the old bases and attached slotta tab.  These were used to pin them to their new bases for extra support.

The Spindle Drones have the tiny points of contact, two of which were molded to a bit of terrain.  I left that terrain attached, cutting it down somewhat, and decided not to fashion any pins. The drones are light and the epoxy strong, so I don't figure on issues. The third "floating leg" is glued down on each this time around for three points of contact with the base and added strength.

I should note that the Spindle Drones got some pin wash to highlight the seams between armor plates, and a jolly red eye. I'll come back to the eyes to fancy them up at some point. The Ur-Ghuls got some speckling on their backs with GW Agrax Earthshade as well as a pin wash to define muscles on their chests and backs.

And there we have it for week one. The eight easiest models basically complete.  I can use the remainder of the month to focus on the Chaos Beastmen which are larger and covered in detail. I also have to travel for a week, so I really only have two weeks left to finish the project in any case, not three. Next week I look forward to sharing progress on the Beastmen.

Best wishes for all of the other Squaduarians out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!