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So this week instead of some random wild musings from myself on the game, I have recruited someone with much more knowledge of one of the other aspects of our hobby. To this end, the supremely talented Louis Vanhecke has written a tutorial on how to paint Marble. - Alastair
What you'll need to get started:
- Bases, preferable flattened to have a smooth surface either by glueing something smooth on them (plastic card for example) or by sanding it down.
the key idea is the less texture, the better.
- Some baby wipes you have let dry out.
- Your colours, you can look at real marble to get ideas. I went for a light colour for my marble veins and dark for the major parts of marble.
- Something to hold wipes in place, clamps or tape work fine.
- and of course your airbrush.
The airbrushing part:
1. I mixed Ulthuan grey and Sybarite green in a 3/1 ratio and applied a semi even coat over the entire base. The coat can be uneven and even let some of the white under it show
2. Next I applied uneven patches of sybarite green on the base. I would suggest diluting the sybarite on the heavy side to allow it to pool slightly which will give even more variety in the patterns.
3. While the bases dry, I took the dried wipes and gently stretched them in al directions until some of the fibers start loosening and holes start to appear. When I was satisfied with the holes I stopped stretching the fabric. you can also manually go transform holes in shape and size for a more uneven pattern.
4. When my bases were completely dry I placed the wipes on the bases and pulled it around until I was satisfied with the pattern I saw on the base. then clamped the wipe at the back of the base. make sure it is tight to the base and that your fixation can't get loose as from now on the wipe won't leave the base until the end of airbrushing.
5. Now that the wipes are fixed to the base I airbrushed an even layer of kabalite over the whole base, while letting the paint time to dry and settle before passing over it again as not to soak the wipes with paint.
6. Next I added some incubi darkness to my kabalite green in my airbrush and sprayed it on the more exposed parts of the base while letting the areas with more baby wipe covering them untouched.
7. I repeated the same process but adding black to my previous mix instead of Incubi darkness and reducing the patches to smaller areas within the patches from the previous step.
8. Now as a final airbrushing step I added smaller spots in the previous ones of pure black. This will give some richness to the marble. Once those were done I let the paint dry completely. This last part is very important, the paint must be entirely dry before continuing or you risk ruining the work done so far.
9. Now that everything was dry I gently removed the baby wipes taking my time and trying to remove as many loose strands that might have remained without damaging the paint too much.
The finishing touches:
10. Now that the bases are completely clean, I decided I wanted to tint my bases in a richer green and applied a glaze of Biel-tan green. this is more a personal choice than a necessity. once the glaze was dried I took a small brush and some Ulthuan grey and drew some random veins on the bases to make them pop a bit more.
11. I then decided that in those newly drawn veins where two met or where one became thicker it could pop even more and went over the ulthuan grey with some pure white. this step is barely visible in the picture but will give the recent veins more variety and realism.
12. Once all the previous steps were done and dry I used some glossy varnish to give that marble pattern some shine . As you can see one of the bases only has patches varnished. This is because the rest will become gold to match the rest of my bases.
The marble bases are now finished ad ready to meet their owners.
The Motifs in the bases:
As you can see in the images above I made some motifs, those have been drawn on Illustrator beforehand and used into a cutting machine to not cut but scratch the plastic card and allow me to find the areas that will become gold after having painted on the marble.
You can find my design in the picture below.
