Made some more progress on my Time of Legends Joan of Arc figures. Primarily worked on the basing for the archers. The archers started the day glued to the bases and had dried overnight. With them ready to go before I started work for the day, I gave them a dip in an ink bath. 

My ink bath is a recipe that I have been using for year. It is one-part black ink (game color), one-part brown ink (also game color), 4 parts future floor wax (or what ever the suitable substitute these days), 6 parts water. I want to say that I have been using this or a variant of this since the 90’s. I used in on nearly all of my 15mm stuff. It gets it to the consistency I like, and the future breaks the surface tension to insure a nice even flow.

1. After they had dried it was time to start the basing. I made a mixture of brown paint, white glue, and a little water so it was about the consistency of syrup.

2. I applied the glue paint mixture to the base making sure to get it on the parts where the arrows meet the ground to blend it in with the groundwork.

3. Then I dipped it in sand to make sure that I got in all on the base.
4. When I finished with it, I got a pipet and my ink wash and started putting drops on the areas where the sand was. Being that the wash has not surface tension that helped the mixture to flow throughout the says and get it all wet and mixing with the glue underneath the sand locking it into place. 
 
Now I wait for it all to dry and go on to the painting and grass portion.


One of the tools that I used for this was the pipet. I usually by them in bags of 250, use them as long as I can, and then toss them.  Surprisingly, I have only recently started using them over the last few years and I am kicking myself that I did not think to get them sooner. There are a variety of ways that I have used them and while it will not make you a better figure painter; it will help you to become a more efficient army painter. Here are some examples:

1. Using to precisely measure paints mixtures when you have to paint figures at different times (because you will have written the recipe down in your painting notebook right?)
2. Transferring paints form one bottle to another.
3. Using it to precisely deliver ink to a location (like I discussed above)
4. Using it to precisely deliver glue to a location (See tomorrow entry for more detail on that).
5. I also using to mix paints on my palate. Also, when I was mixing glue and paint about, I used these to mix it as well.

Here is a link to the type that I am using now: Disposable Plastic Transfer Pipettes