Fear Inoculum

Orc Riding Beast

It has been a few years...

Since the first time I saw the riding beasts from Fraser Gray and Michael Immig in White Dwarf all these years ago I wanted to paint one of these fantasy war elephant iterations. Sadly the first two attempts failed due to ill planning in the painting department. That did´t stop me from hoarding all kind of bits for fantasy beasts, howdahs and vicious crew members.

When I finally came around to the the third attempt I had accumulated enough parts for three different beast and passengers. There was no failing this time and so of all the different parts I settled for that combination which held the biggest opportunity for failure- a crappily cast Prince August Myrmidon, a finceast gobbla that lived up to its reputation and an early 80s siege tower. All needed excessive sanding and resculpting as did the orc crew that had nasty mold lines running down their faces.

Finally paint got involved and the airbrush did for the beasts skin. I tried to go for a limited palette of colors with mostly yellow, black and reddish tones. A combination of colors that have turned out to be my favorite over the last two years since I picked up the brush again.

The times they are a changing...

WD 152; painted by Massimo Colombari

They don´t come like that anymore. While the technical brilliance that can be seen on CMON is staggering, to me it mostly blends into one dark and gritty mass where individual styles are hard to identfy. Sadly I couldn´t find anything else from Massimo Colombari (same as with Fraser Gray) :(

Fraser Gray tribute

When it comes to miniature painting the old saying that `if I have seen farther than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants` holds true to all contemporary painters. Without belttling their work or skill it was down to the painters of the 80s to apply the techniques used in 54mm painting to the then rather new 25mm fantasy miniatures that lay the foundation for todays pieces. While John Blanche, the most profilic giant of times past, is still influencing the world and imagery of GW´s core systems a lot of legends of old seem to not have stepped into the digital era. There are noteable exceptions like Steve Blunt (see the blog roll) but one of the painters whose work was so much ahead of his time seems to has vanished: Fraser Gray.

To get an impression of what we´re missing out today have a look at the clickable pics. Miniatures blended to perfection, sporting lucid color schems yet with a sense of realism and surreal shield and banner designs. Full froth on.



Concerning the mans techniques the small snippets in eavy metal state that he used alcohol based paints which partly explains the blendings. In addition he construcued his bases out of plasticene with bits stuck in and then coated this with epoxy glue with grit sprinkled on.





I cannot praise these highly enough. Whenever my motivation slips a glance at those pics makes me want to pick up the brush again. I hope that Mr. Gray is still fiddling with toy soldiers and turning them into pieces of art today. It would be even better if he could show them to us.

Lead Rot 101

Lead Rot 101

There is one thing that wakes the ingenuous collector from his peaceful sleep and fills his heart with dread. It instills these who fill their attics with shiny leaden objects they are never going to paint with sheer terror. A phanomenon so vile that only people who stepped bare footed on a metal Night Goblin Spear Regiment seem to have nurtured such evil.
Imagine to open your display cabinetts to have a look at your priced possesions. Notice the small amount of white powdry stuff on your favourite miniatures. Act now or all that remains will be a pile of dust as your collection has withered away.

Know your enemy

The process in question is called lead rot and a well known process when it comes to antiquities like organ pipes that contain a lot of lead and are exposed to all kind of climatic conditions. The reason for relativly new lead miniatures to crumble away mostly goes back to the boom in the miniatures industry in the mddle of the 80s. Faced with increasing prices for lead the manufacturers of the so called Nottingham lead belt used polluted lead alloys to cast miniatures. These alloys contain a lot of other questionable materials and seem to be the ones that are most likely to rot away.
In the following paragraphs I want to give some brief information about the chemical context and ways to prevent or stop lead rot.
Most of the stuff is taken from miniature fora and acts as a kind of summary.

Organic compounds are the chief category of substances acting harshly upon lead, and Acetic acid is among the most destructive of these carbon compounds. Acetic acid acts upon lead and transforms it into lead carbonate which is the white, granular, powder we frequently see on lead ship model fittings. The museum objects conservation community has been aware of the phenomenon for several decades and the chemical process that causes it is well-understood.

The chemical process is: Acetic and some other acids, in the presence of carbon dioxide, catalyze with lead to produce lead acetate and lead hydroxide. Lead acetate and lead hydroxide together react with carbon dioxide and form lead carbonate. Lead carbonate then releases acetic acid and the process becomes self-sustaining. It is important to recognize that the formed lead carbonate is not just a substance clinging to the surface of a casting, it is the surface of the casting transformed to powder. For practical purposes, a portion of the lead is gone and lead carbonate is left in its place. The lead carbonate releases acetic acid which can continue the process until the lead part is progressively consumed from the outside.

Wood exposed inside display cases with relatively stagnant atmospheres will create an acetic acid-laden micro-environment where lead artifacts will corrode even without being in physical contact with the wood. In addition to materials forming the surrounding exhibit case, the model itself may be made primarily from wood.

All woods will emit acetic acid to some measurable amount, but the following woods sometimes used by modelers are known to be harmful to lead:

Very Harmful
Unseasoned oak (white and red),Plywood and chipboard,Teak,Basswood Sweet chestnut
Fire-proofed woods,Rot-proofed woods

Moderately Harmful
Seasoned oak, Larch, Ash, Birch,Beech
Red cedar

Less Harmful
Sitka spruce,Douglas fir,Pine,Elm

A general rule of thumb can be applied: Hardwoods emit more acetic acid than soft woods. But any wood will fall into at least the minimally harmful category.2
Please note that also paints, glues, and other miscellaneous materials may cause lead rot to a lesser degree.

Solutions

Prevention
The single most important element is to provide your cabinets with plenty of ventilation at least complete air circulation twice a day. I use bags of SILICA to keep the moisture down and can be purchase in most office outlets.If the cabinet are air tight you might want to drill a one inch diameter hole in the case and keep the cabinet out of the direct sun.

If you intend to seal a mini in its bare metal state, I've found the  absolute best material to do so is shellac. And no, I'm not talking about a spray can of clear lacquer paint or a pot of wood shellac from the hardware store. I'm referring to genuine shellac chips from the lac beetle dissolved
in denatured alcohol. It's easy enough to find if you just tell someone you need shellac chips for French polishing. Pop into an antique store and it's likely someone there can tell you where you can get some. The Shellac then seals the mini away from oxygen, and you'll never have to worry about it again. Best of all though is that if you ever decide to unseal the mini, you don't have to soak it in any sort of corrosive compound to remove the shellac, just drop it in a tin of alcohol and in about 5 minutes the shellac coating will be dissolved away. Rinse in clean alcohol and your mini is clean of the sealant.

Affected miniatures
First of all you have to clean the miniature, this can be done by using a short soak in white vinegar followed by cleaning the miniature with a toothbrush with toothpaste.
For heavily affected areas you can use a dremel or something similar with a cleaning and/or polishing bit. Do not forget to let the miniature dry on a paper towel or use a hair dryer thoroughly.
After cleaning and before any repair, conversion and painting work you have to prime the miniature. do not use any water based primers/paints for this. the best way seems to use a polyurethan (PU) paint because this will seal the miniature hermetically. you can get this paint in any colour and even clear, if you prefer to display your miniatures in bare metal form.

http://www.dt.navy.mil/cnsm/lead_01.html