Transcript
Got my Last Of Us shirt on.
Today, I’m gonna share with you one of the super secret, little known, tried-and-true methods of measuring the visual quality of miniatures or models destined for the big screen. Circa 1995 and earlier … you know, prior to HD, 4k, 8k, digital cameras and projection, et cetera. So it might be a little outdated.
And due to being outdated, this little tidbit of wisdom from the golden age of practical Hollywood special effects miniatures is one that you can’t really use any more for one aspect of our hobby but you can for another. Sounds confusing, I know, but I swear it’ll make make sense in a bit.
One thing you always did when working on a model for a big budget movie or tv commercial was establish which side of the model was the “hero” side. Meaning the side of the model that was going to be seen by camera. Because, kinda just like in video games today, if you ain’t seeing it, there ain’t no point in building it. Save them ducats everywhere you can.
Of course, we build models for tabletop gaming, which means … every side is the damn hero side.
Greetings good humans and welcome to TableTop Alchemy, where once in a while your host delivers some actual – if entirely outdated – insider information. At least anecdotes. And we tip our hats to our patrons for doing that patron thing – as always, much appreciated.
All right, today we’re gonna paint up our first MDF kit. Meaning, I’m gonna paint up my first MDF kit – well, I guess if I’m honest, it’s really half of a kit, since there are two houses included in this one set from TT Combat – but I’m really gonna paint it all the way up to finished, not my typical “oh I’m doing some experiments so I don’t have to actually finish a model” sorta thing – not Pachow – and we’ll dutifully note the thought processes and mistakes as per usual.
And there are definitely mistakes coming up. But they’ll also illustrate one of the cool things about this hobby – mishaps or errors are actually all very low stakes because of the intended use cases for these miniatures. In other words, there’s not much you can do wrong that would preclude you from actually using a miniature or piece of terrain on the table, no matter what it’s final look looks like. I mean, you can play games with completely unpainted terrain and minis. Gasp. Dare to be different!
Anyway, to kick off my first foray into the Pile of Opportunity: Terrain Edition, I selected one of the smallest kits I have. And as I’ve mentioned before, all my MDF kits are already built – and usable – so this is not a “how to build an MDF kit” or MDF kit review type of video, it’s just about painting up one of these little guys.
So I’ve got two copies of this Briar Rose Cottage set, and we’re gonna work on the smaller house from one of them today. I wanna start small, see what working with these things is like. Cause I gotta bunch to paint up. Seriously. A bunch.
As a lot of you know I play a little bit of Minecraft and over the last year or so I’ve been enjoying, in that game, the “cottagecore” aesthetic and I feel like these Briar Rose Cottage models kinda fit right in there. I mean, it’s kinda in the name right? Cottagecore basically boils down to “I just wanna put a bunch of flowers and plants around a cute little house.”
I think for a future video it would be fun to take the second copy of this little house and do it up as a “ruined” or “abandoned” cottage. Yeah, I’m definitely putting that in the list of terrain video ideas. But you know, there’s plenty of time to ruin today’s model too, so, let’s see how it goes.
Now, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about sharing that little tidbit of Hollywood special effects wisdom, but it’ll arrive at the appropriate time.
So first thing is coming up with a color scheme. When I was trying to come up with a color scheme for the little house on the tabletop I had an odd thought. Well, it’s everywhere so it’s not surprising I had the thought, it’s surprising how long it took me to think of it. Me and my old brain, getting smoother by the day.
Let’s pop over to our friendly neighborhood job-killer: Midjourney AI. I pay the lowest monthly tier subscription to be able to use this whenever I want, but I’m pretty sure you can try it out for free if you’re curious about it. I’m sure a lot of you out there are already familiar with these art AIs, and I’m sure there’s more than a few of you that might be a little uncomfortable regarding my use of such a controversial tool. AI stuff in general is definitely worthy of a huge amount of discussion and debate and maybe one day we’ll chat about some of it together but for today (maybe in one other coming soon video, wink wink nudge nudge – I don’t know what that weird wink was. Do you, do you wink when you say wink wink? I don’t think so). Anyway, we’re just gonna use it for fun today. Typically, I use Midjourney to create b-roll images for my edits in these videos, but I thought it might be interesting to see what it generated as far as color schemes for today’s project.
First I uploaded this phone pic of the actual miniature as a reference for Midjourney, and then punched in “forest cottage with blue roof” as the first prompt. Because for whatever reason I was pretty sure I wanted to paint the roof of the model blue. There’s just something very cottagecorey about blue roofs, for me. Also Greek but in this case, a blue roof would hopefully add a little bit of cute fantasy flair to the piece.
So here’s the first result and it’s not bad. Using a reference image is a pretty neat trick with Midjourney. Right away it’s kinda giving me a pretty decent color scheme. I went ahead and tried a few different prompts, here’s what I got with little tweaks to the prompt. I removed “blue roof” just to see what it would create and I actually really like this overgrown look, that’s also a very “cottagecore” sorta thing. But that’s also a lot of basing materials, so maybe one day, when the budget for this channel gets, you know, up here somewhere, we can start spamming expensive miniature plants.
So then I had a stroke of genius and added “tabletop terrain” to the prompt, just to see what it would do. Check out how it puts the houses on bases. I tried adding “stone cottage” to the prompt and this time Midjourney actually put the houses on tables even. Again, I found this pretty interesting.
So, after checking these all out, I decided to go with a blonde stoned color for the – blonde stoned color? Oh boy. So, after checking these all out, I decided to go with a blonde stone color for the bricks and a reddish brown for the wool accents – wool accents?
Before I could start painting the model I had to think a little bit about the base. And this is a pretty big question for me concerning all the MDF kits I have – whether to add a larger base to them or not. There are definitely good reasons NOT to add a base, such as adding a base increases the footprint of the model on the table and even for storage this could be an issue. Adding a base also increases the height of the model a little bit and to be perfectly honest, there’s just not really any reason TO add a base.
Except one: flowers. I really wanted to decorate the outside of the cottage and I felt like I needed an outer area to put the decorative terrain stuff on, you know, the tufts and stuff. Now most of the MDF kits I own don’t have actual bases incorporated into them like this particular house does. I’m pretty sure this one has a base plate because of this little exterior workshop area.
So next I was concerned with how just sticking this onto another larger baseplate was going to introduce this lip all the way around the house I’d have to deal with. As luck would have it, this model’s base is almost exactly 3 millimeters tall and matches really well with 3 millimeter Sintra. Sometimes luck does happen in our favor, we just don’t pay attention to it as much as when it doesn’t happen in our favor.
But then another thing I got stuck wrestling with was how to actually attach what essentially would be an “outer rim” to the model’s base, and I was worried about structural integrity. I briefly thought about cutting like 1” wide strips and building them up around the model but then there would just be all these connection points that would somehow have to be glued together and I ended up just tracing the outline of the model on a larger piece of Sintra and cutting it out. I tried to err on the smaller side of the outline but as you see there’s definitely a couple sides where there’s a big gap. But on the other sides the fit was very snug and I’m just going to rely on superglue and baking soda to hold the whole thing in place. Again, this is a pretty risky venture and having completed the model at this point, I would definitely say this isn’t the best way to do this. The whole cutting out the middle is a decent choice but what I would do next time in addition to this is get ahold of some very thin styrene or probably even just card would have worked, just something very thin and flat that I could super glue across the gaps on the top surface to reinforce the connection between the Sintra and the MDF.
As you’ll see later, I go over the entire outer base with some terrain texture paste and that would easily have covered up any thin pieces of card or plastic.
Now when I started going ham on the beveled Sintra edges, I made one massive mistake, and that’s purely from rushing the process. There you go, I just chopped a huge chunk of my border off because I was impatient. This is unsurprising, because it’s me. Hey, I’m a work in progress. For two seconds I thought about trying to repair that and three seconds later, I was like, nope, this is just how it is now. And this is what I mean about doing stuff for tabletop gaming, these pieces aren’t necessarily made for display and this is gonna be just fine during a game.
Another mistake I made is I forgot the whole “don’t forget to make your surfaces miniature-base friendly”. Usually this means putting a mini down to make sure the surfaces are wide enough and level enough to have a miniature stand on it. I should have cut my outer edge at least another 1/2 inch wide on at least three of the sides. Ah well, see the work in progress statement from, you know, like twenty seconds ago.
Using both thick and medium viscosity superglue I attached the MDF to the Sintra and made sure I didn’t let any super glue leak through the bottom and attach itself to like the work surface or the scraps laying around. It seemed to work, and there it is, nice and flat. I’m actually pretty surprised.
So I put some Stynelrez gray primer down, kept the removable roof … removable, and yeah, once everything had a uniform gray coat, it’s time for paint. In case you’re looking for the best way to prime MDF terrain, specifically in cases where you can’t use a rattle can, I’ve got this video right here where you can check out some tests I do with various techniques and materials.
All right, I was pretty excited by this whole blue roof idea so that’s what I started with. I went with a pretty dark blue and actually took the time to paint individual tiles leaving the dark primer in between for some contrast. Now this is gonna end up being a sort of running motif through this entire exercise – me doing stuff in the long run that is just kinda unnecessary. Halfway through the roof painting I knew I should have just airbrushed a base coat of blue on the roof, and saved a lot of time. The results of my painstaking approach is essentially unnoticeable and therefore irrelevant.
After the base coat I drybrushed a brighter, more saturated blue across everything and then stepped up to a significantly lighter blue with the idea that I’d probably wash down the effect with … a wash. But I actually never did go back with a wash for that part, I ended up liking the sort of higher contrast weathered look from that really light blue dry brush.
I went with a reddish brown for the timber details and blocked all those out in one pass.
I blocked in the upper walls and the chimney with the “blonde stone” color I had in mind, which I mixed up from a light gray and a light sand color, and I planned to douse these surfaces in washes as well.
I figured for the chimney bricks and the bricks that are in the lower walls, I could pick out some of them in different colors, so I even threw some pink in the mix and some oranges and grays, just to break up that overall flat blonde base color.
I did some rough highlighting and edge highlighting with successively brighter browns on the wood bits. I definitely planned to put a wash over the wood bits as well so I tried to go brighter than necessary. The wood grain in a few of the detail pieces is pronounced in a stylized way, so I decided to go with a fairly cartoony approach to that wood grain, again, knowing the wash was gonna knock it all back down.
Then I slapped all those various washes down over all the various parts. I used similar wash colors but I used different brands and different hues to keep some subtle variation across the whole model so the different surfaces didn’t end up being too uniform.
Now the upper wall portions I felt went too dark, and a little too saturated with the wash colors, and I happened to see little piece of foam flock on the desk and I thought, hey, let’s use that to do a cool sponge dabbing texturizing thing!
I ended up really liking this sponged-on lighter paint look, I feel like it definitely created a sort of stucco or weathered plaster sort of look, and the contrast it created with the brighter portions in the middle I thought looked pretty good. After touching up spots where the sponge went outside the lines, I drybrushed some very flat black onto the chimney to simulate soot and then we’re onto the lower building.
I laid down a couple thin coats of the pale sand color mix for the brick walls, popped in some multi-color bricks to match what I did on the chimney, and then proceeded to screw the whole thing up with a wash that went on too heavy. These walls ended up going way darker than I wanted them too, I should have wiped off a lot of that wash from the middle flat areas. But I didn’t and as per usual, I just kept on trucking, things are gonna be what they’re gonna be. To brighten things up a bit and to add some texture to the walls, I went in with the sponge again and it worked okay. I like how this looks on the roof’s blank walls versus how it looks here on the brick pattern walls, but it definitely adds something to that crappy dark wash result. But then I couldn’t leave well enough alone and I had to go and mess it up again, with just another too dark wash.
Yep, I’m the best at what I do, I defy you to find someone better. At making mistakes. I mean performing artistic experiments!
I base coated all the wood trim with the same color used on the roof and I did this little exterior patio thing in a different sorta more grayish brown just to get away from that uniformity again. I used Citadel Targor Rageshade, which is a bit on the purple side, to douse the canvas roof thing, again, just for some variation in color.
Then I went through and added those sorta cartoony striations to the laser-cut wood grain and this took a pretty long time. And it’s also probably not something I would do again, I mean, not for a tabletop gaming piece.
I did some drybrushing on the patio thing and then dropped a wash on the wood details. After that wash dried I felt like the wood was just really flat still, so I said screw it and did some drybrushing on the timbers too. And I think it actually worked. On the next models I’ll probably just go with a few layers of drybrushing rather than painting in those initial striations in the wood grain.
And of course the door is blue to match the roof. I know in feng shui the door should be red, but whoever lives here has not heard of feng shui, they just like the color blue. Like me. I used a darker, less saturated blue because, again, I just didn’t want to use the same exact color from another spot on the model. I just wanted to be similar. I literally drew in some wood grain on the door with a light blue and then washed it all down with Citadel Nightshade, specifically the old formula wash because I don’t have the new formula wash in that color.
Yet. I’ll get it, don’t you worry.
Then I used cheapy craft paint to base the base in a brownish green. I kinda always do this even if I’m going to put other stuff on the top of it, I just want to make sure if there’s any spots I miss later on, they won’t show up as weird gray or white spots.
Then I covered all the weird glue seams and most of the outer base with some AK Interactive Muddy Ground texture, “man it really tied the room together.”
Then it was finally time for the plants and foliage decor, the whole reason I wanted to do this little cottage to begin with. I used some standard chunky flock for this one bush and then went to town with the flowers and tufts and vines and shrubbery. Some of the products I’m using here are from Huge Minis, Mini Natur, Army Painter and AK Interactive – I’ll drop some links below for ya. I used this sort of autumn colored ivy product for the weird patio area, thinking maybe this is where a lot of work was done or maybe some smithing or something with smoke and open flames and so the plants in that area weren’t as bright as elsewhere. Or, you know, I did it just because it added more color variation.
Then I flocked the entire base with a couple different leafy flocks and tucked it all up around the flowers and I used a little sand and some darker flock to kind of denote areas that had heavy foot traffic, like the front door and the patio workshop area.
Then, taking some inspiration from both those Midjourney cottage images and my Minecraft cottagecore builds, I started adding some moss and ivy to the roof. I actually really like how that stuff looks agains the blue tiles and brown timbers, very contrasty and I don’t know, just kind a cool.
Then to wrap it all up I sprayed the whole house with Mecha Matte Varnish to seal it all up and unify all the different surface textures, like areas of exposed glue and some shiny areas left by certain washes, et cetera.
And here’s the finished piece. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it as far finishing a piece goes, but I do think that the walls got too dark and I should have probably repainted them. But you know me, I’ll apply whatever lessons I’ve learned here, in theory, to whatever the next model is I work on.
But wait, what about that bit of Hollywood special effects wisdom? Well, this is where that comes into play. When we were asking ourselves if a model was complete enough or detailed enough to take the filming stage, we would perform one simple test, and you can do this yourself. Stand one one foot, tilt your head, close one eye and hop and down. Does the model look okay? If so, walk away, it’s done.
No, of course you think that’s a joke. And it was admittedly 50% facetious. But was also, and I’m not joking, 50% a legitimate test of what a model would probably look like on the big screen. Film grain, camera movement, motion blur, and dramatic lighting all tend to work together to sort of mash up fine details of a model in a movie. And I would bet cold hard ducats that if most of you were to see in-person actual Hollywood miniatures you would probably be surprised at the general lower level of detail or finish on a lot of them. They’re just not made for up-close scrutiny. Now granted, there were a few models that were very highly detailed and very nicely finished, but overall, tabletop quality is a lot closer to the level we were building too.
And I feel that silly little quality measurement saying – hopping on one foot with one eye closed – is a good gauge for what can pass on the tabletop. So feel free to use it for that purpose. Of course, that goofy test is of no value whatsoever if you’re talking about putting photographs of your models online for display. We just live in a different world where movies can be freeze framed and scrutinized and that sort of thing just requires higher levels of attention to detail. But for games on a table, anything goes!
So. Work to the level you like working to, to play your games. And always have fun.
See ya!