The Experiment - Ebony Dip!

I'm going with samurai-bot as opposed to guy in powered armor.
The sword isn't quite right, though. 

The experiment was concerning "the Dip". Yes, I dip. Deal with it. At least they're getting painted. Anywho, I like using ebony dip for mechanicals. Sometimes the only way to get a contrast is to use black instead of brown. I'm lookin' at you, monks. Yes, there are "dips" available for painting figures already mixed, and they also are far too expensive when compared to Minwax Polyshades at the local DIY shop. The old jar dried out a few months ago, so it was high time to mix another batch. The problem was, the usual ebony was out of stock, so just the "regular" ebony stain was available. Remember that black oil that was inside Krycek on the X-Files? Darker and nastier than that. After trying various ratios and sacrificing some disposable clickies for the cause, a 1 ebony to 12 clear concoction seemed to do the trick.

<< Figure >> 

The base was inscribed with "TALON GAMES © 1999". Talon Games produced some rather cool miniatures, then - as far as I know - went out of business. Shame. Some of their dragon robots are in the collection. It's probably a human in armor, but a robot seems more appealing to me. 

<< Painting >> 

Wash the figure, file off the flash, and mount on 1" diameter, 1/8" thick MDF disk. Putty, then apply sand/ballast/water/PVA glue slurry. Prime white.

Figure: red with neutral gray for the armor. Neutral gray for the sword blade, then black ink for the spine, red for the rest. Yellow ocher, then gold for the medallion on the helmet. 

Base: medium gray. Red, then trim with black ink for the facing lozenge.  

Finally dip with mixture described above, flock with clumps of dead grass, then spray with clear matte sealer. 

<< End 104 >>