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Threads like "Is army painter really fair?" or "Is dipping cheating?" crawl under my skin, as it undermines the truth of talent being involved. A person with a magic pencil that can draw whatever they imagine has to first imagine what they want to draw, and are limited by imagination. A person with a can of Minwax polyshade suffers the same problem. So I'm going "All natural" on a Nurgle themed Genestealer. "Purist" to couteract the "Puerile" claims that methods such as dipping are cheating. That by using minwax, you're devaluing the model industry with your childish scrawling of paint followed by a dunk.
My stance? "Eff that."

Get ready.

I mean it, people, brace for impact. Catheterize yourselves.

I made my own brush, primer coat, and dip. I'm sure I'll talk about it more in the posts to follow, but let me walk you through the basics.

The brush: I whittled a small stick free of its bark, and dragged a razor across it to smooth it. I then used tree sap to bind a clump of my own hair into a bundle. It took about a day to fully dry out in the sun. Then split the tip of the twig, and broke out half of the split to form a crude socket for this clump of hair. More tree sap, followed by half of the drying time. When the sap was almost dry I mashed small rocks and dirt into it, and let these dry to form more of a wall around the hair to keep it in place.


The primer coat: I went online to find natural paint, and this took some doing. I found a recipe for face paint that included equal parts of corn starch and flour, mixed with a little water, and some glycerine. Wtf was that last one? Oh, its for binding purposes, so once it dries it wont cake and dust off. Well I don't have any fancy glycerine. I used baby fluid. Don't you judge me, don't you dare judge me. I see your gallery, and it is full of acrylic paints, cheater. Mixed it with my finger, because I'm freaky like that.


It works surprisingly well.


The first coat of color: I froze blueberries so that I could peel the skin off easier once they had thawed a bit. But then it hit me. No, I'm not going to crush the paint on with my fingers, as I had originally intended. I'm going to make a dip. So I crushed about 2 cups of blueberries into a paste. Swirled my model around in it.




Better results than expected from this next step. There is this evergreen tree outside (unsure of the type of tree) that has these weird globular pine ball things.
So in search of colors, I split it open. Huge score.
There is this dark, gooey resin inside. It looks dark brown, but when smeared, it turns yellow and green. YES. I smeared some over the genestealer with the brush.
Did the mottling trick with the berries really easily.



I repainted the claws and fingertips with the white paste, and took the end of the brush (a stick) and dabbed in the teeth to the best of my ability.
The brush is now almost completely ruined.
I also touched over some places with a blueberry skin, darkening the purples and blending them a little into the yellowy green of the main body. Nice and bruised, necrotic tones from this. Very evocative of a genestealer that has just banged his limbs against power armor over and over, bruising them all to hell.


Now comes the painful bit. I took a razor and sliced down the little green thumbtack that comes in tubes of crazy glue to open the tube. Whittled down the outside diameter until it could fit into the barrel of my air pistol (you can see it in one of the pictures, sitting on the chair). I pumped the gun once (minimal velocity is the name of the game here, also not trying to give myself an embolism) and fired it into the meat of my right thigh. I'll spare you the pictures on that. Little pinprick of the house red wells up, and I dip the stick into it and smear it onto the genestealer. I washed the stick beforehand, and had sterilized the pin with a lighter.


Description pretty much finished except for the base. For a glue, I took long grain basmati rice and soaked it for about an hour, then boiled the crap out of it until the water was mostly gone. Hooray for primitive glue. Sprinkle some dirt heavy with decaying pine needlles, and its finished. One all natural Nurgle themed Genestealer.



Now, for all you self righteous painters who have never dipped a model, who think army painter is cheating, who think any kind of corner cutting devalues your hobby, I say to you:
I approve of these methods and others whole heartedly, if they result in any saved time or generate visually stimulating results on a model.
Argue if you'd like, but I'll bet you used a store bought brush. Cheater. And paint? Ha! Who uses paint, anyways?
Man up and do it the real way instead of cutting corners, ye naysayers! You can't touch this moral high ground!
Everyone else, please continue doing what you do.

Can Doomthumbs start a new craze of Organic Painting? I'm thinking probably not, but 10 out of 10 for effort

I think I love you.

ROFL!
if you really used blue berries and...whatever those other things were. That turned out rather well.

This thread greatly disturbs me... I WANT MORE!

This is bloody amazing and very well thought through! Painting with Blueberries and something off a Pine Tree. You may start a natural Wargaming painting revolution Once again really good work. I might try this my self.

Upon further inspection, I don't think blood is a safe thing to paint with...

I like it all apart from using real blood.

What dont you like about blood?
You need blood to live!

Problem with blood is that it'll quickly lose its bright red and eventually turn very dark. Not good for painting

Still, organic painting? Hmm never thought of that. Very interesting at least!

Do I see....Nurgle marines

I forsee mold in your future

I just hope he doesn't need to use a dark brown any time soon.

I love this.

CHEATER!!!! You used a plastic model. Real men would carve the genestealer out of wood, or better yet, surgically alter some tropical(large) insects for a more realistic Tyranid army! You are a completely unethical lazy sloth! Man up, and do things properly!

Edit: Spelling

Thaanos wrote:CHEATER!!!! You used a plastic model. Real men would carve the genestealer out of wood, or better yet, surgically alter some tropical(large) insects for a more realistic Tyrinid army! You are a completely unethical lazy sloth! Man up, and do things properly!

Edit: Spelling

I understand this was an attempt at comedy, I really do. It's Tyranid though, with an "A". Consequently, you get an "F".

Also, since the people formerly occupying the "moral high ground" when it came to painting minis themselves used GW (or other) plastic minis, I feel no shame.

Hands up anyone who thought I would ever occupy moral high ground?

Doomthumbs wrote:
I understand this was an attempt at comedy, I really do. It's Tyranid though, with an "A". Consequently, you get an "F".

Sad Face! My spelling failed again........

Looks really good doomthumbs , I take it the....um paint substance doesn't rub off the mini.

The thought of you occupying the moral high ground is scary to begin with but then I realise that none of the stuff you have even spoken about of showed on Dakka has ever been particularly Immoral... It's been rude, crude, Dirty but sex and morality arn't soooo interconnected in my head as to make you particularly immoral in my head.

In fact I have found people with dirty sick and twisted sences of humour are (in my experience and opinion) the more well adjusted and moral people in society.

Hell yeah! That'll show those lazy peons who use store-bought paint and brushes. I mean, way to take shortcuts, guys. This is how you do it.

Berries, Cornstarch....baby fluids? Doomthumbs you are without a doubt the most flying rodent gak Insane hobbyist I have ever seen. I salute you Sir. But in all honesty that turned out rather nice looking, it really has a organic look to it. I would suggest sealing it ASAP to prevent rotting or any other horrid results that may come from your mix.

Doomthumbs wrote:
Unadulterated Awesome

You sir are Organic awesome. Give yourself Rainforest Alliance certification immediately.

Hey, amaizng post. Really man, you got my first ever "exalt" on dakka, and trully deserve it...

If real man have bals, you sir, have 3 of them...

That just happened..

Doomthumbs wrote: Epic Post

I DEMAND THIS BE MADE INTO AN ARTICLE SO FUTURE GENERATIONS CAN SEE IT!

First thread I have seen worthy of that exalt button. Bravo!

Frikin legend

I completely agree that people who call dipping cheating are, just simply, wrong. One cannot cheat in painting miniatures, as it is not a game.