Burning Rubber...

Gaslands, a game of post-apocalyptic car combat; Mad Max on the table, or Fast and Furious mixed with the Expendables. Cars, buggies and bikes go head to head in all out combat, or death races for ultimate glory. I wrote a review a few posts ago, and last post detailed the first two cars I finished for the game. The next two are now done...

The vehicles so far...

Like pretty much everyone I have seen in the busy Facebook groups, I used Hot Wheels cars for the base, and stuck a variety of weapons and spikes to them to make them more thematically suitable. The weapons I got from left over Heavy Gear sprues, and the spikes and other things from a number of FireForge medieval sprues I had left over. The mesh on the windscreen is an adhesive fly-wire patch cut to size.

This post is about the left-most car in this image...

And left-most buggy in this image...

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to spray all the cars I worked on what was supposed to be a 'rust' colour, but which in the end turned out to be a glossy sort of maroon instead. I had to spray them all again lightly with a flat varnish so other paint would adhere. Then I tried the salt chipping technique to create patchy paintwork with a patina of rust, but this really just created patchy paint. For the last ones I found the water was pooling on the gloss, so this time I added some water, watched it pool, added salt, and pressed down on the salt lump to create a larger, flatter, and messier area, which was more the effect I was after in the first place.

Once the salt had been added I sprayed on a top-coat of blue. Every two vehicles I do will be different core colours, the teams will look rather patchwork as a result, which is the aim. Once the spray dried I used a toothbrush to remove the salt, revealing the maroon beneath. Again, the spray is glossy, so another light coat of flat varnish was due. I then painted all the various other colours, black for the weapon casings and tires, metal for the rims, screens and engines, light blue for the buggy windscreen, white for the skull motif, etc. Then I coated both liberally with Army Painter dark tone, which is essentially a black wash with an enamel finish.

I really laid on the wash. This was in part to smooth and blur the colour transitions and give them a dirty look, but also to dull down the gloss.

Once this was dry I started weathering. I added metal scars across the surface on the edges particularly, went over patches with a light brown wash, dribbling it down the sides to look like rust, and highlighted the engines, windows and weapons with a lighter metal tone dry-brushed on. Once this was done I turned to my Tamiya weathering powders, and used a Vallejo texture paint for mud around the wheels, before giving them a final flat varnish.

So that's the next two done. All in all these are really quick to paint. A couple of sprays, some small patches of different colour, a heavy wash, some highlighting and then the weathering powder. I think they look pretty neat, and should be good fun to get to the table. I am thinking about making a board a some point as well, we shall see...