Converting an old school Dwarf Thane
The first guy I made - Dwarf Thane. The recipe is as follows:
-1x white dwarf classic & collectors edition
-1x chaos marauder shield
-20 cm of wire - half a square mm
Since Thane in my army list carries a great weapon as well as hand weapon and shield I wanted to add a shield to his back because of wysiwyg.
A few years ago (editor’s note: 20 years now, give or take), a totally epic dwarf army came out in the WD with chaos marauder shields on its back -> idea.
I chose the shattered shield because I liked the idea that a veteran like Thane had equipment that was an indicator of his battles and exploits.
I removed the spike from the middle of the shield (too Chaos-like), made a ball of GS, left it for 24 hours to achieve full cohesion and then cut it in half and glued half in place of the spike.
To make the model look as realistic as possible, I didn't just want to stick a shield on his back, but I decided to make a rope that would hold it in place. First of all, I determined the places on the dwarf where the rope should go around the body and with a pin vice I drilled holes into which the rope I was about to make would enter.
Making the rope itself is a pretty straight forward job -> I cut a piece of about 20 cm of wire half a square mm cross section, removed the insulation and folded the wire in half. I squeezed the ends that are now next to each other with a vice, and on the upper side I pushed the toothpick between the wires and started winding. As you spin the toothpick the wires wrap around each other, and it’s up to you just to determine how much winding density you find most realistic. I didn't want it to be a bare rope, so to break the monotony I added a knot and a piece of string on which I pasted a medal taken from an old dwarf warrior banner.
After cleaning the figure and greenstuffing the cracks where the fists with the axe join the rest of the figure, I made a base - some sand, some stones, some static grass ... same old, same old ... with an accessory that I like to put on bases because if it is made as it should look very realistic vegetation -> dark green sponge (modelling, torn on chunks) is glued to the base and then well sanded with super glue. After the glue dries and the sponge stiffens, a light drybrush goblin green is added and then superficially to parts of the drybrush bubonic brown - even if you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it, it looks great to me.
Painting: black matt coat, I painted the shield before gluing it on the back, painted the dwarf, added the shield to it, added the rope, painted the rope ......... not to lengthen, here is the photo:
Honestly, I’m not overly pleased with some parts of the figure. I painted the beard twice and twice it turned out a bit muddy, the axe (blade) ended too thick - I'm still looking for the right technique for painting metal, I'm still not happy with the way my skin looks, my eyes disaster .... but not to bitch myself too much, this is after all the first figure I’ve made after a full two years break and I believe things will fall into place when I get a little harder into the job.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
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