Stay Puffy!!

Hi Folks, 

welcome to another episode of Straight from the Desk! 

The title of this episode is:

In this video, I will introduce you to a technique, that I am sure we will see being repeated a million times. We will be using so-called Puff Pens or Paint to create an incredibly detailed smoke effect, disgusting Nurgle growth, and even little zen moss patches.

So we have a super versatile new tool to add crazy details that are out of this world in no time! 

I am pretty sure there are a million different ways on how you could use those pens.

I recently rediscovered Puff Pens. I recall having them as a child, but nowadays they are no longer available in Germany. So I asked my buddy and supporter Chris Schmidt to organize me some when we met at the LVO. 

Thanks again for that!

Using Puff paint is easy - just apply it and then use a blow dryer or hot airgun to heat it up and make it puff up.

*Regarding the choice of blowdryer: the puffy pens need quite a lot of heat to really pop up nicely.

If you work on a heat-resistant surface you can work with a heat gun or a small embossing dryer. 

Both create a lot of heat so you have to be super careful to not burn the surface or the puffed material.

If you work with plastic models or resin you have to be very careful, otherwise, the model starts to get soft, melt, and ultimately burn.

In those cases, it can be better to work with a normal hairdryer.

You have to go really close to the puffy paint.

When you are playing around with it you will see even the angle that you are holding the dryer has an impact on the look of the puffed structure.

Let´s have a look at the Nurgle conversion first:

In addition to the puffy pens we need:

A model, a base, some bitz - you basically need a surface to apply the foam effect.

Here In our case, we are working with a space marine and a few pox walker bits.

We also need some super glue and some matching super glue accelerator, a few toothpicks, a blowdryer or heat gun, and some greenstuff. And of course a hairdryer*...

For our Nurgle conversion, I wanted to create a space marine that gets freshly infected. Maybe a Nurgle-infected shell has pierced his armor and he starts to mutate.

I want to use some bitz but also a few selections of small tentacles, that we are making from greenstuff.

Instead of sculpting directly on the model, we decided to work with fully cured versions to prevent damage during the application of the puffy paint or melting when using the hairdryer.

In the next step we are glueing everything together.

Now it´s time to fill the gaps inbetween the bits with our magic puffy paint!

Once we are happy with the placement of the paint , we can let it poop using the hairdryer.

We are a second layer to fill the deeper gaps and repeating the process..

And within not even 5 minutes we have created a conversion with a new stunning nurgle look

Now, for something completely different!

You can also use the pens to create small peaceful, puffy moss patches.

I have built this little zen garden and we are adding the little patches.

This time as we only have sand and milliput we can use the embossing heat gun.

This one was quick and easy!

There is another application that is truly stunning.

We are creating heavy smoke.

To build our smoke cloud we need only a few things:

We need thick and thin wire, and pliers to bent and cut it. 

In addition, we again need super glue and super glue accelerator.

We are first using the thicker wire to create the general shape, before using the thin wire to build up some volume. Press the wire in place and use superglue to fuse everything together.

In the next step, we are adding our puffy paint, starting with the fluorescent yellow. We are adding more fluorescent orange to the top.

We are working again with our embossing heat gun to pop the paint, before filling up the empty spots with yellow paint.We can add paint to change the volumes and detail to our liking.

Once we are happy with the look of our smoke cloud we can use a bit of black paint and our airbrush to darken the top of the smoke cloud.

You can see there are many, many different ways in which those cheeky little paints can be used.It´s a little like the tea stain weathering video.. think outside the box.

LOOK FOR INSPIRATION OUTSIDE OF THE MINIATURE WORLD.

I can't wait to see what you create!

Thanks for your support!