Tiny Furniture's Retro-future Post-apocalypse "Junk Cart"

[ced1106]

(RPG.net review draft)

 

Introduction: What's future-retro and full of rust? Why, it's Tiny Furniture's "Junk cart". This post-apoc miniature has the back half of a 1950's car (maybe an Edsel?) and two construction beams to pull it around. Perfect for a game of Fallout or any other post-apocalyptic game. The deck lid of the trunk has been removed, and a big pile of retro-future junk is there, too. This is a multi-piece miniature, with a removable junk pile so you can have an empty junk cart, or put something else in it. Thematically, you will probably want the car and junk rusted, which would make the miniature best for intermediate painters. Beginning painters, of course, can easily paint this miniature, if they prefer to give it a brown wash instead of rust effects. The miniature has pretty much no mold lines, and assembly is easy. Both unpainted and painted versions are available.

 

The miniature has multiple pieces: two construction beams that serve as handles, the back half of a 1950's car that serves as the back of the car, two different pairs of tires (you only need one for the cart, so the other two can be used as junk or attached to the handles), and a removable block of various retro pieces of junk. The block of junk can be turned around. The junk pile junk are, from most noticable to details : a car door, a tire, a suitcase, a gas can, some gas cylinders, a futuristic case, wooden chests, and some bottles. That's a lot of detail, all of it future-restro-istic. The pieces fit together easily. In the pictures, I just use putty.

 

Rust: Intermediate painters will want to apply rust effects on various parts of the miniature. When I looked at various rust tutorials, I noticed that they varied quite a bit in effect and difficulty, and often depended on special materials. My thoughts are to review as many rust tutorials as you can before deciding on which ones you want. The painting tips, then, should only be seen as examples of using rust. You may have painting materials (eg. weathering pigment) that I don't have, and some of the rust techniques I use may call for painting materials that you do not own (eg. Liquid Mask). I do recommend brown Army Painter Light Tone, although Army Painter Soft Tone may work. I found Army Painter Light Tone to be used for subtle weathering for post-apocalyptic painting, to quickly make modern-day items look worn and dirty after disuse and neglect.

 

Construction Beams, Car Half, Bottom of Trunk, and Underside of Car : Stippling. Stippling requires no special painting materials. Prime or basecoat in brown, and stipple red-brown, dark red, and bright orange. If you accidentally put too much paint on an area, try smearing it with your thumb. If the colors look too uniform, wash with brown Army Painter Strong Tone then continue. Since most players won't see the underside of the car, I just painted it with brown metallic, followed by a brown wash.

 

Car Paint Job and Bumper: Liquid Mask and Sanding Tool. I rarely use Liquid Mask, but found it useful for straight lines on fantasy gaming shields. It's also used in a rust effect where you paint the entire area in rust, cover it all in Liquid Mask, paint the car color over the Liquid Mask, then use a sanding sponge, sandpaper, or even a nail buffer sanding bloock to scrape off some of the paint to reveal the rust underneath. Brown Army Painter Light Tone was useful for suggesting dirt on the car. It's available in the Army Painter Quickshade Ink Set, or you can thin down their more popular Soft Tone or Strong Tone.

 

Lights: For the lights, I painted them red and white, then Tamiya Smoke Clear. You can alternatively wash them with a thinned Army Painter Dark Tone, then apply a gloss.

 

Tires: Liquid Mask and Sanding Tool. These are whitewall tires, popular in the 1950's. Paint the tire black. Rust the rims of the tires. Apply Liquid Mask to the whitewall and rim parts of the tires. Paint the rims metallic and the whitewalls white. With the sanding tool, scrape away part of the rim and whitewalls, revealing the rust. Because the rims are recesssed, you might have a tricky time scraping the rims and reveal the grey resin underneath. That's fine. Wash with brown Army Painter Light Tone or thinned brown wash.

 

Junk: The entire junk piece was primed in brown. The individual junk pieces required different painting techniques. For the tire, I used the same technique as above. For the door, I used the same stippling technique. If you wish for the car door to still have paint, you may try the Liquid Mask technique. Also, if you want the window to appear more like glass, search on "miniature painting glass". For the smaller fuel tanks, I drybrushed the color, but you can still use a rust technique. For the suitcase and wooden crates, I painted them in various browns. The gas can was painted in metallic red without rust techniques, but can make it rusty as well. The futuristic suitcase I assumed was made of aluminum or stainless steel, so I painted it metallic. You can then paint the junk in a brown wash, such as brown Army Painter Light Tone.

 

Conclusion: For the beginner, painting this model without weathering isn't particularly difficult. However, if you want to go the extra mile (so to speak), then you will want to use various rust techniques for this model -- and should have good results. Enjoy your old post-apocalypse retro junk car(t), and pull around in style!

 

 

[kitenerd]

I LOVE the way the "bare metal" is shinier than the dull old paint - it really sells the whole thing - magnificently done!

 

So paint the whole thing rusty and then put paint over the top and chip/scrape away to the rust - AWESOME - learn something new every day...  That is why the paint chipping looks 3D - it is!!!  I would have done it the exact opposite way and it would not have come out nearly as nice - now i know better!

 

Thanks for the lesson and for sharing this very unique sculpt and paint job

[joshuaslater]

I’ve had my eye on this model for some time out of many cool pieces they have.  Great painting on this!

[Glitterwolf]

Very cool!