First model completed for 2022! It snuck in while waiting to pin the Apothecary and Techmarine.
In the theme of trying new things with this tester model, I experimented with modern basing techniques. While I really like the plain gray ballast on the Ultramarines (I think it makes them pop), I wanted different basing to distinguish the Grey Knights as another army, learn something new, and contrast from the silver/gray of their armor.
I went with what seems to be a standard entry level scheme of mud and grass tufts that I see commonly. After watching a few tutorials on various ways to do it, I felt I could pull it off with most of the things I already had on hand, but I did need to pick up the grass tufts and I tried out some Citadel Stirland Mud.
I started with applying the mud and then sprinkled some of the brown irregular ballast that I have (which by itself looks like bark). Some of the tutorials showed using coarse, medium, and fine ballast which probably gives a better overall look, but I only have fine irregular brown and fine gray gravel types. I think in the future I might get some coarse stuff.
The mud dried with the ballast embedded - and while that was probably durable enough, I wanted to give it a extra coat of pva glue to be sure. Actually, before applying the glue, the Stirland Mud color with the slightly brighter brown ballast looked pretty good from medium and far, but I wanted to try more techniques, and also glue it down. With the water + glue mix it definitely needed to be painted as it had a weird sheen.
I then used Morunfang, then Agrax Earthshade, then a drybrushes of Mournfang, Zandri Dust + Morunfang mix, and then Screaming Skull + the previous mix. Then I glued in the grass, gave it a bit of Seraphim Sepia at its base, and then another drybrush of Screaming skull to the tips of the grass.
Finally, I also tried out some new Vallejo Pigments to apply dust/mud to the boots. I've seen this used to tie in the model to the base. I used just plain water to fix a mix of mostly Burnt Umber and a tiny amount of Light Sienna and applied it wet. When it dried it looked a bit more caked than I was going for, I need to figure out how to make it look like a dusting, but still it looks fine. I intend to use the Light Sienna with the gray gravel bases for the last few Ultramarines for that army, but will definitely want it light as they have to be very dapper.
Overall I think the model was very successful as a study in multiple new techniques and it will be fun to finish the other four models.
