Tactical Marine Painting - Finishing Touches

This post is a continuation of the tactical marine painting.  Part 1 can be found here, while Part 2 can be found here.

In this post I'll describe the process of basing and applying a transfer to the shoulder pads of my tactical marines.  I'll also show a picture of the completed squad!

Basing


The first step was to remove the marines from their bases, as I had used putty to temporarily hold them on the bases as I was painting.  I then used a modeling knife to remove the putty from the base and the bottom of the feet of my marines.

I then squirted a little bit of regular white glue (from 7-11 believe it or not) onto each of the bases.  I used an old-ish brush to spread the glue around evenly on the base, then dipped the base into a container full of sand from a beach.  After waiting about 20 minutes for the glue to dry, I undercoated the bases with Chaos Black undercoat.  This not only made painting the sand easier, but I found it also helped the sand stick onto the base better.  Once the undercoat was dry, I basecoated the top and sides of the bases Scorched Brown.  I then painted the sand with a 1:1 mix of Sunburst Yellow:Scorched Brown, then highlighted the sand with Bleached Bone.

After this, I used superglue to glue the marines back onto their bases, you can see the finished product below!

Applying Blood Drop Transfer

Applying the transfer to the shoulder pad of my marines was actually much easier than I thought it would be (I've never done a transfer before this).

I started off by cutting the transfers individually and then placing them on a wet paper towel.

I took each transfer individually and held it in my left hand.  In my right hand I used a damp paint brush to slide the transfer off its backing onto the shoulder pad of my marines.  I then brushed over it lightly to make sure it was flush with the surface of the shoulder pad.  Easy!

To round things off, here is a picture of the finished squad, defending a hill!