Tutorial - how to make real lenses

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Aloa and a wonderful start into another week of Jungle Madness...
This little article is very easy to get and understand i hope - it is about making real lenses (i hope this word is right) on weapons, masks or helmets or whatever else you might find it useful for.


What you need:

- the backside of a sticker
- some patience
- a toothpick
- your miniature
- Micro Krystal Klear, by Microscale Industries, it looks like this. It is some kind of one component water effect and dries out clear, but is not good for the use of big water areas. Maybe there are other companies out there who do similiar stuff, but i am not sure which one - just check out if it works with the stuff you can find:

Next pull off your sticker from its place and use the non-glueing area for our next steps. As i seem to be weird sometimes i did it wrong in this article, but nevermind, always keep in mind you are working with the non-glueing side of the sticker. Use your toothpick's tip to get hold of some of the Krystal Klear and bring some tiny amount of it on the prepared area - you can now do different seized tiny bulbs there:

Now wait a day and you get tiny lenses in different seizes which you can bring in place with some matte varnish, i would not recommand using superglue here as it can make it look dirty or whatever superglue sometimes does when placed. Matte Varnish will work fine here. You can prepare your underground with some colours before, it will still shows as it the bulbs are clear. You can also work on them with some gloss varnish to intense the effect. On your models it will look pretty cool in the end as it has volume and looks somehow real... just give it a try!

I hope you like this idea out of the jungle heart...

Keep on happy painting!

Best Regards

Roman