Tools of War

So I painted up the card case (black plastic, ugh) and gave it a nice metallic look with a little bit of highlighting on the letters. Wanted to make it look like something that's been out there, ya know? It's not perfect if you scrutinize it, but at any reasonable distance I think it looks well. It was easy enough to drill holes and thread a very thin wire to separate the cards by type, and I really recommend doing so, also I added a screw for stability, though I found the plastic axle to be very secure.

Next up is the Servo Skull tape measure.  I like how they designed the front teeth to be where you pull it out. One of my friends broke his dad's tape measure so I took it and fixed it up, and used sandpaper to give it a bit more grip on the lock. I took this one apart and used the same concept and it does make a difference.

I then proceeded to sand the whole thing minus some of the obviously metallic components because it was completely painted in mithril silver with a badab black finish (or the new citadel equivalents) and that didn't suit me. Inspired as I was by this post http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/9270/289929.page#4489706
in which as you can see, he kept the silver look, I painted up the cables and detailed the details.

After I started sanding I really liked the white of this plastic, seems to be nylon based, and first painted any acrylics, really your choice out here. Vallejo liquid metals copper, retouched any areas. Then a badab black wash, followed by the gryphonne sepia wash, and finally a bit of drybrush (though a bit thick this time) with vallejo light flesh. That last bit gives it the more realistic bone appearance and my friends in anthropology tell me that real bone has that kind of striping, so it's good in this case for the drybrush to go in one direction and still be a tiny bit wet.

Remember this is a bigger piece, so a bit of water spotting, weather, and everything should be visible and if you mess up a bit with the washes it's perfectly alright.

To give it an upgrade, I added up a ledsnake-laser combo I bought, since this is supposed to be a gaming tool, to check for line of sight. I think the led is a bit more useful here since it floods an area and is a more natural indicator of what is visible, especially in 6th ed. It's perfectly removable for the sake of convenience.