On painting medals...

As part of the conference the university is hosting we will be awarding medals (Liftime contributions, best research, etc). Now, the problems arose when we didn't actually have any medals to begin with, so my supervisor decided that as I'm a metalurgist, know a bit about historical metal working and ave cast white metal figures before I would be the perfect candidate to make some. A long story short - white metal into open clay moulds isn't an easy technique to get right (although I did manage to prove all those who said that pouring metal into DAS clay would cause it to melt and burn were wrong. For future refernce, coat the outer surface of the mould in pva to give it a modicum of water resistance, and then sit the DAS in a tray of water. The water whicks the heat from the mould, stoping it from melting etc. It also cools the metal too quickly to get good resolution of detail...) So, in the end, I've ended up painting the hard plastic Masters... As I type, my base coat of tin bitz is drying, then I'll give it a wash with a dark green (in this case GW's dark green ink as I had it to hand when I packed my bag, and sat in the corner of the conference room conditions are a bit primative.) to give a slight patine. Then it'll be sequential dry brushes of Brazen Brass, dwarf bronce and burnished gold, before sputter coating a layer of real gold on with one of our instruments). I hope to be abel to sneak a picture of the finished article before they are awarded this evening, but I may not be able to do so....