Hey All,

Anyone who has card-modeled for any time can tell you that besides having a solid product to work with, the little things that you can do to enhance your builds, such as edging, can push a good, usable layout to an outstanding, "professional quality" layout. We all know if you cut and glue and play, the stuff works well because of the high quality of the products that WWG puts out. However, not seeing those white edges makes it that much more visually appealing.

One of the challenges that I have found when edging, besides not slipping off the edge onto the texture, is that of color-matching. I may be anal about it, but it takes me quite a while and a bunch of trial-and-error to find the perfect colors for edging the various products out there. My ultimate goal is to cover the white with a color that blends with the textures around it.

To that end, I would like to propose a sticky edging thread where we can put our thoughts on edging in general and actual colors/products in specific based on all the different products as well.

Thoughts?

I'll start.

Himmelveil #1: Streets

I use BIC Mark-it fine points.

For the lighter part of the tiles I use the color Tiki Hut Tan and it is about as perfect as I would like.

For the darker part of the tiles I have been using Woodsy Brown, but I am looking for a better alternative. It covers well but it is definitely not the right color for a permanent solution. I will probably go with a shade of grey, but for now I have not found the right one.

I had bought a light gray marker to do this, but I recently switched back to edging just in black. Not sure why, but in person it looks better to me. In photos, the colored edging looks better, though.

I tend to use Sharpies, but honestly it has been due to convenience. I use green, black, brown, gray and blue depending on the tile/piece.

I've been lucky to have a ton of Berol Prismacolor markers lying around. I like having tones that are similar to, but just a hair darker, than the general tone of the tile I'm working on.

To me nothing has beaten the Crayola kids markers with the 'broad line' tips. You can use the side of the broad tips to just slide along an edge with little fear of slipping. Unlike smaller tipped markers where you end up trying to keep a small tip or short side along the edge. These markers also don't bleed up into the card stock like other markers do. Plus they come in tons of different colors. I happen to only use black, grey, and dark brown. Not to mention they are pretty cheap and if you got kids you probably have some already laying around that your wife bought =)



Something else that helps me is to color most of a tab as well. Often times I find it very difficult to perfectly line up an edge of a folded tab to the other edge that it glues to. Thus if the tab is colored as well as all of the edges you don't notice that it may be .5 mm off! Another common spot I'll color is the inside where a top comes down and a tab glues to the inside top edge. Again if the top slips down half a mm you won't notice it at a distance because the inside surface was colored.

To do this though I end up edging before any gluing. What I typically do is score, cut out, (then do any reverse scores), color edges, color tabs, then glue stuff together. Why I edge so early is because if you try to edge at the end to cover your mistakes you end up getting marker all over places you don't want it (like perpendicular surfaces) and it's really hard to get the tip of a marker down in to some of those cracks (again with out getting it where you don't want it!) I've even tried using 'fine tip' and 'very fine tip' markers to get in there; it's just much easier to color any potential problem spots before gluing.

When I edge, I fold every crease to its maximum (as in flatten the page) and edge the opening. Yes, you get a bit of seperation of the page, but it ends up looking better and as long as you dont pick at it, its just fine. Plus, if its really bad, you can go back with a tiny bit of Tacky Glue and shore up the joints.

I do this as well.

Me too! Unless, I don't, of course. 99% of the time, I remember. It definitely helps get everything. Just like painting (or even just priming) minis...waiting until it is fully assembled is just asking for trouble!

It irks me when I put a build together and realize that I missed that one edge, and Murphey's Law says that it will be in some hard to reach/near impossible to edge place.

I try to get as many edges as I can early in the model build - especially if that edge is likely to meet any glue. I hate coming across an edge that I missed or didn't get thoroughly enough after it's glued together.

I use sharpies or prismacolors. I like the bigger liquid sharpies with the see-thru reservoir best. If they made one of those in a grey, I'd be pretty happy.

I use fancy-shmancy prismacolour. 40% warm and 40% cool grey.

*nod* The prisma 40% greys are awesome! I sort of wish they did more transparent colors...

http://www.sharpie.com/enUS/Product/Lim ... rkers.html

For Streets I used:

Sidewalk and tan post edging: Prismacolor Yellow Ocher
Roads and Brown posts: Sharpy Megapack, brown-gray

I generally use whatever markers are handy but my most common go to colors are:

Black
Dark Gray
Light Gray
Brown
Forest Green

If you set yourself up with those primaries, you'll be covered for 90% of what we've released. If you start getting really meticulous you can blend various shades to make exact matches. I did that a lot for the Ruined Undercrypt of Kelmarane.

I personally edge everything but smooth curves with black- I really like the cell shaded look it provides and it matches the stylized look of most 28mm minis.

Sacretis

I always edge right after I cut a part out. The printed side is turned away from me so if the edging tool slips it will mark the back of the piece. I also fold any glue tabs and color along the fold to help hide any slight misalignments. The Prang pencils that are used can be blended a bit to help match the color ( and the colour too).

My scoring does not entail making shallow cuts in the part along the fold line. A small tipped crocheting needle encased in a wood handle is used. Instead of cutting the fold line a shallow indentation is scored along the fold line. That method has worked great.

I'm glad you brought that up Doug; I noticed in the instructions for Thoumonts it mentions to use a dull edge to 'score' the roof peak so that you wouldn't have to come back with a marker and 'edge' it.

I have a dual ended embossing tool that's very very simple. It's reserved for very small models where I'm worried that the break of a normal score might make the model less durable or more muddied in detail.

http://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-Dual-Tip- ... 373&sr=8-9

..mine is like this one, but cheaper and lamer looking. But functional!

I feel like my laser prints would still need edging after that (flaky!).

Staples also has a cutter/scorer (something similar to this, but not sure if this is it) that cuts and scores. The scoring is the non-cut kind, so I left it there, but I may go back and try it out, especially since TLX has a lot of long scores. However, I may have the same "laser" issue of flaking....hmmm.

Thanks Halcy for the tip.

I grabbed a similar embossing tool from Lincraft here on Oz for about $4.

It has stopped the dreaded breaking of my score lines.



Cheers,

Geomod

I pilfered a few of my wife's Crayola Super Tip markers and really liked them. Still have a nice broad edge for edging but a finer point for getting in to tight spots. Plus it seemed to lay down color more evenly and consistently with out putting to much down or bleeding. Another fine choice I would say.

I made an interesting discovery recently at my local dollar store, a three pack of brown markers called "Furniture touch-ups". Apprently you're supposed to use them on furniture... the FOOLS! Brown markers are troublesome to come by for less than exhorbitive amounts of money but these are cheap, CHEAP, CHEAP!

Word of warning: they do smell quite strongly and they bleed about as much as a standard magic marker-type marker but for $1 I'm not exactly complaining...

Hello all and I'm glad to join the WWG community. Used to build all my terrain out of begged and barrowed new electric device packaging. Just wanted to share a great find while front loading for card builds. Sharpie brand markers has a 24 color pack for sale that covers all colors light to dark and a few shades in between. Available in the nien and ultra fine tip sizes. Just now using Sharpie for this new hobby but I've always found them to be the marker of choice at work in the office. Most pictures of the set I've seen online don't do the pigmentation justice.

Thank you. I am also somewhat shamed to say that I went to a $tore and found some "Shoupie" 12-packs @ $2.49 CAD. If anyone is in Mississauga/Brampton, I'll give you the hook-up.

I picked up a bunch of the Bic MarkIt Fine Points (10 for $7 at Staples), and am sad to say that they bleed into the edges like crazy. I'm using laser prints, so the fact it's bleeding out over onto the toner is very disconcerting.

I have been using a Tombow black dual tip for edging, and it works quite well - no noticeable bleed. I'm planning on ordering some Prismacolors in the specific colors I want as I cannot find a store that carries them locally (and Dickblick has them for half price).

Try to store the markers tips up. From my understanding even the Prismacolors bleed excessively if this isn't done.

Store them tips up until they get used a bit, then store them tips down. I have multiple pen holder cylinders on my craft desk for the different pen stages.

Sorry if this has been covered, (pressed for time at the moment), but where in the wide world do you people find gray markers for individual sale? The Oracle at Google doesn't seem to know.

Any fine arts suppy store should carry them (like Michael's if they have those where you live).

Be prepared to pay for 'em though... like at least $5 a piece...

Thanks! There's actually a Michael's 5 miles from me (so like 25 minutes drive time - DC area; gotta love it).

I guess I'll keep looking... Michael's had sharpies, but they said they don't sell gray markers unless you want Crayola or poster paint markers. I bought Crayola but they're a flop.