Hairnet to Steel Grating!

With this Harlequin project nearing an end, I thought I would show everyone a cool idea I picked up as a young blood (can't remember where I learned it), but as I was strolling down the street one day I remember this gem of a basing technique when I found this piece of hairnet blowing around on the sidewalk, hmmmm...

 

Wanting to 'pull the eye' on the Harlequin's diamond patterns, as well as unifying the jewels on the left shoulder, I thought "...this would do well for some steel grating on the base!" I was very excited!

 

Here I am 'pre-cutting' the hairnet to make sure it fits properly, and now I am going to take some PVA glue (standard Elmer's craft glue) and glue it down, using a que-tip to 'press down' the net and let the excess squish out to overlap and dry for a nice hard surface.

 

Diving into my 'bits bag' (everyone should have one!) of spare pieces and parts left-over from countless mini-projects, I fished out an Orc boma'stik and began hacking the shaft into small circular pieces for rivets.

 

I then cut a small strip off of a spare business card I had laying around to have some metal framework for the rivets, and started carefully placing them on the dabs of super-glue I put down with the tip of my X-acto knife.

 

 

I then hacked up the remaining pieces of the Ork Stik (with accompanying arms) and made pieces of rubble to glue to the base, adding some sand texture to really give the base some grit!

 

Getting rather excited to finish for this post, along with the late hour last night, coupled with wanting to slap down the paint... I held the mini up to my work light to speed up the glue drying process! LOL!!  Next, I base-coated with three layers of black and began dry-brushing the silver into place!

Using a brass wash with some black added in, I put some 'rust' spots on the base where the grating, framework, and rivets would probably be rusted.  Then I dry-brushed some white over spots with a few white 'highlights' strategically place, and... Voila'! I think the finished product looks great! The diamond pattern on the grating will pull in elements of the diamond pattern on his leg, and the riveted framework will pull in themed elements from the line of jewels on his shoulder!  Let me know what you think! :D

('click the pic' to enlarge)