Stormlord and Dreadnoughts

April 30, 2012 in General, Golden Demon 2012, Stormlord (2012), Vehicle

Well the Stormlord is very nearly finished, only a bit of drybrushing and painting of the shrine beside the engine pipes left to do and then I’ll call it a day.  I’m not going to pretend that this is 100% perfect – or even 80% and I could happily tinker away at this for the next six months and still not be completely happy with it.  However there comes a point where you just have to draw a line underneath a project and move onto the next with a lot of new found knowledge.  Once I’ve got these last couple of bits done, I’ll post up the completed paint job and a long list of “things learned”.

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Stormlord Pic

April 13, 2012 in General, Stormlord (2012)

Just thought I was overdue a picture of the latest progress of the Stormlord:

I Like Rusty Spoons…

April 12, 2012 in Stormlord (2012)

Well last night saw me applying the rust elements to the body of the Stormlord.  A process that was actually a lot more difficult than you would expect.  The basic concept is you mix some rust coloured pigment (or in my case ground chalks) with some Burnt Umber oil paint and a little white spirit and “flick” it on using a paint brush.  However I ended up having to water it down more with white spirit and use my stippling brush as the other brushes I tried were far too soft (even drybrushes).  White spirit was then airbrushed on which blended in the sharp edges of the splatters and allows you to push the rust effect over the tank hull.  It’s VERY effective once you’ve worked out the technique and some big splatters adds to the overall effect.

Tonight I’m hoping to get the dust layer applied to the tracks and then it’s ready for a coat of matte varnish and the final bits.

Stormlord Progress

April 10, 2012 in Stormlord (2012)

It might be a few weeks since my last post but the Stormlord project is finally on the last road to completion.  There is still a lot left to do, but I’ve got to the point where I can complete a step in an evening rather than having to spread it over a number of evenings due to the sheer size of the tank.

The tank has had all of it’s basic colours on and has been sponge weathered (a process where you apply paint with a sponge to simulate paint chips).  The whole tank has then been gloss varnished and last night I managed to apply an oil wash around all of the detail which then got blended in such a way that it looks like basic dirt & water streaking.  I’m probably not going to do much tonight but the next step is rust effects and then some applying dirt effect to the tracks and base of the tank.  A complete coat of matte varnish from the airbrush will then seal it all in ready for the last few bits.  Over all I reckon this should be completed in the next week or so.

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Slow and Steady

February 22, 2012 in General

I think the subject line says it all.  The Stormlord is progressing slowly and so far I’ve only had two small problems.  The first is that the little bit of hull colour I had left has separated and dried out a little.  This means that even if I shook it up, it would be a different colour to when it was originally mixed (the top split layer dried and not the bottom).  The second problem is that I clearly had some grease or similar on the hull, so when I removed the masking around one of the aquila the result was me pulling paint off back to bare plastic.  Needless to say I was royally pissed off.  However due to the thin layers you can achieve with an airbrush, I have managed to airbrush black over the damaged area and achieve smooth result with no visible “edge”.  I need to mix up some more hull colour and touch this up, however I will likely wait until I’ve finished all the details.

On the subject of details, I’m currently painting all of the gun casings Dwarf Bronze by hand.  I’m doing this for two reason – firstly trying to spray this thick paint through an airbrush proved to be nightmarish and secondly some bits would just be horrible to mask for doing this.  I have then got to paint the silver metals of the guns and any other details I fancy, finally it’s back to the airbrush to do the last 3 aquila’s with black and then gold and then touch up all of the hull colour and then I’m ready for weathering!  It’s still my intention to try and get this done by the end of the month, but being realistic I will probably roll into the first weekend of March.

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Bored Masking…

February 9, 2012 in General, Stormlord (2012)

The last week has seen a surprising amount of progress on the Stormlord.  Most of the hull has had it’s hull colour airbrushed on and I’ve spent two whole evenings sticking on tiny pieces of masking tape so that I can touch up some areas that need to be black (ready for metallics) and the strips on the hull that need to be done red.  I find that masking off is one of the most infuriating tasks when doing any airbrushing.  Do it poorly and you’ll completely mess up your model, it takes ages to get it “just right” and ultimately you’ll just rip the tape off again!  However without it you’d never achieve the crisp neat edges that people associate with a good paint job.

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First Paint!

February 1, 2012 in Stormlord (2012)

Since last Monday/Tuesday I’ve had a bit of a cold lurking, which on the one hand isn’t a surprise because there’s been a lot of germs flying around but also is because I rarely come down with anything.  However as is the case when I’m ill – it floored me Friday through to Sunday.  Monday I actually felt a little better but had to spend a chunk of time sorting out some eBay bits that I’d manage to sell over the weekend, but yesterday despite having a mountain of other stuff to do, I finally got some paint on!

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Stormlord fully assembled

January 25, 2012 in Stormlord (2012)

Well its no great surprise, but I finished off putting together the rear autocannons last night and glued them in place, which means that the Stormlord is fully assembled and with the exception of those two guns and the main gun, was undercoated on Monday evening so ready for paint.  I’m currently suffering from a cold so may well spend some of tonight airbrushing in the warmth of my office.

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Office, tanks and Flickr

January 24, 2012 in General

Well a few months have passed since my last post and for a change only a portion of them have been idle.  After the New year I decided that my office/painting & modelling area was well overdue a tidy as the abundance of crap on my desk meant I couldn’t paint or model there even if I had been able to get through the deluge of further crap on the floor.  So three weeks ago I set out and have sorted out the whole office into a usable state.  I once more have a floor with visible carpet, a desk with my computer set up and a desk with a clear area for painting & modelling.  I’ve got some extra “bitz” storage on the desk and have tidied underneath the desk so that I can actually get my legs under it.  The cupboard has had a rudimentary sort out and on Sunday I got a load of surplus miniatures up on eBay so that I can free up space and make a bit of cash as well.  One thing that I’m very concious of is keeping the painting & modelling desk tidy enough to use throughout the year.  To this effect I’m forcing myself to only work on two project’s at a time – one painting and one modelling.  Modelling projects inherently cause more mess so it’s likely I’ll only be actively working on one thing.

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Tau Devilfish

October 3, 2011 in Vehicle

After a bit of random searching on the eBay, I picked up a Tau Devilfish cheaper than shop price  (around £16).  My idea is that I’ll give it a decent colour scheme and apply weathering as per the Forge World masterclass book.  If I’m happy with it then I might even buy a different FW weapon turret for it.  I’ve not yet decided on a decent colours scheme, but possibly a pale blue/purple one, almost cloud like.  However light purple can have a habit of looking like pink, so a bit of experimentation is required.