EPIC28

Playing EPIC in 28mm.

Wednesday 12 May 2010

Airbrush progress

OK. So I'm making slow progess. This one of the better pictures of one of the Emperor's Children's speeders. Base coated Skull White from the aerosol can and then airbrushed with Tamiya purple. I am gobsmaked by how much thinner is required. But then, my measuring into the tiny airbrush resevior is imprecise and I get a what turns out to be wash. So, for instance, the 'speeder here isn't so much painted as given a fairly heavy wash of colour. But hey ! I can get the airbrush to work, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm winning. Here you see the effect on three of their Predators. I think that you can see the changes in tone and so on, on the models. I'm not really worried about the differences - they are on the side of chaos, after all. And I plan on more thin coats. The one closest to you has obviously had more pigment in the mix than the others. So it has a thick and glossy coat, rather than what I wanted, which was a much 'deeper' paint effect (built up by layering etc etc). But it's early days so I'm OK with it so far.
This is them in their white base coat. The actual paint used is a shade lighter than warlock purple, which saves me trying to lighten that colour with white. Again, the less actual mixing of paint I actually have to do, the more consistant my result. What I'm to do is find a technique that gives me a result I am delighted with (or realistically, can put up with) and replicate it.

I started with the Emperor's Children's armour as the more mixed results will simply look more 'fantastical', which is OK and of course, with the over abundance of detail/spiky bits, there is no chance of an iffy finish on the hull detracting from the model when complete.
Before I did these, I also put some paint on the Defilers, but I was thinking that spraying was easy and that I could easily and quickly put a purple base coat on with my new super tool. So, chalking that lesson up (if you are going to paint armour purple, use a light-ish base coat), I sprayed the preds and speeders as shown.
The plan for the DKK vehicles is a late war wermacht scheme - dark yellow with red brown and dark green squiggles. Which is going to be much less forgiving. The intermediate paint job will be the Devos IV 13th Mech's vehicle fleet (LRMBTs, baneblade and a few odds and ends), which will be some sort of green based scheme. Possibly Olive drab and black (although it makes me feel a bit itchy using those colours for baddies...) or something like the Cadian pattern. A good green and green scheme, as seen on the Cadian 127th would be nice, but the practice with the higher contrast scheme would possibly benefit when I get around to the DKK.



5 comments:

  1. Dear Zzzzzzzzzz
    I bought an airbrush and compressor last autumn. I had to stop using it over the winter as it was bloody cold outside and the Civilian Authorities banned use inside the house.
    J

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  2. John,

    I have exactly the same problem. I don't use it when it's too humid/raining and a lot of the time between purchase and now it has been too cold in the garage to do any little men at all. (And in the interests of remaining married, they don't come in the house at all !)

    However, I am now both hopeful and enthusiastic about the prospects of getting a greater quantity of things done. Hopefully quality will follow.

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  3. Well done you!

    I borrowed an airbrush and compressor a while ago and loved it [though I used hardly any thinner...?], but I love what you're doing.

    Are spiky chaos vehicles harder to transport than clean-lined, decent loyalist ones?

    - D

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  4. Admiral D,

    I store all of my tanks in large (from IKEA) platic boxes. Sort of twenty or so chimera to a box. All cushioned by the oodles of bubblewrap that Forge World have sent me over the years.

    So the defilers and other more delicate things simply have more bubblewrap (and more waste space) in their box. The decent, Emperor fearing DKK, with their comparatively box like vehicles are packed in like sardines. The more elegant Eldar are arranged in layers.

    I am enjoying using the airbrush, and hope to improve my results, as it has cost me well over 200 notes to get to the point where I can actually use it. But I do now have inexhaustable air and a vast supply of army coloured paint.

    One unconnected issue is that going nuts with chaos spikey bits results in limiting the traverse. But hey, they're insane anyway so I suspect that it's not an issue for them.

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  5. I too have inexhaustable air.

    ...Or at least, inexhaustable wind, if my wife is to be believed...

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