Do I qualify for ISO 9000/2001 ?*

After my previous post about airbrushing and getting better, Admiral Drax commented that he'd used either hardly any or no thinner at all. So I sneaked out whilst Mrs Z was whipping up fajitas last night and gave it a whirl. The vehicle is the Platoon Command Squad (I don't have one, so they get an AFV CP) for the Bloodcoats Mortar Platoon. These pictures, like all my others were taken on a mobile telephone; However, they were done at 0730 this morning out doors. I'm quite pleased as I fancy you will be able to make out the three shades of green on the vehicle. So I now have my guinnea pig (guinnea tank ?) for decals and then weathering. Appart from the Rhino sides it is scratch built, so I'm quite fond of the little thing and will be dispointed if I arse it up. But it's only a hobby. And mistakes can be painted over.

Many thanks to Admiral Drax for supplying the notion that whilst thinning might be giving me ultimate control over the amount of paint applied, nonetheless actually having enough pigment means one can see what one is spraying and hence spend more time painting and less time faffing about trying to correct things are not wrong, just not what I thought I should be seeing.

Incidently, I still put a few drops of thinner in the resevoir first, as this prevents any 'lumpy' paint clogging the airbrush up.

*No. (I may be continuously improving (not hard, considering the starting position), but am not registered. Nor have I written myself a quality manual. That would be sad, shame on you for thinking it.)

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.

Look what I did over the Bank Holiday weekend.

An entire Saim Hain army. Complete with warlock and converted (but didn't finish the painting) farseer. The whole bunch: And *all* my own work...

Seriously, buying an existing army from someone else is the way to go for ease of getting things on to the table top. This was Soviet Space's army until last Friday.

And I've already embroiled them (and hopefully the Preatorian 5th) in the events unfolding on Devos IV.

See here http://theastronomican.blogspot.com/2010/05/farewell-to-cosmic-serpent-battle.html for the report with pictures.

Devos XII

Farseer Khonnur let his mind's eye take in the surroundings as he lent down from his jetbike to stab at the Vostroyan. The scene of carnage stretched away in both directions, all along the Imperial Guard defence lines.

Dire Avengers mopped up the last Preatorians on the left flank, partially obscured by their crashed 'serpent. A sea of wrecked jetbikes and dead and dying Eldar and Mon Keigh separated them. To his right was the melted remains of a Leman Russ, smoking blackly in the gloom, beyond that the white and green smoke from the Falcon that had carried the Fire Dragons to the missile silo.

The skeins of probability unravelled and re-knitted as Khonnur concentrated. With their perposterous weapon system threatened, the Mon Keigh would come. Khonnur felt relief that the Fire Dragons didn't need to set it off and boil the surrounding area to radioactive glass.

Instantly, the remaining aspect warriors began to withdraw. Also guided by their Farseer's psychic commands, the Vypers moved to cover the aspect warriors as they began to move. Final storms of lethal monofilament projectiles were spat out by the shuriken cannons, filling the intervening space between the remains of Khonnur's wild rider clan and the Mon Kiegh.

Favin, the warlock next to him would be disappointed that they hadn't wiped out the Mon Kiegh. Certainly Khonnur could feel his hunger for the blood of their ghostly warrior behind them; the single man who evaded all detection and slew more of the clan than any other device of theirs. But Khonnur was thinking of the future. The slaves of the corpse seer would come here in numbers, to defend their gateway to the world they knew as Devos IV.

Perhaps the former Astartes who now served she who thirsts would pass this moon by. But if they didn't, then Farseer Khonnur had ensured that it would better defended in future.

With thanks to Soviet Space. Hope you like the Farseer's new moniker.

Star wars counts as superheavy

How to get the TL vulkan cannon on to this (£31.49) "storm lord":

www.modelhobbies.co.uk/shop/revell-star-wars-atat-easy-06662-p-11348.html

It's 40cm long, so it might come up a smidge small next to a £60 GW Storm Lord, but there'd be no LOS issues...

Star wars counts as Valk (?)

Here is the star wars click together Republic Gunship from Revell. It could be thrown together with out glue and is pre-painted (as shown on the box) with a certain degree of weathering (enough for the tabletop, anyway). And it's next to the GW Valk. The next picture shows the fusilage sides and wings of both kits next to each other. You can see that they are of similar dimensions, although I suspect that the Valk may be slightly larger when finally assembled.

The pain comes with the apparent scale of the Revell kit. The little ISTs you can see here really are tiny in comparison to a WH40k figure. So the cockpit of the republic gunship, which takes a whole seated crew clone and his oppo; and their ejector seats, are most likely going to be replaced with the top portion of a cadian torso and a head. If you can imagine a real person in a glider, that's what it'll look like. fortunately, with the canopy as well (not as clear as the valk one), it should be ok.

The gunship was from www.modelhobbies.co.uk for £22.98. With suitble changes to the weapons and perhaps a mod to turn the pointy pods on the roof into engines, it certainly has potential.

Oh frabjoyous day !

As you can see, my compressor has arrived. It was waiting for me Monday evening, which is when this photo is from, I've just been too busy to post it up (damn job!). The Valejo model air is great. And the cleaner is so good I'm now worried it'll eat its way out of the pot. I had a play around and am absolutely delighted with my new toy. And have learned that it really is best to use proprietary thinners for the make of paint that you have. Won't be making that mistake again, but have already been out and sourced the requisit sauce to dilute the tamiya paint as well.