Don't leave your War Jack out in the snow.

I'm not the biggest fan of seeing a whole army full of weathered, chipped, and beaten up equipment. Real armies in the real world meticulously maintain their weapons (else they stop working). That being said, we paint and play with toys and whimsy so it's all good to have something all beaten down by time.

Taking that into account I wanted to do something completely different from what I have been working on (manly crisp, clean models that look almost showroom new).

I started out by priming the model in grey, then used a dark brown to base my rust, then added more brown reds and finally orange in certain spots to add variety of color like you would see in the real world.

Once done with that step a HEAVY gloss coat was added. This is needed to protect the rust layer so that it does not get stripped off in later steps.

After the gloss coat was fully cured (about 24 hours). I then coated the model with hair spray. Now a word of caution, do not use your wife's fancy expensive hair spray. First the stuff won't react with the water later, and it's almost guaranteed to start an argument.....Go out and grab a bottle of Aqua Net from the dollar store of your choice.

The hairspray only takes about an hour to set. We then proceed to paint the base color onto the model with an airbrush. this requires very light coats of paint at a lower psi as you want to avoid the water in the paint from activating the hair spray.

After all that works it's then time to ruin a perfectly good paint job. I start by taking a paint brush and loading it with water, then basically "paint the mini" with water in a small section, wait a few seconds for the water to activate the hairspray and then use a tooth brush to chip off the paint. When the desired effect is reached take a dry paper towel and dab the part of the model clean. Then move on to the next piece etc till done.

Once the chipping is finished it's time to protect what is already done. I find another heavy coat of gloss varnish to work really well here and it sets up the next step in the process. The wash.... Personally I like to use an oil was for this effect. not only does it flow into the recess better but you can achieve really nice rust streaks with it as well.

After a few hours of the oil drying I then use weathering powder to further diminish the fresh look of the paint. The not quite dry oil wash helps the pigments adhere to the model.

After that a good matte varnish and then you just finish off the details...

See clear as mud right?

So here is the result of all that text.

GW Rhino 2.0

I got a bit more work done on the tanks last night. I worked on getting the rust effects looking right. I used the hairspray method as mentioned in the last post. Once that was done I sealed the model with Tester's Gloss Coat. then it was time to work on the Golds and Silvers. The golds are Vallejo  Alcohol based - Red Gold, and the silver is P3 - Pig Iron. Pig Iron has been my favorite silver since the old GW - Chain Mail went by the way side. It has similar dark tones to it which makes it a great base for highlighting, it also has amazing coverage.

So here are a few pics to keep you satisfied. I also need to fix the line between the purple and white. As you can see in the picture I got a bit of bleed over when using water to activate the hairspray underneath the paint.

GW models you say? 

Yep, I figured I'd mix it up a bit and work on some Games Workshop stuff. 

So this is a tank (I think a Rhino?). I am told that this is a Chaos model so it's going to be all rusted out and nasty looking. 

I started with an undercoat of brown/red/orange mix. Once that was dry I hit it with a good coat of Tester's Gloss Coat to seal in the freshness.... Well OK to facilitate the next step in the process. Once the gloss varnish had time (overnight) to cure I then applied a coating of hair spray. I use Aqua Net as its really cheap and water soluble. 

Then it was time to add the main colors of the tank. I was going for a split color of white and purple. This step is critical. You need just enough paint to cover the browns, without saturating the hairspray. to do this I turned up the PSI on the airbrush and shot from a bit further away than normal (about 6 inches) so that the paint was just about dry by the time it hit the model. 

I started with the white coat of paint. waited for it to dry completely, then masked off the center with painters tape. It was then time to use the purple. 

I let everything dry overnight again (nobody said this is a quick process). 

And it was then time to activate the hairspray and chip some paint. Doing this is fairly easy. Get a fresh cup of water, a paintbrush and something to chip the paint with. I personally use a straw that has been cut on the bias. It's sharp enough to chip up the paint, but not so sharp that it will cut through the varnish. 

Here are the steps for the rust chipping. 

1. take your paintbrush and get it good and wet.

2. "paint" the water onto the section you want to chip.

3. wait about 30 second for the water to get under the paint to the hairspray.

4. chip the paint gently with the tool of your choice. 

5. when you are satisfied with the level of rust. dry off the area with a clean paper towel. 

After the chipping is done it was time to seal the model with another layer of Gloss Varnish. 

And you get something like this. 

Once the Varnish cures it will be time to work on details, washes, powders and all the fun stuff to ruin a perfectly good paint job!

The Galleon had a run in with gravity. 

So my beautiful, wonderful, amazing, understanding (you get the picture) wife. Took the Galleon out of my display case to show it off to a friend. Sadly gravity ensued. I was able to get it back into one piece with minimal damage to the paint job. Pinning had really helped in this instance as the glue gave way at the pin points making it fairly easy to clear off the old glue and put it all back together. 

I figured while I had it out I might as well get some good pictures of the model as all I had before where pictures I had taken with my iPhone back in the day. 

So here are the old pics followed by the new. 

GW Models for a change.

Well I finally got to working on some 40k models for a friend.

I had been putting these off for a while, but today inspiration struck. I wanted something flashy that will work well in contrast. These are undercoated in an almost neon green bordering on yellow. I am using a kinda modified hairspray technique to get a crackled paint look. I am really digging the purple and green together.

This one should get pretty interesting. I am thinking that any silvers will have to be very very dark, almost like the dark bluing you would see on real rifles. And for the golds I will be using Vallejo Red gold to give it a good dark look. Stay tuned this one is gonna be fun.

Contest Model 6.0 - And Finished!

Rocinante is done and in the display case. This was a really fun model to work on. I love how PP Warjacks have largish but not overly so areas to work on. Just enough room to give good detail and do a few fun things with.

So where did we leave off.... Well after the gloss coat had time to dry. I was able to mix up a black oil wash and all the Silvers and golds were given a heavy wash to bring down the shine dramatically. Then I mixed an orange wash to add to the rust effect.

Once dried I applied some Secret Weapons Miniatures rust pigments across most of the model. It adds a bit of depth and also brings down the shine. I like doing this with the oil wash stage because it helps keep the pigments in place for the final matte varnish.

So here are some pictures. Please leave some feedback and let me know what you think!

Competition 3.0 aka Photo Dump.

I got a good amount of painting done today. I was able to get the silvers and most of the brass and golds on the model. I still need to work on the face's grill and then the final darker silvers of the hands, sword and gun barrel. Then..... muhahaha it will be time to ruin a perfectly good model.

The silver so far is Vallejo Model Air - Aluminum.
The Golds have been
P3 Rhulic Gold
Vallejo Model Color Brass
Vallejo Metallic Alcohol Based Old Gold

It's also time to start thinking about basing.... I chose the Secret Weapons Miniatures line for this. For PP models I usually use the Trench Line but for this one I went with something new. I am going to try they Scrap Yard base. I feel like it will work well with the style I am looking for on this model. So hopefully it will be here this next week.

Here is what it looks like from the SWM website.

Here is a link if you want to buy stuff from Mr Justin (you should, his stuff rocks). 

www.secretweaponminiatures.com/

So yea.......Here have a metric crap ton of pics.

Contest Model 2.0

So today I did a bit of rage painting.

What is rage painting you ask? Well PTSD is a bitch. I was at the point of rage where I needed to remove myself from all of mankind and what better place to go then where I can focus my energy into something productive then the painting table. (I wonder if I can get the VA to pay for my hobby as "Therapy"?

Anywho.... I got some work done on Rocinante. This is the model that I am painting up for a competition based on the theme of Veteran. The idea is to have something that looks like its been there, done that and survived to tell about it. The model is going to be rusted, dirtied, and made downright nasty with battle damage.... But first I have to make it look good before the destruction can occur.

I started by laying the undecoat of browns into reds and up to orange. The base of brown I used is Vallejo Game Color - Beasty Brown. It is a bit lighter than I would normally go for a rust effect but the green I am going to use on the model is very light and it should give a good contrast. After that dried I added a bit of Vallejo Game Color - Gory Red in a 4:2 mix with the Brown. Then moved to a 4:2 ratio of the mix and Old GW - Bright Orange (its a bit more red then most orange out there).

Once the paint was dry it was time to protect the rust layer. This is what we will be chipping down to so we need a good layer of varnish over it so that we don't accidentally go all the way down to the grey plastic when we chip the paint later down the road. I used Tamiya Gloss Varnish because its the best I've found and its tough as nails when dry.

I gave it an hour to cure (worked on some other models I'm not ready to show yet (patience grasshoppers).

Once the Gloss was dry and good to go. I grabbed the Aqua-Net hair spray. This step is key. Use really cheap hairspray. The good stuff is bad for what we want. The hair spray is water soluble so once we are ready to chip we use a bit of water and watch how it dissolves the  hairspray under the paint letting us get a good natural chipping to occur.

Then it was time to start laying down the actual paint layers that will cover the model.

I wanted to keep with the overall feel of the Mercs Faction but did not want to go with a darker green. I used Vallejo Model Color - Russian WWII green and it looks fantastic so far.

Well that's about it for now.

Next up will be to add the silver and golds, but that's another blog entry.

Please leave some feedback. Any suggestions for basing would be greatly helpful.