Competition Model 4.0 - The Shining.....

So I was able to finish the golds, brasses, silvers etc on the model today. Now its just about time to start rusting it out, adding the pigments and oil washes and making it look like its been to hell and back. The base from Secret Weapons Miniatures shipped out yesterday so hopefully it will be here before the end of the week and I can have this model wrapped up and ready to go this weekend.

So here are a bunch of photos of what the model looks like before I ruin a perfectly good paint job.

Please let me know what you think.

Exciting news!

I have wanted to create a YouTube channel for a while now but have lacked the funds/equipment to actually do it. Well my amazing wife (she really is the best out there). Decided that it was time and I was able to purchase a camera, tripod, and everything I need to start creating video's to go along with the pictures and walk-threws I have been doing here.

So I plan to shoot and edit my first video this weekend and play with the editing software. I hope to have it up on YouTube next week!

I hope you will like what I produce and am more then open to suggestions for what the first model worked on should be.

Again I want to give a huge shout out to my Patreon with out you none of this would be possible.

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.

Let's enter a painting contest!

So dakkadakka.com is having a March Painting Contest. The theme is Veteran.

So naturally most people are going to go with something like a GW Space Marine. Or a Dreadnought. I want to do something out of the box and unexpected. And let's face it nobody expects the inquisition....er I mean a PP Mercenary Warjack...

I am going to be going a bit off the reservation with this one. Most of these (and the studio paint scheme) are dark brass/greens. Which are great but don't lend them selves too well to rusting chipping (not a huge leap in color difference).

I'm thinking a lighter Khaki will be the main color for him.

So here is the primed model. I'll be thinking of something for the base.

Too excited about this to want to go to work or college but alas I must.....

Shoulder Pads for days yo!

It's an older model but the whole "Come at me Bro!" just screams awesome (to me anyway).

So I finished up the Vlad model. It was a fun side job that took about 2 hours total (with lots of drying times in between).

I am still playing with the red inks over black and greys, I really like how it works. I used the same thing for the blue on the cloak.

The golds are a base of Vallejo Alcohol based metallic - Red gold highlighted up to Vallejo Model Color - Gold.

The base is from Secret Weapons Miniatures. and was done with powders.

After I sealed the model took the pics and uploaded them I noticed the front of the boots. I'm chalking it up to him kicking over some of the rubble on the base and leaving it as it is.....

Long Time No Post......

I can't believe its been almost 3 weeks since I have put my thoughts and pictures on this here internetz. My time has been consumed with work, family, and school. No excuse but hey sometimes life gets in the way of art.....

I had the mis-fortune of getting hit with a pretty nasty virus over the last week and finally had the strength/will to sit down and get some paint on metal. I sat down to finish up the Kharchev diorama and found my hands shaking so bad it would have looked like that lady you see applying makeup going down the road at 70mph.... I turned my shakes into something better and assembled a few models. Then I primed with the airbrush and next thing I knew I was throwing down some inks on a Vlad model I had been wanting to play with for a good long while.

So here is what I was able to accomplish today.

Not too shabby for shaky hands and getting over being sick.