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.

Just a quick War Jack to lighten the mood.

If you have been following along here, on Facebook and a few forums you will know that I have quite a few projects going on at the same time.

Because I don't have enough on my pallet I wanted to finish my new Khador Battle Box as well. So while other models were in different stages of drying, curing etc I painted up one of the Jacks in the Box (ah puns!).

Anyway..... I give you the Decimator (no I don't make up these names, other people get paid lots of money for this kind of magic...).

As a side note I really hate PVC plastic for models. The grooves and mold lines are a nightmare to clean up right.

Devastator Part 1.0

It's time to bust out ye olde rusting again. It's been a good long while and I figured why not give my self a challenge and go with a good dirty rusted out warjack. Not only good and rusty but lets assume that it was white at some point in it's carrier.

The devastator just seemed to fit the bill. It has good flat vertical lines and nice slopes to make run off and rust streaks look good.

So far i have gotten the basic rust chipping added. In my next post you will see the real magic....

so have a little taste.

A Kodiak!

Moving forward in my quest to "paint them all", it was time to break out the Khador Kodiak. If you have been reading my blog for a while you will have noticed that I paint a metric crap-ton of red (it's a measurement.... look it up.). I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a more traditional color scheme for the Kodiak.

I used the same technique that I do for reds. in that I used a green ink over highlights. One thing I did learn from this is that the green is less translucent then the red ink so I had to go much more extreme with the under highlights. Overall I am really happy with how it turned out.

A new day, a blog, and a new project.

I decided to mix it up a bit and work on something green.

I chose the Khador Kodiak as it's a fun new sculpt and I wanted to do something different. You might remember the Kodiak I did for competition about a year ago.

The one that is being worked on now is going to be completely different. So here are some very early WIP Shots.

Bloody Barnabas.

Sometimes I want to paint up a model just for fun. My buddy gave me this one as he had two copies of it. I felt like working on a project that was just something for me. Almost a pallet cleanser if you will.

It was also nice to work on something more organic looking.

So here is the Minions Warlock Bloody Barnabas. It's awesome because its a gatorman, wielding an ax.

Man O War Shock Troopers.

These are some of the coolest models I have the pleasure of painting. I had liked the look of them for years but were not really game worthy so I held off on picking up a box. With the new rules changes to Warmachine I decided it was time to give it a go.

First things first. The models were easy to assemble with very little mold line clean up, which is atypical for PVC models. The joints were easy and unlike too many models did not require pinning.

All in all it took about an hour to clean up and assemble the bits.

I did these up in a bit of an alternate scheme, sticking with the red of Khador but forgoing the normal silver on the armor as I felt it would distract from the over all Red/Black look I was going for.

So here are the pictures I find that these might be some of the best models I have done to date.