Sad, sad news today. I went to the "studio" (and by studio I mean my basement) to get some painting done last night.

I thinned my paint, had the models ready to go, music was just right, the appropriate amount of beer was available...... It was all shaping up to be an awesome few hours of sending tiny little specs of paint through the air towards pewter and plastic. Alas as I pushed down and then pulled back on the trigger......Nothing came out.... 

Perplexed as I had cleaned my airbrush diligently after the last use. I began to trouble shoot. As I disassembled the thing I noticed that the needle tip was quite bent. I still have no idea when I did this, it must have been on re-insertion somehow, yet here I sit all dressed up with nowhere to go. 

So now I have a choice to make. I can buy a new needle for my Master G22. The needle would cost $18 with shipping (the brush only cost $30), I can get a needle, and start saving up for that Badger Krome I really want, or.......I can beg and plead for someone to step up and sponsor my little escapade into airbrushing.... (looking at you fine folks over at Badger). 

I will have more pictures of what I have been able to at least paint with a regular brush by tonight. 

Until next time. 

Oh and please leave a comment. Bueler, Bueler....

No new pictures to post today. I didn't have time last night to work on anything.

I do want to run down a few lessons I learned and thoughts that occurred to me when working on the Devastator.

1. Rusty brown does not contrast well with red..... Not sure how to remedy this other than to go with a very dark brown and maybe much lighter red?

2. Little jacks are a lot faster to paint up then a colossal (well duh right?)

3. What you use to scratch off the top layers of paint needs to be somewhat hard but not metal. I noticed a few spots where without trying very hard I removed the paint down to the grey plastic below.

4. I need to build a light box or better place to take pictures. Looking at what I posted you can see that the red paint on the floor of the spray booth was kind of blending with the model...

For tomorrow's post I will be back to finishing up the Galleon. I hope to finish the head and metallic piping on the main body.

So stay tuned....

Hair Spray 1.5.2 of 2....

I was blessed tonight as my amazing wife let me go down to my hobby cave and work some more on the Devastator.

First I finished up the metal bits and then it was time for the fun....aka ruining a perfectly good model

1. Here we get a wee bit of water and something sharp. I used a small piece of metal sprue that I happened to have on my painting table. I applied water to the area I wanted to remove the paint from then gently rubbed off the paint till I reached the brown below (this is why I used the gloss coat earlier).

The results look like this

2. From here it was time to add a bit of a wash onto the rust parts. I used Secret Weapons Miniatures Rust Brown pigments mixed with Isopropol Alcohol and just dabbed it on in spots to give it a bit of a richer look to the brown. I will repeat this process again later (after another gloss coat has dried).

3.  I added weathering powders to the smoke stack to get rid of the pretty bronze. I use Vallejo Iron Oxide pigment mixed into 90% Isopropol Alcohol and use it almost like a wash.

4. Time to think about a finished base for this little guy. I used a Secret Weapons Miniatures resin base from the Ruined City Streets line. I added some green paint with Real Water over top to give it a toxic sludge look in the recesses.

5. The model was glued down to its permanent home and the Gloss Coat has been applied.

Now it is time to let that dry over night. Tomorrow I will mix up an oil wash and apply it over the gloss coat and finish this bad boy!

Now for some sleep (cuz apparently that's a thing).

Hair Spray Part 1.5

I thought this would be a two part series of posts. Apparently my planning out a project is also a learning process.......

For today's post I made sure the hairspray was dry, then sprayed on the Red base coat using P3 Skorne Red, I used this instead of P3 Khador Red as I find the Khador to be a bit too orange for a base coat making it harder to highlight..

I let this coat dry while cleaning out the airbrush for the next color.

At this point I added the highlights using P3 Khador Red and Reaper Master Series Pail Flesh at a 6:2 ratio. I picked up the Pail Flesh tip from watching Les @ Awesome Paint Job. It works well with red and blends fantastically.

From here on out we have to sadly leave the airbrush and go to the painting desk.

I started adding metallic using P3 Pig Iron. I had debated using VMA Chrome but I wanted a more rugged look.

Up next will be finishing the metallic paint, adding golds and bronzes.

Hair Spray (1 of 2)

As I looked back at the first two posts, I realized that I had mentioned using the "Hair Spray" method but didn't actually describe what I meant.

Its a pretty basic idea, and hopefully it will turn out well.

I grabbed a model that was still in the box to walk through the steps.

1. Assemble your model (I am using the Khador Devastator from Privateer Press)

2. Prime and base coat in brown (darker the better to give it the first coat of what your rust will look like. I used Vallejo Game Color Beasty Brown, and then a 1:1 mix of Khador Red and Khador red highlight (which is pretty orange) to add a bit of extra color to some spots on the model.

3. After the paint is completely dry its time to put on the gloss coat. This will give a protective barrier to brown underneath (its also a great save point for future mistakes)

(look how shiny it is!)

4. Wait for the gloss coat to dry (this can take several hours). Now the fun, go grab the cheapest hairspray you can find. We're talking like 80's keep your hair perfectly still in a F3 tornado kinda hairspray. And give it a good coating.

5....Stay tuned for next time.

Oh and please leave a note. Let me know that someone is checking out the ravings of an Airbrush newb....