Inquisitorial Chimera - some insight, new pics, a CMON link and a mini book review (and a long title for a long post)

I told you I'll write more about the Chimera so here it is. It is my second attempt at airbrushing a vehicle and my first attempt at using oils and pigments for weathering. I took a great deal of advice from Forge World's Imperial Armour - Model Mastercalss book so before I start telling you about the Chimera I'll talk about this book. I'm a sucker for painting and modeling books so I have most of the "How to paint" books that Gw has produced and some scale modeling books. Unfortunately GW's books are too "corporate" in the sense that they're more focused on showcasing their products. You get a bit of info on basic techniques and the rest of the book is pictures of GW minis, tools, paints etc. The scale modeling books on the other hand offer a better explanation of the techniques but sometimes they are too complicated and their techniques are not always aplicable to sci-fi minis. Another problem is that they use paints that most wargammers are not familiar with. The Model Masterclass book bridges the gap between thes etwo types of books. It is suprisingly "non-corporate" for a Gw product and most of the tools and paints it uses are used by most hobyists. If you have an airbrush you only need to buy a couple of oil colours and pigments to be able to aply the full range of techniques it showcases. In my opinion it's worth its weight in... limited edition metal miniatures.

Now on to the mini itself. One of the more important things when you are painting a large mini and using lots of different techniques is to have a clear plan of what you're going to do and in what order you're going to do it. Usually the order is: Airbrushing - oil washes - rust - detail painting - mud and dust - oil stains etc. Just make sure that  each step compliments the next and it doesn't force you to redo or repaint anything. Again I took a lot of advice from the FW book. Working with oils and pigments is relatively easy once you get over the fear of using "advanced techniques". Make sure that the thinner in the oils has evaporated before you start manipulating them or before you move to the next stage and you'll be ok. I forgot it a couple of times but thankfully I avoided any major mishaps.

Now I'll give you a run-down of the techniques I used and some info about them. I'm sure I won't be able to cover everythiing so feel free to ask questions.

- First the basic colours were airbrushed. Some basic highlighting and shading was airbrushed on as well.

- Then I tackled the front of the dozzer blade. Various metallic colours were airburhsed on and then it received a few layers of hairspray. After the hairspray had dried I sprayed a patchy coat of Dessert Yellow. Then a large drybrush was dampened in warm water and rubbed on the surface of the dozzer blade. The water caused the hairspray to losen thus exposing the metallic colours underneath.

- Washes of oil paint waere applied next. First the mini received a coat of acrylic gloss varnish. This helped the wahses flow and also protected the paint. A dark brown oil paint was thinned with odourless white spirits and applied to any recessed lines and around rivets. A hair dryer was used to help the thinner evaporate and then the oils were blened to the surfaces using a large flat brush. The brush motion was vertical to the minis surfaces.

- After the oils had dried completely rust was added to the mini. Rust coloures oils and pigments were mixed with odourless white spirit and flicked onto the model using a brush. You can user use a stick to tap the brush or you can justflick your finger on the brushes bristles to make the paint flick randomly on the model. The rust stains were left to dry and then clean white spirit was airbrushed on them. This caused some to difuse, others to disolve completely while others were left unaffected thus greating various levels or rusting. A word of warning here: It may be better to apply anothe layer of acrylic gloss varnish after the oil washes have dried as airbrushing white spirit onto the rust stains may also disolve some of the oil wash.

- At this point the mini received a layer of matte acrylic varnish and all the details except lenses were painted.

- Then it was weathering time. Various earth coloured powders were brushed onto the tracks (these had been airbrushed Scorched brown) and onto the lower portion of the vehicle. I used lots of powder sometime in clumps as to give to the impression of collected dirt. The powders were fixed in place with a very diluted wash of Graveyard earth. After the wash had dried with the help of a hair dryer the pigments were blended with a large flat brush. The tracks were drybrusehd with a Chaos Black & Boltgun Metal mix.

- The next step of weathering involved dissolving some earth coloured weathering powders in the Graveyard Earyth wash till there was a thick mixture. This mixture was flicked onto the model to create dried mud splatters & spots. After they had dried some of the spots were blended using dry & slightly dampened flat Brushes.

- The lenses were painted next. Small ones were painted by hand using the same tecnique as that for painting gems. The large one was painted by airbrushing various shades of blue which got progressively lighter as I moved to the lower part of the lens. The last highlight was Skull White. The adjacent areas had been masked prior to spraying the lens.

- The mini received one layer of gloss and two layers of matte acrylic varnish. The varnish sealed the mini and toned down some of the pigments. A hairdryer was used to make sure that the varnish dried quickly and uniformly.

- Finally undiluted brown ink was airbrushed on and around exhaust ports and pistons to simulate oil build up and the lenses were hand varnished with gloss varnish.

- The last step was wirtting a really long blog post!


Some random bits of advice:

- Use a hirdryes to help pretty much everything dry.

- Make sure someting has dried before moving to the next stage.

- Be carefull when using pigments. They're very easy to spill and very hard to clean.

- Always plan and think one step ahead.


And because this post has to end at some point....  CoolMiniOrNot voting link and some new and hopefully better pics: