Δευτέρα 31 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Grot bomb - finished & CMON link

Wow, that was quick! I went for a different approach here painting all the colours with some basic highlights and then using oil paint washes to shade the panel lines and provide some weathering as well. The weathering apears a bit heavy on the lighter surfaces but as it's an orky vehicle I think it's ok. The only exception was the grot pilot which was painted without any oil washes. I wonder if you can guess the inspiration now that the mini is finished...? An extra hint is that even the paint chipping was copied from... whatever the inspiration was.

CoolMiniOrNot voting link.







Σάββατο 29 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Grot Bomb - PIP

With a lot of help from the suggestions of the folks who commented on my previous post I finally decided on a paintscheme. At the time being only the base colours have been airbrushed and there's still a lot of work to do. Can you guess the inspiration for the paintscheme...?









Παρασκευή 28 Ιανουαρίου 2011

New project - I need your help!

And what a project it is! One of the best Forge World minis and the mini with the best piece of fluff IMHO. Ok it's not a huge superheavy but it's full of character and the fluff about the grot pilot not being smart enough to understand that it'll die when the bomb hits its target and explodes is hilarious. I mean, come on, who doesn't love Grots? Inventing such funny creatures and putting them in the grim dark setting of 40k was pure genius!

Now though it's time to move on and explain to you your mission (should you choose to accept it). I need your brains. I don't mean that in a zombie-brain-eating way but more in a give-me-ideas-and-suggestions way. Now that you know that your brains are not in imminent danger of consumption you can relax and propose paintschemes for my grot bomb. I'm thinking of the classic "red ones go fasta" paintjob with some metal plates painted in contrasting colours, the checker pattern painted in black & white and the shark's teeh painted in white. I wonder if it's a bit lazy and obvious though, so all suggestions (and even better all suggestions with links to relevant pics) are welcome.


The mini:



My attempt at a not so boring base:


Τετάρτη 26 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Inquisitor in terminator armour - final pics and CMON link

Varnished and ready to go in the display cabinet! I'm not so happy with the varnish but it's by no means a disaster. I'll just have to remember to aply it more sparingly in the future. Anyway that's all for now.

CoolMiniOrNot voting link.










Δευτέρα 24 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Inquisitor in terminator armour - finished & a tutorial

It's finally done! I'm pleased with the result but I'd like to hear your comments and any sugestions for last minute changes before varnishing. Since some people have asked me for the recipes for certain colours I'll also write a tutorial here.


Red:
This will need some explantaion since I used a somewhat combined technique. The basis was layering but with very thin paint and concentrating the highlights on the uppermost areas. Think of it as a mix of layering and directional highlitghting. I basecoated with a mix of Chaos Black and Scab Red, highlighted with Scab Red and then washed the mini with a mix of Deval Mud & Badab Black. For subsequent highlights I used all of GW's reds moving up to pure Blazing Orange for the final highlights. A thin glaze of Baal Red unified the colour before the final highlight. In general the use of a thin glaze before the final highlight is an easy and effective way to "tie"the colours together. Another important thing to remember here is when you're moving form darker to lighter colour it's better to use an intermediate highlight stage with a mix of the two colours. In these case the highlight sequence after the wash was:
- Scab Red
- Scab Red: Red Gore 1:1
- Red Gore
- Red Gore: Blood Red 1:1
- Blood Red
- Blood Red: Blazing Orange 1:1
- Thin Baal Red Glaze
- Blazing Orange
This may seem like an overkill but actually the armour was very easy to paint and it took me only about 2 hours.

Hood:
This also needs a bit of explanation. It was my first time trying this colour so there was a bit of experimentation. The idea was to use an ochre as a midtone to achieve a more "yellowy" cream colour. So here's how it goes:
- The hood was basecoated with Calthan Brown
- A second basecoat of Tausept Ochre was applied covering everything except deep recesses
- The hood was highlighted with a 1:1 mix of Tausept Ochre: Dheneb Stone
- A second highlight of Dheneb stone was applied
- The hood was washed with Gryphone Sepia
- A wash of Devlan Mud was applied directly in the recesses
- The hood was highlighted with Bleached Bone
- A second highlight with a 1:1 mix of Bleached Bone & Skull White was applied
- Pure Skull White was used for the final highlight

Gold:
- Basecoat with a 1:1:1 mix of Tin Bitz, Dwarf Bronze & Scorched Brown
- Apply a second basecoat of 1:1 Tin Bitz & Dwarf Bronze everywhere except in deep recesses
- Wash the recesses with a 1:1 mix of Deval Mud & Badab Black
- Highlight with a 1:1:1 mix of Tin Bitz, Dwarf Bronze & Mithril Silver
- Highlight extreme edges with a 1:1 mix of Shining Gold & Mithril Silver


Pics:







Inquisitor in terminator armour - almost there

After almost a full day's worth of painting the mini is almost done. All that's left to do is finish the scrolls and the leather cover of the book and paint the sword icon on the shoulderpad. I especially like how the hood turned out and also how the face looks under the hood. What you think of the mini so far?








Κυριακή 23 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Inquisitor in terminator armour - gold and black areas finished

I finally made some progress on the Inquisitor. Everything that's going to be gold or black is finished now even though it might be hard to spot the differences between the highlighted black areas and the black areas that are just unpainted. For the gold I used the same technique that I used on the Dark Eldar Archon while for the black I started with a mix of Chaos Black & Graveyard Earth which I then shaded with a wash and highlighted by adding Comando Khaki in the mix. That's all folks. Time to comment!







Δευτέρα 17 Ιανουαρίου 2011

Inquisitor in terminator armour PIP

Seems it's Inquisition overload these days! After trying all these new techniques on the Chimera I went back to the basics. An old school mini painted in an old school style. I started with a mix of Scab Red and Chaos Black and went all the way up to Blazing Orange on the sharpest edges. I used mostly layering with some extreme highlights and I'm very pleased with how the armour has turned out.






Κυριακή 16 Ιανουαρίου 2011

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: