Masking practice

In preparation for the bigger Eldar vehicles and the Wraithknight I needed to practice airbrush gems as well as using liquid masking agent and masking tape. Looking at likely models to use for this, I grabbed some jetbikes and a viper, which came with a lot of metal minis in an eBay lot. I had removed a lot of paint from the plastic models and set them aside a while ago.

I worked them over a little bit, whereever I noticed paint or mold lines left and then basecoated them using Vallejo Airbrush Primer in Grey. Then I followed BuyPainted's Eldar gem airbrush tutorial, creating a diagonal colour gradient between VMA Tank Brown and Sand, with a dash of black at the top and a coat of Tamiya Clear Red diluted with Alcohol.

When the gems seemed dry, I applied the liquid mask. I found that much more difficult than explected. Since the material is very thick, like wood glue and just as opaque white, it doesn't flow around the gem contours. Instead it needs to be pushed very bit of the way. In addition, I was under the impression that a thick-ish coat is needed.

In any case, after the mask dried surprisingly quickly and turned clear, I hit the gems and the overspray with some more grey primer. Then, I diluted some Citadel Yriel Yellow and covered the miniatures with that, followed by Flash Glitz Yellow from above.

With the majority base colour applied and the masked gems hidden away, I then went to town with masking tape.

 After rechecking each model's masking tapes, I hit it with VMA Blue followed by some more VMA Blue with white mixed in. After waiting for a good while for the paint to dry and being too wussy to whip out the heat gun to help things along, I started peeling. There was a little leakage, but nothing major.

The gems were a bigger problem. At first I tried to peel the liquid mask off using my fingernails, then I tried gentle nudging at the edge with a toothpick. I ended up with a messy border though, I guess it was too much mask in some places, or too much primer on top of it, forming an elastic sheet that I was then pulling on. Then I found my results improved a lot after scoring the edge of the gem very gently with the hobby knife and then just sliding my finger over the mask, ripping it off easily. Clearly, I need to work on my technique for the liquid mask, but first steps are done. The bigger the gem is, the less problems it should present for this process.

All in all, the result is ok or even nice - unless you look too close and get to see past the touch-up I did around the stripes and the gems. ;-]

These bikes need some dark colour for the weapons and turbines, some dash of something on the instruments and of course the crew of the viper needs some love. The Jetbike riders are still in a box, being too messed up for me to fix them before the experiment. I'll deal with them later. Hopefully a new tool will arrive soon and make getting pesky colour off their tiny details a breeze.

New tools and toys!

Yesterday two new tools arrived. A Badger paint mixer and an Tamiya airbrush stand set. The mixer is really meant for Vallejo paint for when the pigment has settled. Shaking it creates bubbles, which is sub-optimal for airbrushing. This gizmo isn't much more than a housing for two AA cells, a switch, a small motor and a metal mixing rod, but it's made for exactly what I need.

The stand set comes with two stands, a smaller one with two spring loaded clamps and a bigger one with a load of holes on the top. The idea with the small one is to hook into a model car chassis from underneath. The bigger one has holes suitable for loads of pins we like to use, comes with a set of small clamps that fit into recesses at the edge as well. And of course both of them turn and have ribbed bases for good control with your fingertips.

Since I had these Eldar bits waiting for attention, I tested my new toys with them. Well worth the (very moderate) price on these items! =]

Wraithknight painting

I offered to paint a long unpainted Wraithknight. This would be my first time painting yellow in general, the Iyanden colour scheme in particular and a first at gems as well.

The model hat been put together with a weird, forward leaning stance and a horizontally held glaive, which I set out to correct. I broke the hip joints, a knee and the ankles to reposition the model's right leg forward, using 2mm thick nails as pins in lieu of the now destroyed plastic locking pins.

The wrist with the sword I sawed off and then re-attached with magnets, making it freely positionable. I was quite happy with the result, until someone pointed out a mistake I made when it was way too late to correct it without basically starting over. Bonus points if you spot it. ;-]

The base looked a bit bleak and empty. I didn't want to do something too complicated, but adding some decoration seemed the way to go. Since Worldship Iyanden was almost wiped out by Swarm Kraken, I figured some Tyranid and Eldar casualties on the base would fit.

I got some Nid-fodder, which turned out to work great, since two legs are plugged into the body and could therefore fold nicely. I just slashed down a messed up guardsman to keep them company. Since I didn't want to fiddle with the casualty positions between the wraithknights feet, I glued the casualties up on thin plastic sheet, which I cut out rounded to no straight lines would stick out. I added some gravel to the base to round it out.

Since the original black primer coat had been damaged with the changes and some scraping and sanding, I had to reprime the model. I used black Vallejo Airbrush Primer. Since that would make applying yellow a nightmare, I then followed that up with a coat of Vallejo Model Air Light Grey. It turns out that the grey Vallejo primer is a bit lighter and not really rougher than the black primer. So I'd use that - or even the white primer for more Iyanden models.

For the yellow, I tested VMA Medium Yellow, VMA Gold Yellow and Citadel Yriel Yellow on a base coated with black primer and stripes of white, light grey and dark grey. While VMA Medium Yellow on White gives a good result, the Yriel Yellow (thinned of course) did look very convincing indeed, so I went with that.

Here is the miniature (HA!) with the yellow basecoat. In retrospect, applying the yellow base colour first was a bad idea. I should have applied the other colours first and then masked those areas. That way the yellow can go over the whole thing and there is no risk of spilling constrasting colours on the yellow when brushing in recesses. Since the model was completely glued up and has many protuding bits, there was quite some awkward brushwork, bad accessability and bad visibility in play here. Lesson learned. Boy am I happy that my wraithknight has a ton of magnet joints improving accessability to no end in comparison!

 Here is the model with the dark grey and blue applied. Glaive and gems left to do.

 Here is the glaive with conventional (non purple) power shading and the gems done. The gems I painted with McCragge, Aliatoc and Hoeth blue, following the Eldar release White Dwarf tutorial for having a dark spot on the top and a diagonal colour gradient to the gem colour. I added Tamiya Clear Blue as Glaze and added two small highlight points using Ceramite White and a toothpick.

Seeing the amount of natural shadows on the model, I was quite reluctant to attempt manual brush highlights on the model or trace the lines between the armour plates. Since this model wasn't mine, I didn't want to mess it up. I'll now use the experience I gained to deal with my own wraithknight. When that one is done, I'll most likely come back to this one to share the love.

My plan of action for my wraith knight is the following:
- Vallejo Airbrush Primer in Grey.
- Airbrush face shield very light grey to white, mask with liquid mask.
- Airbrush joints dark grey, mask them with tape.
- Airbrush gems, mask them with liquid mask.
- Airbrush blue armour parts, add colour gradient, mask with tape.
- Re-prime around the masks to cover overspray.
- Airbrush Yriel Yellow, add Flash Glitz yellow highlight by spraying from above.
- Very very carefully remove all the masking stuff.
- Touchup.

Heldrake on Fire!

Today I finished my second heldrake, using all Vallejo Model Air paint and a lot of patience! BuyPainted's Heldrake Video inspired me to go for this paintjob.

I started by preparing the model removing all mold lines and covering it with Vallejo Air Primer in black and by preparing stencils. I cut the stencils from rigid plastic, one with a bunch of drop shapes and another one with wavy lines.

Since this was my first time with stencils, I had to do some testing. I ended up using the two stencils on the right to lay out the flames. I put the two paint containers in the picture for scale. The process is quite simple and uses the fact that airbrush paint has significantly different visible coverage between dark and light base colour. By laying out the bits you want in a colour in greys and whites on a dark background, you get the option to then just cover the entire surface in the colour you want and it looks like a perfect hit.

Starting out with some basic shapes in Vallejo Model Air (VMA) German Grey (1) and highlighting it with VMA Light Grey (2), I then applied VMA Scarlet Red (3). I used light grey again (4, pic missing) to lay out the shape for orange (5). Then I used white (6) to lay out the shape for yellow (7).

I did this for all the eight wing parts on both sides. For the rumps sides I did something similar, but all other armor plates like the neck, back and small bits just got hit with a mixed up camo-like pattern. Some VMA Black Metal and VMA Tank Brown covers the claws, chest and organic bits. That left the model looking like this.

I wasn't sure if I would go with a bright metal trim colour like BuyPainted model or go for something dark, either flat black or black metal. Since I didn't want to make it a ball of sparkles, I picked going with dark trim. I used VMA black to paint all the edges and lines in matt black. There sure are a metric ton of lines on this.

With the basic armour plates complete, I added VMA Black Metal to the spikes on the wings, the neck and back and the exposed mechanical parts in the rump. To mute this a bit and cover the fact that I had utterly forgotten to get some nice highlights going on the tank brown, I liberally washed the brown bits with Citadel Nuln Oil shade.

Then I put it together. The arms with the wings and the neck, head and maw weapon are magnetized, just like on my first heldrake. Then the model looked like this:

The view from below is nice as well (IMHO). The chest goes nicely from black metal to tank brown via the glow that I put in the chest using the same method as the flames on the wings.

Here are my two drakes practicing formation BBQing of MEQ units. ;-]

Greater Brass Scorpion

I splashed some colour on my scorpion and the skull lord. Both were hit with Vallejo Model Air Steel and Black Metal as well as Citatel Khorne Red and Wild Rider Red all thinned a bit and a lot respectively with Vallejo Airbrush Thinner.

Then I spent considerable time on the edges of the armour plates of the scorpion with Citadel Balthasar Gold. There are the two claw armor plates, six big and six small leg armor plates, ten or so half segments of armor on the main body as well as the armour plates that go on top the main body and the scorpion cannon. That is a lot of edges!

I still need to sort out the bands on the bottom of the torso and the corpses stuck in the wire mess of the body - and of course the skull lord needs some love as well.

Plague marines getting some colour!

There is progress on the plague marines! You can see the current status in the picture below. Note that the marines next to Typhus have Nurgle marked shoulder pads courtesy of my Dremel.

I'm saw a very impressive Death Guard tutorial by Awesome Paintjob Lester Bursley.  He starts that tutrial with a miniature in grey. I guess that is grey primer, but it's not mentioned.

Grey and white primer have given me less smooth results than black primer before. I already had old models and didn't want a bumpy primer layer. So I used Vallejo Airbrush Primer in Black. I let that dry troughout and then applied a thin layer of Vallejo Model Air (=VMA) Light Grey. The result was a light grey, smooth surface.

For the relatively light green base colour, it is really important to have a surface that isn't pitch black. A grey surface does not have to be completely covered up with paint - it is neutral by itself. That means less coats, a thinner coat and also less paint used. Win time, win detail, win materials. Awesome!

Following Lester's guide, I then covered the models with a base coat of VMA Olive Drab, a dark green. Then it's over to the Vallejo Game Colours Plague Brown and Dead Flesh. Those are a medium brown and a light fleshtone.

Vallejo Game Colour is thick and meant to be applied with a regular brush, but using Vallejo Airbrush Thinner and a secondary container with a plastic mixing stick, it's easily brought to airbrush consistency. This isn't ideal, since the VGC range is meant to dry faster than the Model Air range, but it works fine if properly thinned.

You an see Lester's guide here:


I'm not sure if I'll go all the way. First, I'm not a master painter, I'm not expecting to get a result of the quality shown in the tutorial, second, I'm not sure if I want to do all of the 75 models quite that elaborately. Granted, only a handful has exposed faces, I'll see how I get on.

Being challenged where seeing red/green colours are concerned, I'm quite grateful for the colour references. That way I don't need to ask someone else to check coloours I picked for mismatches. =]

Plague Marine reinforcements assembled

I've cleaned the metal plague marines which I got recently from eBay, slapped them on magnetized bases and now also put the 4-6 bits that each of the very old models get into place.

The result are eight squads with seven plague marines each. Each squad containing a champ with or without special weapons, four marines with standard gear (bolter, bolt pistol, knife) and a marine with plasma and flamer for the special weapons allowance. The two very green squads in the front are the Finecast squads which I already had.

I get that I will hardly ever use ten seven man squads, but this way I have plenty of models to mix together. Want a champ with different gear, different special weapons, no problem. There are five marines left over and a spare metal Typhus, a couple of Plaguebearers and a great unclean one which will go through the priming and a couple of the steps afterwards together with the metal marines.

All of the very old plague marines came with blank shoulder pads. I considered getting some of the nice 10 piece metal shoulder pad sets from GW, but the look I liked was showing 4-6 weeks delivery time. I've considered using some green stuff with or without a silocone mold to get some dots going. Then I tried something that looks actually pretty close to the original pads the newer models come with - engraving!

I've used the Dremel bit in the picture below. It has a 2mm wide ball shaped cutting head. Putting three shallow marks in a triangle takes just a few seconds. The shoulder pads are thick enough that there isn't a real risk of going through them by accident. A bit of cleaning is needed to tear free any bits of plastic stuck to the edge, but I'm quite happy with the result.

Army development snapshots

I've been taking pictures of my Chaos Army every couple of weeks. Flipping through these now, I can see that I am way to willing to add models to my army. Let me say up front that the silver sheets are just sheet metal, roughly 10" by 20". I magnetize the bases for easy transport without fiddling with foam.

This is a snapshot from end of April, showing the army which at the time didn't have any plan to speak of. I had picked it up on eBay, scrubbed, repaired and painted it, but had no clue what units might actually be needed for play. Out of pure fancy, I had added another daemon prince to the two that came with it, a forge fiend and a soul grinder. I had also mixed some daemon prince parts into a broken loyalist cybot. 

End of May, a lot had changed. I had picked up a bunch of vehicles, some predators, a vindicator and a rhino of eBay and built a heldrake, two land raiders and another predator. Another bunch of possessed was added, old metal robot style obliterators showed up. A squad of raptors added. A nurgle daemon prince and some plague marines added. Some more regular chaos space marines, berzerkers and terminators came with the stuff I wanted. I diligently scrubbed, repaired and based them. I also tried to pick up a bunch of bikers, adding eight to the lone rider I had before. I built three helbrutes to keep the refurbished one company. I had also chopped up and modded a load of cultists, but those are not shown here.

 End of June, a plastic Khorne Lord on Moloch with a bunch of chaos spawns and a Nurgle General on Trike joined my army. I had also chopped the defiler up and converted him to the upright version. Another squad of plague marines was added and a couple more old style obliterators were added, bringing the count up to nine.

 End of July, I've added 40 zombies, the cultist mob is in the picture for the first time. Another raptor squad joined up. Seven seven man plague marine squads with reinforcements showed up. All metal minis, some with the same mold as the current products, some with the ancient spiky helmet style. A greater brass scorpion and a skull lord of khorne are assembled, but not quite finished yet.

All in all, I think I'm making good progress in building a nice battleforce. I'll try to finish more units off completely now so I can close those nagging thoughts about incomplete paint jobs and missing base decoration off for good. And yeah, I'm well over 10k points now. ;-]

Plague zombie kit bash

One of the many things that I wanted to try out with the Chaos Space Marine Army was the option to run Cultists as Zombies with compliments of Typhus' special rules. Fearless, Feel no Pain, Yay!

I didn't want to use regular Cultist models for this though. I mixed two boxes of Cadian Shock Troups and one box of WHFB Zombies to build 40 Plague zombies. This required some creative cutting and gluing, since the Zombie parts do not fit together like the Guard parts, that is to say, they have a hollow or a protusion instead of a flat surface. With a bit of patience, it does come together though.

When mixing those kits, I tried to have at least one green Guard armor part tie the look toegether for each model. That could be a helmet, shoulder piece or chest piece or a combination of those items. Rather than go to much medieval, I only used some scythes from the Zombie weapon kit, and improvised others. I added zombie hands to guard arms. The hands with the stretched out fingers really go with the zombie theme and the guard arms provide uniform pieces.

Not wanting to spent too much time on these cannon fodder models, I hit them with the sand and green colours first via airbrush, then added the yellow GW fleshtone I like for this using a normal brush.

Afterwards, I added some Leadbelcher for the metal parts, various browns for accessories, wood and hair, Administratum grey for the Aquilas and rank stripes. I then washed the minis with Reikland Fleshshade.

In the front row you can see the nice effect of trimming down some zombie heads until they fit into the spare helmets that come with the guard sets, as well as some Tamiya clear red on the exposed guts.

The bases I covered with Stirland Mud and their sides with Black. I've been too distracted by alsways new shiny things to get any basing done. In so far even this minimal alibi-style base work is a step forward for me. ;-]

I'm quite happy with the overall result!

Metal plague marines to the rescue!

While I haven't completed something awesome in the last days, I've not been idle at the hobby front either.

My greater brass scorpion got Nuln Oil on the non-armor parts. I had to strip my paintjob from the claws and re-prime them. It's my first time working with a Forgeworld model and wasn't prepared for how smooth (and possibly coated with release agent) some of the parts were. I intentionally scratched the claw pieces with a wire brush and used 600 grid sand paper on it to give the primer a chance. I then primed it with black Vallejo Airbrush Primer. I'm hoping for better luck this time around.

My Skull Lord is assembled and magnetized for weapon options and some flexibility on pose and primed. I'll get to him when the Scorpion is done.

I've bought two lots of Nurgle themed eBay auctions. One for really old Plague Marines with spiky helmets which had never been assembled, primed or painted. Really nice lot with five full seven man troups of plague marines with metal bodies and plastic accessories. I've based those on magnetized bases now.

 

The other lot was a small death guard army which looked to be composed of plague marines. I gambled on that one and was very happy today to find that it contained 25 metal plague marines, most of them with the same nice mold as the currently offered ones. The lot also came with a metal Typhus, a great unclean one, four metal plague bearers, a rhino and some plastic marines and possessed.In addition, there is also a pile of bits that came with it. One can never have too many bits!

 The plague marines were just primed. I'm just running them through the ultrasound cleaner with some warm water and dishwashing detergent. I'm guessing they'll be good for painting after that. I could of course rip the primer off the models, but there will be always tiny remains making repriming no better than just using the existing priming.

I already had two units of plague marines from the current type, but their plague knives snap of very easily. Because of that and since I like minis to have some variation, I wanted to get some older metal models.