Weekly WIP

So as I mentioned in the last blog post part of the plan after Arcanacon is to take on board some feedback- even though the guy in my opinion could really go to the school of "dealing with other humans" he is a master painter, and he did point out something I could do to improve the overall effect of the army.

Rather than glass the guy I figured I should look at the advice and see about working on the gradient effect for my force swords.

Originally it was a single transition from dark blue to whit up both sides of the blade- I had messed around with a alternating transition before but found I had issues with bleed from the airbrush and was having to redo allot of the work multiple times.

So I scrounged the net and YouTube and revisited some tutorials I found useful - here are two I liked the most:

I also reviewed information from the Painting Corp, they have a great collection of tutorial on airbrushing effectively etc located here :http://thepaintingcorps.blogspot.com.au/p/painting-tips.html


With all this information at hand I then upgraded some of my equipment, and got hold of some  Tamiya masking tape. Its low tac and has a good edges, you still need to burnish the tape at the point where the paint will hit, but it does not effect the surface below and makes the whole process allot easier.

I have so far been using the 6mm tape and recommend it to anyone using an airbrush, this shit is that brilliant.  The other key has been taking my time- the lead up to Arc saw me rush, which I think really hurt  the overall outcome- so with that in mind I'm completing about 2 or 3 swords a night and slowly working through the completed models, before I start on the unpainted guys.

I dont have a major tournament for at least a month, so that will give me the time needed to complete this and still get the other models ready for play.

The following colors are whit I  used and are from the Vallejo Air range:
White 71001 ,
Sea Blue 71089,
French Blue 71088
Black 71057.

 I also used some Thinner Medium for the white from the Vallejo range- I find white still seems to dry faster and clog up, it may be the batch but thinning the white has helped in coverage.

White was the base followed by the sea blue then the french blue and finally the black. I also alternated where the transition was located to give a more dramatic effect I feel.

So that's this week- hopefully the bits from Armorcast show up soon and I can add the muzzle flash effect- then its the decals ...........so much to do!

And to confirm my plastic crack addiction, I've been musing about some concept sketches I saw from max mini recently for Egyptian style heads.

 Thinking Necron head swaps - having an army of Anubis! my wife may kill me if she sees them pop up too soon though :P

Anyway will post up some more progress soon. 

Cheers

JP