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Holy frick on a stick - just been having a sneeky look at your blog (i'm at work) you're the dude that painted Vorenus - the dreadnaught. glad you got a finalist pin and being used on the GW homepage is real homage to your skills.

I had a quick read through the PDF you made on paiting the ultrasmurf vets. Some good ideas in there, shame I don't have an airbrush. Just a quick question, but what did you glue the bits to cocktail sticks with? Did it leave any residue when you unstuck them?

Also, I don't have a pin vice, but I do have a dremel (mostly used for chopping up my PC case) would you use a dremel for drilling gun barrels/pining or would you advise acquiring a pin vice?

Wish I'd read that before "cleaning" up my Guardians, I now have a lot of flat areas where I got a bit carried away with a blade.

Cheers, glad you like it

Use a hand pin vice. On plastic and resin, most dremel tools run too fast and just melt it.

I generally use a dab of superglue, or PVA if it's not too heavy a piece. You don't want the piece flopping around on the stick. The downside of the superglue is you often end up having to drill the wood out of the hole to pin the mini later. No biggie, but the PVA avoids that.

In any case you usually want to glue the piece somewhere it's not visible - for plastic marine bolters (for example) I either shove the stick into the (drilled) barrel with no glue, or glue a flattened stick onto where the handle would be. If you're need there shouldn't be any residue.

As for the zenital technique - you can achieve something similar by hand by using a grey spray then a white spray from above over black primer and allowing that to guide your highlights. Build up the colours in gentle layers and it works pretty well. Airbrush is faster though.

Hey that last pic you posted was great especially the green in it.
I wish i could blend at all