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Solar_lion wrote:Amazing. The folage and details are insane. I'm going to have to try some of these techniques. Inspiring

Thanks Solar'. Good to hear that; that is why I share most of my steps, so that others may get ideas or help from what I've done, as I do from reading what others have done.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:There's virtually no such thing as a family-friendly HR Geiger painting.

well there are at least some that are not entirely unsuitable. And then some of the potentially unsuitable that "unsoiled" minds wouldn't notice.

Not everything that Giger painted had sexual organs on display.
But it is true that many of his works did, and sometimes they were VERY obvious. Other times, I'm sure he was trying to hide them in plain sight so that he could chuckle to himself as people looked at them unawares.

Maybe if you mixed a 1:5 black to blue ink wash or similarly diluted you could get a darker bluish color? Also, Geiger always struck me as favoring sepia to all other colors of the rainbow. Just my opinion, though. Still looks great, you ask me.

See below for colour development (it's not been straight forward so far).
Yeah, Giger did use sepia/brown as the main colours in most of his work, but not always.
This website has a large selection of his work (often in reasonably high res') that I'll let you all peruse at your leisure: http://art.vniz.net/en/giger/
You can see some of the other colours he has used on that first page.

lone dirty dog wrote:What a contrast of colours and amazing how the paint job has totally transformed the jet bike totally getting the vibe now

Thanks LDD. Not touched the bike since as I'm still pondering how to progress.

As for the UFO maybe using a slight purple wash might help with the highlight to blue, the transgression from brown to blue might be quite harsh as the purple might work as an intermediary to help subtle the change.

I'll keep that in mind when I get there. See below.

So, while I am talking about it, this is what the UFO is looking like at the moment:

This has taken quite a while and not progressed as I expected;
You will remember that I said I was going to give it an all-over wash (more of a glaze) of blue to tint it and would then shade it with brown and black.
That didn't work, all I got was blue in the recesses and the highlights stayed grey/white.
Therefore, I resorted to dry-brushing the blue (heavy, all-over mid-blue. lighter blue. light blue with white. white).

Then I gave it an all-over brown wash to get into all the recesses... and that tinted all the ridges as I had hoped that the blue would have done.

So now, resigned to the fact that I'll be touching up the highlights at the end, I've moved on to pin-washing black into all the recesses. This is what you see above.

Next will be some brown and then red/purple/dark blue (however I progress) before highlighting and final details.

In other news:
Progress has also been slowed as I've been distracted in looking at airbrushes...
Having made a reasonable profit in my money-making model ventures, I've decided to invest in an AB that will make things quicker and easier and therefore feed back into more profit.

However, I'm looking for suggestions for what to get. This is where you, dear reader (assuming you are still reading at this stage), come in.
I'm thinking:
Dual/double action, Gravity feed, airbrush.
and a compressor with tank, water trap, regulator, etc...

But, I'm hoping for all that for around £100 ($150). Having looked around and found that you can spend that on the airbrush alone and that you can spend almost half that on a full set (of dubious quality), I thought I'd ask here and see if there are any cheap recommendations. I can go a bit higher if it's worth it.

Answers on a post(card). Thanks.

I like your specs on the airbrush.

Yeah, I've been doing some research into what is required/preferred for this line of work/hobby.

It's easy enough to see the quality of the big names in the business, but they are also a little out of my budget (as far as I can see).

However, when you look at cheaper makes, you don't really know what you are getting without trying them.

What airbrush have you got, Gits'?

Okay here is a model of the "Thermal Pod" space ship from Buckaroo Banzai, which is why I thought of your project, but the skin of your UFO is more like the skin from the alien ship in Alien/Prmoetheus.

Thermal Pod


Buckaroo Banzai, Physicist/Brain Surgeon/Band leader-Guitarist and singer/problem solver, of course he has his clique of helpers with their talents, and their sub group of the Blue Blazer Irregulars.

Damn Doc it's looking pretty good to me has a mix of organic and metal about it, I see the road has been hard but it is coming on nicely so stick with it mate it's looking spot on.

As for the AB go for a compressor and tank it's a must I picked up a cheap compressor without a tank of ebay (it was an ex finger nail artists one ), which was ok but would loose pressure during spraying, then the compressor would kick in causing some strange and awful results.

I got a pretty good deal of ebay for a small compressor with tank which works perfectly well, there was even a airbrush with it which I use for undercoating about all it's good for.

As for my actual airbrush I got for my birthday a few years ago it is an iwata CM-C plus, which lets just say was an expensive present but grate results once you know how to use it LOL.

Try Badger they seem to pretty well priced and get good results and there paints are highly recommended, the common theme I found when looking for advice was get the best you can afford as the cheap ones don't cut it especially as you progress and learn with it.

I think 'Grey Death' or ' Major Tom' had a blog on selecting an AB. Can't recall. There are other good forum blogs and articles.. just do a search.

A good compressor is very important. Get one with a tank. I cannot stress that enough. I got my current one on clearance at a local DIY. It is a bit loud, but I can fill the tank and then turn off the compressor. I get about 20 minutes of spray before I need to turn it on again and refill the tank.

Dual action, gravity feed is fine. Needle sizes are also important. Personally, I have a siphon feed Badger Anthem which is a workhorse for priming and base-coating, and for the finer stuff a Badger Velocity (gravity feed). The Anthem gets most of the work, since I do so little miniature painting.

Prepare yourself for a steep learning curve. Cleaning and maintenance are crucial to keeping the airbrush working properly. The time you save on painting you will spend on Cleaning and other Maintenance. The results though, are worth it.

I like the color scheme on the crotch rocket, er, jet bike. Something about that UFO wants some sort of iridescence, to my eyes. At least for the hull protions.

Shas: I see. But yes, I'm going more Alien but more blue. Needs to contrast with the muddy ground (so can't be too brown) and with the concrete walls (so can't be too grey).

lone dirty dog wrote:Damn Doc it's looking pretty good to me has a mix of organic and metal about it, I see the road has been hard but it is coming on nicely so stick with it mate it's looking spot on. ...

Thanks, organic and metal or... organometallic (that is actually a thing in chemistry where you have metal ions encapsulated by an organic (that is, mainly composed of Carbon atoms) scaffold or ligand). Slowly progressing.

Solar_lion wrote:I think 'Grey Death' or ' Major Tom' had a blog on selecting an AB. Can't recall. There are other good forum blogs and articles.. just do a search.

I didn't find that last time I searched. Have found it now (and a couple of others) and read them.
I had also watched this video:

Which is how I know I wanted the spec' I mentioned before.

Red Harvest wrote: ... I like the color scheme on the crotch rocket, er, jet bike. Something about that UFO wants some sort of iridescence, to my eyes. At least for the hull protions.

Thanks Red. I do have a couple of iridescent paints laying about from when I did the Wave Serpent. We'll see how it looks once I've done all these layers and decide then.

Yes, I will be getting a tank for the compressor.
Noise is not a problem as I won't be using it indoors (due to lack of space for one thing) and so will be outdoors during daytime.
But a tank looks to be the best thing for stable pressures and ease of use.

While I only plan to use the airbrush for priming/basecoating and general gradients, I thought I may as well get the dual action trigger: because if I don't get one, I'll want one later.

I'm looking at gravity feed as that allows lower pressures for more control.

I'm also looking at medium sized tips / needles (0.3 to 0.5mm I believe), as I'll be using my usual paints through it and those are suggested for enamels (and acrylics as well anyway).

I have used, and still have, a badger spray-gun (siphon feed, external mix) with my enamels, so I'm used to fiddling about with paint mixtures and general control, I'm not going into airbrushing completely cold. I do appreciate that the spray-gun is a world away from the type of airbrush I'm intending to buy.

Also, having done some more research, the cheap airbrushes are looking out of the running. I have seen comments on where they save the money, and one of them is on the seals: which makes them useless for solvent-based paints etc... Such as I'll be using.

That means I'll have to go for a main brand airbrush. The cheapest I'm seeing from Badger (100-G Med') is about £90, so looks like my budget has just gone up to stretch for a compressor and all the tubes and things... but I'm in no rush, so can keep looking for a good deal.

With that as a yard-stick, the Badger 100-G, does anyone have any better/cheaper/alternative suggestions? Is that one rubbish?

I have the two Badgers, as mentioned, and I can say I like them very much. You would want the one with the largest cup (looks like the 100LG), but for larger projects you'll still be refilling it often. It looks a bit fussier than mine.

Badgers have teflon seals, so they can take solvent based paints just fine. People use them to paint motorcycles and whatnot. Also, lifetime warranty

Needles can be changed. Looks like the 100 can take a medium and/or a fine needle. (pro-tip: insert the needle from front to back to reduce the chance of bending the tip. And to increase the chance of stabbing yourself.) Interchangable needle sizes is a convenience. Just don't mix up the nozzles. (I did mention that learning curve, eh?)

90 Pounds? ($135) That is full retail. You can get a better price if you poke around a bit.

Find a way to get a few demos of airbrushes if you can. Nothing beats hands on with those things in order to determine what will be best for you.

No matter what you get, the key to the brush is taking your time to practice. At first you 'll find it difficult to use. You'll eventually get more comfortable with it the more you use it. Geting the right mixture is also a steep learning curve.,. You may find that you are cleanning the brush more than you are using it. In my experence this is normal.

Again practice ( and trial and error ) will get you the skill. Patience is a must!

Lastly. Have extra needles on hand at all time , the proper cleaning stuff and take time to do a good job will prevent you wasting time. If you have questions, there is a lot of good AB users on dakka. so speed up the learning curve by asking.

2 cents SL

Red Harvest wrote:I have the two Badgers, as mentioned, and I can say I like them very much. You would want the one with the largest cup (looks like the 100LG), but for larger projects you'll still be refilling it often. It looks a bit fussier than mine.

Yeah, that makes sense really; you can always put less in a large cup, but you can't put more in a small cup...

Badgers have teflon seals, so they can take solvent based paints just fine. People use them to paint motorcycles and whatnot. Also, lifetime warranty

Yeah, that's the thing.

Needles can be changed. Looks like the 100 can take a medium and/or a fine needle. (pro-tip: insert the needle from front to back to reduce the chance of bending the tip. And to increase the chance of stabbing yourself.) Interchangable needle sizes is a convenience. Just don't mix up the nozzles. (I did mention that learning curve, eh?)

Yarp.

90 Pounds? ($135) That is full retail. You can get a better price if you poke around a bit.

Yeah, that's full price. Although all the UK distributors I'm finding at the moment are asking for even more. Poking about is definitely on the cards. (I'm doing a lot of nodding recently, I'll start saying Oooh Yes! soon).

Find a way to get a few demos of airbrushes if you can. Nothing beats hands on with those things in order to determine what will be best for you.

Will have to see what shops I can find around here. Have yet to find a hobby shop that's within range... *lives in middle of nowhere*

Solar_lion wrote:No matter what you get, the key to the brush is taking your time to practice. At first you 'll find it difficult to use. You'll eventually get more comfortable with it the more you use it. Geting the right mixture is also a steep learning curve.,. You may find that you are cleanning the brush more than you are using it. In my experence this is normal.

Again practice ( and trial and error ) will get you the skill. Patience is a must!

Lastly. Have extra needles on hand at all time , the proper cleaning stuff and take time to do a good job will prevent you wasting time. If you have questions, there is a lot of good AB users on dakka. so speed up the learning curve by asking.

2 cents SL

Thanks Solar'. Hearing you on FM.
Yeah, I've seen many people mention the need to have spares ready.

Right, while I (we) continue to think "airbrushes", I have progressed on the UFO and the colour tone is mostly done (there may be some little touch ups to do and some final details to add)

I'll try and get a "flying" picture tomorrow...ish.

I just have a really hard time grocking that shape. Is the ship supposed to be lying on it's side?

Front. back, up, down are all meant to be "grey" in their definitions, makes it more alien.

But yeah, I see it laying on it's side.

I really love this, it reminds me of an organic version of the rogue borg ship from TNG:

Thanks Graven. Yes the asymmetric structure is a good way to make something look weird or alien (and is hard work to design).

Progress. Much has happened, but wasn't very interesting to show by themselves so I saved them up for now.

First, the weather around here has been a bit "grey" so I've not yet taken my hoax photo yet.

In the mean time I've painted the gravel and started to paint the concrete walls and base-coat some other bits as I come to them.


You can see here why the UFO was made blue: with it sat in the brown muddy crater (you'll have to imagine the mud. Apologies to those of you without imagination ) it couldn't be brown. As the gravel is grey, it couldn't be grey... and I made the concrete slightly sandy coloured to contrast with the grey gravel also; so couldn't use yellow tones.

That concrete was quite a tricky colour to get to and has required at least 4 coats of paint from a dark grey undercoat, through a grey/sand mix dry-brush and a light grey/bone mix, to final dry-brushes of light grey and white. Next, it will get a range of washes to make it dirty and add some shading.

The boxes are only base-coated and will be lighter so that they contrast with the mud.

You should also be able to see where the gravel surface has been broken and the mud is showing though in places. That was achieved with a brown wash over the painted gravel with a few patches picked out with brown.

And that's it, so far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, that's not all.

In other news; I made some more earrings for Mother's day.
As Mum has mentioned that she want's some green earrings, green is what she got.

The white edge highlights aren't great, but look fine to the naked eye.
You will also see the glossy effect on them. This is a combination of using gloss paints with a coat of spray gloss varnish and then a few layers of Pledge Multi-surface wax (Formally known as Klear).

This stuff seems to have worked well. The liquid looks like dirty dishwater (smells nice though) and is quite thin, like water. This means you get a really thin coat per layer, which is good for not covering small details. It should be really hard-wearing (that my enamel varnish has proven to not be so good on earrings) as it's intended for floors. And the result speaks for itself, nice gloss finish.

That alien ship looks pretty smart matey ! Well done !

Can't beat Pledge as a varnish ! Full of win !
Also works great as thinners for old paint , for making washes and sealing stuff for oil washes . Really really useful. And smells nice.....

Thanks Big'.

Progress on the concrete today. Just some black washes to darken the grooves and add some streaks (there will be more, but I'll leave that until after I've done the posters and graffiti).


And the weather was nice for a brief moment today, I went outside and look what flew over!!!

I love that meme...

Ha ha that looks awesome the base and the photo I can't wait till that picture turns up on one of those we are not alone shows .......

What posters are you putting up by the way ?

I was drinking when I saw that... Now I'm cleaning up...

Also, holy crap that is some fine concrete and plant work going on there!

I did also notice the ear-rings, hope she liked them, they look really good!

Gitsplitta wrote:I love that meme...

He would get on well with Arnold Rimmer.
...
Rimmer: Aliens!
Lister: Oh god, aliens? Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.
Rimmer: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
Lister: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?
...

lone dirty dog wrote:Ha ha that looks awesome the base and the photo I can't wait till that picture turns up on one of those we are not alone shows .......

Thanks. Yeah, I was tempted to send it to one of the UFO investigator groups. But they (the serious ones at least) are only going to believe photos that haven't been so much as resized, and I've done a bit more that resize that photo. I would love it if it did get into the mainstream/press/UFO circles.

What posters are you putting up by the way ?

Don't know yet. I have a large collection of various posters/adverts/signs that I've found on DDakka and the rest of the internet, that I need to go through and pick out (and then print out) to use. The aim is mostly to be work/job related things on the inside of the wall as it's meant to be a workspace. The outside will be all graffiti, so no room for posters there.

OneManNoodles wrote:I was drinking when I saw that... Now I'm cleaning up...

Also, holy crap that is some fine concrete and plant work going on there!

I did also notice the ear-rings, hope she liked them, they look really good!

sorry for your mess.
Thanks.
The earrings were well received. Thanks.

I have now attached the UFO to the base and that has allowed me to base-coat the mud.

I started with a load of plaster that I placed at the top of the trough and let set for a bit.
Then pushed the UFO along the trench, through the plaster, and then positioned it at the crater.
A little more plaster was added about the UFO.
Once that had all hardened, I covered it in PVA and sprinkled on some of the finest grade of crushed dried paint (to give it some texture), and picked out any lumps that were too big. That was all sealed in with a layer of water/PVA.
Once that had dried, I have covered it in brown. This is just one coat of brown, any variation is due to the underlying colour and texture, not some clever trick.

The vision is starting to come together now.

Ah, red dwarf, that was a good show .

Those walls look great. I really like how you've weathered them. The ship, too, color-wise has really come together.

I almost feel like there should be some brown splash on the walls nearest the ditch. Just an idea.

Love the photo. Some "official" looking people may pay you a visit soon enough for it, so you did not need to send it off. They'll find you. Scary thought.

Mother's day is in May. At least over here. It's March in the UK? Good to hear the gift was appreciated.

How much contrast, color contrast are you planning for between the scene/base and the UFO? And scorch marks? the whole heat of re-entry thing?

Co'tor Shas wrote:Ah, red dwarf, that was a good show .

One of the best.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Those walls look great. I really like how you've weathered them. The ship, too, color-wise has really come together.

I almost feel like there should be some brown splash on the walls nearest the ditch. Just an idea.

Thanks 'boss.
Yep, I have already started researching what sort of mud splatter I want there.

Red Harvest wrote:Love the photo. Some "official" looking people may pay you a visit soon enough for it, so you did not need to send it off. They'll find you. Scary thought.

That's all right then, I'll just sit tight.

Mother's day is in May. At least over here. It's March in the UK? Good to hear the gift was appreciated.

Yarp. Definitely was Mother's day (or Mothering Sunday as I think it's was originally conceived, a bit more than just thank your mum day, and has now become commercial like every other occasion...).

How much contrast, color contrast are you planning for between the scene/base and the UFO? And scorch marks? the whole heat of re-entry thing?

Well the main colour of the gravel, concrete and the UFO are as they will be, largely (further tweaks will likely happen as it progresses).
The photos don't necessarily do the whole justice as yet. Sometimes the UFO can look quite grey and blend with the gravel and concrete, and others it looks quite blue and stands out.

However, the additional colours of the posters (which I've printed off a large selection today) and the plants and when the mud and others bits are done, I'm hoping the UFO stands out in it's monochome-ness, framed with the brown mud.

Scorch marks. No, I'm seeing this as having crashed after entering the atmosphere, and that being weird alien technology, it doesn't have any problems with zipping in and out of atmospheres.

Also, the crash is at relatively low-speed. Otherwise it would have left a larger crater and at the angle of impact would have tumbled and the damage to the ground would be different and stretched out over a long distance. Both of these would have meant larger builds and I wanted to limit the size.

I'm seeing this as the pilot not understanding / being confused by the wall / graffiti, flying into it accidentally and therefore being unable to avoid the ground. More of a "slow" coming to a skidding halt, than a high-speed impact.

I've been building up the colour on the mud, boxes and packing material, but nothing worth showing yet. Organising these posters, digging out my printer, replacing one of the inks and finally printing them off (and re-burying the printer), took quite a chunk of the day.

Every time I check the updates I am always reminded for some reason of the scene at the end of Predator 2 with the ship :-)

Good point Nerd. That little ship actually reminds me of Prometheus for some reason.

I wonder how dark or light the mud will be? also how nasty? (some muds are worse than others)

Good to see that people can interpret it in different ways / reminds people of different things. Shows that it's doing it's job for what I intended.

This should answer your question, Shas.

The mud can't be too wet or nasty as this area was being used for industrial purposes with heavy boxes and machinery.
So it is a hard, dry-ish, rocky, mud.

The main reason is so that it matches the bases on all my models and will be a table-wide feature.

You will notice though, that the depths of the crater is darker than the peak of the rim. This shows the difference in moisture content, and I may even throw in some gloss varnish to make the bottom of the crater "wet".

I've also painted the mud outside the walls and I've done all the rocks (the large one may get some washes to add some colour variation).
The various plant-life has had a base-coat, but will get much more attention soon.
The boxes are also pretty much done. As is the packing material.
I've only just started on the toilets though.
And I did the mud splatter on the wall. This was just spots of PVA with a light sprinkling of my finest basing material (dried paint). I think it looks pretty good for fairly dry (as in not watery) mud splatter.

Still lots more to do, not least the graffiti (which will involve some quite ambitious pieces), attaching and weathering the posters/signs, all the plants, and finishing everything off to my usual high standards... 10ish days left,.. we will have to see...

Looking good my man looking good it truly looks good did you get that it looks good, no seriously it looks really good