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He looks great Gits! Can't wait to see your OSL, when you're ready of course.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. "
(special thanks to Revenent Reiko for the correct quote)

...



Actually I found and old Legion of the Damned plasma gunner that I painted many years ago as a Mantis Warrior... he'll be my first experiment. Right now I'm trying to make him look respectable, but it's pretty much a lost cause. Guess I'll throw him out there for trade after I get done with my OSL experiment... can't really use standard Mk 7 marines in my army (yippie! :-) I have special bitz!)

have you tried yggdrasil's osl tutorial its really good.

Oh yes. I agree, used it to help me with the last OSL experiment... but this time I think I'm going to try my airbrush. So I'm using MajorTom's article on the subject.

Can't wait to see it gits.

Glad to see you can keep up with warhams constantly.
I have taken a break for a bit, but I am hoping to get back to painting asap, and maybe even finish my bucket load of boyz and make a real army list, or trade 'em for ig and start yet another project... Choices, choices...

WOW i must say those helmet lenses are awesome!! i haven't been on for a bit and my how these guys are coming along! I can't wait to see more, lovin' your ideas!

Keep it coming Gitsplitta!

All the best SONS of ORAR

@BBL: Thanks! I think you need to build lots and lots of armies... lots of them.

@SOO: Thank you very much! I keep plugging away. At least I'm not stagnating any more... keep adding to my little bag of painting and modeling tricks each day. Eventually, I'll get there (wherever "there" is...).

OK, first airbrush OSL complete... Please keep in mind the paint job on the marine is probably nearly a decade old, though I did take an hour or so to clean it up & re-paint a bunch of parts (skulls, chest, gun, eyes, hand, etc).

Let me know what you think. I'll let you know what *I* think a bit later after everyone's had their say.

That's awesome! Besides the streak of light green on the helmet,
Very reaslistic OSL

Wow!
thats amazing Gits, it really looks like its lit up!

Looks great. I have never tried airbrushing but I would maybe try to not have the light stretch out as far, I dunno if its the lighting of the picture or not but it looks like its a bit too far up the helmet, just my thoughts though but other than that its awesome


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actually I'm pretty sure its just my eyes haha, it does look very realistic

Lord Kaesar II wrote:That's awesome! Besides the streak of light green on the helmet, Very reaslistic OSL

Actually the streak of light green is a yellow trapezoid that was part of the original decorations on the helmet. It looks light green because of the blue OSL effect!

Revenent Reiko wrote:Wow! thats amazing Gits, it really looks like its lit up!

The more I look at it, the more I like it... maybe I should do that with all my models....

Mantle wrote:Looks great. I have never tried airbrushing but I would maybe try to not have the light stretch out as far, I dunno if its the lighting of the picture or not but it looks like its a bit too far up the helmet, just my thoughts though but other than that its awesome


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actually I'm pretty sure its just my eyes haha, it does look very realistic

Thanks Mantle! My wife thinks it's "a little too blue", and I think I'm inclined to agree with her. I prefer more subtle effects... but for a first try I'll take it. It's a really BIG, glowing core right next to his body though... that would give off a considerable amount of light I'd think.

I find the effect a bit wide and intense, as the light being cast is as bright as the source for most of it. I have been learning from looking at Nucleosaurs work and classic baroque stuff that the source is always the brightest part, usually by quite a bit. This is something I failed to capture on my GreyKnight, as the blade that is casting the glow is not sufficiently bright to explain the amount of light cast.

I also know that doing this is a huge #$@%$# to deal with, esp on finished minis! I would suggest trying it on black primed minis a few times to get the hand a bit better before committing over a finished piece. It is almost there, but a little bit more of a delicate touch would go a long way I think.

Lol did you have a small panic attack as you hovered the airbrush over the mini before actually spraying? I sure did lol! One trick I caught for this on a military site is to cut a small hole in a piece of paper and use that as a soft mask, holding it away from the mini to still get a soft edge, but also allowing you to really limit the spray area to your liking too. Haven't tried it yet but I plan to next time the opportunity presents itself.

Might have to agree with Mrs. Gitsplitta, just like one or two tones two bright. Very good effect, especially for try numero uno.

Yeah thats a good point, I just thought it was taking away some of the edges of the helmet so maybe a tiny bit darker could bring them out.


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And a far better job than if I was to try airbrushing I think I would be terrible at it haha.

Two words,

Intense

Awesome

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the comments MT... especially from your perspective and experience. I agree all-round... nice effect, a little too much. I'll be more gentle next time. I did however, take that last shot where the lighting accentuated the glow effect, if you were to shift the lights straight at it (rather than pointing down and reflecting up) you get a mores subdued effect. I took a couple of very dilute washes to the armor in hopes of toning it down a shade or so. See if this (with more normal lighting) works a little better for you. (though I will still try to tone it down next time).



@Tom: Yeah, I was $*itting bricks right before I started to spray, especially since my airbrush was NOT cooperating at the time. I practiced on some paper before hand to make sure I had the right spray and turned down the trigger stop on the brush so I couldn't accidentally hose him down completely. Couple of minor things to touch up on him and I'll call it a successful first run. Will do one or two more practice figs (and lots of practice on blanks) before I tackle WM's plasma cannoneer.


And in case you think I'm fibbin... MOST of the difference in the two pics below is due to a difference in the positioning of the lights (see legs below knees for clues).


The right or "down-lit" photo would be closer to how it appears on the tabletop.

When you have that much lighting affect it almost looks like it is about to explode, which would be perfect if it was one of my plasma weapons, lol.

Hmm... It still looks pretty intense for me. The effect makes sense if he was in darkness or twilight, but I'm not sure that a plasma gun would glow that brightly in daylight.

Then again, that's my perspective. You have your artistic license.

I have never tried OSL before. I'm afraid to.

Lord Kaesar II wrote:That's awesome! Besides the streak of light green on the helmet,
Very reaslistic OSL

What Lord Kaesar said.

If you can control your spray with the airbrush, it's easier than it looks... you just need a lighter hand (which I'm sure I'll get with practice). Even without the airbrush though... (see the last sergeant with the OSL core in his power sword), it's not unsurmountable. It is nerve wracking though as your risking a fully painted figure on the technique. Get some practice as Tom suggests, on some blanks to build your confidence before attacking a fully painted fig.

TBH, I personally think that it isn't 'see-through' enough, but it could just be be...

Too thick/intense for me too - but a promising start nonetheless! Looking forward to see where you go with it (before trying out myself...)

I still stand by what I'd said before about light not actually spreading thatfar from the source... It's well executed however. Well done in that respect.

I suppose I should jump onto the "too intense" bandwagon, although the second photo looks much better than the first. Still, who am I to criticize, I'm a very crappy painter, unfortunately. I prefer scalpels to brushes.

I agree with the slight over intensity, maybe tone down the range of the blue on the body. Also, maybe darkening the blue in the coils would help, I know I struggle with that as well. But it looks mighty fine, if you like it keep it!

UG

OK guys, message heard... next one will be smaller and more translucent.

God thats amazing! : D imho I don't like that, because I don't think plasma would glow that much, but that doesn't change the fact it is amazing!

And for overall opinion of this blog. You're doing great job!

Thanks Remos, and welcome to the blog! I'll do one or two more practice figs before I attack the plasma connoneer... by then I should have some idea how to do it properly.

Are you going to try the soft mask that MajorTom suggested? I really want to try that out. But I want you to do it first lol

My next project will be another power sword, so soft masking through a slot might do the trick nicely. For the plasma gun I just masked using my thumb (which is now blue by-the-way). worked for the simple stuff but trying to represent a glowing sword, glowing faintly on a body a foot or two away is going to take some subtlety that may well require the soft masking technique.




Couple of things I learned yesterday:

- Had an airbrushing class at Adepticon where it was suggested that using ethanol (90+ %) was best as a solvent as it encouraged (amongst other things) the paint to dry on contact, greatly reducing the odds for drip or spider-webbing. The problem is that if you add straight alcohol to the paint... some colors (the Valejo Air white in particular) precipitate out... which is a real mess. I found out that if you instead, dilute the paint about 50/50 with water, then add the ethanol slowly, you will not have the pigment precipitation issue. It might also be possible to use a weaker dilution of the ethanol (70% is typical), but I haven't tried that yet.

- Windex, which in the US is made with ammonia rather than alcohol (as it is in Europe), is still a better cleaning fluid than alcohol.

- Set the trigger stop on your airbrush pretty tight, so you can only pull the trigger back a short distance. This should prevent you from accidentally hosing down the mini with your subtle, glow color.