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I see a lot of the airbrushed blades out there looking awesome, but it's a little bit chilly for me to use my outdoor airbrush setup right now. I can't for the life of me make a good basic metal blade with just a regular brush, though. Any advice that can make it look better than a boring flat coat of metal?

drying retarder and wet blending.
the drying retarder will keep your paints wet (even on the mini) and that will give you the ability to go back and forward, gradually blending colors in each other

Is there a quicker way that will work on rank and file? Looking to do 30+ of these, and wet blending just isn't feasible for quite that many. I should have been a little more specific on that.

Five stage blends are pretty quick.
Paint the blade in the mid tone. Something like boltgun metal. Paint bands of black at alternating parts of the bladeon alternating 'faces'. About a quarter to a third the blade length. Middle,ends, middle, ends. Do the same with silver on the other faces. Now layer over intermediate mixes.
Edge highlight with a Bright silver (VMC metallic medium).

 Evertras wrote:
I see a lot of the airbrushed blades out there looking awesome, but it's a little bit chilly for me to use my outdoor airbrush setup right now. I can't for the life of me make a good basic metal blade with just a regular brush, though. Any advice that can make it look better than a boring flat coat of metal?

Airbrush indoors? Or at the very least open a window if you are worried about the side effects of airbrushing (which is negligible, in my opinion). If your location is accurate and you're in Las Vegas, leaving a window open for an hour or so in 55 degree "winter" weather should manageable.

His setup might be a large compresser... to big to move inside. Maybe invest into a space heater for the garage?

It's actually hovering around freezing here right now in Vegas. There's some ice even, and everyone here is buckling down for the impending apocalypse now that it's dropped below 50 for once.

I'm also pretty paranoid about airbrushing indoors. If it's me being overly paranoid, so be it, but I'm not going to risk it long term. The compressor is a small tank that can fit inside easily enough, but still. No go on the garage, no room.

Anyway, for brush it seems like it's just blending like the airbrush pattern then. Our little cold snap is hopefully ending next week, so I might just wait for that to preserve sanity.

 Evertras wrote:
It's actually hovering around freezing here right now in Vegas. There's some ice even, and everyone here is buckling down for the impending apocalypse now that it's dropped below 50 for once.

I'm also pretty paranoid about airbrushing indoors. If it's me being overly paranoid, so be it, but I'm not going to risk it long term. The compressor is a small tank that can fit inside easily enough, but still. No go on the garage, no room.

Anyway, for brush it seems like it's just blending like the airbrush pattern then. Our little cold snap is hopefully ending next week, so I might just wait for that to preserve sanity.

Yeah I know it freaks people out when it gets cold there, it snowed in the city one in the late 90's when I lived there and everyone was dumbfounded about what to do. Oh yeah, and wearing pea coats when it was in the low 50's... Good times. You seriously have nothing to worry about when it comes to airbrushing indoors, even in the long term. Unless you are spraying some kind of solvent, the amounts of material put in the air from overspray in out tiny airbrushes poses no threat. Respirators can help quell that concern and you could buy a spray booth or take a trip to Home Depot and buy the materials to build your own (plans are readily available on the Internet).

P3 Pig iron base coat
P3 Armor wash (thinned to taste)

Looks great without highlighting (check any of my Killa Kanz or the Deff Dredd in my gallery).

I don't have any P3 handy, but I might be able to replicate that. What's the wash like? I'd really love a handy 'go to' version like that for production line work!

It's a black ink with brownish undertones. If you're mixing gw washes I would go 80:20 nuln to brown wash. Not sure on consistency from ink to wash but fairly thin to get into the corners and crevices.

Awesome, thank you. I'll play around with the washes I have to see if I can get a decent look out of it then.