Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'll start by sharing my 3 first ships. I just finished these yesterday.







I have 2 other images in my gallery as well. I will be adding more as time goes on since I have the entire 2-player starter set to build and paint along with an RSN starter.

Very cool, can I ask how you achieved the glowing engine look?

And, are they airbrushed?

The ships are about 50/50 airbrush and handbrush.

I used airbrush for base coat and the engine effect. To do the engines like I did, I did the whole interior engine in that ice blue, then painted white in the center flat area, then mixed some of the ice blue with white (not sure on the ratio, it may have been near 1:1) and used the airbrush to create the glow by carefully hitting the areas around them and a small bit straight on the engines inside to mute the white a bit so it's not so drastic.

I am surprised I didn't post sonner! Whew, here you guys go!

I like that extra tower structure on your modified razorthorn. What did you scavenge it from or rather did you make that yourself?

Also got any more pictures of just that ship showing all the conversions you did to it?

The model we used for the extra bits was a 1/700 scale Yamato Japanese battleship to create this. Ever since we've been going crazy with modeling and bit-building onto other battleships. To get the extended hull look all we did was take the old Razorthorn and attach the middle section of a cruiser between the two parts with some dremeling. Fun stuff!

I really like the 3rd in that last lineup. Are those Bismark guns as the front turrets? The terrans definitely lend themselves to adding ww2 bits better than most races.

Nice mods! I'm afraid all my fleets are stock. I haven't painted a FSA ship in ages, but here are a couple of my fleets:

Directorate




Terran

I know this is a post your models thread, but I have to say those are sharp!

My as of yet unfinished Terran Battleline.

Some fantastic stuff here! Love the battleship conversion Avrik_Shasla, fits perfectly with the model!

Well this is getting me excited to get my Dindrezi Fed fury class cruisers...not sure how I am going to paint them but I am hoping to start in this game after I finish my Eldar army.
Looking really sharp!

To the OP how did you get the recesses to be dark on the white/light grey area?

I did an oil wash. Actually really easy to do, just intimidating until you go for it. I can post more info on the process here if you'd like.

This is both of my Fleets.



Still working on the details (like un-packaging!).

That is an exciting box. What fleets are inside those blisters?

Dindrenzi and Kurak Alliance.

 Boblogik wrote:
I did an oil wash. Actually really easy to do, just intimidating until you go for it. I can post more info on the process here if you'd like.

I would be interested in reading about this.

So here's a quick, non-photo, explanation of how I did the oil wash.

Supplies needed:
2 small cups
Mineral spirits
Some oil paint (I used "lamp black" because I wanted it to be a black wash)
A small brush
A fair number of q-tips
Paper towels

First, hit your models with a gloss coat, it will allow the wash to flow better and provide the underlying paint with protection from the mineral spirits. Careful not to overdo it on the glosscoat because you may accidentally obscure details.

So first you take some mineral spirits into a cup, not a super large amount, I actually was using one of those little 6 bowl pallets. Then you take a dab of the oil paint and mix it into the mineral spirits. Test the mixture on some paper towels, you want it to be dark but not super dark and you want it to flow fairly easily. Its something you're going to need to tinker with. Once you've got the mixture where you want it, take your smaller brush and dab the wash onto the panel lines/recesses you want the wash to affect. It should flow easily via capillary action and fill in all those lines. Its okay that some of the wash remains on top as well. One of the nice things about this method of washing is that it stays workable for about a day (so I've been told, but I can verify that its workable for 6 hours atleast). Once you've hit a your targets, then put some fresh mineral spirits in the second cup. Dip a q-tip into the cup and then remove most of the spirits using a papertowel, you only want a slight moistness to the q-tip. Then take the q-tip and gently swipe the spots where there was excess wash and it will clean it up. You'll notice also at this step that the first swipe, while removing some of the wash, also creates a great streaking effect and you can achieve some really nice weathering effects using the oil wash technique. Mineral spirits will eat their way through the gloss coat over time, its one of the reasons you don't want too much on the qtip, the other reason is that with only a slightly damp qtip you will pull less wash out of the recesses with each swipe. Once you've gotten to a point you're happy with, I've left mine sit for a few hours and let things dry then I hit it all with a gloss coat to seal and protect it and then once I was completely finished with the model I hit it with a matte coat to remove the shine.

I did all this for the first time on the ships in those pictures and loved the results. Definitely test on a model you don't care as much about first. You don't want to risk your paintjob on your favorite ship. I tested everything on the cruiser without silver turrets first before any other ship.

There are some really good videos on youtube explaining the oil washes and will give you a better idea about what I am trying to say here. I think I found them searching for pin wash oil wash. While I feel I gave a good set of instructions here in this post, I highly recommend watching some videos first just to have a visual of what to do and expect.

Share your results if you actually try it!

Yes, as soon as I got my hands of FSA ships I knew that a good oil wash would be the way to go with them.