My Stormraven Gunship is done! I painted it entirely using the new Citadel Brushes except for primer (obviously) and initial basecoat, which was done with Mephiston Red through an airbrush. However, everything received at least 1 basecoat with a paintbrush anyhow -- otherwise, some parts would have look more satiny than others.
I will post up a few finished pictures, and then some bits, and give my final two bits worth on the Citadel brushes
First, the finished gunship:
I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. I ended up really liking the medium basecoat brush (surprisingly!), as it gives great control and brushstroke free results. The "7" and "2" are painted with that brush, by the way (and like 15 layers of paint). The Large and XL base brushes were ok, but not fantastic. They tend to separate, and you have to fix them on a palette. I prefer my 1/4 and 1/2 flats. The small basecoat brush I didn't really like.
You can see the drybrushes really in action with all the weathering on this model. They are FANTASTIC. I absolutely love them, though I really, really wanted to go back to the old Citadel Large Drybrush at times, with the longer bristles. I went and bought a whole bunch of the drybrushes, since it's impossible to be efficient with your time with one drybrush (waiting for it to dry out as you change paints).
The wash and glaze brushes were great!!! All of the muddy bits were done using the medium wash brush, and the large wash brush was very efficient at doing a wash for the interior and the bottom of the stormraven (I was pretty impressed with how quick it went). I used the glaze brush to wash the recesses on the visible facings. Here is what some of the results look like with the glaze brush, and the wash brush being used to glaze bigger pieces:
The Artificer brush felt really good when I tested it, but boy, I was nervous with this puppy when it came to the fine details. Once upon a time, I used to paint "hard" parts like eyes first, right onto black primer, so that if something went wrong, I wouldn't blow all the time already spent on the rest of the model. I haven't done that *forever* now -- things like eyes I do after the wash now, so that I don't accidentally stain the whites. And besides, I'm very confident that 99.99% of the time, I'll get exactly what I want, first try; and the other 0.01% of the time I can fix. But a new brush? That changes everything, even if it's a good brush. Hell, even if it's a GREAT brush.
Normally, I use a Raphael 8404 6/0 brush to do the very fine details, but I resolved to use only the Artificer brush. Because I wasn't sure which head I wanted on my models, I did a bunch. First, the results:
Huzzah! The artificer brush worked! There was 1 eye that I had to clean up, but that's just me not being used to the tool, not a reflection of the tool. It was actually pretty good, giving me the same kind of results I could get with my trusty 6/0, albeit with a little more work. As you can see in the lenses, eyes, and headlights, it's an accurate enough brush to make tiny brushstrokes where you want, when it matters. Like the Raphael 8404 2/0 and 0 brushes, this brush had a tendency to leave me with a long tail at the end of the bristle, which I don't like. But anyhow, it's a champ brush. It won't unseat either my Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes, or my 8404 6/0, but if they weren't available, I'd be happy with Artificer brushes. It's really too bad this didn't come in a size 0 as well; I really, REALLY wanted to use a good size 0 when I painted the space marine on the side:
I grew to rather despise the two layer brushes -- not really because they're awful but because they're far inferior to a W&N Series 7 -- so I ended up painting WAY too much of detailing of the space marine using the Artificer brush
As you can see, that turned out ok-ish too. Because he's hanging off the side of the Stormraven, I didn't bother with some of the details like squiggles on the purity scrolls, because you can't see them anyhow. Still, I didn't really cut any corners with the space marine -- there 3-layer highlights on all the power armored parts, and all the little details are done.
One last thing -- the big round scenery brush (that looks like the old tank brush) has hard bristles. Don't use it to clean your models, because it will LITERALLY take a layer of paint off! I was using it to clean any dust off the stormraven one morning and noticed the tip was getting red!
LOL. On the other hand, this could be useful when done intentionally, perhaps to take off some sheen from a shiny paint.
So, in the final analysis?
These brushes are winners: M Base, M/L Shade, S/M/L Drybrush, Artificer
These brushes are OK: L/XL Base, Glaze
And these brushes are not nice: S Base, S/M Layer. I think, the two scenery brushes are pretty crappy brushes, too, but I don't know for sure, and will probably never find out.
Thanks for reading, and any comments or criticism on my Stormraven is appreciated
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I actually wanted to use the respirator head, but when I put it on the Stormraven, it is too visible and steals too much attention. That was originally my last choice for head. The purity scrolls, you literally can't see once the fella is mounted, because the angle he sits at. I also ran out of space on my wet palette and didn't want to start a new one, because everything was done, hahaha.