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Hi all,

For one of my future projects, i'm looking at a set of Scarab Occult Terminators, and maybe that'll be my way into playing Killteam too!
I plan to paint the blue first, with white and dark blueish grey highlights and shadows, then cover all in Daler Rowney Sun-up perleascent Ink(i need to test on a mini fist, but i think it looks promising).

Then the idea was to mask these areas and spray all the fancy gold, using some black and copper undercoats to create shadows. Probably enamels, but if the masking liquid doesn't take well to them i'll go the acrylics (Vallejo) way.

I do have a big pot of Vallejo masking liquid, but it's nearly impossible to get into the tiny crevices and around the small details of the kits. Was considering applying a gloss coat over the blue, and then using some masking agent that's super runny, sort of like a wash? would anyone know of such a brand, or ever used? Much like the oils run on gloss coats, if it makes sense?

I believe that's the only way i can make it work, short of painting the gold by hand (i'm terrible at blending so painting blue by hand is out of the question :| )
Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Shamelessly pushing this to the top before the weekend in hopes the right person tried something different and will see this.

As an update, i did try to spread Vallejo mask over gloss coats either with a rubber brush or with a toothpick in the more difficult areas, and to no avail. Rubbing the mask off showed pretty bad coverage

Have you looked at GSW's airbrush masking putty? I use that and just push it where I want it to go... never had a problem with it.

Haven’t heard of it before, but i checked the videos on their website now and i already use blutac in the same way.

But that’s pretty solid and looks difficult to put around small details, i was hoping a liquid might go better.

At the moment i’m considering just spraying it all gold, than base painting blue amd highlighting white, then applying some ink to shade it all

 ciuncky wrote:
Haven’t heard of it before, but i checked the videos on their website now and i already use blutac in the same way.

But that’s pretty solid and looks difficult to put around small details, i was hoping a liquid might go better.

At the moment i’m considering just spraying it all gold, than base painting blue amd highlighting white, then applying some ink to shade it all

it's more like a runny silly putty than blue tac. Almost like Gak. Though I should mention that it isn't going to make it so you never have to blend with your brush. It might help though?

Why is the vallejo mask not covering the small details? Its a liquid so you should just be able to paint it on? I've used Humbrol Maskol on minis before painted on to cover small areas, but it looks like it has a similar consistency to the vallejo liquid mask.

I'm a big GSW fan but I don't like the masking putty, I find if you leave it on too long (10mins) it settles into the pours of the paint and leaves behind a speckled residue that's a nightmare to remove. Generally I find that a steady brush hand is far more time saving than masking, but that's just me opinion.

I use Gunze Mr Masking Sol. I imagine it's the same as the other masking liquids, it's quite thin initially and you can manipulate it into crevices, but it dries very quickly to a rubbery finish making it hard to detail work that requires any amount of time to do.

I've also found it's hard to get a nice sharp edge with it, masking tape gives you a bit of edge where the paint can break away cleanly when the mask is removed, but the masking liquid tends to tear the paint as it's removed. I tried to use it for airbrushed flame jobs but found it left a ragged edge.

 maxwin wrote:
I'm a big GSW fan but I don't like the masking putty, I find if you leave it on too long (10mins) it settles into the pours of the paint and leaves behind a speckled residue that's a nightmare to remove. Generally I find that a steady brush hand is far more time saving than masking, but that's just me opinion.

I second this sentiment exactly. I tried the whole concept of masking putty and now I only really use it for huge projects like painting masks or prop swords and such because I find that the small stuff gets screwed up by masking for the most part. Or at least I can't get it to seamlessly work when I can use a brush with precision in less time.

Freya wrote:

 ciuncky wrote:
Haven’t heard of it before, but i checked the videos on their website now and i already use blutac in the same way.

But that’s pretty solid and looks difficult to put around small details, i was hoping a liquid might go better.

At the moment i’m considering just spraying it all gold, than base painting blue amd highlighting white, then applying some ink to shade it all

it's more like a runny silly putty than blue tac. Almost like Gak. Though I should mention that it isn't going to make it so you never have to blend with your brush. It might help though?

Thanks, i might give it a try for other projects. At the moment i’m trying to work on my airbrushing skills so wet blending and brush work are taking a bit of a back step…

bantha_beast wrote:Why is the vallejo mask not covering the small details? Its a liquid so you should just be able to paint it on? I've used Humbrol Maskol on minis before painted on to cover small areas, but it looks like it has a similar consistency to the vallejo liquid mask.

I’ve tried it before, back in the day when i was painting aircraft. It seemed perfect for large flat surfaces, but didn’t seem to take well to weird shapes? Unless they changed their mix in the past 8-9 years?

maxwin wrote:I'm a big GSW fan but I don't like the masking putty, I find if you leave it on too long (10mins) it settles into the pours of the paint and leaves behind a speckled residue that's a nightmare to remove. Generally I find that a steady brush hand is far more time saving than masking, but that's just me opinion.

I agree, a steady hand is better than masking fluids. Sadly i can’t buy said steady hand, haha. But yeah, i had big issues with cleanup before, made me swear i won’t use it in the future. Oh well, how the turntables……

AllSeeingSkink wrote:I use Gunze Mr Masking Sol. I imagine it's the same as the other masking liquids, it's quite thin initially and you can manipulate it into crevices, but it dries very quickly to a rubbery finish making it hard to detail work that requires any amount of time to do.

I've also found it's hard to get a nice sharp edge with it, masking tape gives you a bit of edge where the paint can break away cleanly when the mask is removed, but the masking liquid tends to tear the paint as it's removed. I tried to use it for airbrushed flame jobs but found it left a ragged edge.

I found the same issues with Vallejo. When you inevitably touch a point where you applied the liquid before and it cured, it will peel off the thin straight line thay was before and make a mess of it all. It also tears it when removing the rubber, but what i found to be helpful is to run a pin/toothpick around the edges to break the paint, and only after that peel it off. It’s still a messy job and will require touching up.




Much appreciation for all the inputs. I’m considering an alternative way of doing it by brush, just waiting for a perleascent blue ink to arrive to give the whole scheme a try and check coverage