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That looks so f#cking awesome. Keep up the amazing work sir.

Good work on the sniper. Looks great.
Good call to change the paint on the cloak and good choice of scheme.
Like the use of an eagle as a pin for the cloak too.

What colors would you suggest for vehicle armor chipping? Like an eshin grey or a metal like leadbelcher?

MagosBiff90 wrote:Great work buddy! Very nice effect! And totally agree... sponework is the path! I REALLY need to get some models topaint! I feel my wallet may soon resent you!

Sponges FTW! Your wallet can resent all it likes, it won't change anything! MOOHAHAHA!

shasolenzabi wrote:Amazing how you get the armor looking old and beaten a biyt, scuffed and rusted.

Cheers! I much prefer the armour of marines to look "lived-in"

Zambro wrote:Truely jelous of your ability to make armour look worn and gritty. Got any advice? The chipping effects I'm painting on my imperial fists look a bit too artificial.

Also, that cloak is great. How'd you come up with that scheme?

Less is more when it comes to damage (something I'm still getting to grips with myself!). Concentrate any damage around the backpack, hands/forearms, knees and feet.

The cloak scheme is based (loosely) on WW2 era German Oakleaf pattern. I used this as a guide:

http://www.timelinesforum.com/index.php?page=oakleaf1

RBeijers wrote:That looks so f#cking awesome. Keep up the amazing work sir.

Thank you, I shall definitely try!

Dr H wrote:Good work on the sniper. Looks great.
Good call to change the paint on the cloak and good choice of scheme.
Like the use of an eagle as a pin for the cloak too.

Thanks, the pin was the only form of insignia I felt I could give him since he's based on a faceless killer (though I've changed his name to fit my own Greek-styled naming system, he's still an Exodus at heart )

Ustrello wrote:What colors would you suggest for vehicle armor chipping? Like an eshin grey or a metal like leadbelcher?

I personally prefer to go for a non-metallic colour to make it look like the chips have gone down to the primer, rather than the bare metal. I actually use a 2B pencil for the bare betal areas on tracks and the edges of armour.

I think a nice little tutorial on how you achieve your armour look would be most appreciated!

MagosBiff90 wrote:I think a nice little tutorial on how you achieve your armour look would be most appreciated!

Haha, is that right? Well I suppose I could do a simple step-by-step:

INFANTRY

1. Depending on what colour your actual armour is going to be will determine what colour you use for the base coat- you want something complimentary. For my white armoured marines, I used VMC Black Brown as this provides a colour which isn't black but appears so. It is also important to note that if you are wanting a similar effect to white armour that I have achieved, my marines aren't "white": they are just off-white with pure white used as a highlight colour. Anyhoo, after you prime your model, painted the armour, highlighted it and done all the fancy bits, you need a sponge and a fine brush.

2. Grab your trusty sponge and tear it up! It can be a make-up sponge or you can grab an old dishwashing sponge like me, because I'm Scottish and tight (supposedly). Different sponges give different effects. Tearing up the sponge will give you interesting shapes and will affect how much paint adheres to the model in different places. Take your chosen contrasting colour, dip the sponge in and dab the excess paint off on a palette or some kitchen roll (paper towels to our American people). Now you need to think about where damage will occur- usually on the hands and forearms, feet and lower legs and on the backpack in the case of marines. Carefull dab the sponge onto the edges and raised areas.

3. If you want to add in extra details like longer scratches from grazing shots or knives/swords/claws, take your detail brush in the contrasting colour and apply. Because of the more deliberate nature of this type of damage, it will be deeper and so you will need to highlight them- take your armour highlight colour and apply around the bottom edge of the scratch to give the impression of depth. This can be done on larger areas of the sponged damage if you so wish.

4. You can leave it there if you like or you can add a bit extra in the form of grim and rust. I use AK Interactive Streaking Grime and Streaking Rust. Before applying, you must seal your model with varnish- satin is best for this process. Take the streaking effect and apply a small amount to the area of damage and allow it to dry.

5. Once dry, take a flat stubby brush (not a nice new one, old and manky will do), dip it in some thinners (I use Tamiya thinner), take off any excess and drag the bristles from the area of damage in the direction you see fit.

6. Grab a cup of tea.

7. If you want to go even further, you can add pigments. I have a couple from AK Interactive and a few from basecraftsupplies (who I think have gone bust but never mind...). Take an old brush (I have a minging old GW Standard brush I use for this purpose), lift out your pigments and dab them on the area to be affected. You will immediately notice them go everywhere. Manipulate the powder any way you see fit. You can then use pigment fixer (again, I use AK) or thinners to fix them in place.

8. Grab another cuppa and maybe a chocolate digestive (Hobnob if you like to dunk).

That step by step is very helpful, thanks!

Will be putting that to use on the Fists.

Much obliged to you good sir!

No worries! I hope you all find success with it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finished. Sorry for the bad pictures- I suck at photography...

After an epic bout of NERD-RAGE, I have decided to return my airbrush. Air escaping from the front, bubbles in the colour cup and intermittent spraying regardless of how clean the bloody thing was made me call it a day. Rather miffed about it all to be honest especially when two of my friends have the exact same AB and haven't had this trouble. Will see what the store says, no doubt they'll recommend new nozzles and various other stuff that I don't really need to buy but that's life.

Anyhoo, hobby is on hold until I can stomach looking at it again. In the interim I'm going to try and source a new lamp and daylight bulb. Rymans have a swing-arm lamp that takes ES bulbs so I'll see if I can get a daylight bulb from Maplin up the street.

All in all, not terribly enthused to do anything at the moment.

Hey mate, Sorry to hear that about the AB... that's pretty s$%&*y! Even if it is a one off "faulty" unit It can really put you off the whole thing...

hope ya get back in the groove soon!

Take it easy,

Sounds faulty to me, I'd take it back and insist on a replacement/refund. If it's an actual gaming store you got it from, rather than just a craft/hobby store, see if you can take it to the store for a quick demo of how wrong it's going, and either they will replace it or know what the fix is, so it's a win-win.

Hope you get it sorted.

Oh, and forgot to say, the Marine is epic!

That scheme and it's execution is fething orgasmic! The things i'd do to see some of those beauties in real life... awwwhhh

MagosBiff90 wrote:Hey mate, Sorry to hear that about the AB... that's pretty s$%&*y! Even if it is a one off "faulty" unit It can really put you off the whole thing...

hope ya get back in the groove soon!

Take it easy,

Thanks Magos, I'll spend the weekend building stuff rather than painting

Paradigm wrote:Sounds faulty to me, I'd take it back and insist on a replacement/refund. If it's an actual gaming store you got it from, rather than just a craft/hobby store, see if you can take it to the store for a quick demo of how wrong it's going, and either they will replace it or know what the fix is, so it's a win-win.

Hope you get it sorted.

Oh, and forgot to say, the Marine is epic!

I'm sure I'll find out what's wrong with it soon enough. Thanks for the comment, I just wish my photography was better!

lipsdapips wrote:That scheme and it's execution is fething orgasmic! The things i'd do to see some of those beauties in real life... awwwhhh

Haha! Well he will be joined by a Headhunter Kill-team just as soon as they are built and painted

Received a Master of Signal yesterday. I plan on using the Alpha Legion Rite of War, using Iron Havocs with Autocannons as an Elites and outflanking them in a Rhino with the Master of Signal... Could make for a funny (if expensive) unit.

 shasolenzabi wrote:
That tank reminds me of the Medium Mk-III in reverse!

Exactly the Vickers Mark Three could be remade as Leman Russ if it has bigger main gun

If you look at Sicarian. look at anything abit more fictional. the GDI Predator MBT from C&C3

A bit of hobbying on the base this evening:

Breaking hobby news:

Airbrush is now fixed and should be back with me tomorrow. The reason for the bubbles? Apparently the air cap wasn't on tight enough. Now I don't doubt that they have managed to fix it however I think that the instructions of "finger tight" in the manual are highly subjective if this is the case. I used pliers to tighten the air cap and still got the bubbles (even when I PTFE'd the bottom of the nozzle to create a better seal).

Anyhoo, here's hoping it's good to go. I highly recommend The Spraygun Company, Tim has been exemplary in tackling the issue and I will definitely be using his company again.

In other news, I will endeavour to get the Dread finished this evening and start work on the Recon Marines and Master of Signal- I have some OSL work I'd eventually like to try out on him.

Glad ur airbrush is fixed mate , I'd be lost without mine !
You really do need to use them all the time to learn all the tricks that keep you painting rather than dis-assembling !
Took me ages cos I kept going back to the brush till I got curious to see what you can actually do with one !

I like your weathering method, very realistic rain/rust runs !

The dread is looking good so far!

Big H wrote:Glad ur airbrush is fixed mate , I'd be lost without mine !
You really do need to use them all the time to learn all the tricks that keep you painting rather than dis-assembling !
Took me ages cos I kept going back to the brush till I got curious to see what you can actually do with one !

I like your weathering method, very realistic rain/rust runs !

Thing is I tried pretty much everything suggested on forums and such, sending it back was a last resort so I don't know what to do should it happen again (which knowing my luck, it probably will as soon as I ulgrt it back). Anyway, glad you like the weathering!

Ustrello wrote:The dread is looking good so far!

Thanks

Good morning Dakka! After a wee hiatus I'm back on the Hobby Train on the way to Paintsilvania... I got myself a swing-arm lamp for my desk and some daylight bulbs plus I dug out and dusted off my Death Korps- they've been languishing in cardboard box purgatory for a good few months now and I decided they needed some attention.

So, I started off doing the white armour on some of the infantry models. I still have a ways to go:

- Assemble 14 and paint 20 Grenadiers
- Paint an Infantry Squad
- Paint Praetorian and Hellhound
- Paint Command HQ, Quartermaster and Artillerist
- Paint 3 Heavy Bolter Teams

I'm going to attempt to blast through the stuff I have already started painting. I'm going to add to the heavy weapon teams with more Heavy Bolters and Lascannons and I'll bung in a Thunderbolt if I'm feeling flush enough.

Glad to see the krieg coming back. Also daylight bulbs were the best investment I have made.

Really nice stuff in this thread. I'll be following this closely from now on. I love Actaeon and your bits of fluff are just brilliant. The weathering is awesome and not unlike the look I would like to achieve on my Alpha Legion. I may have to swipe some of your techniques.

Also looking forward to seeing more guardsmen. I love your SM, but the Kriegsmen are something really special.

Ustrello wrote:Glad to see the krieg coming back. Also daylight bulbs were the best investment I have made.

Thanks Ustrello. I'm happy to be working on them again- they make a nice change of pace from the Marines. Daylight bulbs are awesome!

Darth Bob wrote:Really nice stuff in this thread. I'll be following this closely from now on. I love Actaeon and your bits of fluff are just brilliant. The weathering is awesome and not unlike the look I would like to achieve on my Alpha Legion. I may have to swipe some of your techniques.

Also looking forward to seeing more guardsmen. I love your SM, but the Kriegsmen are something really special.

Many thanks Darth Bob, glad you're on board. I am thinking about some more fluff to accompany the updates of my Krieg, this time perhaps from their perspective? I'm going to paint the Hellhound and Praetorian together for the purposes of speed and consistency.

I managed to get two Heavy Bolter teams done:

Those are awesome! The red there really works as a spot colour, and the whole ensemble just comes together really well!

Thanks Paradigm I have one more to go and then I have a squad! Woop! Won't get anything done this evening as I'm at the ice hockey (Blaze vs Cardiff).

That marine stuff is pretty sweet but Im glad to see you are back to the Korps. Those guys look cold.

As always... impressive work! Love the white helmets and the bolters themselves are sweet!

Green with envy as always!

Cheers! I'm glad they have the desired effect. I'm not spending a great deal of time on the infantry (as you can probably tell) which is proving to be difficult- I don't have the time to spend hours painting individual Korpsmen and I'd never have a playable army so, as painful as it is, some corners have to be cut.
I will however be spending a little extra time on the Grenadiers and the HQ

Love the heavy bolter squads. I agree that the red is a good contrasting color against the relatively muted and dark scheme. You may have mentioned this before and I just missed it, but how exactly do you achieve that snow effect? It looks incredibly realistic.