Norman SAGA Commission - Hearthguard almost there
I had a productive night painting at the FLGS. While the rest of the club was playing games, Patrick and I sat and painted. For me that meant closing in on finishing the 12 Hearthguard Cavalry and the Warlord. I'm down to touch ups at this point. The Warlord's shield still needs to be finished off and the blue/white checked shield maybe re-done again. However, the riders are all mounted on their horses now and just about ready for the weapons to be added. Two of the horses tails have broken off, but I have been painting them to match so I should be okay there. One more night of painting ought to see this bunch finished off. I'll try and get the basing started on these guys tomorrow as well as trying to finish off the touch ups. After this comes the 8 Crossbowmen, 8 Spearmen and 12 Archers. For the most part that should be pretty straightforward.
Norman Saga Commission - The Horses
Well, after spending a whole weekend learning to use the airbrush, I figured I better put it to good use. So out came the horses for the three points of SAGA Hearthguard and the warlord, 13 horses. They were mounted up and primed white (and quite frankly, despite my grey primer leanings, black is a better primer for the airbrush sometimes with a shot or two of white primer over the top to really make things pop). I messed up the midtone initially (bad color choice) but easily overcame that since the airbrush paint goes on so thin. Overall I'm pleased with them at this point. They are down to brush work right now. I did airbrush the socks just to see if I could do that and really didn't have much problem with that. The black manes were tougher and that really will need the paint brush to finish up. I did one blaze but I think it will be better to do the blazes with the brush. Some are better than others but I'm still learning what I can and cannot do and what will work best with different things. I worked with Vallejo Model Air, Vallejo Panzer Aces, Flames of War (which I believe is just Vallejo Game Color re-packaged) and Reaper HD paints.
Here are tonights results:
Here are tonights results:
Airbrushing - My thoughts after the weekend
Two days of airbrushing class time is certainly going to influence how I approach painting from now on.
1) Once you are familiar with the equipment it doesn't take much longer to setup for airbrushing than it does for painting. That's just not even a valid argument against not pulling out the airbrush for me anymore. It does require some specialized tools and material but once you have them why shouldn't you use them?
2) Airbrushing saves time, a lot of time in most situations. Had I known completely what I was doing and not been experimenting as much the initial base coat, shading and highlighting that I did on the Nurgle Demon Prince could have been done in 30 - 45 minutes. That would have been an easy 2 hours with a brush. I'm not sure I could have matched the smoothness of that base coat with a brush either.
3) The first question to ask for any given project now is; how much of this can I airbrush?
4) An airbrush doesn't need a complete cleaning to change colors. Add clean water/alcohol in the cup, squirt through a few times, dumping the rest out of the cup and wiping the cup clean is just about all you need (white being somewhat of an exception). Add new paint, spray off the model till the color comes through and you are good to go. It does need to be stripped down and cleaned at the end of a session just like you would take care of any tool (you clean your paint brushes when you're done with them, right?). When coming back to start another paint session I found that it helps just to run a little bit of the water/alcohol mix through it just to prime the pump so to speak.
5) I can strip an airbrush blind folded now, well not really. I actually only had a couple of minor clogs over the weekend none of which actually required me to take the thing apart. Rocking the trigger back hard three or four times cleared most of the issues, if that didn't do it then I would actually pull the needle out of the way and do it again. Those two actions cleared it every time. However, the guy to my left (Derek) had a Paasche that he seemed to require a lot of attention and the guy to my right (Scott) had issues with his Harder & Steenbeck, until he changed his needle out from the .15 to the .4mm, after that he didn't have a problem.
6) I love my Iwata Eclipse (HP-CS), although I will definitely use the Harder & Steenbeck Infinity as well. This past weekend I wanted to concentrate using an airbrush I was familiar with.
7) The solution to use for both mixing up paints and cleaning the airbrush is about 10% Isopropyl Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, available at just about any major grocery store, department store or Walgreens equivalent) and 90% Distilled Water. Distilled Water is important to prevent non-paint build up inside your airbrush. Especially in areas with a high mineral content in the water, like Colorado.
8) Huge key, knowing when to stop using the airbrush and go in with the paint brush.
9) I haven't yet run across an acrylic paint that I can't send through the airbrush but some of them are a lot easier than others. This weekend I used; Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Model Air, Reaper Master Series and Reaper HDs. Other people around me were using regular Citadel and Citadel Foundation paints (none of the brand new stuff though). I have also managed to get craft paints through my airbrush (not a lot of fun though). My favorite of the bunch was definitely the Vallejo Model Air, it was just easier to work with and required very little thinning to get it working, makes sense, its designed for airbrushes. Both the Reaper lines were easy to work with too. Oh, and sadly Vallejo Model Color Smoke, does not like airbrushes, that gave more problems to Derek (on my left) than any other single color. It seems to just be a gritty paint.
10) All pigments are not the same. This is not in reference to any specific brands, just some colors are thicker and require more thinning than others. Other paints required (especially airbrush specific) required very little to almost no thinning.
11) Messing around with the PSI is over-rated. I left mine on 20psi the entire weekend, regardless of the paint I was using and they all behaved the same. I won't rule out that there will be times when I will need more or less pressure, but you certainly don't need to be adjusting it all the time.
12) You can thin your paint to much! If it is taking more than a couple of passes with the airbrush to build up the paint coverage then you need to add more paint to the mix.
13) Little bottles with good lids are your friends. Its much easier to mix up the paint you want in a small bottle/jar and then dump it into the airbrush cup than trying to mix it right in the cup. I bought two packs that each contained a dozen little plastic jars with lids for the second day and things went much smoother and quicker. If I was working my way through a bunch of figures (say my WWI US Marines) or vehicles I would go ahead and pre-mix the colors I needed in larger more sealable jars. The important thing to remember here is that everything still separates and you need to make sure the color you have pre-mixed is thoroughly mixed again before you pour it into the airbrush cup.
That's the stuff I learned this weekend. I'll be firing up the airbrush again tonight and looking forward to doing it rather than thinking of it as a chore.
1) Once you are familiar with the equipment it doesn't take much longer to setup for airbrushing than it does for painting. That's just not even a valid argument against not pulling out the airbrush for me anymore. It does require some specialized tools and material but once you have them why shouldn't you use them?
2) Airbrushing saves time, a lot of time in most situations. Had I known completely what I was doing and not been experimenting as much the initial base coat, shading and highlighting that I did on the Nurgle Demon Prince could have been done in 30 - 45 minutes. That would have been an easy 2 hours with a brush. I'm not sure I could have matched the smoothness of that base coat with a brush either.
3) The first question to ask for any given project now is; how much of this can I airbrush?
4) An airbrush doesn't need a complete cleaning to change colors. Add clean water/alcohol in the cup, squirt through a few times, dumping the rest out of the cup and wiping the cup clean is just about all you need (white being somewhat of an exception). Add new paint, spray off the model till the color comes through and you are good to go. It does need to be stripped down and cleaned at the end of a session just like you would take care of any tool (you clean your paint brushes when you're done with them, right?). When coming back to start another paint session I found that it helps just to run a little bit of the water/alcohol mix through it just to prime the pump so to speak.
5) I can strip an airbrush blind folded now, well not really. I actually only had a couple of minor clogs over the weekend none of which actually required me to take the thing apart. Rocking the trigger back hard three or four times cleared most of the issues, if that didn't do it then I would actually pull the needle out of the way and do it again. Those two actions cleared it every time. However, the guy to my left (Derek) had a Paasche that he seemed to require a lot of attention and the guy to my right (Scott) had issues with his Harder & Steenbeck, until he changed his needle out from the .15 to the .4mm, after that he didn't have a problem.
6) I love my Iwata Eclipse (HP-CS), although I will definitely use the Harder & Steenbeck Infinity as well. This past weekend I wanted to concentrate using an airbrush I was familiar with.
7) The solution to use for both mixing up paints and cleaning the airbrush is about 10% Isopropyl Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, available at just about any major grocery store, department store or Walgreens equivalent) and 90% Distilled Water. Distilled Water is important to prevent non-paint build up inside your airbrush. Especially in areas with a high mineral content in the water, like Colorado.
8) Huge key, knowing when to stop using the airbrush and go in with the paint brush.
9) I haven't yet run across an acrylic paint that I can't send through the airbrush but some of them are a lot easier than others. This weekend I used; Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Model Air, Reaper Master Series and Reaper HDs. Other people around me were using regular Citadel and Citadel Foundation paints (none of the brand new stuff though). I have also managed to get craft paints through my airbrush (not a lot of fun though). My favorite of the bunch was definitely the Vallejo Model Air, it was just easier to work with and required very little thinning to get it working, makes sense, its designed for airbrushes. Both the Reaper lines were easy to work with too. Oh, and sadly Vallejo Model Color Smoke, does not like airbrushes, that gave more problems to Derek (on my left) than any other single color. It seems to just be a gritty paint.
10) All pigments are not the same. This is not in reference to any specific brands, just some colors are thicker and require more thinning than others. Other paints required (especially airbrush specific) required very little to almost no thinning.
11) Messing around with the PSI is over-rated. I left mine on 20psi the entire weekend, regardless of the paint I was using and they all behaved the same. I won't rule out that there will be times when I will need more or less pressure, but you certainly don't need to be adjusting it all the time.
12) You can thin your paint to much! If it is taking more than a couple of passes with the airbrush to build up the paint coverage then you need to add more paint to the mix.
13) Little bottles with good lids are your friends. Its much easier to mix up the paint you want in a small bottle/jar and then dump it into the airbrush cup than trying to mix it right in the cup. I bought two packs that each contained a dozen little plastic jars with lids for the second day and things went much smoother and quicker. If I was working my way through a bunch of figures (say my WWI US Marines) or vehicles I would go ahead and pre-mix the colors I needed in larger more sealable jars. The important thing to remember here is that everything still separates and you need to make sure the color you have pre-mixed is thoroughly mixed again before you pour it into the airbrush cup.
That's the stuff I learned this weekend. I'll be firing up the airbrush again tonight and looking forward to doing it rather than thinking of it as a chore.
Airbrush Class with Aaron Lovejoy - Day Two
I didn't work on the Nurgle Demon Prince at all today. The airbrushing work is done on that one and I need to go in with the brush and finish the detailing. Today I concentrated on the vehicles I brought. Over all I'm fairly pleased with the results. Then I took pictures, there is nothing as unforgiving as looking at a picture blown up to 5x actual size. They are now at the point of needing brushwork to finish them off. Windows, headlights, tail lights, license plates and weathering, that sort of thing. I'm going to rust out the Soviet Lada Rivas pretty good. I'm undecided on how to finish off the rest. The Cougar MRAPs will get weathered and dusted up. For the most part it looks like Marine units keep their vehicles pretty clean. So here are the results from today:
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