 By Craig, on May 14th, 2012 The first tank was a frenzy of trying techniques out – a slap-dash variety of colours and layers of the dry pigments, maybe a dullcoat layer, some blotted paint, another layer of blotted paint, an attempt at rusting that still needs to be fixed. I require order, and so this was the first tank to attempt to bring the process into something manageable.
The tank body itself got 4 dry pigment layers in total. Dark Earth on all of the sides, and high up. Green Earth slightly less high up. Dark Yellow slightly less high up, and then one more Dark Yellow to fill in where it wasn’t bright enough. Then I did a dullcoat layer – the idea of this was to “matte out” the ugly splotch lines of the pigment fixer, and it worked great! Lastly I did a single layer of blotted Codex Grey with a piece of foam. On the previous tank I felt that a layer of Fortress Grey made it to bright, so I took that out.
A few other odds and ends: two layers of rust dry pigments on all of the metal bits, black exhaust from the exhaust vents, and a few carefully lined places of pure Mithril Silver where the vehicle occupants would have had some recent use of it.
There are a few things I don’t like about this tank, which I hope to fix in the next iteration. I’d love to hear about if you don’t mind these things, and if you think anything else could fix a fix.
- The yellow is only really intense on the underside of the armor plates. Is that really realistic?
- The Dark and Green Earth is really really super faint and needs more strength to it.
- The front plate, I blotted a bit to high up.
- Don’t take photos on a reflective surface…I just put that glass in the table the other day and forgot.
- If I’m going to take a straight-on photo, make sure the tank is straight. If I’m taking a diagonal photo, make sure the tank is diagonal. That last photo is just irritating me.
Derrick mentioned that the grey/yellow dirt thing didn’t look right, but honestly I’m really liking it. I’m thinking it’s ancient dirt from an ancient world, and new dirt from the new world (all of my Ork bases are grey). He thought that was to much explanation, that I should keep it simple. Problem is…I think it’s a great looking contrast.  What do you think?
And since my Dukie requested full-on photos, I have a few full-model photos in addition to the macro shots I’ve been taking recently.
Thanks for reading!
By Craig, on April 29th, 2012 I’ve “finished” weathering my first tank. It’ll probably never actually be done, and the goblins on top need a little bit more love before I’ll be really happy with it, but I’m happy with the end result of the weathering job.
I believe that the last time I left photos, I wasn’t pleased with how the dry pigments were working out. I fixed that in a really simple way – add more weathering, of a different sort. I took foam bits and splattered on a gray colour, and I think it looks pretty sharp.
What do you think?
By Craig, on April 28th, 2012 Those who have been paying attention for a year or more will have noticed that I’ve tried just about every technique for doing macro photography that didn’t involve actually buying a macro lens. The only macro lens for my camera system is the Panasonic Leica 45mm, a lens that I’m sure is absolutely lovely if not for the heavy $1200 price tag on it. I’m really enjoying miniature photography, but I’m not enjoying it to the tune of that price!
The first plan was reversing the lens. There are reversal adapters you can buy, but this was such a shitty solution that it didn’t merit any more thought. Next I bought an extension tube, a $20 investment that did ok, but my selection of lenses at the time didn’t have enough range – just about every photo had the subject almost touching the lens. Lastly I picked up the Panasonic 100-300m. Combined with the extension tubes, this did a decent job. I had to hold the massive lens+adapter rig, and I still didn’t have auto-focus or aperture control, but it produced acceptable photos.
I was reading a photography blog and after a conversation with the author, it turns out that if you use an adapter, all Four Thirds lenses are compatible with my Micro Four Thirds camera, with electronic control and everything. The downside is that autofocus was “very slow”, whatever that meant. With this information, now I had a whole new system of lenses that I could look at!
I ended up Craigslisting an Olympus MMF-2 adapter for $80, and picked up the much more reasonably priced Olympus 35mm macro for 43 (only $230!) and now, finally, I have a fully functioning macro photography system.
It’s a little slow on the focus though. Thankfully, miniatures don’t move around so I can afford to wait. I played with it tonight a bit, and it’s wonderful to use! Set apertures for depth of field, pin-point exactly where I want the auto-focus to sharpen, and my tripod can hold the entire rig up! Now I need more lights…and a good place to put them.
I’ll have some photos to share sometime this weekend, but for now…sleep!
By Craig, on April 4th, 2012 This will probably be a lengthy series, since I’m only just starting and I’ve got a lot of tanks that need a little touch-up. By “touch-up” I mean, making them look like someone has beaten the everliving shit out of them.
A quick update today showing what happened when I put a yellow earth pigment on and then just dullcoated over top of it.
It looks like the dullcoat spritz put dots in the pigments. I think I like it here, but on the tank sides it isn’t so great.
So I’m fixing it…by adding more paint! More photos later.
By Craig, on April 2nd, 2012 It’s been a while since I took this class and wrote these notes. So this should be pretty short, as I flail and desperately trying to figure out what my notes meant. Click the continue to see some cool pictures and laugh at my recall!
Continue reading Masterclass 2 – Day 2
By Craig, on April 1st, 2012 I haven’t yet gotten around to writing the final day of my Masterclass posts, so you wouldn’t have read about my experiences with dry pigments. (It’s still on my todo list!) But there is a minor story that goes along with this post. These first two paragraphs are just preamble – head below the jump/line to read the interesting part.
I leave the class and immediately head to Secret Weapon Miniatures to purchase dry pigments. Out of all of the techniques we learned for vehicles, I felt like this one was the most accessible and the most generally useful for what I wanted to do – mess up some Ork trukks! Upon navigating to the web site I was presented with a staggering array of colour options…I tried to pick and choose the ones that I thought I’d need, only to order every colour they had. $100US and several weeks later, I have the pigments.
You also need a pigment fixer in order to ensure that the stuff stays adhered to the model. I was told that Burnaby Hobbies stocked it, so I went there…only to find that they had sold out. And apparently this stuff can’t be air mailed, so they weren’t expecting a shipment for some time. I asked a few people, did some research and randomly called Strategies on the off chance they had some…Darren told me that they had one bottle left, so I rushed over on my lunch break to grab it!
Head below the jump to read about the pigments, using them, what I liked, what I didn’t like and questions that I have!
Continue reading Playing with dry pigments
By Craig, on March 5th, 2012 Airbrushes have an odd mystique about them. Some people say “that’s not fair, he cheated and used an airbrush!” Some people try to use them as the sole method of painting. But an airbrush is just a tool, and it can only really speed up something that you were trying to do anyway. He painted a solid base/shade/highlight in about 10 minutes, which took us 3-4 hours to get done right. They have a steep learning curve. Be prepared to swear for at least 2 months.
Just about every airbrush brand has a good model, so don’t worry so much about that. Except for Testors/Aztek, which apparently have some technical flaws to them. You want a dual-action airbrush, so you can control airflow through the brush. You want a top/gravity-fed airbrush so you can use less paint. Side-feed are ok too, but with siphon/bottom-fed you have to mix a lot of paint in order to get the little hose to be able to suck on the paint. You want a brush that can have a nozzle somewhere between 0.15 and 0.6 size. 0.4 or lower is preferred for our uses.
Compressors should put out 15-30psi and have a regulator so you can control the amount of air coming from it. You can use a cheaper power tool compressor, but you’ll have to buy an adapter and a regulator and probably an extra water trap since they put out a lot of heat. One with a tank is nice since it only has to run when the tank depressurizes. Otherwise the compressor is only good for about 45 minutes before it overheats. His cost $1500!
A few accessories of note:
- A quick connect adapter means you can detach the airbrush pretty easily for cleaning or changing paints.
- An airbrush holder lets you put the brush down for a moment.
- A cleaning kit.
He took apart his airbrush for cleaning. Remove the back, pull the needle out without bending it. Remove the front and the nozzle. Use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip to clean everything and inside the metal casing of the brush. The nozzle can get clogged, so there is a tiny little accessory to poke out the clog. When done painting, put thinner in the bowl and spray it until clean. Brush out the bowl and do it again. Then it’s ready for the next colour.
You can buy airbrush specific paint, but GW/P3 paints work out ok if you thin properly. It can clog the nozzle, so watch out. He creates a thinner that is 85% water and 15% isopropyl alcohol. Mix that 1 part paint to 5 parts thinner.
Then use the same techniques as painting with a brush – use a succession of thin layers. He painted on a base colour, then shaded to black, then highlighted to white. Mask off areas you don’t want covered with paint, let it dry before the next coat and spray away from the tape in case it isn’t stuck down completely.
Just before we finished he passed the model around and someone commented that his base colour was almost gone. He agreed and then thinned out some of the base colour and sprayed it all cover the work he’d just finished, creating a pre-blended piece of work that looked great!
By Craig, on March 4th, 2012 This weekend of Masterclass Painting is about vehicles. We’re painting a Dark Eldar Helion glider thing (no rider). This morning started at 9am, and we immediately got into base coating, shading and highlighting this model. We had lunch in the middle and at about 1pm we got into the meat of the new material – various weathering techniques. After dinner we talked about airbrushing for a few hours and then ended the evening, exhausted, at 9pm.
Tomorrow we start again at 9am and I think we’re going to get into basing. But for now, hit the jump and we’ll take a look at some of what we did today!
Continue reading Masterclass Painting 2 – Day 1
By Craig, on February 28th, 2012 Day 2 started out pretty well – I caught the right bus, I knew where I was going, I found a McDicks to get a McGriddle at (praise the evil genius who invented the McGriddle!), I ate breakfast with a fellow painter who was pretty awesome and then we walked to the shop to get our paint on!
We waited for a bit. 9am rolls around, which is when the event starts and we think “Oh well, the keyholder just slept in a bit, no big deal.” Everyone is pretty cool. Another 15…then another…then it’s 50 minutes later and we’re trying to figure out how to get ahold of the guy so we can get into the shop!
The fellow is found and is properly apologetic and we get excited to finally get our thing going. And then…we find…that the door lock has been glued shut. As in, the key hole has been filled with glue. The kind of glue that fills a hole really good, and then sticks really good. Curses, frustration…and resignation. It’s going to be a while to get a locksmith over to fix it…so a bunch of us head to the toy shop across the way (convenient, really).
If you ever get a chance to go into Toy Traders in Langley (God help you if you need to be in Langley…) I highly recommend it. Fantastic toy shop! Board games, barbie dolls, massive sections of comics and collectible action figures and LEGO and Brio and building blocks and if you look up, the owners of the store clearly have a hard-on for Star Wars. Awesome shop.
At about 11am we get into the store and get going. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to cover it in. We order pizza in, and we ended up skipping the last section of the class. Sadness. 
Continue reading Masterclass Painting 1 – Day 2
By Craig, on February 27th, 2012  17 people at Game Stars in Langley! It was a few months ago, probably at Astronomi-con, that Mr. Dyer mentioned organizing painting classes in Vancouver. I said yes, please, that sounds great! I have been looking forward to these classes for months now. My painting style has grown, I think dramatically, in the last year or two and the chance to take a class to try to solidify some new skills wasn’t one I was going to pass up. The downside – this is the busiest February I’ve ever had, I’m moving, I’ve had a few weekends packed up, and now I have two complete weekends filled with painting classes. I don’t regret it…but the timing is poor.
The teacher for the weekend is Mathieu Fontaine (Blog) – a winner of multiple Golden Demon awards (that’s good), a phenomenal painter, and a general bastard (in a good way). It turns out that he’s also a phenomenal teacher – able to explain difficult concepts while jet lagged, with a friendly and patient attitude. I would recommend him.
I took some notes while we went, and I took some photos. I painted for about 20 hours, and I didn’t finish the model. (No one did – that wasn’t the point). I learned some lessons about photography while I was at it. Hit the jump to read my (cleaned up) notes, and see some photos!
Continue reading Masterclass Painting 1 – Day 1
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pigment.apply Pictures of models, posted in an attempt at motivating everyone to paint more models. It's a vicious cycle, you know.
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