After having finished building this guy last time, it was time to add paint. I talked with some friends, some of whom recommended maybe masking off the ISD and leaving the stock paint job, considering my last attempt at painting a space ship went very very poorly. I took the bull by the balls and primed it anyway, and prayed for deliverance.
I wanted to use my airbrush again, and wanted to wait for a solid block of time to do that (like a weekend, with less toddler-related interruptions over nap time). So I did brush painting on the ISD. It’s a fairly easy scheme:
- Codex Grey base
- Fortress Grey edging on all the panels, and a little drybrushing when the panels got to small.
- Ulthuan Grey, same as Fortress.
- Nuln Oil in the vertical parts and to start building some shadows.
And that’s it! I didn’t want to over do it, as it’s stuck in sand and painting the desert would add some more colours to it.
Next up, airbrushing.
I have a love-hate with my airbrush. I’ve always felt like I could do some cool things with it, but more often than not I’m trying and failing. I needed this to work, and I barely even know why!
I bought an obscene amount of GW airbrush paints, because the GW is half a block from my house, found some time that my wife wouldn’t be annoyed by the sound, and got busy. I started by using a mid-tone colour all over, then highlighted up and shaded down with paint, rather than washes/glazes/etc.
For the first time (maybe) I felt like the airbrush was working with me instead of against me! I’m super happy with how this stage went, and even had a couple moments where I felt like I was building a cool gradient on some of the hills by lightly dusting just a little bit, pulling the trigger back a little less in places and more in other places. You know, like I knew how to use the damn thing!
While doing this, as I mention above, I made sure to add some dust and dirt colouring to the ISD.
I wasn’t super happy with the ending highlight colour, I wish it was more yellow and less white, but it has it’s charm, and I think trying to fix it much at this point would have taken more time and effort and risk really messing it up!
Airbrushing done, I started going in with a brush in places. I did a bunch of washes to deepen some shadows with a Fuegan Orange and Drakenhof Nightshade. I painted the edges of the board to make it classy.
In the middle of all this, I took part in two other hobbies I picked up since Christmas. My in-laws got me a beer making kit, so I bottled some “Canadian Blonde” that had been fermenting since I got back. And my in-laws got my wife a bread maker, which is really a gift for me, and I made a honey nut loaf which is fucking fantastic.
At this point on the board, it’s about letting your eyes glaze over a bit, and “feeling” where paint needs to go. The board is done, but when you go all magic-eye on it, you can see places where it makes less sense, or the shading isn’t good or correct (or you forgot).
This is about when I put some ships and squadrons on it again to take a couple more photos of some space ships flying above a wreck!
Next post will be some close-ups of places, and I’m hoping the one after that will be a Prime tournament report which has me winning a ticket to Armada Worlds!
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