More on the IF Drop Pod + Confessions of a Brush Killer

It's not much, but I finally found time to get around to painting more on the drop pod.  Like I said, not much.

All I did was start laying down a coat of P3 Thamar Black where I'm going to lay down metallic paint. This isn't the only part that'll be metal (thinking of P3 Pig Iron then some weathering/scorching from re-entry/dirt from landing effects).

Now to the confessions of a brush killer.  I usually used cheap crappy brushes because I mistreat my brushes.  Paint in the ferrules, splayed ends, all that junk.  I finally bought some higher quality brushes to help improve my skill.  I used a P3 small flat-brush (found at any webstore/FLGS who carries Privateer Press products) and I was using the Army Painter's Vehicle/Terrain brush.  TAP's brush was stiff, but it's about a quarter of an inch wide so the point is to lay down paint on large areas quickly.  I was quite impressed with the P3 brush and quickly found that I was abusing it by having black paint the first time I used it all the way in the ferrule; but there is redemption.  I picked up The Master's Brush Cleaner and Preserver and I may have found salvation for my brushes.  Here's a pic of the brushes and the cleaner.

Anti-climactic pic, I know.  I may update when I have more black down, or the update may come sometime this summer when I have some metallic down.  Thanks for reading.

Drop Pod-Theory not in Practice: Primed

Once again, I'm attempting some "under-painting" with my primer to get some built-in shading.  First, I primed it all white with P3 primer.  (I want the yellow to really be bright.)

I was going to flip it upside down and spray with Armory Gray primer at a 45 degree angle to get shading.  I was out of gray, so I used black.  A little too stark, but I'm experimenting anyway.

Now for the yellow:

I did a little more tweaking with the yellow, attempting to cover up the black so it looks less black and more of a deeper shade of yellow:

The yellow itself is TAP's Daemonic Yellow primer and may be too thick to properly do what I'm trying, but it looks like it's working.  I'll eventually find the right balance.  Now onto actually painting it. 

WIP Drop Pod: Works in Theory, not in Practice.

I used to enjoy shooting pool with the kids when I did group-home work.  It was something they could completely own me in, and for them, who rarely had any control over anything in their lives, schooling the program manager felt good.  I had my high school physics class, so I feel like I have good grasp on vectors and other junk.  So, I can see my shot, how it lines up, angles, etc....  Take the shot, and miss.  In theory, I can see what is supposed to happen, in practice, well, it doesn’t happen.  Thus, drop pods.
 
I have my first 40k vehicle, the drop pod.  Some days, I am too incompetent for this hobby, but....  I wanted this drop pod, one that I can have closed until troop deployment, then open on the battlefield; so line of sight, can be actual line of sight.  Tricksy little bugger to put together, I get close, and realize I put all the harnesses together wrong and glued them in backwards.  Awesome.  I break the harnesses out of the drop pod, and think, hmmm, now it’s the drop pod for my still half finished dreadnought.  Fiddling around with opening/shutting doors and I realize that a lot of things just aren’t lined up “right.”  I make the decision to chalk it up to first time drop pod assembly and decide to glue the doors shut.  Some things still don’t line up properly, but here is the assembled picture:

 

Not too shabby, now let’s go stretch my painting muscles.  The plan is for it to be an Imperial Fist drop pod.  My painting also works more in theory and practice, but I’ll work on improving while painting.  I’m hoping for this year (2013) to finally finish at least one model to a level of personal acceptance.  (You see, I still haven’t played one single game.  I want to have a fully painted force ready for tabling prior to playing.  I know I’m never going to win a Golden Demon, and that’s not even my goal for painting.  My goal is to have a painted army.  Painted better than the “3-color minimum.”  Painted better than basic tabletop; and to be vain, just painted better than the average player’s army.  Pride cometh before the fall.)  I digress.  I’m going to attempt to do some underpainting for shading on this thing.  I want to have an airbrush before 2014, but for now I’m going to prime the entire thing white (P3 white) which is how I start all of my IF miniatures.  Then, I’m going to flip that thing upside-down, and lightly spray some Armory Gray (not my favorite brand of primer,  I prefer The Army Painter and P3, but I don’t like TAP’s regular line) at a 45 degree angle to get some shading.  Then, if necessary, flip it back right side up, and 45 degree the P3 white again to bring up my highlights.  Lastly, I’ll blast (lightly so I can get the yellow, and hopefully some natural shading) the entire model with TAP Daemonic Yellow for my base coat.  Let’s see if I get that far satisfactorily before I move on.  Pictures will come soon.  Thanks for reading.

Been a while.

Since, my last update on working on Wargaming stuff, I've moved twice and started working Full-Time again.  Unfortunately, I've not been productive.  I have managed to partially assemble one 40K drop-pod, with the intention of making it an Imperial Fist Drop-Pod.  I've actually come close to mastering my yellow recipe.  Partially assembled, not even primed.

When I was still in Virginia, I had the intention to get a 40K force built, painted, and fielded.  Now, I'm in rural Tennessee and there's no nearby gaming community, so I'm quite rapidly losing interest in my meager beginnings of the IF army; and switching back to simply buying models I find interesting to paint.  For you 40k'ers on here, here is my pre build WIP's on the drop pod. 

Amazing, huh?  Ok, so a little lackluster.  I've found my way to the Soda Pop Miniatures Forums.  A year ago I painted the Super Dungeon Explore Dwarf and Human Mage.  Here's a link to my entry on their forums.  My goals with painting, which I need to practice, is to get better with thinning paints and smoother transitions.  I plan on picking up some more of the SDE in the near future.  They catch my eye b/c they make we want to paint bright colors and not so realistic as the Space Marines or Warmachine minis I usually work on.

On a side note, I did pre-order some Knight Models Batman figures for the new game Arkham City from Fantization.  I'm a sucker for Batman...well, the more "dark" Batman and not the original Batman, even though they're all cool.  I pre-ordered the whole set, and should get them in a couple of weeks.  Then look at them for a couple of months, then blog on why I haven't done anything.  Thanks for looking, and maybe I'll post much sooner than later.

Imperial Fist Dreadnought WIP

So I'm finally getting an acceptable yellow down.  Here's the quick run-through:  The Army Painter Daemonic Yellow primer over a P3 white primer.  This brightens that yellow up!  Vallejo Sepia wash plus a drop of matte medium to get the brown shading in the lowpoints.  Then a quick dry brush of Vallejo Game Color Moon Yellow.  Yellow done.  For the metals.  Base coat P3 Thamar black, hit up with another base coat of Pig Iron.  Wash with straight from the dropper P3 Armor Wash.  Metals done.  (ooh, just noticed/remembered I need to do the cabling underneath, I'll hit with a red base coat, wash, drybrush back up to base and be done there too.)

On the base, I painted some hammerfall khaki mixed some water and PVA glue then dipped into tupperware of basing sand.  Small patch of green was dipped in flocking.  Then some spots hit up with Superglue and static grass.  I'm not huge on EPIC bases for gaming purposes, but would do more if I was attempting to enter a painting contest.  (I know, I know, no Golden Demons for me.)

The rusty pieces were base coated Thamar Black, then Pig Iron, then spotted up with RMS rust red.  Then I hit them up with GW Devlin Mud wash, Vallejo Sepia Wash, P3 Armor Wash, GW Badab Black.  Dry brushed some Pig Iron, dry brushed just a bit of Mithril Silver, and dry brushed some Rust Red.  This was my first attempt with weathering powders too, so I used Vallejo Pigments Natural Siena.  It gave it a dusty feel and covered up my "rust" so I need to retouch the rust.  The technique I followed with the pigment was put it on dry (I went overboard.)  Then, used isopropyl alcohol to "set" it.  Prior to the pigment, I did put GW 'ardcoat to seal in my paint...which made it shiny and when I'm done touching up here and there, I will hit it up with a matte spray.  Thanks for looking.

(Oh, and I'm going with "first company" thus the crappily painted "I" and the white on the hip areas.)

Side Project #2: Doll Bed refurbish.

This past weekend, my mother-in-law gave us a pair of bunk beds for the little one's dolls.  MiL and her sister bought these at a yard-sale a few years back.  I'm guessing based upon the fiberboard material (I think that's what that stuff is called, it's similar to the material basic clipboards are made.) and the pattern on the "mattresses" it's quite a bit older than a few years.  Here's the before pictures:

My first inclination was to paint them white and update the mattresses.  So, sticking to my go-to spray paint, I ran over to Lowe's and bought some Valspar Gloss White.  I liked the flower on the foot of the bed, but it too looked dated.  My next trip landed me at Wal-Mart, the bastion of low prices and even lower wages.  I bought some butterfly transfers to decorate the head-board and the foot-board; and bought 1yd of fabric...and some fabric/leather glue to fix the fabric to the mattresses.

I took the beds a part and I used an entire can of white primer on one bed to get a good base white.  (Skipping the priming would end up with using multiple cans of gloss-white to cover up the wood to get a good clean finished look.)  I just bought some basic Krylon white primer from Wal-Mart.  I didn't take any pictures of the painting.

I then took the mattress, didn't even bother removing the old material and covered it with the new fabric.  Essentially I cut it slightly larger than the mattress, folded the edges under like I was wrapping a present, and glued liberally.  Here are pictures of the old mattress and the new mattress:

 Picture above shows the top of the new one and the bottom of the old one, I mimicked folding the edges over and glued them down.  Bottom pic is bottom of new mattress and top of old.  Now, the thin wood on the new mattress had been broken in half sometime ago and repaired with some additional wood beam going up and down, that's not my handy work.

The humidity here was off the chain, so it took a while for the paint to dry, a few days to be exact.  I took the head and foot-board, transferred some butterflies onto them.  I then felt like the foot-board needed a little more (now maybe too much) so I took sharpies and drew a flower onto it for the butterfly to "flutter by to".  I thought about painting with acrylic paint, and may still do that, but painting large flat areas smoothly with a brush is not my best skill.  Here is the finished bed:

One bed down and one bed to go.  I'm out of white primer, and low on my gloss paint, so it'll be a bit before I finish, but I'll do the second bed the same way.  Enjoy!  Questions/comments/suggestions are welcome.

Side project, not Wargaming related.

I found a picture of an old milk bottle, with love written on it with a hot-glue gun, and spray painted white.  I thought it'd be a fun project for my wife, so I did one.  Painted it green with "love" and a heart glue-gunned on it, then painted the heart white.  Did another one, this time blue with "dream" and a cloud, painted the cloud white, and made a how-to complete with pictures.  Here you go:

Supplies:  

• Old vase, bottle, candle jar, etc....  Something with plain smooth sides, anything with “designs” on it will take away from your created accents.
• Spray paint.  I’m using Valspar from Lowe’s.  They’re $3.98/can.  I’m also using Satin finish, just because I like it.  
• Hot Glue Gun.  Hot glue is forgiving too, so if you don’t like how you wrote the word, peel it off and do it again.  Also remember that it probably won’t stick with a dishwasher/scrubbing from hand washing, etc....
• Acrylic paint.  Only if you plan to have an accent color.  Any kind from Wal-Mart.  I’m using Privateer Press, simply because I have it readily available from my other nerdish hobby pursuits.
• Some cheap paint brush for the acrylic paint.
• Xacto knife/razor.  (Not pictured.)  This is to remove those stringy things from the hot glue.
• Non-permanent marker to “sketch” the words/designs/whatever onto the glass.

Optional Supply:  

• Krylon Matte Sealer.  I’m only using it to try to give an extra thin layer of protection to the paint.  If you do use this and you bought gloss spray paint, the matte sealer will render it matte.  If you choose to go the sealer route and want it to look glossy, pick up some gloss sealer instead.

• Wash the glass.  Sometimes oils from your fingers will keep paint from adhering.  (I’m choosing not to prime the glass prior to painting which could or could not increase the durability of the paint...most times it helps.

• Take your marker and sketch/draw out your design.  Keep in mind writing with a hot-glue gun is less precise than your marker so make the letters larger than you think you should write them.  For this project I’m writing “dream” onto the glass and I’m putting a “cloud” accent.

• Do your best to now put your design down onto the glass.  Once again, it’s hot-glue so it comes off easily if you jack it up.  Also take note that you are leaving those spider-web string things all over the place when you lift the hot-glue gun.  After you’re finished give the glue a few minutes to set.  Now remove the strings and any other offending errors.  Sometimes you can roll up the stringy things with your finger, sometimes that pulls the letters up off the glass.  For the more tricky parts use your xacto razor carefully.

• Once you’re satisfied with the design, paint it.  For the “dream” project I’m using a light blue.  Note:  there will be overspray, so paint outside, or set up a home-made paint booth made of boxes.  I still have lots of cardboard from moving so that’s what I have.  Don’t forget to shake the fool out of the can before beginning and give a test spray onto the cardboard or your neighbor’s fence.  Be light with painting.  We are going to do MULTIPLE light coats, not one big thick coat.  One coat will leave you with drips and puddles.  Light coats gets it more even.  I rarely ever stick my finger down on the can and paint without letting up.  Use short bursts and keep your arm moving side to side.  Paint a bit, not too much that you get drips.  Let it dry, do it again.  Let it dry and do it again if needed until it’s all covered with your primary color.

• After you’ve painted the glass and it’s dried, paint the accent with your acrylic craft paint.  I’m painting the cloud white.  Thinning the paint with a bit of water might help with smoothness, but I’m painting straight from the pot on this one, which resulted in quite lumpy/clumpy paint up close.

• After you are satisfied with your results and if you choose to, put a light coat or two of the matte sealant onto your project.  I threw the coat of sealant on there and there is no discernible difference with the finish.

•  Now it’s done.

I have no clue as to what I’m going to do with these other than decoration.  Make yours the way you want to.  Copy this idea, which I found a picture of somewhere online, sans the how-to.  I will say that I don’t recommend washing these things in a dishwasher and if you “need” to clean them, be careful not to break off the glue.  Either way, if you’re feeling crafty, I’ll share my antics.