Blood Angels Army Project (pic carpet bombing)

[Meph]

Alrighty the progress of the past weekend. I gave the Deimoses their red base coat, applied the highlights and some washes & glazes and removed the masking tape.
I must say, for my lazier, quicker masking round I must say I'm quite pleased with the results. The Vindicator needs almost no fixing or cleanup, just the apex of the chevron a bit, but not the lines themselves.

The Rhino will need some more work. The area between the cupolas will need a bit of work, but the rest of the parts need just a little touch-up here and there.

Onwards!






And a high-res gallery to see every flaw in glorious zoom-o-vision.
[url]http://imgur.com/a/L0ACo[/url]


Oh, and I bought this on a whim: [url]https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CL4D6MQ/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item[/url]
I still need to try out the frame & background, but I bought it mostly because it was one of the cheapest LED panel I could find, two of them, with table clamps.
And I must say, having some more lumen oomph sure does wonders for the photos. Usually I have to adjust the photos a bit in Photoshop to better match reality, but with these led arrays... well, the photos you see here are straight from the camera.

[Meph]

Meanwhile, 'the bullet has passed through the church', as a good Flemish expression goes. I decided to keep the Xiphon vanilla for now. Mainly because I didn't want to be delayed several weeks with laborious plasticard-fu.
Still I spent +-3 hours masking those wings. But it's done. I present to you; Red Two.
Apparently there's a whole mathematic to that red squadron wing graphic. It's six red lines wide, with a line's width in between them, and the big red part is as wide as the edge of the third line to the edge of the 6th line.

Luckily 3mm masking tape offered a nice spread on the wing, almost lining up with the wing plating.

Then there's a shot of my work desk. Paint and tools creeping up like a North Sea tide.

And finally mr. Lt. is having his base done.

[Meph]

I almost forgot to do the cockpit before moving on to the exterior. As with the Stormraven, I opted for a soviet-esque turquoise. A quick drybrush, some colour spots for lighst and buttons, and all it needs now is a black oil paint wash and it'll be good to go. In any case, most of the detail will be lost in the gloom anyways. I tinted the canopy but it's not 100% slick & smooth. I think I'll need to give that a gloss coat for clear it it up.
And the pilot needs a quick paint job as well.

And clumsy me slightly bent a needle of one of my airbrushes That, with slightly thickish paint resulted in some splatter. But luckily it is inconsequential for the current stuff.

[Blackadder]

Doing a bit of painting this week myself. I am following your technique with great interest.

Now, How do you bend a airbrush needle? and can you not buy a replacement?

BTW what red are you using on your Blood Angels?

[Meph]

Well, I was only half looking when putting the airbrush in its holder. Wasn't completely bent, but a bit, yeah. I managed to straighten it by hand and it's still useable for basecoating and washed. I have a replacement lying around but I'll keep that for when I need to do some über-fine stuff.

My red base coat is a 50/50 mix of Mechrite Red and Blood Red. I think Mechrite red got renamed to Scab red now, and Blood red to Mephiston Red. Anyway, so it's a 50/50 mix of terracotta red and a red red. thinned for airbrush using thinner and demineralized water.

[StraightSilver]

Looking very nice, love the colour for that cockpit.

Can I ask how you tinted the canopy? It looks very subtle comaperd to other tinted canopies I've seen and is a really nice effect.

[Meph]

Thanks!

Well to tint it, immersed it into a mix of Tamiya Clear (yellow) mixed to a +/- 1:3 Tamiya Clear/airbrush thinner. The vallejo airbrush thinner is fully transparent, as opposed to some milky ones. I also added a little bit of demineralized water, but that wasn't needed I think.
And as a recipient I used a tiny little jam jar. That way I can keep my mix and have it deep enough to immerse the cockpit in.
After immersing I gently dabbed off the excess off by touching the cockpit edge to the edge of a piece of old newspaper. That sucks off the excess quite nicely without having to touch the flat panes of the cockpit.
I let it dry completely and then did a second dipping.

[Meph]

Progress! The cockpit's almost ready for assembly. The pilot just needs his oil paint wash and he's good to go.
That cockpit was a nightmare to paint though. That plastic is just so slippery, and those edges so tiny, it was very hard to keep a straight line.
And I was a bit disappointed about that break line pattern. I assumed it was a small indentation in the cockpit so it could easily take a runny line and stay perfectly straight. But nooooo, they had to make that an infinitesimal little ridge on the inside of the cockpit. I tried to keep a stable hand with non-runny paint, but that's the best I could do...

Anyway, got some airbrush Vallejo Premium Satin and Matte varnish and it seems that that is the way to go for my minis. I airbrushed him matte and then gave the metallic bits a satin coat by brush. And I'm liking the effect, it doesn't flatten the colours as much as spray can varnish. I'm thinking I'll experiment with a 1:2 mix of satin:matte. That should give a good coat that's not 100% flat.




Oh, and the cockpit's just a bit dusty, that stippling is not in the tint coat.

[Meph]

The time has come. He received 6 consecutively lighter highlights, with two dark washes and two light glazes along the way.



And then; Mask off






The glass of the cockpit needs a new masking. But just the glass, not the frame included, and then it's time for decals!

[Meph]

Update time!

Still fighting with the decals. Most of them are blending in nicely, other needs some more poking-with-a-needle. And one or two have shifted position, which is less fun...




The Deimosesess decals are also receiving their Micro Sol coats, but they're almost ready to go.



And then I've started applying glazes to the engine nozzles, using a vector thrusting nozzle of an Su-35 as a reference. While drying it seemed I was almost there. Now that the glazes are dry, it's clear that I have a long way to go...