Developing Airbrushing Skill

So I've been learning a lot more about the airbrush. I'm getting pretty excited about it if I'm honest, as it is turning into a really promising area to massively expand my skill set and also is speeding up bulk painting immensely.

The latest batch of Nobz (see previous post for finished results) were part of a larger number of unpainted nobz I had, 35 in total. Many of them the Black Reach 3 part models - head, one arm, everything else - and this configuration does not lend itself to the separate parts method I detailed previously. So I tried something different: trying to airbrush different areas of the same piece. And with a little trial and error, I found a method that definitely worked, and has me really excited for future projects.

Basically the challenge in blocking in separate areas of base colour on a single piece is getting a crisp edge. My paint scheme helped me here in that a lot of areas are divided by a black border, so I went in using that as my margin of error and if I went over the lined I'd brush in the black later. The obvious example of this is the black belt between the brown of the trousers and the cream of the vest.

But with a little more adventure I found I could do more. With the airbrush hardly pressed I could get a really crisp edge, so I had a go and the green of the arms and the black of the boots. Angling the model away helps, and always keeping in mind what is behind what you are spraying. For the first time on my blog, I'll add a video of this for the boots.

Blocking in colour before inking, highlighting and detailing is the most tedious part of painting in my opinion, so cutting down the timeit takes is very helpful psychologically. But the finish that airbrushing gives is also really nice, its flat and thin, so it leaves even more detail of the miniature and also takes further paint really well.

 In the above photo, all the paint you can see has been airbrushed. The metallic needed another coat as you can see at this stage the green still showed through.

In this photo, I have brushed in the black belt and braces, and the yellow details on the arm, and then airbrushed the whole miniature with a brown ink, even over the green.

As I've said, its not just about the speed now, its about how nicely everything else goes on after, so in the future I think I'll use the airbrush even for small runs and single miniatures.

This week: Nobz! (One even has a Big Choppa!*)

Just a little show of my latest work.

Photoshoot and clever editing by my lady.

*Fnar!

Game Night

A nice little photo of my boyz waiting to be deployed for their first game night

Was a good night. As it was my first go at 6th edition, we did an allied game of 2vs2. With each pair having a player who was very familiar. We won by one VP! :)

Compromise

Resistance has collapsed. I was invited to a games night, and will have to field some incomplete miniatures. The rest of the week will be about airbrushing and inking... No naked resin though, I still have some standard... I keep telling myself.

Nemesis

How close behind us does Nemesis dog our footsteps?

Doesn't everyone have a cat-destroys-lovingly-painted-and-constructed-miniatures story? This was fortunately only a close call, but I shall be securing my display area more carefully from now on.

Mass painting

I know "green horde" tactics can be unpopular: both with ork players- because of the painting time, and with those you play against - because it can slow a game down moving so many miniatures. But really horde-ing is what the orks are all about. If not for tournament play, then in the fluff and for theme games. And I am overwhelmingly a fluffy player, loving campaigns and narratives.(TL;DR? Scroll down for photos)

So, my plan is to have access to a horde, if not play it every time. And as I am poor, I have to look down some cost saving routes. Perhaps the best is route is always ebay, but what that means is you will usually have someone else's painting to deal with. Sometimes it will be very nice, but perhaps a wrong fit. Some of my pieces have come from a bad moon player, and I can't be mixing and matching that bright yellow with my white and brown boyz. Other times they will be unfinished, or just base coated, which is lovely. Worst of all are those moments you unpack the parcel and cannot help but utter the immortal line "dude, do you even thin?"

In all instances, the more paint you can get off, the better. Fairy power spray is my weapon of choice as it is cheap if used sensibly and doesn't damage the plastic. With metal miniatures it is even better as I can rock out a brush attachment on the Dremel and the layers of paint are often whipped off in the manner of a conjurer pulling a table clothe out from under your dinner. But the Dremel is not your friend with plastic, so you have to go back to the trusty toothbrush.

My batch of over 100 ork boys were all sorts, from some I'd used to test out themes before settling on what I'd use for my army, to some in just virgin plastic, to a nice batch I recently got which were mostly just undercoated or very thinly painted. All needed cleaning - even the virgin plastic as these days they come with mold grease still on them that rejects paint like a baby who does not want to say ahh for the aeroplane. This was a very tedious afternoon's work.

Next, was base colouring with the air brush. Now I hatched a plan, as the general areas of colour fall roughly in line with the seperate parts of the ork boy kits. So heads and arms could be based in green, torsos in cream, and legs in brown, all the other colours are darker so would go over these base colours pretty well.

Here is my torsos laid out ready to spray. Also some boys that are from the kit where the legs are not separate.

Looking oddly like the photo is in negative, but that is an unaltered photo.

Airbrushing, I ran the risk of clogging to simply water down my regular paints by about 4-1 water to paint. Really thin, but 4 coats, rotating by 90 degrees per coat seemed to be pretty good coverage to me. Alas clogging was a big factor. I have since been told that there are some nice acrylic mediums for airbrushing that can solve this. When I've looked into it I'll no doubt blog about them.

In all,  the airbrushing took the best part of a day for just 3 colours. The worst was the arms, which I had to do in batches as there were so many,the green was the most truculent colour to get a good finish with. I had to QC all the parts after each batch and feed back the sub par ones into the next batch.

Once everything was sprayed, it was then blocking in the other colours on each part. Here are the legs in progress.

The miniatures could be glued at various stages, once everything that might be obscured by a part was done. Here are bodies on the legs.

And then heads once the necks had been blocked in in green.

After this, they are ready to be inked, highlighted and detailed. I have chosen to do these stages in batched of 10.
Inked and completed

And finally detailed and then based

Will post up a full collection post when I've got a few more batches done.

In terms of time taken. I Started cleaning 12 days ago. My normal rate is about 3 minis a day, So actually I could have got 36 done by now. But doing a batch of 10 a day from now on, I should be finished in 11 days from now, when it would have taken me maybe 40 days, so definitely worth doing this way.

Procrastination

Its not exactly unconstructive as they all need painting. But sometimes one's planned painting schedule goes up in smoke because another miniature is watching you with pleading in its beady little eyes.

The ork boys are in there seperate parts.Arms and heads to be airbrushed green, bodies bleached bone, and trousers snakebite leather (yes, my paint set it that old!).All stripped and washed and ready for their basecoat, and suddenly I'm painting these two special weapon boyz! Its a good thing I love them!

Just a note on my photography: This one is sub par as I did it with my phone. Usually My lovely lady gives my minis the full photoshoot experience with her excellent camera.

Deff Dread Done!

Almost exactly a week's work.

First BIG miniature of my project. I got him on a trip up to Nottingham and GW's headquarters and Warhammer World - well worth the trip I might add.

Working on a model this size has its own complications. Such large amounts of paint need a slightly different approach. I've not had much experience with the airbrush, but got my first go for this model. Basically undercoated with Blood Angel Red - lots of thin coats to get a smooth finish, and the all the metal areas got a thin base of chaos black.

 After that, I had to break the miniature down into areas. Trying to do all of the red in one go, for example, would have been a near Sisyphean task. Demoralizing, but also tricky to mix the shades in the right volumes and keep them wet while I worked,so instead I just did a limb at a time,completing all the defining and detail before moving on to the next.

Nice as it gives some immediate gratification. I was pleased with the first arm, and was able to look at it for reference and a boost to the morale as I progressed through the miniature.

I'm told my basing is quite archaic, but I like old school. With my dear lady's connection to her family's craft shop, I was able to source some very posh "Flowersoft". I hope soon to start constructing a gaming table for the home in a similar vein. Something jungly and orky that matches the bases.

Next Project: I accidentally bought nearly 100 ork boys in a job lot on ebay. Was a bargain so couldn't say no. Have just been breaking them into their parts so I can see about using the airbrush much more. Details to follow.