I went into the paint booth last weekend with my trusty Badger airbrush. It's purely used for base coating at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to hone those skills as I work on some other secret squirrel projects that have yet to start.
Orkhide Shade works okay if its thinned with water, about 60% paint and 40% demineralised water is what I use. It has to be thoroughly shaken and if it's left to sit for a day or so it WILL separate until you're left with dark blue/green ink on the top an a sediment the colour of Camo Green on the bottom. It doesn't reconstitute very well from that point. After making that observation, Camo Green is obviously the natural choice as a drybrush. I panic bought ten pots of Orkhide Shade as they went out of stock
So I gave the tanks a couple of light coats. Unfortunately an imperfection in the siege shield showed up in painting. I'll have to try and cover it somehow as I don't want to have to redo that area.
I did the drybrushing the other day, then decided last night to fiddle around with the guns while watching Predators. The cured paint and the drybrushing on the siege shield went a long way to hiding that imperfection.
I just heavily drybrushed the assault cannons sponsons, until it was about 70% covered in Boltgun. I like to do the heavy drybrush instead of just painting since it gives a nice texture that the wash clings to. I painted the nozzles of the flamers with TinBitz and the hoses underneath with Hashut Copper, one of the new Layers. I found that paint to be quite lumpy and wondered if I was working with a metallic texture pot. Went on okay though.
I washed these with Secret Weapon's Soft Body Black, watered down about 40%. The secret weapon wash takes a long time to dry, compared to a thinned GW wash or shade.
After that was dry I went back and lightly drybrushed the boltgun with boltgun metal again. I mixed the TinBitz and Hashut copper about 50/50, heavy on the copper and drybrushed the nozzles, then again very lightly with straight Hashut Copper.
I was asked for a progress picture on a local Facebook page so here's what I did. I just push fitted things together. The sponson fell off about half a second after the picture was taken lol
Check this out http://www.robart.com/products/hobby-paint-shaker-batt . It's pretty good at getting paint in a condition to airbrush with.
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog whilst searching for some info on the Imperial Strongpoint. Having had a quick scan through, you've got some really good looking models.
ReplyDeleteI also use Orkhide Shade as my basecoat for my Imperial Guard tanks, and Had the same worry when the new paints came out. Rather than trying the new Caliban Green, I went to my FLGS and bought some Vallejo Model Air Black Green, which according to their website is a match to Orkhide Shade.
I've used this on a couple of tanks and I've got to say I'm really impressed. I've only got the GW spray gun, not a proper airbrush, but the paint comes out smooth, and being from the Model Air range doesn't require thinning, a problem I've encountered with Orkhide Shade.
Hope this helps, or at least provides an idea. Keep up the great painting.