This is my first attempt at using it to paint a model. I started out by taking an old bit of plasticard I had lying around and spending about an hour, hour and a half just mucking about with the airbrush, trying different pressures through the compressor, trying different consistencies and finally felt comfortable enough to have a bash and painting an old Rhino I had stripped to experiment on.
Here is the result
For a first attempt I am really rather pleased about the way it came out. There are a few fingerprint marks on it so I need to learn to be more careful with my handling but otherwise I am rather chuffed. The finish is much smoother than I have been able to achieve with a brush, the gradient transition between shades is much smoother. Overall very happy. The Blood Angels logo was found on Google and then printed out, stuck with a glue stick onto Masking Tape and cut around to give me a template to work with. The hatch is having a few last bits and bobs done but otherwise she is finished.
This looks great man! I think it is time to finally invest in learning how to use mine. I could certainly speed up my VERY time consuming process! Thanks for sharing. Jawaballs
ReplyDeletecare to share your recipe and process?
ReplyDeleteThe great JB :) Welcome! Glad you liked.
ReplyDeleteOK a synopsis of what I did. First off I will say that I referenced an awful lot a video on a channel called BuyPainted on YouTube. There is a video there on painting a Rhino. I essentially used most of those techniques but for Blood Angels not UltraSmurfs.
First off the Rhino was primed with Vallejo Air Grey Primer. I gave it 2 or 3 light passes to build up the primer. I noticed immediately that the airbrush gave a much crisper surface with no excess coverage that you can get with a spray can.
Next off I preshaded anywhere I wanted shadow using Vallejo Game Colour (VGC) Dark Fleshtone thinned with their primer. I found it quite tough to get the right consistency of paint here, my Dark Fleshtone comes out really quite thick so I ended up using a very high thinner to paint ratio to get a consistency that would spray how I wanted it. I ran it through the airbrush at about 12-15psi so I could get in nice and close. I went along all the panel edges on the side I would want shadow and around the base of the hull building up the colour the further down the hull I went so the bottom was almost completely Dark Fleshtone and about halfway up it was fading into the Grey Primer.
After that I gave it 2-3 passes with thinned VGC Bloody Red to build up my main colour at about 30psi with the brush held far enough away to give an even coverage but not so far as the paint dried grainy.
Once that had dried I highlighted the middle of all the panels with a 50/50 VGC Bloody Red/VGC Hot Orange thinned mix with some glaze medium added.
After I had finished I decided I had covered the shading at the bottom of the tank too much with Bloody Red so I gave it a light pass with 50/50 Bloody Red/Dark Fleshtone mixed with glaze medium to bring some of the shadow back. I used this same mix to go back over some of the areas I wanted to accentuate the shade like down the side of the chimney stacks. I used a bit of card held over the area I wanted to avoid overspraying to keep the shadow nice and crisp against the lighter tone.
Then masked the area out around the tracks and they were sprayed Chainmail. That was REALLY tough to figure out the consistency. Again took 2 or 3 attempts playing around on cardboard, my Citadel Chainmail is quite old and therefore really thick which didn't help matters.
I lightly sprayed the tracks with VGC Earth to start the weathering process.
Next I did the decals, turret lights and found a large Blood Angels logo for the top (I think ironically off of your blog, thanks :) ) which I printed out and glue sticked to some masking tape which I then cut out and used as a template. That was sprayed with Black.
I then sprayed the whole model with Vallejo Air Satin Varnish and once dry made a wash using VGC Charred Brown and Black thinned with loads of Glaze Medium. This was then used quite tightly in all the shadow areas, around the top hatch and along the tracks. I cleaned up any over wash with alcohol and thinned it out to give an even transition into the red (yeah you are supposed to use 90+% isopropyl alcohol. That seems to be tricky to get hold of in the UK so I used Gin :) )
That is pretty much the painting done. I then weathered the tracks with various pigment colours mixed with matt varnish, the same with black pigments around the chimney stack and chimney tops.
Once last satin varnish finish and it was done.
It seems like a lot of work, the most part was figuring out consistencies to be honest. The actual airbrushing time seemed to be really quick. I would say it took me half the time it would if I had tried to brush paint it.
Hmm ok that didn't turn out to be a very brief synopsis but hope it helps you :)
I have just started a Razorback I have stripped down (redoing all my tanks using this technique). I'll post up some more detailed WiP shots for you.
ReplyDelete