Space Hulk WIP 3

The space hulk is getting close to completion, but even in this state there is a lot of work to do. Many of the panels are not glued on yet, which will take quite a while due to the vast quantity of them. The doors need to be completed, and all of the grey exterior panels need to be filled and painted. Fortunately that is the easy stuff. Rather than make this easy on myself, I ordered another batch of this stuff before I had completed the first batch. I'd really like to paint a miniature at this point, but I must keep plugging away.

Space Hulk Big Room WIP

 I decided to tackle one of the large rooms today and see what I could do with it. The goal here was to improve the process that will let me complete all zillion pieces of this puzzle in a reasonable amount of time. This time around I used Vallejo yellow for the vertical wall sections, sealed with semi-gloss. The hope was that it would make it easier to remove the enamel wash. I like the results, but the process is marginal. A helpful hint from Marc Raley was to paint this quickly, so rather than use a brush to paint the chips on the door, I just blasted all the chips on using a bit of foam. I think once the streaking is on it looks just as good. I only have 20 more of these doors to paint.

So does this look weirdly 2d to you as well? I can't shake the feeling that I am looking at a comic book.

-john

Space Hulk Corridors WIP

Mordian7th, was extremely generous in sending me his already assembled Fantasy Arc space hulk scenery. I'll plug Fantasy Arc here. I am really pleased with this terrain. I think they did a phenomenal job. I went so far as to go online and order a lot their new stuff to add some fun Aliens-esque rooms to this.

With scenery in hand, I had to figure out a way to paint mostly assembled pieces. I settled on some Krylon spray paints, and figured an enamel pin wash would work to highlight the detail. I'm reasonably pleased with this color scheme, and the level of effort to lay down these base colors. It will take a few weeks to get all of this painted to the base coat level, but if I can slog through it, I think it will be a really fun Zone Mortalis table to play on.

Soviet T-28 Post Oils WIP 2

Instead of using enamels on this tank, I decided to give oils a try. I'm very pleased with the results. If you look closely you should be able to see where I used blue oil paint to shade parts of the turret. Now imagine the green a fair bit darker, with blues in the shadows and light green only on the edges. Anything I happened to paint black would use blue, but this time for highlights.

Dark Angles. That is what is next.

Pre-Shading Soviet T-28 Tank & Print Line Removal

I've been in a mood to play with oils, so I needed another canvas. What you see here is a Trenchworx T-28 soviet tank from WW2. These guys were used in the early part of the war and were basically land battleships. This thing is bristling with machine guns. The model is really nice, but it has some remnants of its 3D printed past in the form of stepping lines. Those lines will wreck my use of oils, enamels, and washes, so they must be dealt with.  The first step in removing them is putting on a very solid base coat. Normally I let the black shade some of the model. I couldn't do that here, because to remove the stepping lines I have to spray a heavy coat of gloss varnish. Varnish has the tendency to crack the layer of paint underneath it, so I needed that base layer to be extra durable.  After two sprays of varnish, the self leveling properties of the lacquer showed good results. The tank is smooth. Now it is ready for transfers........in 8 hours after the lacquer cures. After that I will spray on some chipping medium and spray on some white designs.

Why this sudden interest in green? I am starting a new 40k/30k project, and wanted to practice blending purples into green. So what am I painting? :)

T34 Bolt Action Refurbishment WIP 1 Oils

A couple years ago I painted a pair of T34 tanks for Owen's and my birthdays. The tanks started out identical, but after picking up a Trenchworx tank for Bolt Action, and being inspired by another friend's Konflict '47 force, I figured it was time to retrieve the tank from the bottom of a box and see what I could do to update it.

In terms of painting, the tank had a fairly solid foundation. Panel highlighting, pin washes, and color modulation all worked very well on it. However as a monotone tank, it suffered a little in the visual interest category. It also looked a bit too much like a toy.

The first thing I addressed was a lack of paint chipping. Using a sponge and a brush I was able to chip up the model in under an hour. This broke up the harsh transitions and helped tie the tank together.

I next worked some more colors into the model. I used blue, red, grey, and buff oils and worked them into the surfaces adding different tones wherever needed. Blue was added to shadow areas, buff to highlight areas, and red and grey used to streak down the sides of the tank. I finished this process up by adding oil stains on the barrels and to either side of those vents behind the turret.

With oils completed, I really saw the model. I was not pleased by the kit, but there are other problems all my own doing. There are some awful looking construction issues where the top half and bottom half of the turret join together. There are visible seems on the gas canisters on back. The antenna is as thick as the mg, and comically short. (Why did I even put it on in the first place?). To solve these problems I need to do some surgery. I think I need to:

1) cut off that wonky antenna and replace it with a brush bristle
2) use weathering powders on the oil canisters to hide the seams
3) drill out the weapon barrels.
4) fix the turret seams using.....magic?

Number 4 is where I could use some help. I'm just not sure what the right path for correcting the seams is. Should I just find a bunch of junk to glue to the turret and cover up the problem? Do I just ignore the problem? Any suggestions would help.

1/35 Scale Opel Maulitier Flak

After the Richmond trip I decided to give a scale model a try. It was a very different experience to building a wargaming model or a resin model. What you can't see in these photos is the fully detailed engine bay. On a wargaming kit hidden parts wouldn't be present, but in a scale model they are. It was kind of fun stepping into our hobby forefathers shoes for a bit. However, now that painting is nearing completion, I wish the model were in a usable scale for Bolt Action.