Friday 28 February 2014

Pin Washes and Shading

I got asked the other day how I do my Pin washes so here is a real quick over view of it.
Items needed:


Gloss/satin varnish
Oil paint
Thinners. ( i use an Artists thinners which has less odour)
Something for the oil paint to go into and a separate one to clean the brushes, ( I use little pie dishes)
Brushes.
Paper towel.



First off paint on all your base colours then Varnish the model, i'd recommend two coats
Satin and gloss varnish both have a different effect and it depends on the look and effect your after.
Gloss allows the paint to run using capillary action and gives a much finer line and cleans better.
Satin allows some to leach into the surrounding area.
I have used Satin Varnish on these. 



Put some thinners into a dish and then add Oil paint to it. The thickness of the mix depends on what you want to achieve but it should be very dilute, almost like squash.



then its simply a case of loading your brush with the mixture and touching it to the crease you want the wash to urn into, if it doesn't run chances are the mix is too thick, if it runs but you can't see the paint its too thin.


any over spill can be cleaned up with a spare brush dampened in thinners, no rush for this as oils are slow drying you have several hours.




for the shadows I use a thicker mix ( milk like) and deliberately over spill, then with a damp brush I pull the mixture down towards where I want the shadow to fall. this blends the line and also blends in my previous airbrush blending.
I used Black for the pin wash and blue for the shading.










 


















On Cream models like Deathwing I use Burnt Umber for pin washes.
Hope this makes sense and you can see what I was trying to achieve in the pics 

below. Next step is using the original light green to add battle damage and then use weathering powders to age it.
Thanks for looking and please leave comments.

Wednesday 26 February 2014

The Dark Angels paint continues

Hi Guys
I had the week off last week for the kids half turn and had a thoroughly great time in the lake district Kayak Fishing.

Even though it doesn't look like I've got a lot done work has been continuing apace.

Its about this time that I get a low in my painting morale, I seem to spend hours painting for no obvious results.

80 Marines ready to rumble.

Now ready to start shading 

5th battle company, 6th Tactical support company, 9th Heavy support Company

Mk IV dreadnought and Venerable Dreadnought

5th Company Command Squad.

So colours used so far are:
Cold Grey for pipes and between armour plates.
Scarlett red with some black for purity seals and lights
Chainmail silver for tops of backpacks and weapons and magazines
Leather brown for pouches
Khaki for purity seal ribbons, Chest Eagle wings and company markings
Magic Blue for the Krak Grenades
Electric blue for eyes
Tinny tin for skulls and stuff

Finally... finally I can start to get on with making these models look more realistic.

The next step is an important one. I now need to spray them with gloss or satin varnish
this is for a number of reasons the main one is to protect the work I've done so far and secondly allow a good surface for the oil paints to do their job.

After I've used the oils I'll probably start to paint Demi squads at a time, 80 models is a few to many to concentrate on doing the finishing touches on.





Thursday 13 February 2014

We Are Legion

Well ok not quite legion as they got broke up after the HH and theres not quite enough for a full Company either.

One of the only benefits of having insomnia is that when the wife and kids go to bed I have to be quite and the best way of doing that is to hide in my man cave and paint.

So over the last week I have assembled another to tactical squads and an Assault Demi squad for the 5th company as well as the Company HQ and 1 troop HQ
 That will take the 5th company to 2 Troops or 60 mnes+

I have also assembled 9 Tactical support Demi squads for the 6th company.

And then the Airbrush came out and it took a few nights of spraying to get them to the stage where I could pick up my brushes.


















Painting went like this:
Undercoat: Citadel Chaos Black Spray
Basecoat: 60/40 VGC yellow Olive/Black
1st highlight: 80/20 VGC yellow Olive/Black
2nd highlight: VGC yellow Olive
3rd Highlight: VGC Yellow Olive/ Cayman Green
final Highlight: Cayman Green/ Desert yellow. Helmet only

Each highlight was concentrated on a smaller area with the last highlight being from above only.

This produces quite a light finish but I plan to go over this with first an Oil pin wash of black and then  an oil filter of dark blue to blend in the shadows.


All my other Dark Angels have been painted with Dark Angels Green but I've never been happy with the finish


















The next stage was to spray all the guns with Chainmail silver, this will have a few washes applied to dull the effect and then black painted in places.

Blue eye pieces were painted next using Electric blue. 174 in total
now the long process of lining all the armour joints and pipes with grey, studs, pureity seal parchment, company markings and wings in Khaki and pipes, skulls and extra armour in Bronze.




















All the bare heads were airbrushed black undercoat followed by a directional dusting of GW Tallarn Flesh and Vallejo Panzer aces highlight flesh. these will get glazes and stuff at a later date.

So thats were I am tonight. It'll take a few nights to get the grey and Khaki done

Till then Happy painting
Please leave comments, they're always welcome

Sunday 9 February 2014

Leviathan Crusader complete and Dark Angels Tanks

Hello all.
January was a busy month. I had lots on with my new hobby Kayak Fishing so I spent a lot of time getting that rigged.
The Weather here in the UK has been a nightmare, strong winds and loads of rain. Perfect weather for hiding in my office and painting.

So I got the 2nd (3rd) Crusader completed. I've stuck with a very simple base again to give the model centre stage.

Still stuck on Pandora helping my Dark Angels drive off the chaos incursion.







As You can see I've armed him with Twin Hell Cannons.
This guy makes full use of his mobility to out flank the enemy super heavy tanks and take then out.

Joining him on my battle field are 4 Dark angels tanks.




First up is the 5th companies 1st Troop Hq Armoured Proteus Land Raider.

I've gone off track with my company structure and have split each company down into troops.
The Force is as follows:
Company HQ.
                     Company Commander
                     Company Banner Bearer
                     Company Radio Operator (RO)
                     Company Chaplain (Interrogator) 
                     Company Command Honour Guard ( 5x Veteran Marines) 
1st Troop
                    Troop HQ
                    Troop Radio Operator (RO)
                    Troop Vexillas
                    Troop  Command Close Protection (2x Mnes)
                    Squad 1  10 x assault Mnes
                    Squad 2  10 x Tactical Mnes
                    Squad 3  10 x Tactical Mnes

2nd Troop
                    Troop HQ
                    Troop Radio Operator (RO)
                    Troop Vexillas
                    Troop  Command Close Protection (2x Mnes)
                    Squad 4  10 x Assault Mnes
                    Squad 5  10 x Tactical Mnes
                    Squad 6  10 x Tactical Mnes

3rdTroop
                    Troop HQ
                    Troop Radio Operator (RO)
                    Troop Vexillas
                    Troop  Command Close Protection (2x Mnes)
                    Squad 7  10 x Assault Mnes
                    Squad 8  10 x Tactical Mnes
                    Squad 9  10 x Tactical Mnes

Support Troop
                    Troop HQ
                    Troop Radio Operator (RO)
                    Troop Vexillas
                    Troop  Command Close Protection (2x Mnes)
                    Squad 10  10 x Devastator Mnes (2x  5 Mnes Demi squads with 4 heavy                                     Weapons each) 
                     3 x Dreadnought
                     1 x Rapier squad ( 3 x Rapier weapon systems)

Armoured Troop
                     Predators
                     Whirlwinds
                    Vindicators
                    

Completely Un Codex but it allows a far greater degree in flexibility. The Chapter Master can detach a whole company or the company commander can detach a troop as a quick reaction force.
Plus it means I can paint up more models lol















so here are the Rhinos for the 3rd - 5th squads.
Kept the scheme fairly minimalistic, each vehicle has Chapter, company and squad delegation on.

I'll take some Photos of the squads later and add them tomorrow. 

Until then happy painting and I'll catch you on the sunny side.