Blood Angels Vindicator

For my next piece, I'm using my new setup of an Iwata studio series smart jet compressor, and the Iwata Eclipse airbrush.

I used a hobby knife to add nicks and scrapes to the model to show wear from battle. After this was done, the model was primed using vallejo game color white primer diluted 1:1 with Vallejo thinner. Vallejo Model Color flat red was used as a base and was thinned 2:1 (thinner:paint).

In this photo, I have outlined all of the panel lines using a mix of the base color with vallejo air color grey black at a 5:3 ratio. I did this before the panel fading step because fine lines are much harder to do than the broader portions done in panel fading and mistakes can be covered up with the highlights easily. This was sprayed at 20 psi.

For the vehicle's exhaust pipe's, I sprayed grey black on and behind the pipes to imitate smoke. Vallejo silver was used around the vehicle to imitate chipped paint. This was done with very little paint on the brush and "smudged" on to give a random and disordered look. Vallejo model air tank brown was then sprayed from below to imitate dust (this could probably have been skipped). Winsor and Newton oils Burnt umber and yellow ochre were lightly smudged around the base of the model to imitate dirt and grime spraying from the tracks. This will later be aided by pigments. Burnt umber was also added near several of the chipped paint pieces in order to give the paint a worn look. W&N perylene black was used on the drybrushed silver metallic areas to tone the metal down.


More to come!

Comission Ork

A buddy of mine has been having several of the local gamers to his house each week which has kept me from having to drive through rush hour. To thank him for this, I agreed to paint a figure for him for free. He does some fantastic conversion work!

The figure was based with vallejo acrylics and wet blended with Winsor and Newton Oils.

 If you have any questions about any of the methods used for this figure make a post!

Fun with an airbrush: AKA Joe Paints a Razorback!

So after much frustration and playing with different dilution levels, I was able to finish up a Razorback (sorry no step by step... I was on a roll) for my Blood Angels Warhammer 40k army.

I used a mixture of Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Air Color, and Vallejo Game Color all diluted (except for air color) with vallejo thinner. I will do tutorials on the methods I used in upcoming posts so I can take pictures as I progress.

First attempts with the new compressor/brush

So I've started playing around with the new compressor and brush... Man do I have alot to learn. The compressor is pretty nice. The only downside I see to it is that in order to regulate the working pressure, you have to open the bleed valve which, in turn, turns the compressor on (This defeats the purpose of having the "smart jet" compressor turn off when it's full...). On the upside, it's very quiet and once you get it at the correct pressure, as long as you're not continually pressing on the trigger, it seems to remain relatively consistent.

I was having some trouble with my brush at first. The trigger was not set right (probably knocked out of place in transit). After I figured this out by taking it apart and putting it back together about five times, the brush seemed to work fine.

My main problem now is consistently thinning my paints. I'm working with vallejo air (you don't have to thin it) vallejo game color (1:1 ratio) and vallejo model color (guesswork ratio...). I have the most of the model color and it was consistently gumming up my brush. I'll continue to play around with it this weekend to see what types of consistency work best. Everyone says to thin it to where it looks like milk, but that's hard to judge in a dark color...

More updates to come!

Air Brush equipment coming in soon!

My new compressor, paints and cleaning equipment will be coming in next week. I need to finish up a commission orc for a friend too. I've had a cold for the last two weeks which has impacted my painting, so that explains the lack of posts... More to come!