with airbrushing and the like why are we so behind the scale modelers and railroad enthusiast?

Okay, so how do Airbrushes fit in with Hellbores?

Well here's the thing, Hellbores are an interesting model (and note, the one I'm painting here is actually a plastic duplicate using my tasty pink cake model method, so yay for recasters!) The hard part though is that even after priming, filling, sanding, and filing, the epic hellbore presents some real challenges. Specifically the person that sculpted it was a moron.
Instead of doing the smart thing and buying a wooden dowel, and using a dremmel tool to hollow out what needed hollowing and thus ending up with a perfectly cylindrical shape, they instead opted to sculpt the damn thing out of green stuff or modeling clay and ended up with an oblate ovoid cylinder. One covered will all sorts of fucking irregularities.

Irregularities that if you paint and then ink wash the main body, you get horrific results. See pic... but first a warning.
Warning. The image you are about to click HAS had it's paint thinned and applied with a red sable 000 brush. It was painted using Citadel foundation red and P3 red ink and Windsor and newton Scarlet ink. The black is carbon black by golden (a professional acrylic paint for airbrush and classical artist) The undercoat was done with Tamiya aircraft gray model primer.

I will not be held responsible for mental anguish that results from seeing this image in detail, nor will I accept bills for eye or mind bleach.

That said. let's look at how starting over and using an airbrush changes everything.

>>5257813

we're busy playing

>>5257876

this paintjob looks oddly orky. i actually like it.

>>5257813
Because they know tricks we don't, and most people in mini gaming are arrogant knowitalls that are too proud to ask model railroaders for help.

Also we're afraid that if we let the model railroaders talk to us for too long, that they'll start to wax rhapsodic about how they got the simulated tar paper tiles on their whistlestop refueling station's outhouse "just right" and that our heads might implode out of pure madness.

Honestly, have you ever gone into a good model railroad store? I have found one over in Bellevue Washington called Planes Trains and Automobiles. They have little baggies on the wall for brass and steel model train decorations. Things like read view and side view mirrors that are smaller than 1/4 of a grain of rice. But you are supposed to glue these fuckers on the sides of the train to realistically simulate the side view mirrors on locomotives.

INSANITY!

one thing I would like to know how to do is that technique the aircraft modelers do that gives the jet engine exhaust that blued and heat treated look. I don't know what it is called to google it

Okay, so I stripped the horrible horrible paint job and started over.

Part of the problem here is scale. Epic is tiny. So tiny that when you're trying to get a truly nice smooth paint coat on that doesn't have irregularities and is thin enough that you don't lose detail, that a paint brushes bristles are literally too thick. They actually give texture to the paint as they lay it down, and thus you end up with the weird banged up (orky) look to what should be a nice clean smooth, mechanical look.

The Hellbore should be a clean cylinder to start with, with a nice coat of paint that is military in it's precision.

So, time to break out the Airbrush.

Here you can see some of the parts of the Hellbore.
The chassis for carrying the hellbore, the lift and slider arms, the hellbore body, the drive train tracks, and the drill head and impeller. (note:two heads are shown here. One before weathering, one after. The idea here was that the drill head would have (when it rolled off the assembly line) been painted caterpillar orange (Actually Union pacific armor yellow +Railbox yellow) I'll zoom in on those in a moment.
The idea is that just like a bulldozer that paint gets worn off, leaving exposed steel underneath.

Colors used here :Caboose red, UP armor yellow, railbox yellow, goblin green (vallejo) turquoise ink (p3) carbon black (golden), hammered copper (vallejo), Polished gold (vallejo) (vallejo Gamecolor colors are exact matches for GW colors of the same name, just of better quality.)

You can't do details with the airbrush, right?

Doesn't it make everything look weird when you paint something with the air brush and everything else with the regular brush?

>>5257956 Airplane engine exhaust effect

It's called "overheated metal" effect.

I'll explain that, no problem it takes 4 shades of the metal you are working with.

So you need a pallet of paints or some appropriate inks to darken a very light metal with. (also some blue, green, and yellow inks if you are trying to make overheated titanium.)

>>5258045You can't do details with an air brush, right?

Incorrect, my friend. And thank you for asking that question, because this is one of the myth-understandings about airbrushes.

With a proper airbrush, time, good paint, and lots of practice you can create lines of near infinite thinness and do detail work that is stunning to behold.

In fact, let's talk about microarmor for a moment. GHQ has a tutorial on their website for how to do realistic camoflage on 1:300 th scale tanks. Tiny little things.(see pic) That tank has only felt the touch of a paint brush for just those little heavy black spots.
Everything else was airbrushed on. (tank fits on a nickle)
However, you need a proper brush. Which I'll be covering how to choose one.

>>5258058
thank you

So let's look at the chassis. This looks a little orange because of the flash, but rest assured, this is the red of a train caboose.
Wait a second... Caboose red? WTF? Where's my gore red, or bloody red? Holy crap, that's... model railroad paint! That's right. Floquil has historically made some of my favorite water based acrylic paints. The thing is, they go the extra mile and match their paints to industrial and military specs and each and every batch is EXACTLY the same color as every other batch. They also dry smooth, clean, and have such finely ground pigment that it's almost painful to use other paints instead of it. And here's the thing, see those giant fucking pots of paint? the glass pots that say poly scale? Those pots have twice to three times as much paint as citadel, cost the same or less, and have glass bottles with screw on lids that don't fucking snap off on you.

Now me, I use all sorts of paints, citadel foundation series, Privateer, Vallejo, whatever works best. I don't shill for anyone here. But if you can find some polyscale acrylics, try them. Super stuff, especially for imperial guard who use a lot of realistic earth tones instead of crazy bright shit.

>>5258174 opps sorry forgot pic... well no prob here it is.

see how not even the slightest detail is obscured? Nothing is gummed over, and the paint is utterly utterly flawless. Not a break on coverage.

This was done using my workhorse brush. The Iwata Eclipse HP-CS.

An actual constructive thread on /tg/? What the hell happened here?

>>5258222
dunno, but someone damn well better send it off to suptg for archival.

>>5258203

Oh, and see the little swoops and swirls in the Back ground? Those are me fucking around with the brush to figure out the paint flow. Each time you put paint in an airbrush you mix airbrush medium (by preference) or water into the paint to thin it. Then you spray a pattern of lines to get the feel for how much pressure and flow you need to account for to get lines.

See how thin it gets on that paper? Well let me give you an idea of the scale it's at. That paper, is an envelope. The thinnest line is about the thickness of a 0000 paint brush, maybe a bit thinner.

>>5258222
>>5258228
I periodically do informative threads teaching /tg/ people about stuff. I'm hoping we'll see others here chip in and do likewise. There's a lot of talent here, it just needs for people to tap into it.

>>5258203

Really? I'm seeming a lot of gummy paint in corners and crevasses from pooling. You might have laid it on pretty thick.

>>5258203
i remember those from the end of mario 3

>>5258222
>>5258228
>>5258261
I don't think /tg/ is a good place to put up tutorials or modeling advice because the thread life is so short, their is no time to experiment with or refine the knowledge being pooled together. modeling advice is better suited to a forum

>>5258268

Disregard, what I was seeing was on the resin even before you sprayed.

We must promote Ifuritasfan to Scriptariusish level.

This is my setup. I'll go over each part one at a time.

First off, the compressor. Let me help you out here, if you're ever thinking about buying an airbrush, you should start off thinking about the compressor. Do NOT buy cans of compressed air.
Why?
Two reasons, compressed air sucks, and money.

First Money, since that's what everyone more ofter concerned with. At 5-8 dollars a can for compressed air, within 5-10 painting sessions, you'll have burned through enough canned air that you'll have been able to have bought a compressor.

So after 10 sessions you'll have NOTHING to show for all the money you spent on canned air. Buy a compressor, it'll last you for years and will have paid for itself after 10 sessions.

Next... why does canned air suck?
Well a number of reasons.
1. Irregular air pressure.
2. Wet air
3. Cold air

Ever taken a can of canned air that you use for cleaning out your keyboard, turned it upside down and sprayed (or heck even just sprayed rightside up?) The can gets cold as you let pressure escape
What happens when air gets cold? It contracts. So while the can is warm you have the air coming out at one pressure, and when it cools down it comes out at a lower pressure. This is bad for air brushing. It also results in the air that does come out being cold.

And what happens when something is cold? You get condensation of airborne watervapor. This is bad for paint, this causes crazing in the paint you lay down. It creates uneven or even waterspotted paint jobs. Bad news.

>>5258342
So, canned air...bad, air compressor... good. Get one with a nice 1/5 to 1/3 horse power motor. Don't buy one like this (see pic) This is a shitty tankless compressor. You want one with one, possibly two tanks of you're feeling extravagant. Also, said compressor must have a moisture trap/pressure regulator on it (this is a must) (I'll label the stuff in another pic here) and a braided line. The braided line helps insulate the line and allows water vapor in the air to condense and never reach your brush. Ultimately you want nice warm dry air coming out of your airbrush. This causes the paint to coat thinner, and dry faster and cleaner (so that dust particles in the air don't have time to stick to wet paint... this is how airbrushes can create super smooth glossy finishes on furniture that you can't get with paintbrushes.

Why not use tankless? Well that's pretty simple if you think about it. You want continuous air flow at the SAME air pressure. Imagine if the pressure jumps up and down in the line... your air brush will be pulsing air, and thus it'll basically be ejaculating paint in spurts. Great for paint Bukake... sucky for a way to get an even paint job on your mini

>>5258293 tutorials not necessarily a good idea here since threads go away.

/tg/ is unique for 4chan
We have our own thread archive (google suptg)

So, at this point you're probably saying
"Fuck, Ifuritasfan, how do we know that you've even got any mini painting chops in the first place? You could be talking out your ass completely. "

So here's a pic showing a completed epic mini, coins and a Zippo in pic for scale (Holy shit, where'd I get that giant fucking lighter?) and a piece of the hellbore side showing some detail work of mine on it. Note, I've not done any ink washes of highlights or metalizing yet. This is just the base coat on the hellbore piece and a little dry brushing. On the epic Thunderhawk transporter... yes the fine details and shadows on the paint are subtle and where airbrushed in using my high detail airbrush... which I'll be talking about shortly.

Remember, this is really tiny shit. The detail is pretty impressive. This pic is really up close and more than your eye would normally capture.

So let's take an up close look at the transport's sides. Here's where we can really see how well an airbrush actually preserves detail by laying down far thinner and cleaner coats of paint.

Look at the top of the cylinder. See the decorative metalwork that runs around the crown? (right below the feet of the metal two headed eagle on the green background) I will be painting that black and metalizing it, but for now I left it red so you can see how not any of the corners look rounded even slightly by paint building up on it or rounding edges. For something at 6mm scale rounding of edges is even more noticable than a normal scaled 28 mm mini. So rather than clogging up, smoothing over, or filling up detail, an airbrush can help preserve it by only applying just enough paint.

Which gets us to the issue of choosing an airbrush and some thing to learn.

>>5258498

I'm...not seeing it, bro. That's a pretty flat looking model. But continue, please, I don't care so long as you're not the sort who slathers paint all over their model with nary a care.

>>5258599

gotta agree, doesnt look better than any brush painted. and you can't dry brush with airbrush.

>>5258569
Okay, first off, I'll show you what I think you DON'T want, and why you shouldn't want it.

This is a suction fed airbrush, single action trigger.
Reasons why you don't want this.
1. See that suction hose in the paint reservoir? To ensure you get paint on your mini you're going to have to put enough paint (Plus thinner) in that jar to ensure the end of the hose is always under paint.

And once you've mixed that paint with thinner, you probably don't want to pour it back in your paint tin/jar/bottle. Why? Because some of the paint in the jar is exposed to dry air in there, and the paint starts developing a skin. Think of how blood coagulates and forms clots. Well that's what starts happening to the paint in there because the water has thinned out the anti skinning chemicals in the paint. A few times of pouring your paint back into your paint pot, and you've got grainy clumpy paint that is now unsuitable for airbrushing.

2. External mix air brushes lay down big blobs of paint in spattery patterns. An internal mix (the paint is forcibly atomized using internal air vortexes) airbrush produces a fine mist of paint that looks like fog.

Finally, external mix brushes have HUGE fans of paint. Meaning you can't control detail for shit.

So, a suction feed airbrush... uses up paint faster, spattery, and lots less control and bigger spray pattern.

Mind you, they're damn good for laying down your own primer on a mini, and doing big murals and stuff. But a suction feed brush is not the sort of thing you want for minis. You want a GRAVITY feed, internal mix airbrush.

*waits happily*
I was looking for airbrushes but got discouraged due to the complexity of getting a good one so between this and the delicious pink cake threads, thanks OP.

>>5258599Sorry, I don't see it
>>5258656Ditto
No problem guys. It's really pretty subtle on this piece. I still haven't completed all the little details I want to do on it, but when I point out the little details then go back to the original and you'll be like "Oh... now I see it"

I was just fucking around on this with my newest baby... an Iwata CM-B. Fucking $700 dollar brush that sprays paint as thin as a human hair, So I just wanted to see how extreme I could go with detail.

Okay, so, any questions about why a suction feed brush isn't for mini painters for the most part?

Here's the thing, even if you do just want to paint on your base coats and do all the detail by hand, you can do all that with a gravity feed airbrush... and be more economical with your paint.

So lets' talk about the gravity feed airbrush. See pic.

This is an Iwata HP-CS eclipse paintbrush. This or a Revolution air brush should be the mainstay for most people. You can get a used one on Ebay for about $30-$50. If you buy a used one, for about 5 dollars and some acetone you can refurbish it into a brand new air brush.
Disassemble the used brush, remove the oring, and soak all the metal bits in acetone overnight, gently tap any debris out of the brush pieces and reassemble it with a new O ring and replacement .35mm needle ($1.68 on ebay) and you should have a fully functional air brush. The reason most people don't do this is because they're cowardly asses or artistic wonks that clog up their brush and are afraid to disassemble it, clean it, and reassemble it. It's like people that can't fix their own computer... they use one, but don't actually know how it works.
See the paint cup built right into the brush?

>>5258767

Nah, I saw those and figured that's what you were talking about, but it's nothing beyond what one could do with a brush, especially with a smaller model like that. It's the bigger stuff that it's harder to get a smooth coat with, 40k scale vehicles and such.

>>5258841
Sorry, gotta disagree, at that scale your lines have to be unwavering. I defy you to do that with a brush at that scale.

But for your question about whether an airbrush can do things that a brush cannot. Try this on for size.

OP has wisdom, this thread needs to be archived.

Can you actually thin the GW paints enough that they don't wreck the airbrush, or should you use paints from another manufacturer? If so, which one?

Cuz every story I've heard involving GW paints and an airbrish ends in tragedy.

Okay, so let's continue with why the gravity feed brush is the better choice.

Well, when you're painting minis your paints usually cost a fucking arm and a leg. A complete set of paints can set you back a couple hundred dollars easy. So you want the most out of those bottles you can get.

a gravity feed brush has a hole at the bottom of the reservoir that feeds every last drop of into into an internal mix chamber, swirls it in a vortex, mixing it with high pressure air and then putting it out through a tiny hole which a needle keeps plugged. By pulling back on the trigger button you release more or less paint (or ink) through the nozzle to be sprayed on your figure.

The paint or ink spray's fineness is pretty much limited to the size of the pigment particles plus a few micro droplets of suspension medium (water plus acrylic latex)

Because there's no feed hose, you lose very little paint, and it will in fact make your paint coat the figures much more efficiently than brushing it on will.

My own personal observations is that 3 or 4 drops of paint plus thinner will coat between 4-8 times more area using a proper gravity fed airbrush than you could coat with a paint brush with that same amount of paint. And the coat will be more even and consistent.

So, this gravity feed brush doesn't waste paint like a suction feed does, and it produces a finer spray of paint because of the mix mechanism, but what else does it do? It clearly can't drybrush, right?

Honestly, no, by definition an airbrush cannot "dry" brush. Drybrushing is by definition loading up the bristles of a paint brush, blotting it to remove excess paint and lightly playing the bristles over the highpoints of a mini to create the effect of highlights.
So what can Airbrushes do for shadows and highlights?

>Sorry, gotta disagree, at that scale your lines have to be unwavering. I defy you to do that with a brush at that scale.

HURR, but we here at Games Workshop would disqualify you for that. See, you see you painted *on* the model rather than painting the model itself, HURR!

*straps on helmet, gets back onto the short bus*

Would a compressor like the 3 gallon, 125 psi work is is that overkill?

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00915310000P?keyword=craftsman+air+compressor

Should I just get a hobby compressor, and if so, what's the best all-rounder? Price and reviews?

>>5258959

Well of course an airbrush would be good for that model, that's precisely what I said. Just saying it's not necessary for the scale model that you're working with right now. Your shadow recesses can be achieved with a darker toned base coat and then allowing the shapes and recesses of the model to guide your brush on the following coats - leaving dark areas in the right places.

>>5259109
Okay. But for the sake of this interesting thread, let it go.

>>5258986GW+airbrush=tragedy
Fear not, friendly anon.
GW foundation paints have excellent airbrushing traits. Fine pigment, easily thinned. Ect.

Myself, I'd suggest that Vallejo is superior to GW's line but that's just my opinion. I like the richness of the pigment in Vallejo. I also prefer Polyscale paints by Floquil (now owned by Testor) and testor paints have always had outstanding flow in airbrushes.

But GW's new paints should be okay. But some of their older stuff had some pretty chunky chalky pigment (wasn't ground to a fine fine powder before being added to the suspension medium)

Also, to thin the paints. I personally recommend Golden Airbrush medium. It's not as cheap as water, but it has something in it that my brush loves. I always get better flow from my paint when I use it instead of water.

>>5259140
my local hobby shop carries predominantly Tamiya paints, how are they?

okay, show us some of your models.

>>5259086Would a compressor like the 3 gallon, 125 psi work is is that overkill?

You'd need a moisture trap and a pressure regulator for it (so you can dial down the pressure getting sent to the brush to tolerable levels) but it's fine. Here's the thing, those are loud, big, and usually not something that your spouse or girlfriend or whatever will tolerate. It'll work, but it's kinda overkill.

Pic points out the moisture trap and pressure regulator.

You should use an iwata HP-CS with between 20-35 psi. They claim that at 35 you get the best performance, but I find it varys with where you are above sea level. Higher altitudes require less pressure.

>>5259137

Haven't been trying to start an argument, his advice on airbrushes is still sound and I await for more, just mentioning that it's not necessarily the best tool for epic/gothic scale stuff.

>>5259152
I've heard nothing but good things about Tamiya. But I've never airbrushed with them... so I'm afraid I cannot comment on that.

I'd assume that they're fine for airbrushing if properly thinned. However even their acrylic line is petroleum based, so you'd need appropriate non water based thinner.

>>5259214
not "necessary", a spray can and very thin tinted wood varnish might do well enough if all you care is properly coloured figures for the game, but no amount of tricks and tools is enough if you want your models to look realistic at micro scales.

>>5259214
I didn't mean to imply that you were being incendiary (in fact you may be right) just that this is a thread about airbrushes - and a good one. It would be a shame to let the conversation shift.

>>5259233

I've used Tamiya paints.... if you use their brand of thinner, they tend to work well. Not as consistent as one might like, but far better than GW used to be, in any case. Testor's Model Masters is what I tend to use, in any case, for finescale modeling. My minis I usually just base coat with my airbrush, and then brush with Vallejos and some GWs.

>>5259160
That's kinda what I'm doing here already. Showing the painting of the hellbore, as well as showing that troop transport. I play primarily epic now, so I'm not sure what you want? you want me to show a whole bunch of minis that I've painted. ummm.. okay.

>>5259205
ACK! sorry forgot the pressure regulator and moisture trap pic. Here it is.

The moisture trap allows water to fall out of suspension in the compressed air so that the air coming out of your brush is dessicated (very dry) This helps for a number of reasons. Imagine a big drop of water shoots up into your airbrush from the air line. It mixes with your paint, suddenly that nice even colored coat is dilluted 10:1 suddenly the spray is wet, and you get water deposited all over your paint, and it goes skittering all over the coat. As the water goes running all over it can potentially ruin your paint coat. Especially if you use lacquer or enamel paints at some point.

Okay, back to airbrushes.

Now, the one I've been talking about so far is the HP-CS. There are plenty of others made by other companies. And many of them have all sorts of cool features.

Let's take that paint cup built in for example.

There's a serious weakness there, it means that every time you want to change colors you're spraying you need to completely clean out your brush. (I'll explain cleaning in a moment but since we're still selecting a brush, I'll hold off on that.)
Take this little bad boy. The Eclipse HP-SBS
See how the cup is off to one side and not just mounted right in the center as part of the thing? Well the cup is removable. So let's say you want to change from one paint to a cup with ink in it.
Pull out the first one. Put in a cup with a little soapy water or alcohol... blow a little of that through the brush... then swap in the ink cup... bam, you're ready to spray an ink wash.

Now the point you all are no doubt curious about. Fine detail.

Let's start with my hp-cs. It's not a super fine detail brush like my CM-B. But I loaded it up with a little red paint and did a few lines at various levels of fineness
See my index finger and the fingerprint lines?

See that little tiny red line I'm pointing at? I'll circle it for you.

That line right there. the line that's thinned than the lines that make up my fingerprint?

Yeah. That's how fine your detail with an HP-CS can get. All the eclipse HP line can do similar.

I've heard excellent things about the Harder and Steenbeck Ultra line of air brushes for example (they come with the Vallejo model air suitcase kits)

But here's the thing, when choosing a brush you should think about
1.what you want it to do.
2. How often do you need to change colors (do you need removable paint cups)
3. How fine of detail do you need it to paint(Do not buy an Iwata CM series just because you want the finest detail)

Now, here's the thing. Airbrushes do not drybrush... they do however allow you to paint coats that are so thin that they blend into each other. Essentially wet blending without actually having to mix the paints like you do with wetblending with a brush.

See, that's the thing.

Drybrushing was invented as a quick and dirty alternative to wet blending paint. The idea being that you paint your darker coats on first, and paint progressively lighter colored coats of wet paint on the mini, gently blending the edges of each transition so that the color transition looks continuous.

By wetblending you get highlights that are the sort of thing you see in eavy metal.

With an airbrush you wetblend simply by applying ultra thin transparent coats of paint that create an illusion of progressively lighter highlights.

>>5259606
Sorry, I needed to look up the terminology for airbrushes...

For paint brushes it's dry brushing and then wetblending

For Airbrushes it's called "Layer blending"

Okay, now onto the final part of the airbrush portion of tonight's fare.

Cleaning your airbrush.

Nothing screws up an airbrush faster than not cleaning it after you get done.

This cannot wait. Before you do anything else, when you have finished spraying a color, you need to clean your airbrush completely.

For me, it's a ritual. I have a nice cup of clean water and paper towels on hand at all times. Not murky water, clean water.
First you clean out the cup or if you have a suction feed, unscrew the paint pot. Then wash or wipe the inside of the cup/pot with water and blot with a paper towel or dump the pot out after swishing the water or thinner around inside the reservoir. Then pour in some alcohol or other thinner and again, with a clean brush swish it around in the cup and start spraying the liquid into a paper towel . You'll see that it's still spraying pigment but it gets lighter.

>>5259606
very fine line indeed, good enough for faces and such in warhammer scale, and if you're still scared of overspray there's always blu-tac for temporal, easy to peel off masks.

>>5259748
Now, just repeat this till it starts looking completely clear.

Then, loosen the needle in the brush (or if it's an external mix, you disassemble the head assemble and soak it in water or other thinner and swab it with a clean paint brush to remove any debris in the head.

If it's a internal mix, twist the needle a little clockwise and counterclockwise, you'll see yet more pigment get dislodged.

Spray the thinner or water out till the cup is dry... and then remove the needle and wipe it. Guess what you'll find... more pigment. Crap that stuff gets into everything. Put the needle back, and again rinse with more thinner or water. Eventually you'll get it clean if you repeat this.

Do not leave any pigment in the brush, it will set up, and it will clog the brush. Remember how I said that people sell these cheap on ebay used? That's because they fuck up their brushes by NOT CLEANING THEM.

Their stupidity is your gain. Don't emulate them. Clean your brush. If you ever clog your brush, again, disassemble it, soak all the metal bits in acetone, knock the debris out of them, and reassemble. Problem fixed.

Now, one thing about cleaning a gravity feed brush.

Never, EVER have paint in the brush, take the needle out, and tip the brush back.
The paint WILL flow into the air valve, dry, and lock it shut. Freeing this problem and cleaning it out completely can take WEEKS of soaking and spraying and soaking and spraying. It will eventually be fixed, but it's a pain in the ass.

>>Bluetack masks

EXCELLENT point. And thank you for making it.

For those people that are not familiar with the concept of "masking" this is where you apply a material (be it tape, masking fluid, frisket, or as the anon mentioned...bluetack) to prevent paint from getting onto something. For example, if you have your car painted, they mask off all the windows so that paint will not get on them. They cover them with newspaper and tape so that they can paint the car and then remove the tape and paper and your windows are paint free.

Bluetack can be applied to a mini on top of paint (since it doesn't stick hard enough to pull paint off) just exposing the area you want to paint. The airbrush then lays down a layer of paint, you remove the bluetac and you have a nicely highlighted piece.

Similar things can also be done with stencils.

Okay, that's it for trying to demystify choosing an airbrush and tips for buying and caring for them.

A small compressor, and a decent used brush should maybe cost you 100-150 total.

If you have question on it that I've not answered so far, please ask.
Now, onto the rusty bits.

Here are the treads for the hellbore. Check that out. The rust paint got deep into the treads, creating rust effects in minutes that would have taken a lot of work to do manually.

>>5259809
stencils for lettering and symbols you need to repeat, like the inverted omegas on ultramarine vehicles or aquilas, blue tac masks for rounded irregular edges like highlights in ork muscles and camo blotches.

if you want your stencils to last soak the paper in future floor finish or other clear acrylic, let it cure on top of a pane of glass or other flat smooth surface and one fully cure cut it. laser straight edges whit zero fraying fibers and it wont soak up paint or let it bleed through.

Next here are the partially completed roller cradle, and the hellbore impeller.

The impeller is intended to look rusty, and dirty and crappy. It sits at the end of the hellbore and churns and pushes all the shit behind it to push the bore forward. So the rust and grungy paint is a must.

The roller arm however is looking very rusty and dirty indeed. I need to find a particularly good metal effect chrome that I can use to create streaks where the hellbore has slid down the roller arm.

But the rust effect on them came along nicely with the iron paint.

pic>>5259940

>>5259809
stencils for lettering and symbols you need to repeat, like the inverted omegas on ultramarine vehicles or aquilas, blue tac masks for rounded irregular edges like highlights in ork muscles and camo blotches.

if you want your stencils to last soak the paper in future floor finish or other clear acrylic, let it cure on top of a pane of glass or other flat smooth surface and one fully cure cut it. laser straight edges whit zero fraying fibers and it wont soak up paint or let it bleed through.

This is the most public masturbation I've seen since I stopped taking the bus.

>>5260243
Let the man speak, I sense much potential in this.

I would like to hear more discussion about different paint brands if that is alright.

Also, anyone archiving?

What thinner do you use? I notice in one pic there's a PP ink there. Is that used to thin some of the paints?

Has this been archived yet?

>>5262054
Yes.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5257796/

Ive got a question about making stencils for 40K scale tanks.

What is the best way to go about it? is there ready made products that you can just cut.

I tried making them with masking tape and the paint bled through a fair amount where i had mad the cuts.

>>5261332I would like to hear more discussion about different paint brands if that is alright.

Whatcha want to know about paint? There's a good selection of paints out there for hobbyists.
I'll list off here the ones I know of, others can chime in.

Games Workshop standard line(of course)
Pros:well known brand, readily available, bright colors, fast dry time, dries hard
Cons:Expensive, bad pot design (plastic flip tops), sometimes inconsistent batch to batch, dries out easily, some batches have poor pigment quality

Vallejo (game colour)
Pros:Well known brand, has precise color match to GW line, Superior pigment (fine ground pigment and almost twice as much pigment than GW line) thins very well, dropper bottle design (outstanding way to conserve paint)
Cons:If not thinned (usually requires a lot more thinning than your average paint) it dries to look plastic like. Because you have to thin it so much, much slower dry times (correctable with using airbrush medium instead of water)

Poly Scale Or Polly S (fantasy line poly scale by Floquil)
Pros: Poly scale comes in water based acrylic and traditional thinner based enamels. Incredibly fine pigment (outstanding for airbrush work), glass pots with metal screw top lids (could be a con if you dislike these) Paint color quality matching is at military grade. Meaning that every batch is EXACTLY the same and matches real world schemes. This stuff is used by model railroaders and is of the highest quality.

Cons: Limited color scheme and a lot of it is somewhat visually flat for gamers (who like stuff bright and shiny) Fantasy line (polly scale fantasy) is discontinued but was one of the best paint lines ever for fantasy. Colors like slime green and rotting flesh were nicely opaque and absolutely brilliant colors. If you can find it, you'll be ruined for other paint lines.

(more to follow)
Cons:

More paints.

Vallejo air colour
Pros:Specifically for airbrush work on models. Outstanding military color matches. Same vallejo dropper bottle storage.
Cons:Specifically for airbrush work. Since it's pre-thinned you're getting less paint for the money. Price should be lower.

Ral Partha Paints
Pros:An excellent paint line with outstanding metallics, very fine pigment, Ironwind has bought up the partha line of minis and appears to be gearing up to breathe new life into the paint line too. If so, then I'd get some of this before it disappears again. BIG Plastic paint pots with plastic screw tops lots of paint for the money, and the plastic lids are top quality and seal perfectly.

Cons:Historically a little thick, needs lots of thinning (with the accompanying drying issues)

Humbrol: Saddly, I've never used this line, but every model I've seen that used it was done by a pro. They all looked awesome. I'm of the opinion that this is the line that you end with. That once you've tried everything else, this or Tamiya is the line (if you can afford it) that modelers finally settle down with.
Cons:Expensive, color line is traditional with colors like French blue, Brunswich Green, Midnight blue, Sea Grey, that sort of thing. Would require mixing and matching to achieve goblin green and the like.

Tamiya
Pros:Superb line of paint, heavy pigment concentration, super refined color pigment particles, super refined metallic particles, dries very hard. Nice glass pots Colors are VERY eye catching and strong. (see their color charts pic )
Cons:you get 10ml instead of the 12 ml that GW would give you. Accusations of Weeabooness. Crapping jars are covered with japanese moonspeak. WEEABOOOO!
Cons

Formula P3 paints and paints
Pros: I've only tried the inks, but I've heard and seen good and bad things about these paints. The inks appear to be some of the best I've tried. Solid, clean, brilliant color with good coverage and consistent color and sheen.
Cons:I've been hearing and seen reports that thinning with water will cause the pigment to clump up and settle out. Apparently there's a lot of vinyl in the paint and that there's some formulation issues. There have been threads on war seer and the reaper message boards about bad batches of metallics. There was a recall and replace notice that went out on some of these paints, which shows that the company is aware of and responding to problems. I've never seen GW ever do something similar when they produced a bad batch of paint. So the Customer service alone is worth supporting them for.

Golden paints: Okay, these are not really your typical "mini paints" because they're artists paints but they're well worth mentioning. I'll not do a pro and con on this because it'd be pretty pointless to. These are some very very good paints. They are for commercial artists and need you to play with them to get the bright fantasy colors. I especially like their carbon black and their difference pattern metallics (They have paints that change color based on where the light hits them from, which I'm sure would be awesome for eldar vehicles)
I primarily use them for their flow release, airbrush medium and acrylic retarder. If you buy some GW or Reaper flow release, chances are they bought a big bottle of Golden flow release, rebottled it and sold it to you at a 500% markup.

If i went into a GW, and mentioned the fact that i didn't use GW paints, would the redshirts hate me?

>>5262925Stencils

Chances are you're using the wrong sort of tape. Standard masking tape is fine for petroleum based paints or large paint projects, but for minis and the wet acyrlics we use... no.

Blue Masking fluid is what you need there. You cut out your stencil, brush this on the back of the stencil, and use it like glue. You apply the stencil, lightly buff any extra blue masking fluid toward the edges of the stencil (away from the inside of the stencil paint area) and let dry. This should form a perfect temporary stencil mask. Spray, then gently remove the mask, it should peel away like soft rubber.

But I've never seen normal masking tape work well for mini work well, it's just too rough and the glue is the wrong sort.

Is that a scratch-build of the Mole from Thunderbirds?

You, sir, are awesome.

>>5260243This is the most public masturbation I've seen since I stopped taking the bus.

I'm sure that since you've stopped taking the bus it's decreased the amount of public masturbation that other people were seeing too. You really should see a professional about that you know.

>>5261510What thinner do you use? I notice in one pic there's a PP ink there. Is that used to thin some of the paints?
I don't thin paints with inks. For paints that require thinner, I use Scale I and Scale II thinner (model railroad thinners, Scale 1 is for Plastic, Scale 2 is for metal and wood)

For water based acrylics, I use either alcohol and water mix, plain distilled or tap water, or Golden Airbrush medium. Airbrush medium is my thinner of choice for acrylics(mixed with a little acrylic flow release) Use that with either a paint brush or air brush, it's fantastic.

>>5263635
Oh yeah, on the water and alcohol thing... pure grain alchohol only. No wood or denatured alchohol. The fumes from those are potentially poisonous. If you use pure grain alcohol, you'll be fine. The worst thing those fumes will do is intoxicate you, not kill you or blind you.

>>5263410
>>5263474
>>5263569
Thank you very much, I thought this thread would disappear over night but I'm pleasently surprised to see it still kicking