Tuesday 13 December 2011

Back in the Saddle

Well EVENTUALLY a post that involves some actual painting!

Over a number of recent evenings I've resurrected a very old painting technique to get the camo done on the Gunship. Previously I would have used a tank brush and freehanded it on but I wondered if the blu-tak method would get me better and or quicker results.

Quicker? Definitely not, though I was brushing and then dry-brushing each stage before moving on with plenty of drying time allowed. Possibly quicker if you used an airbrush but just applying the B-T seemed to take forever, though I was generally sat in front of the telly with a head-cold for company.

I get the feeling this was also something to do with the scale of the vehicle. On a 15mm version I'm sure the task wouldn't have been nearly so arduous but hey there are far worse things that I waste time on.......

Better? As I first started the peeling process I was initially quite disappointed. I felt that the finish wasn't great and that maybe I'd got the blob proportions wrong. The more that came off the happier I thankfully became. There are some little ridges between colours that I didn't expect, brush vs spray, and close up its just not that clean a finish BUT as an overall effect I feel its pretty much what I was looking for.

I have to remember which painting stage its at! I'm sure that shade, highlight, decals and weathering will have a big effect. With the amount of time put in it just feels like everything should be further along.

The belly and undersides of the wings will be painted light grey and I need to replace the laser barrels with pins at the least. Being very thin plastic I broke the one at the rear and then chopped the rest as it would just be a matter of time otherwise. I'm halfway tempted to pick up some Forge-World bits including some missile pods but that would probably triple or quadruple the total kit cost.

So......to date, points for effort but none yet that count :)

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