Painting

        Sometimes the simplest shapes turn out to be difficult to paint because the margin of error is so small. In the last blog I mentioned that the Kren chapter insignia could be difficult to paint on pauldrons. Last night a new way of doing this occurred to me so I tried it out.

I have been known to comment that some vehicle modellers can perfectly weather a tank but are let down by the figures they place in a diorama with it. Their figures look like lifeless mannequins with thousand yard stares.

There are many ways to do rust effects on a model. Some rely on special products. Some use hairspray, salt, ground pigments, make-up powder and so on. This tutorial uses paints that you may already have.

The most basic rust effect I use is to just coat the metallic part in a thin coat of GW Tin Bitz/ VGC Tinny Bitz. This is an easy way to add a bit of tarnish to a weapon or other metal part that looks too shiny and new.

        I get to see many very nice model vehicles, many of them in 1/35th scale. While many of these are very detailed it is often the figures that are with them that let them down. It seems some modellers can perfectly weather a vehicle but paint figures that end up looking like lifeless mannequins with thousand yard stares.

        One piece of advice I would give to miniature painters is to investigate a variety of paint brands. Independent shops are good for this since they usually stock a number of brands.
        For basic colours such as black, white etc it is only prudent to buy them from the company that offers the best value. MP paints are my usual first choice for these. Their paints come in pots that are at least twice the volume of GW and for half the price. It is perfectly good paint so you would be a fool to pay effectively four times the price for something no better.

I've never tried battery powered paint stirrers. Some of my older paints are way more solid than liquid! Someone suggested one of these. An Ikea coffee frother (300.000.41). Cost me less than £3 on ebay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNmbF2nbhIk

        Several of the tutorials I have written have included drybrushing as a technique so some further words on this may be in order. While there are a many articles already written on the subject many of them neglect what I consider to be intrinsic points in learning how to drybrush.

        Recently I painted an Ambul, and not including the base/undercoat it took me less than half a day.

        I've always had a problem working out exactly what paints to use to paint "Old-style" Genestealers. I could see what colours weren't right, but never which ones were right. This is my first serious attempt to get colours I'm happy with.

[center][img]http://www.cheddarmongers.org/prod/gallery2/d/12580-2/cowboy11.JPG[/img][/center]

        Some time ago I was talking to someone in a shop who was planning to take up figure painting. I mentioned Black Inking as a useful technique and he admitted he didn’t know what it was. Looking at some photos of figures a friend of mine did it was obvious he had not Black Inked them. Seems there are quite a few model painters out there that do not Black Ink their models. This is rather a shame since Black Inking is a very effective but simple technique to add to your repertory.