Imperial Armour Modelling Masterclass Review

G'day guys, Macca here and I have for you a review for both Imperial Armour Modelling Masterclass books. Since the Horus Heresy Modelling Masterclass is supposedly at the printers, it seems like a good time to look back at these babies. (I actually only got two new copies of my own this week)

A Galaxy In Flames Video: Heavy Rust Effects

G'day guys, and welcome to another AGIF YouTube video. This is our first ever 1080p video, and it marks a 20 minute long tutorial on how to do some pretty extreme rust effects using a Vallejo chipping medium. This technique is excellent for white-washing tanks and other armour, but I have used a home-made fortification to demonstrate. You can watch the video here, or directly on our YouTube channel. I have included the pics from the end of the video, and these will give you a pretty good idea of where you will end up after stage one of the weathering process.

Thanks for watching, keep an eye out for part 2, where I will apply decals to this, before adding streaking and picking a few details out.

~Macca

Forge World Metallic Airbrush Paint Set: Quick Review

G'day guys, Macca here. Tonight I want to take a really quick look at these new paints. I had several arrive last week (to be honest, this very bundle), along with a bunch of Minitaire and GW paints, so I will launch into a quick two cents on them. (Note: I only tested the metallic paint range)

So, I primarily used Iron Hands steel, as I have been working on my Iron Warriors and it's a close enough match to the Tamiya Titanium Silver I have been using. Overall, I liked it as it was easy to use and was a very clear colour, and I was able to paint a Deredeo, 3 Rapiers and 5 Vorax with them no dramas whatsoever.

As I also painted my new Sector Imperialis table, I used the Thallax gold in some places on my large aquillas. It's a good colour, however it simply wasn't lasting for that job, and I chose to use Minitaire instead to finish that particular job. This leads me to my next section:

Pros and Cons

Pros:
-solid colour, the metallic particles don't separate leaving you with that horrible clear filler liquid
-colours are pretty well matched to their assigned jobs (Grey Knight Silver suits Grey Knights funny enough)

Cons:
-not a dropper bottle, which f#%king sucks
-price. This is a big one, as you can get more for less from pretty much any other airbrush brand in regular usage, such as Vallejo Air, AK Air, Minitaire etc.
-no noticiable improvement over Vallejo Air or AK

General Thoughts

I think these are really good paints. I also think they are price gouging you for what they deliver, as the pros are pretty much covered by other brands, brands that don't have the negatives. Sure, it's really convinient to buy Emperors Children Purple, rather than try and match the purple of other brands, however, for the price of this set of just 5 paints, I brought 10 Minitaire paints from badger at 30mL each. You do the math, and that's 300mL of airbrush paint for the same cost as 100mL from Forge World. Yuck.

Now, the prices may be better in the UK and offer a more favourable comparison, however here in Australia, I find myself seeing zero advantage to them.

Lastly, don't buy their airbrush cleaner, don't buy their thinners, because I can buy 250mL of each at Toyworld here in Australia for $11.99 each, which, again, is roughly half the price of Forge World and I also don't have to pay to ship them. Oh, and no, I did not test these products, but I don't think they are going to offer much of an improvement over Tamiya, AK, Vallejo etc. as they are all paint manufacturers and they all make great paints.

Verdict/ TLDR:

Great paint, but other people do the same product for cheaper. I favour no particular brand, I like what works for me, so this is entirely subjective, but if you have ever used Vallejo Air, these paints are almost identical.

~Macca

A Galaxy In Flames Video: Marble Basing Tutorial

Wow, so some big news today, with Keepy looking at getting some very talented painters, one of whom has painted for Forge World, down here to Australia just to run some painting tutorials! Very exciting stuff! (If you do want to know more about that, please look on our Facebook page or on Australian 30K Heresy Community).

Well, enough of that, and onto today's blog update: a new video tutorial!

Yes, I took the time today to make a beginners guide to creating marble effects on a miniature's base, similar to the effects on Horus and Guilliman's bases.

If you like the video, let us know either here or on YouTube. Thanks for popping in,

~Macca

The Tormentor: Part 3, Finished

Well, after a nice little holiday in Fiji, soaking up the blue water, white sands, and most important of all, cocktails, I am finally back home in Australia and able to complete my vision of Perturabo's personal transport, the Tormentor. This project was a labour of love, and took a month and a half from conception to completion. Once again, my thanks to my mate Deke, he supplied me with the kit last minute from his Games Workshop's stock when everywhere else was sold out of them, and also took the extra effort of getting it to me. Deke, if you're reading this, my thanks.

The rust and markings were the big concern for me. While the inner hobbyist is saying, nay, screaming "More. MORE!" I was telling myself that it isn't true to Perturabo. He would have some damage, some surface rust here or there, a few markings, but he isn't Fulgrim. He doesn't do gilded, he does down-to-earth. So, I restrained myself and just kept it to a little rust around the bolts and a few areas to accentuate the look.

The rear hatch is of course the defining feature. I added a little rust here, as it would be slammed into the muddy ground all the time, and I felt it could be a little more weathered.

The Void Shield generator is a bizarre mix of hues. I wanted it to seem a bit other-worldly, and up close, it looks almost like a nebula. The crewman up top is just for the rule of cool.

In Greek mythology, King Minos had a Labyrinth which held the minotaur. Funny enough, Perturabo does too, and his minotaurs are upon the hull. If I had a David Bowie decal, I would have him on there too. (Labyrinth nerd reference)

The custom Iron Warrior icons I sculpted came up a treat too.

There are patterns above the letters on the gun and along the top of the drivers visor slit.

Lastly, the upgraded communication arrays, Void Shields and the exhaust in its new position. These are of course the little things that needed attention to help bring this tank to life.

Well, that's all for now. It's been a blast, I wish everyone who reads this a happy new year, and all the best with your hobby endeavors,

Macca

The Tormentor: Part 2, painting the legend

The Tormentor, personal transport of the Primarch Perturabo himself. This was the first unit painted for this army, and boy did it become a testing ground for ideas.

To start with, I applied a basecoat of Tamiya Grey Primer. This primer is fantastic, and it seamlessly covered the miniature.

Next, I painted in the panel lines. I used Miniataire Raven Black to do this. The reason I did this is that it allows a slight darkening of the silver in the areas which are black. This adds depth and some pre-shading to the silver.

Once I had finished with the black, I applied the silver, Tamiya X-32 Titanium Silver. I also added about 1:50 of Raven Black to this to make it a tad darker. As you can see, only a small amount of the black showed through the silver, but this is what I want.

Next, I used some of my 'Special Metallic Mix', a custom concoction of mine using Tamiya Clear Red, Clear Blue, Smoke, and a few metallics. I then applied this around some of the panel lines and the barrel to add some more definition to the silver.

After this, I gloss varnished the entire miniature, followed by taping off the areas I would be painting with Hazard Stripes. The Hazards are a VERY over used paint-scheme, namely because they are pretty cool. With this in mind, I kept the scheme very limited. They are after all Iron Warriors, not Hazard Warriors.

Once the yellow (a custom mix) was dry, another varnish, some more tape, and I did the black. Here ended the airbrushing. 

Next, I started the detail work. From this point on, it's all old fashioned hand-painting. I painted in the Aquillas and the stowage, as well as the void generators.

Lastly, I applied some decals, from the Minotaurs, Death Guard, Iron Hands and Super Heavy decal sheets. At this point, I am pretty happy, however I still have a quite a lot of minor details to pick out, so I will leave this here until I get back from Fiji.

Merry Christmas all,

~Macca

Flyer-Sized Urban Rubble Bases: Part 2, the paint.

In Part 1 (find it here), we looked at the construction. Here in part 2, we will cover a very simple paint job. To start, the bases are given a spray primer undercoat. The trick, shown in picture 2, is getting the spray so spatter ever so gently and to not have a single flat surface coat. This means that there is more area for paint to stick to, which will prevent paint peeling later on, as resin, even cleaned, is notorious for.

To basecoat, I used the airbrush, with a mix of Miniataire Charcoal Grey and Raven Black to create my dark grey. The GW equivalent which I tried to match, is Standard Mechanicum Grey. It's a fantastic colour, but I can get a lot more Miniataire ready to spray for the same cost.

 Blurrtastic.

Next, GW Leadbelcher was used on all the metal surfaces, and a mix of Sycorax Bronze and Auric Armour Gold was used for the shell casings.

Out come the weathering powders. I applied a fair bit of powder using a small brush. The green powder gives a moldy look which is just perfect for virus bombed Istvaan III, whilst the browns give a good mix of old and new rusts.

To seal it, I gently airbrushed a little acrylic thinners over the bases. This liquifies the pigment, which then sets in place. Do use low air if you do this, as it can blow it all away. If you don't have an airbrush, just gently touch the areas with some white spirits, and the spirits will flow into the pigments and seal them. Always remember to semi-gloss or gloss varnish the pigments after for a good seal.

After the pigments, I gently drybrushed (yes, that horrible painters curse word) the bases, just to add a little definition to the greys. This was a very subtle step.

Finally, I picked out the details such as the little skulls on the bases and the light fitting. I used this time to apply some rust effects (some Secret Weapon Rust Brown powder mixed with a little blazing orange) and applied with a sponge.

The results:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please let me know if you did,

~Macca

Lorgar Aurelian: Part 2

Two Primarchs in one week whilst working every day AND spend time with the girlfriend? I'm trying to give it a shot! So, today is part 2 on Lorgar, and the first thing I want to say is that GREY IS BORING. Thus, being a fan of Evil Lorgar (muh ha ha) I started with a nice red basecoat with the airbrush, Minitaire Angelic Blood was the go-to, followed by a top-down coat of 50-50 Angelic Blood and Hazard Orange.

Next, I cracked out my wet palette. This bad boy is still wet from working on Horus as I top it up with water to keep it moist through the day. I grabbed some Evil Sunz Scarlett and some Blazing Orange, and in a 70-30 mix, I went around and highlighted the UPPER panels around the zig-zag runes. I didn't go too orange as eventually once I wash this model, the contrast will be huge, so it only pays to highlight lots now if you're not planning on a wash.

Following all this, out came the Balthasar Gold for another hour-long session of gold trim painting. Fuck you GW, fuck you FW, 20 years of painting chaos space marines has given me an intense dislike of gold trim. But it looks shit hot, so I grudgingly do it whilst praising your foul dark gods.

Next, I painted a mix of Auric Armour Gold and Balthasar onto most of the trim. In pic one, you see just the base, in pic 2, you see the full gold mix.

Next came the steel/silver sections. I mixed up some Ironbreaker and Chaos Black to get a darker steel tone, and painted all the tubing and Illuminatum(?) This Crozius is DELICATE. I think out of all the Primarchs I have done, well, the two others, nothing can match this. If you work on this, be very wary of breakage.

I also painted the purity seals/streamers on his armour, as well as doing a soft marble on the shaft of his crozius. this was done by painting it matte black, then applying some very thin veins of pale grey, followed by a Guilliman Blue glaze. I will be coming back to the streamers later after the oil wash, so they aren't quite finished yet.

Thus began the long-ass oil wash. Lots of runes and gold, meant 45 minutes of picking out delicate details all over the place. In the end, I'm really happy with the result, and once he is dry, the matte varnish will really sell him. I will paint the face and cloak in the meanwhile, and bung up some pics of him tomorrow.

Thanks for viewing guys,

~Macca