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)

Iron Warriors and Terrible Decals

I know what you're thinking, "What kind of a title is that? Are his decals crappy and yet he's showing off his squad?" The answer is kinda yes.

Hi guys, Macca here, and today I am going to show you my new tac squad, aka what a month of procrastination looks like. However, I am quickly going to change topics and go into talking about Games Workshop decals about halfway through.

I decided to change to black rims on the bases this week, I really like the brown, however I felt I just wasn't getting the contrast, they honestly looked like a 70's apocalypse movie, just brown on brown. Too boring.

The paint job is nothing too interesting, I know, but these are currently only tabletop quality. Down the track I will add some scratch marks to go with the armour chipping, I will also do more highlights on the flesh on the bare head. As it is, I'm wanting to get this army to playable in the quickest fashion, rather than going straight at a Golden Daemon.

Angry Macca and Shitty Decals:

So, at this point, let's swap topics. I used a mix of decals on these models. I used Forge World ones on the knee (for the squad number) and the right shoulder (for unit type). Then I decided, in a truly stupid clusterfuck moment, worthy of derision, that I would use the 40k Iron Warrior emblems on the shoulders, rather than embossed pads. Rookie, so very, very rookie.

This is one of the better decals, yet you can clearly see the edges of the decal in this image, about a quarter of a millimeter from the silver, however, that's an optical illusion, more on that later.

On the squad Sergeant, you can also see some crinkles on the cranium of the skull. This is despite a ton of decal thinner and a lot of time spent working on each decal (4-5 times as long as any other decals).

By contrast, this Forge World decal is almost flawless.

The Problem:

Take a look at these decals. The decal areas are far larger than the item printed onto them, this means you will need to trim. Not just that, the decals are very thick, making them incredibly hard to apply smoothly.

Further to that, have a look up close. See anything odd? That's right, that's the silver skull and the black features not lining up. This is something I didn't notice until I applied them to the miniature, as the silver blends into the pale background of the decal sheet. This then led me to 'paint' over any overhanging silver, leading to the optical illusion that the emblem is nowhere near the edge of the decal, despite my trimming.

These Black Legion emblems are perfect examples of shit printed decals.

What is this? Seriously? That's a vehicle decal, that gap is almost a millimeter!

This set of Ultramarine symbols are almost not even printed onto the decal area!

I thought at first I just had a bad batch. Then I decided to go through my decal collection (It's a big one) and I realised that every chaos decal sheet, collected from 2003-2014 (when I gave up on 40k) are all this bad. This is not isolated at all, these are very poor quality decals.

The Actual Point?

Now, I know, I whinged and moaned all the way down this page. But in the end, my point is this:

Don't use Games Workshop infantry decals. They are shit, they will potentially ruin your expensive models.

You see, I am providing context here, it's no good me just saying "these suck", it's important for me to actually show why. This is 'bitching with a purpose'.

Anyway, all this aside, I am pretty happy with the squad, the second tac squad is in a similar state, so I have no choice but to continue on and do the best I can with them. I'd like to know how other people have dealt with this problem. Has it ever come up? Have you tried your best, followed the tutorials and yet the decals don't work? Please let me know, I' love to hear your stories.

~Macca

A Galaxy In Flames Tutorial: Applying Decals to Light and Dark Surfaces

Hello, Macca here, today at A Galaxy In Flames, we are going to look at decals. Personally, I love decals, I use them on every model, in every army, and I have done so since about 2012. A lot of people are really thrown off by them because they often are quite obvious, and this forces them to choose to freehand or use things like embossed shoulder pads instead. Well, today I am here to help you resolve this, by taking a step by step approach.

The Setup

So, for the set up, I have a clean cup of water, a bottle of Mark-Fit (a type of decal thinner by Tamiya, more on this later), Decal Fix (from Vallejo), a set of very fine tweezers (these can be picked up from any art hobby store), an old paint brush, a scalpal, and a set of GW decals. I have chosen these decals as they are a) our target audience; and b) they are a bit harder to apply then the newer decals or Forge World ones. I also am choosing to start with a pair of rhino doors. Personally, I find the larger decals more difficult then the small ones to apply, so that's why I have chosen these large surfaces. These doors have been spray undercoated and varnished. This is important as the varnish helps us to bond to the surface more easily.

To Start

As I just mentioned, varnish has been applied to the surface. It is important for us to wait till the varnish has properly dried, as we tend to pick up miniatures to apply decals, and unfortunately the varnish has only surface dried and we leave big fingerprints in our beautiful paint, or worst case, rub it off.

Next, I apply a droplet of decal set on each panel.

I then mix a little bit of water with it until it flows smoothly.

Next, I use the brush to coat the entire panel. You can just target the area you are going to apply the decal to, however I like doing it this way. Ensure you give it a few minutes to dry, you want it to lose the milky sheen.

Decal Set: Decal set is thinned with water, and dries clear. It will leave a slightly matte finish when dried, but otherwise dries clear. Once you wet it when applying the decal, it will actually re-liquify to a small extent. This allows our decal to 'sink' into the surface of it slightly, helping us to eliminate the hard edge of the decal. It also provides a much stronger bonding surface to bond to as it acts almost like a weak glue.

Next, we cut our decals out with a scalpel. We can cut exactly to the profile if we like, but I prefer to leave a tiny bit of 'clear' between the edge of my cut and the decal. The reason we cut them out is a) on Forge World decal sheets, they are often a single decal! If you don't cut it, it doesn't come off; and b) we can target a specific decal without having to soak the sheet. Safety note here, if you're 16 or younger, you might want to have some adult supervision, I can't name a hobbyist who hasn't cut himself badly with a hobby scalpel before.

I am choosing a Black Templar symbol for the black door, and a large aquilla eagle for the light grey door.

Once I have my decals, I then soak them in water with a quick dunk. I then lay the decals down, and gently apply some of my decal thinner.

Decal Thinner: It does exactly what the name implies, it 'thins' the decal chemically, which makes our edges thinner consequently. Thinner edges are easier to hide, and they will sink even easier into our decal set.

When you apply the thinner, you will know when it has done its job as the decal will 'shrivel' ever so slightly. The shriveled and wrinkled decal can now be applied.

The Application

I gently lift the decals with my tweezers, grasping an edge and slowly peeling them upwards and in the direction opposite to the side I first put the tweezers under. This is to stop the decal from tearing.

Note on rolling. Decals can roll up sometimes when we pick them up. If they do this, the side which is opposite to the direction of the curl should then be placed into a bit of water on a flat surface. It will then unfurl back to its original shape.

Next, a light coat of decal thinners is applied and gently brushed over the entire surface.

Once this has dried, we then smooth out the decal gently with a almost dry brush of thinner.

Next, we repeat our decal set step.

Once this has dried, we gloss varnish. The reason we varnish is that we need to seal the decal fully, as if it gets wet at this stage it will peel. Always seal your decals.

A quick note on this. I sprayed the black door a little too heavily, and unfortunately I wrinkled the decal with the seal coat. Damn. Anyway, I continued on, and I sprayed a matte varnish over next.

A gentle sponge was then applied with a little paint in order to slightly damage our decals. The reason we do this is simple: In real life, decals would be painted onto tanks and armour, so they would chip away or wear off whilst the paint beneath would be relatively undamaged.

So here it is, our pair of finished doors. On the left, the grey one came up perfectly, whilst I slightly messed up the larger decal on the right, it still would look effective on the vehicle. From here I would weather and battle damage both doors, and the decal would totally vanish into the panel.

So there we have it, my step-by-step approach to decals. This is a long process, but once you have it down, it only takes a few minutes per decal, and you can have multiple stages going on at once on a unit.

Also, if you are looking for further information, try The Painting Bunker YouTube Channel. This channel has some great little videos if you prefer them to pictures. I highly recommend checking this out at least once, as John's tutorials are simple and easy to follow.

That's all for now, if you like it, please let me know, and keep an eye out for us on our Facebook page. Thanks for reading,

~Macca