OMFG!!!! This is amazing! I just picked up a cheapo Air Brush. £30 job. I started out, I didn't know what I was doing. I mix some celestra grey with some water and cover some horrendous ebay rescues I found. The coat was smooth. Smooth as ass cheeks in fact. I then based with a brush some bug mans glow, and airbrush on a wash. Then a highlight. It looked FAN-Fuckin-Tastic! I then sprayed over some of my Saurus. I am really unhappy with my Saurus. The thing is. I thought my coats were thick. But when I apply a yellow base coat again. Its like you get it for free. It's so thin. I don't know why, but even miniatures that I thought were caked in paint, look sharper. I really feel like this is what my Seraphon needed. I am not going to go back and repaint all my other mintures, because I think with brush, Night haunt and Stormcast look ok, or maybe even good. But my Seraphon just looked horrible to me. The air brush just seems to work for them. Also I can't belive how quick it is as well. I got my Bloodreavers skin tone, in a few passes. Will it win Golden Deamon? no. Does it look 100 x better then I could ever do with a brush after 2 hours? yes. Regret not getting an airbrush earlier.
It's hard to see from the photo's why the air brush version is so much better. But the cold one on the left, I spent ages and ages trying to get it to look good. I knew I didn't like it. But it was only when I tried to do one using the airbrush that I realise how crap it looked. I need the contrast to help me appreciate the contrast of the airbrush version. I am sure there are probably painters who are experts with hairy brushes that understand about contrast and can make their miniatures look good with just a paint brush. But for normal people who have limited painting talent (like myself) I really see why the airbrush is so amazing now. It requires very little effort. All you have to do, is mix the paint and make sure you keep it clean. The rest is common sense. Also I can see how it helps you when you paint the details on the miniature, because the high contrast of the base coat, will make it easier to gauge how much contrast you need on the details. I personally think that dry brushing looks crap on the Seraphon. I think there are situations where dry brushing looks good. But I air brushed 10 Saurus, from rough looking yellow, to a smooth green colour. I done 3 base coat sprays, then sprayed ink on them, and then added lots of white and yellow to the green. Sprayed from an angle. They look a million dollors to me. They took about 30 min to do. When I tried with brushes, the process was so tedious, It took me weeks to get round to doing them. And they looked crap. The yellow Saurun on the cold one was the end result. To be honest, airbrush seems to be the paint brush of tomorrow. Hairy brushes are for luddites.
Yes! it was one of those things I expected to be underwhelmed with. I have read a lot of contradictory opinions on airbrushes. A lot of people say that they are no faster. Or that they are hard to use. Where as other people said they were great. For Seraphon they are amazing. Because Saurus and Skinks can be sprayed all one colour, and then shaded and highlighted with the airbrush. Because they are all 1 colour, its super important that, that colour looks good. I looked at the art work GW has for Seraphon, and to me they look crap. I wanted my Lizards to be really bright colours and pop. A base coat + an angled spray with a lighter colour, looks to me 100 X better then tediously building up coats, washes and dry brushes. I suppose you could use wet blending with a normal brush. But you would be there forever. Also you would have to be a master at wet blending as well. And the airbrush from someone who had been doing it a couple of days, would probably look almost as good or better anyway. And take 10 mins. Another reason I am pleased, is because I was going to strip the paint off my Seraphon and start again. As I am building an army and want to add more models. I want to get the colour scheme right. With the airbrush I would not bother to strip the models. The paint goes on so thin, and covers to well, that you can just re base and start again. Unfortunately I have lost some detail on my Seraphon, from priming with rattle cans, and applying lot's of heavy coats of paint. I have painted over my cold ones 3 or 4 times now. Some people say that's not a problem and you don't loose detail. Even if you do. I strip paint once, and I really don't want to do it again.
Guys! I took the plunge! I decided to start again with my Seraphons. I re-base my whole army! You know, even though I paint a few armies now, sometimes I really struggle finding a way to paint an army so I like it. The first army I paint was Death Guard. And I was lucky because I follow the default colour scheme, and to me they look great! Ultramarines I had a nightmare with because it took me ages to work out you needed to be super neat. And I had that same problem with Stormcast because it was hard to work out the gold colour. But Seraphon for me has been the hardest. I tried, yellow + orange. Purple, white, red etc etc. But something was always missing. .................. My air brush!!! Now with my magic air brush, combined with this new green colour, I really feel like I know where I am going. It just feels right. Bright green is a good colour for lizards. The only thing is, I haven't painted the belly's in a lighter shade. The reason is, because its hard to work out a good shade. Hard to paint on. And probably just looks better being all green anyway. How do you guys paint the belly's a lighter colour so it works with the top? I might try it one day. But nah, probably not. Oh and I stuck my cold ones in Detol. Had to strip the paint from them. Pain in the ass taking the pain off, so messy and time consuming. But yea I think hopefully I won't need to do that again. Once you found how to paint your army, then its just a mechanical process. Normally I find, if i want to paint certain models a different way, it means I haven't found my army colour scheme yet. It's subjective, its only important what you like. But you have to paint them the way you like, and not what other people say is good, otherwise you will have no motivation to paint them.
Also sometimes people will tell you to just get on with it. That's true sometimes. But also sometimes, it just takes along time to find out what you like. I highly recommend really experimenting before you settle on a scheme for your army. You are going to spend a lot of time painting it. So make it easy on yourself and be sure you absolutely love it.