Blog Aginor's Painting Blog

Thanks!
Yeah the problem with many yellow colors (including mine) is that they don't cover particularly well.
What I found out though: doing a coat of white first helps immensely. I usually prime my models white for that reason, and when I don't I put at least one layer of white on everything that I want to paint with a bright color.
And then carefully apply two or three thin coats of the yellow.

I like that color a lot, too. It is Army Painter's "Phoenix Flames", and then drybrushed with "Lava Orange".

 

@Aginor

Stick down what you do with the airbrush

 

I do this:
- take it out of its box
- unlock the needle, push it forward lightly until I feel resistance, lock it.
- attach it to the compressor, turn the compressor on
- adjust pressure to something between 20 and 60 PSI. Most of the time low, around 25
- check nozzle free, mechanics all moving
- put some water into it and see if it comes out nicely, onto a piece of paper towel.

For the paint I tried putting it into the airbrush undiluted (some of my Army Painter paints are quite thin), diluted with a drop of water, or with Vallejo airbrush thinner. I tried everything between
- so thin it looks like a wash on the model, runs away and doesn't cover at all
- so thick it only takes 3-5 seconds to completely clog up the nozzle

I tried mixing the paint in the airbrush's cup (not good) and mixing in an external container (better, although wasting lots of paint because I have to use a pipette to put the paint into the airbrush and I can never get all the paint from there. It triggers my OCD immensely).

Anyway, after that I start painting.
I usually do a quick spray on a piece of paper to make sure there's no funky $*** going on, then I spray on the model.
I am not very good with coordinating the two functions, so I usually pull back the trigger to get the air fully (that's why I set it low on the compressor), and then slowly depress the trigger to get some paint in.

While spraying I keep the airbrush mostly level or facing a bit downwards.


Problems I encounter:
- the nozzle clogs. Then it starts splattering around.
- even while the spray picture looks pretty decent there are tiny drops around the area I spray, similar to when you use the toothbrush technique to paint stars. I tried to prevent that by moving the airbrush closer to the target, but then it starts blowing the paint around on the model, even with fairly low pressure. It also takes ages to spray the model then because I paint only very small areas.

When priming I take off the nozzle cap, otherwise the primer clogs it because it is pretty thick.
Priming works decently then. Nice thin primer coats, although far less quickly than I had hoped.

Both when priking and when basecoating I keep a paper towel and some isopropyl alcohol near, to clean the nozzle.

After use I clean it of course.

 

@Aginor From what your saying only a couple of things I can point too.

1. Pressure is a little high try it at 20psi, lower for detail work 12/15psi, If I want fast I goto 30 psi but only on primer.

2. Paint spitting is usually the paint is too thick, tip clogging is a sign the paint is too thick

3. Thin the paint only with mediums never water, I use window cleaner and 2 drops of Vallejo Flow improver, you want a consistency of milk.

4. Trigger control, push down the trigger for air, pull back for paint, go 50/50 until you get used too it.

Watch some you tube videos on airbrush techniques, you probably already have.

You should be able to prime around 30 models with one cup of primer per coat, usually less than an hour to do both coats.

 

Oh, I just noticed I wrote the paint/air lever activation backwards. Of course I press for air and pull for paint.

 

Here are some WIP pics of the Treelord ancient.
Not quite there yet but going nicely.
I am not quite happy with the browns, after shading the browns were a bit too similar. So I tried to vary them a bit using drybrush and shades.
I also broke off the vine on the staff, twice. Glued it back on but now it is a bit crooked.

The sigils came out pretty well, I did them like the ones on my Ogroid Thaumaturge, with liquid white run into the recesses, and then some blue glaze.

Only a few details left to do.
Currently I am contemplating whether to use a bit of yellow on the tips of the leaves and vines. Not sure if I should.

 

Thanks!

Here is the finished Treelord Ancient. The last few details were easy to do once I decided on what color to paint them. I am pretty happy how he turned out.
Base is still missing, but so are the bases of the whole army. My wife and I plan on doing a basing marathon soon and do all of them together.

 

But wait, there's more!
At this point people would probably find it strange if I didn't magnetize anything on a model. And of course there are some magnets involved here, too!

The model can turn into a regular Treelord by just removing the right hand and replacing it with the one that has those cool but fragile vines coming out of it:

 

....and if you swap out the head, the loincloth and once again the right hand....

...here comes the Spirit of Durthu!




I could have painted the third head and loincloth, too, but decided against it. Already enough combinations available.

Ss always it was interesting to see which variants share which parts and to figure out which pose works for all variants. I enjoy that, even though it often takes a while.

 

Love the Aspen wood Staff.

 

Thanks, guys!

 

Very nice, bet your wife is well chuffed with that.

What you doing with the base?

 

We are going to do grassy bases with flowers.
It will be a kinda weird contrast between peaceful meadow and brutal force of nature on it.
The duality of nature so to speak, which can be brutal and beautiful at the same time.

 

Teaser:


Can you tell which model it is already?

 

Definitely!

Here is teaser #2: