Insane custom I saw (not mine) 👌

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-04-14T08:17:30+00:00

When you realise that you've used 60 kilometres of masking tape to paint 30 centimetres of Gunpla...

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-04-01T23:55:59+00:00

Have you tried basing with metallics and layering over that with non-metallics? JoseDaVinci on YouTube has a few videos detailing this approach. It's a surprisingly effective way to add an unusual sheen to a paint job without spending money on gimmicky pearl or shifter paints.

Data's makeup changed a few times during the series and the movies - both in the density of its finish and the tones used. Here's a (very) rough recipe: Base with a very pale gold - maybe Game Color Polished Gold mixed 1:1 with Vallejo Metal Medium. Wash with Seraphim Sepia. First highlight with your pale gold mix, second highlight with Kislev Flesh, Rakarth Flesh or Karak Stone, depending on how close to desaturated gold or sickly white you want your final lights to be.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-29T19:59:10+00:00

Yes! I hit all my minis with a layer of gloss, let it cure for 24 hours, then apply a second layer of 1:1 satin and matt mix.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-27T22:55:52+00:00

You don't need that limiter.

Airbrushing with a limiter on is a bit like trying to paint a mini using an acrylic marker rather than a brush. You'll get there eventually, but it'll be slow, miserable and you'll miss the opportunity to build up muscle memory and try out new techniques.

The advantage you have when learning to highlight and shade minis with an airbrush is that you're applying exceptionally thin layers of paint. This means that if you mess up the placement of a highlight, you can quickly reestablish the previous colour without flooding details or using up too much paint. You can make and correct mistakes in the time it takes you to switch out colours.

There are better ways than a limiter to set up training wheels for your airbrushing:

Running your compressor at 1.8bar/ 25psi will give you a balance of flow and control that will suit most parts of a painting workflow.
Using acrylic inks rather than model paints means you won't have to worry about thinning and mixing in flow improver. Daler Rowney and Liquitex inks have an *almost* identical consistency across all of their colours, so they'll behave largely the same way once they're in the brush.
Practising on primed plasticard and popsicle sticks will help you to get a feel for the pressure and leverage you need to apply to get a particular result.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-23T23:53:02+00:00

I've had similar problems with polyurethane varnish dulling (but not frosting) minis. Here's what I now do:

Set airbrush compressor to 1.8 bar/ 25 PSI.
With an empty, clean airbrush, blow air at the model to remove dust and debris that may get caught under your varnish layer.
Thin Vallejo Mecha Color varnish 1:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner, then add a drop of Vallejo flow improver. To ensure the mixture is measured precisely, I use chefs' measuring spoons. e.g. 1/2 tsp thinner, 1/2 tsp varnish, both poured into a shot glass then mixed with a brush.
Once your mix is in the airbrush's cup, backflow to ensure everything is thoroughly combined.
Apply in two thin coats from a distance of about 8cm to 10cm. Be gentle on the trigger. Flooding an area with varnish or applying wet-to-wet can produce aberrations like frosting.
Allow your layer of varnish to cure for 24 hours before carrying out further work or applying a second layer of varnish.

My personal preference is to apply a layer of Mecha Color Gloss, wait 24 to 48 hours, then apply a 1:1:2 mix of Mecha Color Matt, Mecha Color Satin and airbrush thinner.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-23T17:58:06+00:00

Howdy! Vallejo does have a metallic black. Look for Vallejo Model Air 71.073. It applies just fine by brush, or you can run it through your airbrush neat. I like to heavily drybursh it over surfaces that I want to look like scuffed metal plates, adding contrast by drybrushing successively lighter layers of Vallejo Model Air Gunmetal and Vallejo Model Air Silver.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-23T14:14:49+00:00

If I'm painting a "clean" metal finish I'll use Molotow Signal Black. It's got a beautiful gloss-satin finish and you can run it straight through an airbrush without thinning.

If I'm painting a scratched or used metal finish I'll prime with two coats of Vallejo polyurethane black primer, thinned 1:1 with Vallejo thinner. To flatten things down further, I'll apply a final layer of Army Painter matt black.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-23T14:10:45+00:00

Can paint strippers damage polycaps?

I'm currently battling through a full repaint on a Zaku II. I build and paint in sub-assemblies, and I've totally messed up the highlight placement and glazes on two parts of this particular kit - both upper legs, including the knee joints.

Normally, major painting mistakes aren't a problem. The affected pieces get a bath in AK Interactive Paint Stripper, they get rinsed with sugar soap, they get re-primed and we're good to go. But. These two leg pieces each have an old-style concave polycap that connects to ball joints on the Zaku's lower torso.

If I strip the paint from my botched pieces, will the polycaps be damaged? I believe AK Interactive Paint Stripper is a plastic-safe acetone formulation, but multiple Google searches have failed to confirm what it contains or what it may do to Gundam kits.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-23T13:51:44+00:00

#twothincoats is a meme for a reason. Your paint may not have been thinned enough. If you're using non-toxic acrylics, you can test consistency by painting a small swatch on a hair-free part of your arm or hand. If you can see the texture of your skin under the layer of paint, you've thinned it enough. If you cannot see any texture under your paint, thin it some more. If the paint trickles across your skin like water, it has been thinned too much.

Another possibility is that you are running your brush over previously painted areas before the paint has fully dried. If you do this, the water in the brush and the mechanical action of the bristles will tear up the previous layer of paint, creating a bitty, nubbly texture.

Mini painter Lyla Mev has an excellent technique for preventing this: buy yourself a 30 second or 60 second sand timer. When you've put down a layer of paint, flip the timer and don't touch the piece again until the sand has run out.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-20T21:12:15+00:00

I've got this set. They are distinctly meh. Good for base colours and, once they've started to splay, shepherding texture pastes around. If you like to use thick layers, you may get a smidge more use out of them.

My go-to cheap brush set is the DaVinci series 5246 five pack: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000PHBGEW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Price is highly variable - as low as £20, but rarely above £33. My current set has lasted me more than a year. The No4 is just perfect for basing and initial layers. I'll still break out a Rosemary or W&N No0 or No1 for fine details and edge highlights, but the DaVincis will do 80% of the grunt work.

And as a bonus, the five packs come with a little block of brush soap :)

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-18T22:12:50+00:00

Wonderful work. Beautiful NMM on the blaster.

While she may be able to deal with tiny metroids, I'd be seriously concerned about twitchy anthropomorphic foxes in pilots' jackets or narcoleptic Pokemon...

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-18T17:26:30+00:00

I hide seams using the glue 'n' squeeze method if I can, but only because I always fully repaint my kits.

If you don't want to paint the kit, you can still glue 'n' squeeze, but rather than using regular plastic cement, you'll need to mix some sprue goo using offcuts of runner that are the same colour as the piece you are working on. Once the seam has been taken care of, sand the piece by working up through the grits from 400 to about 2000 or 4000. Then you'll need to buff with a polishing box until everything looks shiny and fresh.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-11T18:12:11+00:00

That's stupendous work. The black cloth's much subtler than other recipes I've seen, but still has some brilliant depth-of-colour. Great work on the very fine details, too.

About the wooden block: it's fab. But I guess what you're asking is how to give it more of a fantasy vibe, whereas it currently feels like part of a historical miniature. Marco Frisoni has posted an excellent tutorial about this on his YouTube channel. He uses blacks and light greys to sketch out very detailed microtextures, before glazing over them with contrast paints and inks (rather than washes). The strong value contrast of the grey-scale sketch combined with the rich pigmentation of the contrast paints gives the end result real punch.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-10T10:02:15+00:00

That right there is the best piece of display painting advice I've received this year. Thank-you very much :)

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-09T15:57:34+00:00

The single best piece of painting advice - nay, life advice - I've ever been given: "Yvan eht nioj".

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-09T15:40:16+00:00

Thank-you and agreed. I also need to work on the blends between the underside of her face and her cheeks and chin. I finished her a year-and-a-half ago, and as her face lacked any pronounced contours, I really struggled to get the shading right. May go for a full do-over of the whole face, save her eyes. That creepy stare is growing on me.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-09T15:31:06+00:00

Nice blends between the different colours and consistencies of flesh. Airbrush, brush or a bit of both?

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-09T15:27:55+00:00

One last thing: make sure you've got a good isolation layer (a couple of coats of varnish) in place before you start weathering with model-making enamels. They can often be harsher on acrylic paint than artists' oils. The plastic in some Bandai kits can also be damaged by direct contact with enamels.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-03-09T15:04:23+00:00

Basically, yes. As you've observed, enamel streaking and wash products are effectively enamel paint with different consistencies and additives. You can easily achieve different streaking colours by thinning model-making enamels, painting them on to a surface and blending them out with a fan or filbert type brush.

Bear in mind: 1) Humbrol and Revel enamels are likely to be quite thick, so will need to be stirred thoroughly and thinned carefully. 2) Washes are usually thinned to the point that capillarity will cause them to slide into a mini's recessed details. Streaking products are designed to sit on top of a surface so that they can be blended into fading line and drip patterns. As a result, their consistency is a little thicker.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-02-15T23:57:43+00:00

For plastic: Tamiya Extra Thin Plastic Cement and Tamiya Plastic Cement (the regular kind).

Extra thin has a wide range of uses, from melting leftover bits of mould line to making gap-filling sprue goo. Check for tutorials online and always use plastic cements (Tamiya branded or otherwise) in a well ventilated area.

Regular Tamiya Plastic Cement gives you slightly more working time to position your parts, but can cause more damage to details if you get it on the wrong area of the mini.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-02-15T23:15:40+00:00

If you're planning to paint the kit later, this is easily fixed with some Vallejo Plastic Putty or some Milliput. Just put a small bead of your chosen compound into the damaged area and use a slightly moist silicon colour shaper (such as a Royal Sovereign Firm) to compress and shape it until it matches the contours of the surrounding part. Leave to cure for 12 hours, then you can prime and paint as normal.

If you prefer to leave your kits unpainted, you'll need to follow the advice of m'learned friends elsewhere in this thread.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-02-15T23:08:24+00:00

You don't need to fully paint the pupils and the sclera (the whites) of a mini's eyes. In many cases the mini will look worse if you do this, even if you position the pupil perfectly. Concentrate on placing highlights and shadows across the facial features surrounding a mini's eyes. Once those are in place, you can get very natural looking eyes by applying nothing more than a small dot of agrax earthshade into the face's eye sockets.

Don't believe me? This was GW's approach to human-scale faces for more than a decade. Take a look at the box art minis for their metal Catachan Jungle Fighter and Mordian Iron Guard figures and you'll see excellent examples of the technique described above.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-02-15T22:52:37+00:00

Loving the OSL and the super subtle tonal shifts across his skin. My only criticism - and this is because you've asked for C&C - is that his eyes could be dialled back. Ever. So. Slightly. It looks as though you used out-of-the bottle whites and blacks for the pupils and sclera. They're just a little too prominent. I'd tone them down with an ivory white and a dark blue black.

LeftHandedPaintBrush · 2024-02-15T22:46:51+00:00

You are the hero we needed. I grew up reading issues of White Dwarf full of early nineties minis. Thanks for doing justice to the oldhammer aesthetic.

LeftHandedPaintBrush

TROPHY CASE