Army Painter - A Quick Product Review

I was reading a product review of the Army Painter product range on another blog the other day (I forget which!) and decided to give it a try. For those who haven't heard of Army Painter, its a company that manufactures spray primers in a wide variety of colours, as well as other useful painting gubbins! The two products that I decided to purchase were the Spray Primer Desert Yellow, and the Quickshade: Strong Tone. I wanted to try and use these products to speed up the painting process for my Elysians. Although i do own an airbrush, i find using it is not always as straight forward as it seems, and problems frequently occur.

Firstly, the spray primer. Well, it does exactly what it says on the tin! Its simply a spray paint of your chosen colour, of which Army Painter offers a large range. Instead of undercoating, then base coating your models, this product does it in one spray. Nice, neat, and simple.

The second product is Quickshade. This is a product designed for shading your models by dipping them straight into the pot of Quickshade! The product comes in three strengths, and i went for the middle one, Strong Tone. Now, I've never been a fan of "dipping" but the results were quite convincing. The Quickshade is also a gloss varnish, eliminating another stage of your painting process. The only problem with this is that you may not want a gloss varnish on your models. I know i certainly don't! However, the gloss effect can be countered with the application of a Matt Varnish over the top (I used the GW one) This effectively gives you a double layer of varnish, hopefully making your models more durable.

The Quickshade is meant to be used once all of your base colours are on the model. I guess the highlights can be added before or after the Quickshade, this down to personal preference. Once the model is dipped, you must shake or wipe off the excess. If you don't you will get localised areas of very strong shading, which can look a bit rubbish!

To see the results for myself, i used an old 1st Ed Space Hulk Genestealer! I'm not quite brave enough to crack on straight away with my beloved Forgeworld models! The pictures below show the model after being sprayed with Primer and then dipped in the Quickshade. In this example, I'm very happy with the result! I have some more squads arriving tomorrow, both Elysian and Krieg (see my other blog for the Kreig!), so i hope to apply these products for real soon!

I hope this has been helpful to you all, and i strongly recommend you check out Army Painters website and take a look! Enjoy!

Weathering Tanks - Kreig Stylee!

I've often benefited from reading someones helpful tutorial on their blog. It occurred to me that i haven't contributed to the blogging community with a helpful (or unhelpful!) tutorial of my own!

I've been asked once or twice at my gaming club how i weathered my Kreig tanks. This will now form the basis of my first tutorial! I hope fellow Korpsmen and gamers at large will benefit from this as well!

The Forgeworld Mars Alpha Pattern Vanquisher - quite possibly the coolest of all tanks! Firstly i undercoated the tank in Shadow Grey using an airgun. Afterwards i applied the mud to the tracks. This was done by mixing Horby Railway Scenics sawdust with some PVA glue. This makes quite a satisfying gloop that makes excellent mud! Apply liberally!

Once the 'mud' has dried, i then added the camouflaged stripes to the hull of the tank. This was done by applying a mix of 2:1 Regal Blue : Codex Grey with an airbrush.

Once the camouflage had dried, i moved on to paint the mud. This was a simple application of Bestial Brown with an airbrush, applied to the tracks and the immediate hull areas around the tracks (mud splatter) At this stage i also applied a white vertical stripe to the front section of the hull to signify company markings. For this i just made a template out of paper and placed it over the hull of the tank, and used a Skull White spray.

Next i wanted to create a chipped paint look. This technique was taken from the Imperial Armour Masterclass book (which i highly recommend by the way!)

Take a sponge; the foam out of a carry case is very good! Then coat the end of it in some Charadon Granite and wipe off the excess. Gently apply the paint using the foam to the areas of the hull which are likely to be worn (hull edges, hand rails, hatches, etc) This gives the paintwork a great chipped effect! I actually used a Centaur for this example. The photos of the actual Vanquisher didn't come out to well!

Once the hull is suitably 'chippy', the rest of the hull needs to be weathered and looking, like its been kicking ass in the field for a while!

Again, this tip is taken from IA Masterclass and is quite invaluable when weathering tanks. Firstly you'll need to get hold of some Winton Oil Paints, in this case Burnt Umber and Lamp Black. Next, a suitable mixing surface. You will need to apply a small amount of the oil paint onto your mixing surface and dilute it with white spirit. The dilution is totally up to you, but the thinner the mix, the lighter the weathering you'll achieve. The thicker the mix, the heavier the effect (which can look crappy) Its a case of trial and error, but keep at it!

Once your happy with your mix, apply it to all the rivets, creases, nooks and crannies on the tank. It'll look like the accumulated dirt and oil of many days in the field, and give the tank and excellent weathered look!

For the Vanquisher i used the Burnt Umber mix for the hull, and the Lamp Black for all the metallic areas. It works equally well on both surfaces.

That's it for the weathering! Finnish off the details on the tank and your done! For the end of the barrel i used MIG Weathering powder (the forgeworld ones would also do) A very quick and easy way to effectively weather your tanks. All this can be done in just an hour or two (or three!) and the results are quite satisfying. Please feel free to ask any questions! Enjoy!

Elysian Squad 1 Complete

FINALLY got these guys done! Wouldn't have taken nearly as long if i hadn't had some crappy shifts at work! Never mind, the end result was worth the wait! Their Valkerie Transport has been undercoated, so I'll be starting on the interior before i assemble that. Enjoy the pics!

Sargent, Vox and Demo Charge (converted to an ammo box!)

Troopers

Troopers and Grenade Launcher

Whole Squad

A Few Reinforcements.....

Now my Elysians have got off the ground, i've not had as much time (or money) for the Krieg. I have managed to get 2 Plasma Gunners done for my infantry squads, and also a fun casualty figure, which is from the Quatermaster set.

Soon i hope to get the final 2 Grenadier Squads and Centaurs, and complete this army list! Well, until i start making Apocalypse formations!! And buy more Artillery. And maybe some Gorgons. And............

Elysian Squad 1 Progress

So progress has been slow this week due to working 2 overitme shits at work! Not to worry, at £200 per shift i should be able to purchase the rest of the army in no time!!

Just got the browns, metalics, washes and highlights to do now. Probably looking at completion next week (again due to work!!)

Test Model Complete

I'm definitely pleased with the result, and I'm happy with the colour scheme. It was quite labour intensive (compared to the Krieg anyway) but I think the end results worth it. I've done a Vostroyan army to, and the Elysians wont take nearly as long as they did, so i guess its not that bad!

Bought a Valkyrie at the weekend, so that's next on the list once the squads complete. Watch this space, and enjoy the pics!

Elysians Have Landed!

I have the army list, I have the colour scheme, and now i have a squad of Troopers! Forgeworld delivered unusually quickly, taking only a day to arrive! Along with a Troopers squad I also got the Special Weapons pack, as this squad will form one of my 2 Veterans squads.

Firstly, I want to paint my test model. So far I've got as far as assembling the model (not the whole squad, as my day was cut very short by shopping in Carmarthen with the misses!) In my haste, one of the shoulder pads pinged off into the void, never to be found!! (ARGH) So I used a spare Krieg shoulder pad instead. Don't think it looks to bad.

The kit also comes with a lot of accessories; pouches, knives, grenades, etc. The same was to be said with the Krieg, and i found it all a bit to fiddly! Besides, the Krieg are expected to die in the middle of no-mans land so to me it didn't make sense to load them up with equipment, only for it to lay rotting in the mud!

With the Elysians i went the opposite way. As they'll be dropping in behind enemy lines and operating without resupply, it made sense for them to be totally tolled up! Plus they look that extra bit cooler!

With the Elysians i went the opposite way. As they'll be dropping in behind enemy lines and operating without resupply, it made sense for them to be totally kitted out! Plus they look that extra bit cooler!

Right that's it for the mo! Painted example to follow!