Monday, January 2, 2012

Ever since the XP-38 came out, they just aren't in demand

I’ve had a few people ask for a tutorial on how I airbrush my Blood Angel tanks, but right now I have the base fades done on most of them so I don’t have a starter. Most are already in the basic faded stages to at least look decent on the table. So, I figure I’d spray up something to go step by step and since I’m going to be working on the Dusk Wolves project I was talking about I pulled down a Speeder to mess with. It was the first Blood Angel vehicle I built when I started them but have only ever fielded it once as I have other better things I want to play in that army. So why not swap it over to DW colors and start playing with how I’m going to paint the rest of the vehicles up. Down the road I will make a step by step BA guild too.
First off,. It was pretty much just sprayed red before. So before I got to it I started to inflict some damage to the speeder. I want their vehicles to have a very battered look. I think the dirty white looks really nice and gives it more flavor since white can look very plain (at least to me).

Second,. I sprayed the whole speeder white, Comm Art, Op White to be exact. Well I left the bottom and some of the areas I had already brushed black. No need to make more work.


Third,. I broke out the Raw Umber also Comm Art and started to hit the areas I figure will be dirty or at least shadowed more. I usually go anywhere from 30 to 50 PSI. I make a pass where I want the color to be and then load up the darker sections fading outward. Don’t worry if you go too far, you can always fade back. I also use a piece of Plastic Card as a mask (pic at the bottom) when I’m hitting multi level edges so the darker areas don’t hit the highlighted area.

Fourth,. Normally with Red I go back with Trans Black and darken the shadows even more but I noticed on the wing sections it was actually too dark for white. So I gave up on the spray for this.



Fifth,. Now I go back and work on the fades. So for this one I loaded up one brush with white and the other with umber. If you are using one brush you’ll just have to swap colors here and there. It’s not a biggy just takes some more time. Typically I like to finish with whatever would really be the top layer. In this case the grim and dirty would be on top of the white so I wanted the umber to be the last faded in. For the BA I usually do the last layer bright red highlight to show the light hitting the tank. To me it’s the small things like this that make it stand out. Planning out what you want and thinking about how something looks on a full sized vehicle helps. Go online and look up images of tanks or whatever you are working on if possible. It always helps me.


Sixth,. I brushed the areas I wanted black, with um.. black. Then I got out the Boltgun and dry brushed them. I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, and it’s how I like my dark metal to look. The boltgun brushed black gives it the metallic sheen but doesn’t make it look over the top.
Seventh,. Then I go over the areas I felt would have the highest wear such as wing edges (and moving parts like the flaps), where the marine would get into the speeder and mostly the battle damage I cut into it with Boltgun. I usually just run a shaky line over the areas and edges..




Eighth,. Break out the weathering powder, soot. Most of the powders are a pain but I love the way soot works and applies (I use Secret Weapon Powders). Don’t worry if you put too much on or in the wrong place. If you brush it and it doesn’t come off just wet the brush and wash it off.
The above took me about three hours from Battle Damage to the last pictures. I haven’t done anything other than the fades and grim on the speeder, no details or the guys inside. So far I’ve only really used White, Raw Umber, Black, Boltgun Metal and Black Powder. It’s not too hard, just takes time and you getting your own style and feel for what you want.

Hope this was what some people were looking for and hope it helped 8)
Oh yeah .. it's also Magnetized as pic'd below and I also include a pic of the Plasticard I used as a Mask.


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