It's Spooky time..

Last night was pumpkin carving time! .. Sadly the kids were crazy tired so they didn't get to help much but my daughter will be painting our last pumpkin today! . For the big carved pumpkin I went with a demon..  wanted him to look mean and creepy..  my hands were actually pretty tired after messing with this guy.. its a big pumpkin and the walls were very thick haha..

I was going to carve the other pumpkin as well but I ended up just going with the airbrush. I thought it would look cool and like I said ,.. my hand was tired haha I'm getting old.

So sprayed up a Monkey Skull .. 8) wanted it to be a little silly so figured that would do it. Only took me about 10 mins compared to the 2 hours for the demon.. then I went to bed.. The new job schedule is taking it out of me. Of well..  tonight we'll be going out so my kiddies can get some goodies!

Promises.. Promises ..

Last night I worked about an hour on this guy. I didn't have a large chuck of time to paint so didn't want to get into the Revenant, figured I'd give a Dusk Wolf some love. And worked a little on the BPs for the BA as well but had it in my mind it was this guys day.. 8)

The Dusk Wolves are gritty and have seen it all so I want them to really look the part. They need to be dirty and look like they been in the middle of it for awhile. I haven't done any edge wear yet, that will most likely be the final bit.. well that and the gun still needs some attention. I'm going to paint in the Prometh Gauge and a little more clean up. haha.. and by clean up I mean making it more dirty and worn.

I will also be adding the shoulder detail which is what will be next before I put the final weathering on. And I'll be adding some snow to the base..

I promised I'd make a how I paint my Dusk Wolves so I wanted to get back into them some to remember how I actually did it haha..  So that should be coming along pretty shortly.. I really like painting these guys it just takes a bit longer to get them done and I'm usually all over the place with what I'm painting. Lately it's been Eldar time since they are my Favs and was getting ready for Nova but now as things are calming down (hobby wise) I want to spread it around some. Thought I have ordered another Wraithknight with some cool ideas haha 8) ..

I tower from on high..

The Revenant is coming together, I didn't get anything done last night other then taking some pictures. I was pretty tired so didn't have much in me but I did get some done the day before so posting that up haha.. When I started getting him together I thought he was only going to be a little taller then a Wraithknight but with his rear fin he towers over him. The Rev is big, but the scarey part is he's spindly and I could see a bad day should he even tip over. I think I'm going to get a piece of steel or other heavy metal (devil fingers up) and glue it to the bottom of his base. Some added weight may help to keep him up .. Weeble mode..

I hadn't added his leg guards yet on this pic, he also has front and rear crotch guards which I still need to work on. I want to put a design on it or something. I'm always in debate on that.. it's like I want something there but also don't want to clutter the model all up.. I really think there needs to be a happy medium.

That rear spine is HUGE haha.. but it does look very cool. I need to blend the shoulder thrusters a bit more but that's one of the reasons I like to take pictures of a model. You can sit back and really examine it. And for me it's then that I see something blatant I missed.

I also started on the interior of the head chamber, it's still very rough with just the base colors laid in. Now that I have the colors in I'll start to work on the detail. I started to work on the cockpit while the rest of him had glue drying. Besides gluing him together in spots I also added more glue to the base and leg areas. He's pinned but still stays, he's big and resin haha.. not entirely looking forward to attaching the Pulsars.

So far I think he looks awesome.. I'm just really liking the look of him! It will be nice to have him representing .. even if he doesn't see much battle 8(

Gotta Break it down..

Friday night I got in another game for some more unit testing. I've been trying to test the D-Sy WG lately to see if they are really worth their points, they ain't cheap! So,. Friday night Sean (L33t) and I went up to Dropzone Games to look for some pickup games. It was actually a pretty slow night, I guess people were getting some early Halloween stuff going. So Sean and I just faced off again, he wanted to try his Tau with a SM detachment of bikes with Chapter Master.

We rolled up Crusade with 5 objs and it was the length of the table. Sadly I got the side that butted up against the other table haha.. He won the roll and started setting up, I got the D3 Re Rolls Warlord Trait. It's pretty cool but sadly every one I rolled rolled the same on the re roll hah.

I only ran one Spiritseer who got extra/no run power and the Tears Prime. Would be nice to use together but sadly not enough Warp Charges and I didn't take the stone. Again playing Iyanden rules.

The List looked something like:

Wraithknight - Warlord
SpiritSeer
WG w/ D-Sy x 5
    Serpent SL, SC, HF
Dire Avengers x 10
    Serpent SL, SC
Jetbikes x 5
Rangers x 5
Warp Spiders x 9
Crimson Hunter
Vyper SC, SC x 2
War Walkers ScatL, SC x3
Night Spinner

The Wrraithknight took a lot of heat this game and he got him down to 1 wound but he help strong on numerous rolls. His two defining moments were stomping the Chapter Master flat with one hit.. Pulp. Then After the Riptide and Buff Commander hit and run'd out (I rolled a 1) he saved a ton of shots but took the AP2 no cover wounds taking him down to 1 but he would not fall. My turn I Distorted the Buff Commander into the Warp, he failed his Look Out Sir roll.

The Nightspinner again did very well, my first turn took out the Thunderfire Gunner out then killed a few drones and Kroot. For it's price it's a very good unit that can really cause some grief, with the Heavy Slot not being as choked you might think about slipping one in. At least give it a shot and see how it goes. I do want to test it out more, against a few other armies but still. It performs.

The Vypers sadly did nothing, I was keeping them ready in case his Grav Gun bikes got too close but thankfully the Spiders put the hurt on them then a Serpent finished them off first turn. So they just flew back and forth, I wanted to keep them out of his Broadside's SMS range. They just guarded.

The War Walkers again did well blasting a Riptide off the board, still not the biggest fan of their look but they lay out the hurt. And getting 6 usually TL'd S6 AP2 shots is nice!

And lastly the D-Sy WG, they did very well. They are a squad of some serious destruction, you have to pay attention to your positioning though haha.. I keep forgetting you can't touch another in the squad at all so it's all about the position of the squad. I ran up on his Fire Warriors and easily removed them from the ruin they were hiding in. I did lose 2 of them but they took a lot of fire.

I was a lot more aggresive in this game, which is what I wanted to be. I pushed myself to be so. Normally I'm not that full on. I should have protected the WK a little more knowing Sean had a Squad of Kroot waiting in the wings. Thankfully he only took 3 wounds from that, then wiped them off the board for their insolence! haha.. The WG just plowed forward as fast I could right at his Riptide with HQs attached, hell for leather! It was a fun game .. was a bit worried he was going to go first but I had positioned to limit the damage. He called it at the end of 3 as I had taken out most of this damage dealers and had 4 of the Objs. And thankfully the Crimson Hunter lived again! .. but he didn't take any Skyfire so that probably had something to do with it haha...

Burn'm down

I got the Wraithguard a little more done and mounted to their bases. I got another game in last night to test some more units and wanted to have them ready to at least get on the board. I'll have a longer write about them shortly but for now just the one pic.I started on their gems and did a few washes on a few sections. I have more details to finish and need to cut a new template for the ghosted design on their head. I'm hoping to have them and the Revenant done by next weekend. Hopefully haha..

I twasn't lie'n

I did a little more on the Revenant last night and hey! Remembered to actually upload the images. Here's the head, I've probably sprayed it about five different ways trying to find the look I wanted. I'm happy with this look and will clean it up some so it will be ready to complete.

I don't know if I want it to be completely smooth or a little cloudy for weathering but either way it won't take too long to go either way.

On the body I really wanted to make the edges stand out. So I went back in and faded each chest section to make them separate (colorwise). I want the seams to have a glowing looking, so far I'm pretty happy with the look, not sure if I want to line the seams with white to really give the glow or just leave it as is. I'm really digging it..

I also worked on a Dusk Wolf as well, I really wanted to come up with a faster way to give them the mucked up look I wanted. So I sprayed them with the Airbrush, cleared them and then went in heavy with inks and washes. Then cleaned the extra away with a Qtip and some thinner. I think they he's on the right track now, once I add in some of the other colors and battle damage I'll have a better idea.

Ill just link to those.. whoops..

So last night I worked on the Revenant a little bit, today I went to link up the pictures but realized I never uploaded them haha.. whoops..  oh well.  Here he was a while back, its mainly just the start of him. Last night I worked on getting him close to done. I blended his chest section and also worked on his shoulder thrusters. I didn't want the light blue to be as dominant so I'm working on toning it down some. I'll have some pictures of him up tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll also be heading to Dropzone to get in another tester game. I have a few more things I want to try and would like to try them against another army.

On another topic and one I've been thinking about for awhile is if I should build an actual site instead of just using the blogger thing. I have some larger ideas I want to add to the site but blogger is limited. If I build the site myself I can add in a lot of cooler features that people might be interested in. Maybe it will be a hit, maybe people won't care haha.. Some of the things I've been thinking about adding are:

A Larger Broken Down Blog Roll that could be setup if I wrote something.
A Forum for painting and hobby purposes.
Multiple contributors for more content.
Larger How To section.

They are just a few of the things I had in mind. But it's also balanced with the extra time involved and would there be interest. I guess we'll see how it goes, haha

We use the Warp for good!

Made some progress last night on the Wraithguard, I pinned and mount them to their bases and got a little more color on them. Nothing ground breaking but just a touch here and there.

The bases came out looking pretty good and they are almost done as well, since I finished most of the airbrush shading I figured I'd just mount them up. I was thinking I was going to be playing tonight so was trying to have the ready for that, but it got moved to Friday night now 8)

Either way its progress and that's good haha.. With the spackled bases I'd recommend using pins in the feet, it will help the bound since the surface isn't exactly smooth.

I need to go back in and finish them out with the brush but right now they are looking decent as is. I also couldn't ghost the symbol on their heads, the 3M tape template I made I stuck to my table thinking I was going to be getting back to it quickly. Sadly I didn't and if left to air it can dry out some of the adhesive, which normal isn't even a problem but since the surface they are sticking to is all rounded edges and curves I need that extra sticky. Soooo.. now I'll have to make a new template. If you make a template out of 3M and want to save it for later stick it on something smooth or another piece of tape so the adhesive stays maximally tacky.. 8)

Game wise I'm going to test these guys again, I'm still not sold as they are expensive and they HAVE to get up there to be useful. That means a Wave Serpent, that also means more points that will be rushing forward and you'll have to save the Shield for all the incoming fire. No one is going to want this squad up in their business.

Where you been Bro?

Over the weekend I had a little spare time during the day so sat down to paint. I didn't feel like maing the stuff I was already working on and feel bad I've neglected my Blood Angels lately so reached over to the shelf and pulled down a Vanguard Vet.

He was just based in red so I set to shading him and getting the other colors on. He's not done but getting pretty close for a short bit of painting on him. I wasn't really planning to but hopped over to the spray booth and did a quick blue fade on the blade. Only took about 10 mins so pretty happy with that. Normally I take both sides and go through a bunch of steps but this time I just slapped tape on sprayed and then repeated three more times haha.. I did clear in between though, don't want to pull off what you just did.

There is still some blending I need to do, he's a not as smooth as I'd like but that shouldn't take too much longer.

I'm also going to trim his back plate for magnets. I have three BPs that I'll paint up for him.

So far only sprayed the wings up, they came out pretty decent using angled spraying with brown > bone > white. I based the BPs with red so they are now ready to be blended as well. I'll finish him up and then go back to get some Dar down. The Wraithguard are close and I really want to knock out the Revenant. After that I think I'm going to try and finish up the Assault squad of BA I have had waiting for far too long. I usually reach over and grab the cool looking mini's haha.. leaving the standard troop for another day sadly ..

System Status: Optimal

This weekend I did all the finishing touches on the Wraithknight. The caps on the shoulder vents are added and painted. All the gems are finished up and I added in some metallic coloring to a few areas to break up the colors. Not too much, I didn't want it to go overboard but I wanted a little more flare. I've already been thinking about what to make for the next one haha.. it was a fun kit to build up. This guy has now been moved over into the display case which is cool. I'm glad to have him knocked out and looking cool.

The chest gem got some highlights and gold added around the rim.

You can also see some of the lite ghosting I did on the helm. I wanted it to look like there was something going on inside, like an eggshell and I think came out right. I went with a lot of subtle looks on this guy, with him being so large and stand out I didn't want him to look too .. well, like he had to much muchness.. 8)

Cleaned up the rear symbol and touched up some bone areas.

And that is pretty much it for him. He's complete, there are some things I could have done but I'm pretty happy with his outcome. When I had a test game last week I was pretty happy with his look on the board. Now I have to crank out the Wraithguard and I want to get the Rev finished up as well. He's been sitting for far too long.

Spray on..

Last night I was pretty tired so I didn't feel like getting into any projects, instead I figured I'd do a airbrush comparison of the brushes I currently own. They may appear to be very similar but I've found they are so not. I guess I'll start with my newest to oldest.

Iwata Eclipse HP CS
List $ 170
.35 mm tip
1/3 oz cup
I've had this brush for about a month now and I'd have to say I'm very happy with it. It will spray almost anything, thinned or not is sprays it. I even tested it spraying straight model color out of the bottle (not thinned at all). It sprayed it without any issue at all and that is pretty impressive, to me at least. Thinning is still the better way to go but it's nice to know this brush will keep on chugging along even if it runs into a thick spot. It also sprays very even and only when the tip is dirty will it splatter. Dab the tip with a wet Qtip now and again as you spray (hahahaha) (what I do with all brushes) and you'll be good to go. It's easy to clean and seems to require less cleaning as it doesn't clog as much. It will give you a very fine detail line and I was thinking it was the finest of my brushes as my Velocity has be down and out lately but after I got it squared away I noticed the Iwata is the second finest I have.
The only cons I have with the brush is some of the pieces feel a little cheap. The needle thread section and when you screw the rear of the chamber back on, it's not a big deal and it might be that they were trying to keep the brush very light and it is a very light brush. The only other thing is the trigger tension, this is pure preference for me. It's a little soft in my opinion and wish it had just the slightest bit more tension. It's also the most expensive of the brushes.
Overall I love the brush and I'm mainly using it at the moment.

Badger Velocity
List $ 165
.21 mm tip
1/4 oz cup
This is my old faithful and up til about a month or so ago I had no issues with this what so ever. It's a very fine detail brush and has a very even spray, only thicker paints will make it spatter. Iwata Comm art paints require no thinning with this brush and seem to be the perfect consistency, for VAC a little thinning and you are good to go.The brush feels very solid and well made, nothing feels cheap but it does have a little more weight so that may be the trade off. The trigger tension is also much higher and that might be why I wish the Iwata had more, I've been using this awhile so I'm probably use to the feel of it now. It's also very easy to clean, I'd recommend some cleaning brushes and you can clean the entire chamber no fuss no muss. It also has a plastic cup lid which I prefer, most of the time I don't even use one but if I'm going to be spraying a lot the plastic lid seems to seal much better to me (again just preference).
As for cons there isn't much, I have had to send it back to be repaired once but I've used it a lot over the course of it's life and it wasn't a big deal. I think it was like $12 for a complete rebuild from Badger. The only thing I wish it had was the handle cut out so I could loosen the needle to clear a clog without taking off the whole handle but it's not really that big a deal.
Overall this brush is a workhorse and will treat you right as long as you treat it right. I just replaced the needle and tip (which I think I bent 8() and have now added it back in the mix. This and the Iwata are on rotation.

Badger Rage
List $ 150
.33 mm tip
Siphon Feed / 1/4 oz cup
This is my heavy duty high volume brush, mainly used to prime and clear coat. With the larger diameter tip it can spray the heavier materials. It's also nice to have the Siphon Feed, I have matte, satin and gloss clear loaded already just have to screw them on. It's the same design as the Velocity just a different system
** When cleaning, you really want to keep the inner chamber clean. It's hard to get in there, keep a bottle loaded with cleaner and run that though the brush after any primer or clear use. Also with the Siphon cap keep the breather hole clear. That can get you! If the brush stops spraying check that first haha**

Paasche Talon
List $119
.38 mm tip
1/4 oz cup (but seems bigger to me)
This brush.. oh this brush. I continue to have issues with it and barely use it. It CLOGS, a lot. Thinned to almost water is the only way it seems to work ok for me. This is my last resort brush and even then I'll usually just wait till the Ultra Sonic cleaner is done, clean the other brush and go. There are a few things I do like about it and just wish it worked better. The tip is easy to remove, incredibly so. And the tip is larger and one piece that is removed with a special tool. I like this alot, you aren't going to easy drop and lose the tip plus you don't have to use a pair of pliers to remove the tip housing. It is for sure the easiest to take apart and build up again. Sadly it goes to waste. I'm going to order a new tip and needle to see if that helps, when I received it the needle already appeared to be bent and maybe that's all it is. Sadly I wrote to Paasche twice and heard nothing at all, the first one was cordial but the second one was a little heated haha.. Needless to say I don't plan on buying another of their products anytime soon.

Bonus!

Superlube
It's a great product made my Iwata. Every time I clean my brushes I apply some to the needle, threads and trigger. It really does help and I recommend it highly!

So in closing I'd say you can't go wrong with either the Iwata or Badger brushes. They are both awesome and work great, you can find the Badger brushes for much cheaper then the list and can usually get a pretty good deal. If you hate thinning paints and aren't as good at it I'd recommend the Iwata but Badger Sprays them as well. The Badger Brushes do come with a larger tip so you can make them a bit bigger but you'll lose some of the detail. Overall I think the Badger will give you a finer line then the Iwata but the Iwata will spray thicker paints and still be very detailed. I would never recommend the Paasche (that thing can suck it, unless the needle fixes it haha..).

These are just my opinions on the brushes and you may have a completely different experience. I just wanted to give out my impressions and hope it helps someone maybe looking for a new brush.

Have a great weekend.