Showcase: Hector, prince of Troy

Hello everyone!

In this article, I want to showcase my version of Hector by Young Miniatures.

I spend a lot of time on the face and eyes, only by them being barely visible on the pictures due to how the helmet covers the face from any source of light. The inside of the shield is also painted to look like real wood. Sadly the body covers most of it so you can't really see it on the photos.

I hope you like him! If you do, feel free to head over to Putty&Paint and leave me a vote. 👍

Showcase: Achilles

Hello everyone! 

In this article, I want to showcase my version of Achilles by Young Miniatures. I'm not sure if I made the right choice making the photographs on a black background, but it looked better than on a white background.

I painted the armor to look like hammered bronze, trying to get close to the reference snapshots I took from the movie. The shirt underneath is painted as a black, semi-reflective leather.

I hope you like him! If you do, feel free to head over to Putty&Paint and leave me a vote. 👍

How to quickly paint faces

Hi guys (and girls)

It's been way too long since I've posted anything. Reasons for this are family stuff, work stress, changing jobs etc... I just really hope I can post more frequently from now on.

In this article, I would like to cover a trick I recently learned/discovered for painting faces.

It has to do with subdermal colors in the skin. I'll show the pictures first, and explain the reason why later on.

I began by pre-shading the head with black and white paint. This will give you a good indication of where your shadows and highlights should be. If you paint transparently enough, the shadows and highlights will shine through your paint job, but even if you paint more opaque, making a picture of this step will be a good reference!

I loaded my airbrush up with some red paint and sprayed the top half of the face. Make sure to cover the cheekbones, nostrils and the tip of the nose. 

After that, I got the blue paint ready. I used this to spray the bottom half of the face. I also sprayed a little blue over the red in the eye sockets, creating a dark purple. 

With the red and blue colors in place, I continued to paint the face as I usually would. I used the Scale75 skin colors for this. 

You can see that the cheeks and the nose bleed through some of the red color and that the chin has a light blue tone. This gives the illusion of rosy cheeks a five'o'clock shadow. After the skin tones, paint the lips with a red-ish/pink-ish color and paint a little bit of texture on the lower lip. Also highlight the eyelids, nose, upper lip and any wrinkles if they are present on the model, and the face is pretty much done!

Now onto the reasons why...

The central part of a face has fine blood vessels carrying oxidized (red) blood to the surface of the skin. The chin, especially on a black-bearded man, appears blueish due to microscopic hairs. Women and children don't have a five'o'clock shadow but in the area around the lips are relatively more veins carrying deoxidized blood to the surface. Some artists paint this as a green color to compliment the color of the lips. 

Traditionally, there is also a yellow or white zone of the face. This is the forehead that doesn't have as many muscles and blood vessels and thus doesn't have as many red blood cells. 

I hope you liked this little tutorial and that it helps you. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comment section below.

Thank you for reading and until next time! Peace ✌

Product review: XTREME METAL paint by AK-Interactive

Hi guys and girls!

Today I would like to cover the XTREME METAL paints by AK-Interactive.

A word of caution before I start, these paints are enamel based and need to be applied with an airbrush. You really should wear a respirator or open a window to protect your lungs!

The paint can be applied without primer and is ''pretty durable'. If you plan for some serious weathering later on, I do recommend applying primer before applying the XTREME METAL paint. If you apply an enamel based paint over a acrylic or polyurethane primer it will withstand all sorts of abuse. I don't really know the science behind this, but its true. If you know why this is feel free to educate me in the comments.

Burnt Metal is very comparible to Tin Bitz, Tinny Tin or Scortched Metal

The tests I did where without primer. The paint seems quite durable as I lightly scratched and knocked the model over a couple of times without any damage to the paint.

The paint is self leveling and even if it pooled a little it will even out nicely. It has great coverage and gives a great result in just a few thin passes. It is fast drying, so after you're done cleaning your airbrush you can paint straight over it.

Brass compares the best with Brassy Brass or Tarnished Brass

That brings me to my next point. I didn't know what kind of paint it was. I expected it to be enamel so I cleaned my airbrush with odorless thinner. This worked eventually but still some of the paint dried inside my airbrush cup. After some soaking I cleared the nozzle of my airbrush. This incident did make me order the special cleaner that comes with the paint range. I suggest that if you buy these paints, you also order the cleaner just in case!

The paints can be polished. I used a rotary tool with a cotton buffing wheel. This might be a little aggressive for some surfaces. In that case I suggest using soft buffing pads.

Dark Aluminium is a great (Bolt)gun metal or (Shadowed)steel replacement 

The only paint that was a bit disappointing to me was the Jet Exhaust. It isn't a metallic paint, it is simply a transparent black. I do feel it is a good AK-Interactive product as with a few passes you can build up a nice gradient to achieve a nice blackened metal look. (the kind you really want on exhausts) I will also try to use this paint to paint some black miniatures. The transparent black might help blend the sometimes rough highlights back into the shadow.

Jet Exhaust is a transparent black. Very hard to compare to other colors

My conclusion is that this is a very good paint range if you need metallic base coats for your models. It withstands some wear & tear and takes washes and other paints very well. The result is very realistic and its easy to apply.

That's it for now! I hope you enjoyed reading this review and that it helps you decide if you would like to give these paints a try for yourself. I didn't try brush application with these paints because the manufacturer recommended against it. If you have any questions, recommendations of other comments please leave them below!

As always, thanks for reading and see you next time!

** I just got the XTREME METAL Cleaner and tried it out. The paint that has been stuck in my cup for a week and I got it clean under 5 seconds. Good job AK-Interactive! **

How to paint yellow (like for an Iyanden Eldar)

Hi guys (and possibly girls) and welcome to this new step-by-step tutorial. This time I will show you guys how I paint a nice, bright yellow that can be used for example on popular sci-fi tabletop armies like Imperial Fist Space Marines or Iyanden Eldar.

Yellow can be a hard color to paint using only a brush. A quick method to make this a lot easier is to prime your models white of a light grey instead of black. That will save you a lot of layers trying to get the color nice and bright. 

Using an airbrush makes painting bright colors like yellow a lot easier. Still I prefer painting over a light color to really make the yellow pop. 

I started with a light grey primer. I will start shading it first anyway so for me it doesn't really matter.

Eldar Guardian primed light grey

I used Vallejo light grey primer. It is important to let it dry for a couple of hours to really set on the model. It will be dry to the touch sooner and it will be possible to paint over it sooner, but you will still be able to scratch the primer of the surface. 

A quick coat of orange-brown

I mixed up some snakebite leather (old GW Citadel color) with a touch of golden yellow and sprayed it over the entire model. I focused on spraying it from below because this will be the shadow color. Next will be the highlight.

Top view after spraying white from the top

Using a zenithal highlight technique I spray white from 33º angle from the top on the model. As you can see in the picture above looking down at it it will be almost white. 

Shadows and highlights

Shadows and highlights

As you can see the brown still shows up where natural shadows would be visible. The rest of the mini is white which is an excellent base for the transparent yellow. Now cover the model with a thin layer of yellow. Make sure the paint is thin enough to let the shadows show through the yellow.

Model covered with yellow paint

You can see the light brown through the yellow

As you can see the yellow over the white gives you a really bright yellow color. When you look at the model at a downward angle you can still see the brown, creating a realistic shadow in the progress. 

Now this is only one of the many possible ways to paint yellow. I like this technique because its quick and easy and it looks good. 

Lets finish the model up real quick so you can get an idea of the finished result. I painted the gun, a kneepad and the head with a medium blue. You can further highlight these if you got the time but I didn't. I hope you liked this little tutorial and that it helps you paint better looking models or to help you paint your models faster.

Finished result

How to paint red miniatures

Hi there guys and girls!

I apologize for taking so long to write a new article. I have been very busy at work and real life, showing from the fact that I started writing this article like two and a half week ago.

I have also been repainting my X-Wing miniatures and trying to learn the game.This article will have nothing to do with that though.

Today I will share two methods I use to paint red.

A finished example of the final result

While a lot of people still prime their models black, I find it really hard to paint red over black. A simple reason for this is that red paint is usually very transparent so before you have a solid red color you are at least five or six layers in.

Now for the people that know me or have read some of the articles on this blog they might know that I am fond of using pre-shading and zenithal highlighting. For painting red I like to use a combination of these two techniques.

For the first example I want to create a bright red color. I primed a miniature in white primer. You could use any color you like but white is easier for me.

Miniature primed white

I like to work with light colored primers because it lets me see what I am actually doing. It's easier to see how thick your coat of paint is if you can actually see your miniature.
Once the primer is dry (a blow-dryer can certainly speed up this process) I proceed with the shadow color. Some people like to use black, and this is certainly the best choice for high contrast, but I used a medium brown and coated the whole miniature with this color.

A medium brown is used as a base color 

Using the brown as a shade for the darkest shadows I continued with a zenithal highlight with a medium to light grey color. Spray it from about 45 degree angle so the brown will stay in the deepest recesses and places where light would not hit the model.

Medium/light grey sprayed from a 45 degree angle

Next step is to spray white right on top of the miniature. Focus points should be the top of the shoulderpads, the face, the top of the backpack, hands, knees and toes.

White paint sprayed from above, creating the final highlight

Now comes the step where the magic truly happens. Using the transparency of most red paints we are gonna spray slightly thinned down red paint over the entire miniature. The idea behind this is that the brown stays mostly brown, the grey will make a dark red and the white will become a very vibrant red. The picture below is a bit fuzzy (sorry!) but you can see the gradient from bright red to slightly darker red on the shoulderpad and an even darker, red-ish brown on the elbow.

Final result

The downside of this technique is that you will need to apply a bunch of washes or paint the shadows in the crevices. A different technique I will share is where you build up the red from a dark brown up to red. This is my personal favorite technique because I really like the result.

I start with a primed model. I used grey primer because I wanted a darker basecolor then white or light grey but I still wanted to see what I was painting so I black was also not an option. The winner was this slightly dark grey.

Model sprayed with grey primer

Once the primer dried I coated the model with a layer of dark brown paint like scorched brown. This will be your shadow color but its important to get a contestant layer because you will be painting red over this and because red is a little transparent you might see any inconsistencies in this layer. 

After a solid layer of dark brown paint. 

Next up is building up layers of red paint. Make sure each layer covers less of the previous layer, building up a gradient. Focus extra on the shoulderpads, head, backpack, knees and feet.

Building up layers of red paint

Sadly I forgot to take a picture for the final layers of red. Just make sure that each layer covers a smaller surface of the previous layer. That way each layer will be progressively brighter red.

In the end you will end up with something similar to the picture below: a model with a nice gradient from brown to red.

Final result once all the details are painted.

I really hope this article gave you a little more insight in how I paint red miniatures. Of course there are many more methods that can be used but these are the two I prefer most. 

If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments.

Airbrush 101: looking for an airbrush

Hello my friends and newcomers,

Today I want to tell you about airbrushes. I personally currently own two airbrushes and I have worked with four different models. In this article I would like to show you and explain some general aspects and features of the airbrush itself, as well as personal preferences. I will cover things like compressors, techniques and cleaning in future articles.

Let's start by answering the the most general question when people talk about airbrushes.
'What is the best airbrush?'
I can answer that really easy, there is none! There might be the best airbrush for a specific paintjob, but then again, 99% of this is personal preference.

My two airbrushes

The airbrush I use the most is the Badger Krome. The reason for this is that is has a really wide cup and it's really easy to access the needle through the cup making it super easy to clean for me. For the really fine details (eyes, subtle OSL or glow effects a.o.) I prefer to use my Harder&Steenbeck Ultra. This is their most basic dual-action, gravity fed airbrush. the craftsmanship is more refined resulting in better control and smoother handling. (in my opinion ofcourse) I also really like the ball-jointed trigger on the Harder&Steenbeck. This all comes at a price though as Harder&Steenbeck is more expensive, especially if you don't live in Europe.

So you want to buy your first airbrush. What to look for. Well if it is for anything more then just basecoating entire armies at a time, make sure to get a gravity-fed, dual-action airbrush. The bottom and side fed airbrushes need higher pressure to spray the paint so you won't be able to use it for single models or details as well. Other then that all the extra features are just that, extra's. Both of my airbrushes have a distinct feature. The Krome has a nut on the back of the handle that can be set to restrict how far you can pull the needle back, limiting the amount of paint coming out of the airbrush. This can be useful when painting super small details like a subtle glow on a miniature's eyes.
My H&S Ultra has a removable cup. This can be useful when I want to preserve some of the paint still in the cup. It can also be useful when cleaning.

My Krome with the handle removed.
Note the little nut on the end of the handle as described above.

The removable cup of the Harder&Steenbeck Ultra

Other things you need to consider when getting an airbrush are things like nozzle and needle size. Both my airbrushes are around 0.2mm in size. For priming or basecoating I would personally recommend something a little bigger like 0.3 or 0.4mm. On a side note, when cleaning your airbrush, handle the needle and nozzle with care, if you bend or break them, you can't just fix them.

The needle from my Badger Renegade: Krome airbrush

The last thing I will talk about you might want to consider when looking for what airbrush to buy is how easy you can pull it apart en put it together again. Airbrushes like the ones Iwata produces and some cheaper brands usually require a little wrench to remove some parts like the nozzle. These parts are often very small and either damage or get lost easy. My Krome and Ultra don't require tools to get disassemble. The Krome does have a very small nozzle that can fall out if you remove the nozzle cap. Be sure not to drop it because standing on it can damage it!
The Ultra I selected because it has a very large nozzle. This makes handling and cleaning easier for me. It also doesn't require tools to dis- or reassemble. You can chuck the nozzle into the nozzle cap and it will seal when you screw the cap to the body.

Nozzle of the Badger Krome

nozzle of the Harder&Steenbeck Ultra

As you can hopefully see, I don't believe in the best airbrush. What works for me might not work for you. You might have bigger or smaller hands, making these airbrushes uncomfortable to work with.

My advice, don't buy an airbrush because some guy on the internet says it is the best, no matter how good he paints with his airbrush. Buying that airbrush won't make you paint like that. Making sure you have an airbrush you an work with and practice with it a lot does!

See you all next time! 

Zenithal highlighting tutorial #1 Blue (Ultra Marine)

Hi everybody. Welcome back to my blog. This article will be one in a series of tutorials about zenithal highlighting. What I often do is I start a model with a zenithal highlight and I finish the rest up with brushes. In my opinion this is a good base to start from to get a general highlight onto the miniature before you start working on details. It is possible you have seen me use this in my painting a zombie step-by-step article.

In this first article I will cover how you can zenithal highlight blue miniatures. As always, we start by priming the miniature. Note, primer does not mean average black or white paint. Primer is a preparatory coating put on materials before painting. Priming ensures better adhesion of paint to the surface and increases the paint's durability. Because I think the shadows on the blue can be really dark so I chose for a black primer.

Miniature primed black

First layer of paint is a really dark blue. Over the black it is hardly noticeable but it will give your deepest shadows a blue look instead of just black.  The final result kind of surprised me in the fact that it looked even darker then the bare black primer.

Dark blue painted lightly over the black primer

When this layer of paint is dry I continue to a lighter color. It is kind of the same as brush painting, the more layers, the smoother the transition should look. For the next color, I chose the old Citadel Regal Blue. I sprayed this color from a 90 degree angle. This will leave only the darkest blue visible from places only seen when looked at the miniature from below.

Layer of Regal Blue

Next color is the old Citadel Ultramarine Blue. I sprayed this from a 45 degree angle onto the model. This will leave some of the regal blue visible. Be sure to adequately dilute your paint to get your transition as smooth as possible. Short, controlled bursts are the way to go here.

Ultramarine blue

Here you can see some progress! The Ultramarine blue is covering a large surface on the miniature. You can see some shadows apearing on the lower leg, lower body and his right arm. (left on the picture)
For the next highlight I mixed Citadel Ice Blue into the Ultramarine Blue on a  1:2 ratio. I sprayed it directly from the top of the miniature mimicing light coming from directly above.

Highlight with a mix of Ultramarine and Ice Blue

At this point you have a pretty solid gradient going from dark blue shadows to the light blue highlight. I wasn't completely happy with it and wanted to push the highlight a bit further. In order to do this, I felt I had to saturate the blue and I did this by praying a blue wash / glaze made out of thinned down Minitaire Ghost Tint Blue.

After a blue glaze

It is kind of hard to see in the picture but with the blue glaze over the miniature I retained the gradient while darkening the blue. This gave me the room I felt I needed to give the model that one extra highlight, making it apear that the armor is reflecting lighting coming from above. I used pure Citadel Ice blue and watered it down using three parts water and one part paint. Using small, controlled sprays I focused on the head, shoulderpads, knees, feet and the backpack.

Final highlights using pure Ice blue

So this is the end of the first tutorial about zenithal highlighting. So far I recieved requests for bare metal/silver and red. I will do my best to cover these in one of the following articles about zenithal highlighting. If you liked this article or think one of your friends can benefit from this tutorial feel free to share it.

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you next time.

How to paint a magical or futuristic power weapon

Hello dear friends, followers and newcomers.

Today I will share a technique I use to paint powered weapons for futuristic models and magical weapons for fantasy themed models. In a certain way, this is a very basic NMM (None Metallic Metal) technique. I used an airbrush for this technique, but if you are adept at glazing or layering, you should be able to get a similar effect.

For this tutorial I used a sword, but you can also use an axe, pole arm or other (bladed) weapon.

First, let's prime the miniature. For this I used a very light grey primer because I did not have a white primer handy. Either one would work perfectly for this technique. The reason I chose a light color, is because I want the colors to be really vibrant.

Let's start with the mid tone. For this sword, I am going for a magical blue effect. For that reason I paint the whole middle section of the blade with spellslinger blue. This is a special airbrush paint. You could basically use any mid-color you want to use. by mid-color I mean any middle blue, green, red, purple and I am sure there is a better term for it.

Try to only cover about one third of the blade (the middle part) for optimal effect. Once this is done and the paint has dried, get a piece of masking tape and mask the sword straight down the middle. For other weapons find a beveled edge and mask one of the sides.

Continue by painting one side with a dark color like dark blue or black and the other side a light blue or white. If you want to use an airbrush, glazing techniques or layering is entirely up to you. Once you are done painting, remove the masking tape to prevent bleeding paint on the other side. Wait for the paint to dry and then mask your pained side and paint the other side in the opposite direction. Again, as soon as your done painting remove the masking tape.

As you can see I achieved a nice blend using my airbrush. Next is to define the edges and the magical runes with white paint. As you can see I struggle with the line down the middle so if anyone has any tips please put those in the comments. We learn from each others experiences right? If you have runes like these you can simply paint them white, if they are engraved into the weapon, it might be easier to make a wash and paint that into the runes. A wash is easier to clean up then straight paint.

There! That is the blade all done! Depending on what technique you use this can be either a relatively fast technique or one with slow process but a very rewarding result. Just make sure you got your paints thin and your blending as smooth as you can. You can proceed by using OSL (Object Source Lighting) techniques to simulate a glow from the sword on the miniature, but I will save that for an other time.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you did and think your friends can benefit from it, feel free to link it in forums or share it on your page.

If you have requests for future articles, don't hesitate to post a comment or message me on facebook.

I hope to see you next time.