All quiet on the hobby front

Yup bar some practice with the airbrush and a rapid fire purchase of new mad robot stuff I've actually done nothing towards my hobby the past week and a bit. In fairness I just bought my first house and was a usher at my future sister in laws wedding. And thus now my hobby plans for the year are in disarray! In all actually I'll just be slowing down the current guard project until I've moved in and setup shop, my new planned man cave will enable me to be far more productive and won't be half as a damp (my current cave is a converted garage that's got a massive damp and leak problem).

No Battle Plan Survives Contact

Well the wash was largely a bust putting me back to square one. I was relying on the wash to "tighten" the airbrushed base coats so that I can Drybrush the highlights whilst keeping the preshade green underneath. The result would be a quick, effective but simple method of painting the fatigues. All I gained was losing the built up layers and highlights. Bugger.

Instead of plodding along I turned my attention to my long neglected Flames of War. I base coated my British infantry, painted the flesh and began on the helmets before being called away. Not all bad but frustrating.

Practice

I type this with the post Sunday dinner belly reflection, today I practiced airbrushing specifically mixing / thinning. I feel after a year of airbrushing I've made some but little progress. Today I inched ever forward. I leanrnt to control my airbrush a little better and how to properly prepare Taminya paints on the other hand I was left frustrated with the Vallejo model air not performing as intended.

 

This weeks goal is singular apply my new secret weapons wash (should arrive tomorrow) and apply first highlights to 20 guardsmen.

Day 6

So my quest to paint / be productive for 7 consecutive days hit a snag, a long days at work + chores scuppered any desire to paint yesterday. Today I was going to try my new casting gear but a leaky man cave roof and cold weather dissuaded me, instead I headed inside to the warmth and painted the first stage of skin onto my guardsmen. No pics I'm afraid as the lighting was bad, all I've done is put several successive thin layers of Tallern Flesh the a couple of washes of Army Painter Mid/Sepia tone on. I suspect another wash or agrax will be needed but I'll see in the morning light! Tomorrow's goal is finish the armour base coating.

 

Day 5

I was only semi productive in my time before work. Narrowed down my armour colour and wash recipe, got first coat on 20 guardsmens armour but successive coats are needed plus general tidying up. So generally a postive.

 

Day 7

Armour is now painted, handful of touch ups but the base layer is on. Next stage will be some basic highlighting before I move onto chipping. Basically I'll be using a sponge to chip the armour before adding some final highlights. Later I'll use weathering powders to enhance the weathering. Oh if anyone's interested I used 1:1 mix of Stormvermir fur and fortress grey.

 

Day 4 - Shades of Green

Productive day today! All repair work complete, a couple of chaps need some kit added but waiting on the green stuff once again, should receive some fast curing resin tomorrow to speed the process up. I then primed, zenithed before putting painting the first stage of the fatigues on. The weather turned crazy so I've had to call it a night but overall pleased with the progress. Unfortunately no pictures but then again there's not much to show just yet.

Tomorrow's goal is to paint the armour on, I'm aiming to get 10 done.

Something of note is I wasn't happy with the airbrushing tonight, I'm putting this down not thinning my paint right as not enough of the preshade came through, ah we'll a lesson learned.