Land Raider "Cathedral" update, and some other stuff ;)

So I have had a little time to work on some stuff and here is one of the things I have been buring the midnight oil with, it is my take on a Black Templar Land Raider Crusader. Here is the link to my original post;

It has been a rather difficult build in trying to solve the "draw bridge" problem of the front assault ramp, and where and how to place the assault cannon and multi-melta, all while not taking away from the overall look of the tank. Funny thing is, after all this work I am not sure if I am going to keep it, I may end up putting a coat of primer on it and selling it...time will tell though.

The front assault ramp will actually be a working LRC door, I am going to use a plain one with some green stuff work on it, it will be magnitized so it can openn and close. I have dropped the idea of the chains and draw bridge look, to hard to engineer and it wasnt working smoothly at all.

As far as the multi-melta asaualt cannon, I am going to build a weapon cluster that will sit atop the forst balcony, keeping everything at roughly there original postions.

Lastly the engine ehausts are going to be rebuilt to look like organ pipes, should add a nice touch I think. Anyway lots more photos here;

Airbrushing Highlights

Hey guys, I know it has been a while since I posted, I am wrapping up this semester of school and have been rather busy. I start finals next week so I wanted to get a quick post in before the chaos ensues. After finals I should be posting on a more regular basis, look forward to some updates on my LRC conversion, and other airbrushing techniques.

For now let’s get to how I airbrush mini’s. First off I keep it real simple, when I paint my mini’s I break it down to a base coat, a highlight coat, then 3 coats brushed highlights, followed by the detailed painting. With this approach you will be able to put out your soldiers pretty quickly.

The first thing I want to talk about briefly is paint mixing, I will do a more in depth article in the future, but for now I will simply say I mix my paints at a 50/50 mix, further the thinning agent I use is a 50/50 mix of Windex and water, I find that Windex works very well with Vallejo and GW paints.

To achieve the darker red that my BA army has I use the following colors. The base color is Vallejo “Red Black”, the intermediate coat is Vallejo “Flat Red” and then my highlights are achieved using the flat red, white and sunburst yellow. On a side note I add a drop of future floor polish to paint whenever I hand brush paint, again another article I plan on doing, the wonderful product known as “Future Floor Polish”!

Airbrush Basics: What types

The first article I would like to throw out is a pretty basic one, talking about some of the basic things you need to know about buying an airbrush. I have been using an airbrush to paint models for many years now, it is important to understand that airbrushing skills are not instantly obtained. It takes time, practice and patience to understand the ins and outs of your particular brush. Once you learn what you can and can’t do it really makes it much easier to use an airbrush. The image I have attached is an example of the subtle blending that can be achieved by using an airbrush properly, for reference that model is about 12 inches long.

First off let’s talk about expectation. What is it that you would like to do with your brush? Answering this question will help guide you in making financial decisions about your airbrush. If you want to simply apply even coats of paint to broad areas, i.e. applying base coat colors, then you’re life as an airbrushing artist will be easy and inexpensive. It is possible to get some very fine lines with airbrush’s, less than 1/8 of inch even, but these take very precise models and very steady hands. For myself I use my brush to apply a basecoat and a simple highlight or two, I find this adds nice depth to my models and speeds up the painting process. Basically I don’t want you thinking that you will be able to highlight the rivets on your rhino w/ an airbrush. Now that we have that expectation set let’s talk types.

Greetings!!

Hello everyone!!!

Let me introduce myself, my name is Ashton aka "Redfinger". When I saw that Kirby was putting the call out to contributors I thought I would throw my hat in and offer what I could, after all, this is a great site and community here, and I would love to help keep it growing.

I myself am a fairly new 40k player. I have been playing now for about 8 months or so and I readily admit that I am still learning the game. Currently I am playing Blood Angels and I also have a Black Templar army that I am working on as well. I am hoping to contribute to the "hobby side" of this site. Although I am new to 40k I have been building models in one way or another for about 15 years, it is something I truly enjoy.

As this site has other contributors to this hobby aspect as well, what I would like to do is turn it over to the general community. I want to know, in relation to painting and weathering, what do you guys want to know? What modeling techniques would you all like to learn, how to do a wash, using filters, airbrushing? Lets have a discussion, then when some things have been finalized, I can take an unpainted model, and then step by step document the specific processes that you would like to see. Ideally I am thinking going from surface prep and primer, all the way to sealers and clear coats.