Quick Review: Agama airbrush thinner

Agama Rozcienczalnijk!!!

More a tip for you airbrush-users out there than a proper review I guess... Anyhow! When I airbrush I usually mix my paints in the cup while adding thinner. Earlier I've been using some window cleaner that although it worked good it made me worry about all the solvent I inhaled. So I resorted to the "less toxic" acrylic mediums such as the one from Liquitex and the thinner from Vallejo. Both of those are a bit "milky" which in turn makes the color you mix much lighter than it really is. Once the thinner dries the milkyness disappears.

So when I ordered that Sdkfz 222 I got myself this Agama thinner as well. I think I read something about it on Armorama and thats why I got myself a bottle to replenish my almost empty bottle of Vallejo Thinner.

I have absolutely no idea what it contains. But it does wonders with the airbrush. Firstly it's transparent, so you can mix in the cup and directly see what colour you will be spraying. It also extends the colour and acts as a thinner. So if I want to spray really transparent layers I add a mix of 1:5 ratio paint to thinner. With the Vallejo & Liquitex thinners they usually extended the colour much much more, making transparent layers tricky.

Mixing a 1:1 ratio just makes the Vallejo Air much thinner but keeps the color more or less as opaque as it is straight from the bottle. My Model Air colors might be a bit old since they feel a bit thick, and I usually dont want to dial up the PSI to 30 just to be able to paint without sputtering.

It also seems to contain some sort of slow dri additive since the acrylics dont clog up as much as they did with the other thinners I've used (apart from the window cleaner). But it still evaporates quick enough to not create runs if you paint on too much.

So... highly recommended product. Especially if you live in the EU.

The only downside is the packaging. There is no spout on the bottle, so I have to use a pipette. I guess I'm spoiled by Reaper/Vallejo and their dropper bottles. :) It might be that the smaller bottles come with a spout on them.

I got mine from Jadar Hobby. A polish retailer. They send the stuff pretty quick. Or at least quicker than what we're used to when ordering stuff from our Friendly Online Gaming Stores.

Thats it. Back to chipping and stuff on the SdKfz 222!

Jagdluther finished!

Click for flickr...

So I finally finished it! Didn't really think I would. I kinda started to build the kit because I didn't want to paint some orks. In the middle of painting the basecoats I kinda realized I had no plan at all of how I wanted it painted. Usually when painting 40K stuff you've already seen a bunch of different paintjobs, or at least the 'Eavy Metal paintjob of it. With this one... I've just seen the box art and the premium edition figure.

So when the real painting started I was kinda without a plan or set goal. Which is fun in a way, but also kinda frustrating. What colour should I use for the lenses? (I went for a very 40K-ish style) Should the viewing slit be more like a prism or is it a viewing slit? Etc etc... A day ago I was ready to give up and put it in the cupboard together with the warhound and some other projects I've never really finished.

After a cup of coffee I pulled through though. I let the model rest for a while and went crazy with oil colours on the base instead. Oil colours is one of those weird kind of colours, so forgiving and yet so unforgiving. And you can do some pretty crazy blends with it. Nothing that shows in the pictures, and I really didn't do anything really amazing. The metal I-beams go from "steel black" to rusty in a very pleasing way.

Click the picture to go to flickr and see it in higher resolution. See if you can spot all the "meh I just dont want to blend that oil-wash" mistakes I did. :) Oil washes are nice, but they sure ain't wash-and-forget...

Plastic Daemon Prince WIP, Slight Conversion work

So, I finally realised that I would never finish that other DP project I started, and got myself one of the "new" plastic Daemon Prince Kits. I like that Games Workshop try to do as much plastic models as possible, but this kit did not get it right in my opinion. The arm options are stupid, why three almost exactly the same weapon arms? why only two very odd left ones? The kit fits quite good together, but it is a shame that they can't eliminate gaps even with fancy CADing.
I pretty much swore to never buy this, but the pain in using the metal alternatives made me give in and pay up, you have to support the company when they try to improve themselves afterall.

I can't say I am fond of this "Cartoon-evil" style Chaos are going towards. Yes, taste is very subjective, so I can't put the kit down for that, I just wish Chaos would be more grimdark than Orks...

"Would you look at this fucking love connection"

I did a quite simple head swap with the Balrog kit from the LoTR series, which changed the tone of the model quite a lot. Quick and dirty, but at least I won't feel ashamed when I deploy him.

"Purple raaaain, purple rain"


"DVDA"

I will try to finish the base tomorrow and then I will wait for access to the airbrush again.
I really should get to finishing something soon...

On the table: Forgeworld Ork Kommandos

Sneaky gitz…

Some of you remember the Max Mini ork bodies I bought earlier to make flash gitz. Now I don't want to say that they were bad or anything. But for me they just didn't "do it". Then I saw the running legs and ork veteran heads from Kromlech (I still have the cannon that I haven't painted -.-) and I was kinda bummed since they totally were "doing it".

I just couldn't justify buying even more stuff, not with the Warhound looking at me with puppy eyes begging me to paint it. So I kinda decided that the kommandoz I bought way earlier would work as a great stand-in for Flash Gitz. Not completely kosher. But I'll use them as a counter-charge unit. So the choppy bitz fits in with their intended use. And they really have dakka enough in and on their backpacks to pass as having the More Dakka rule.

So… a quick WIP. I got tired when it was time to paint the metal parts. As usual, since they're orks, there is tons of it. Check back for updates later in the week, hopefully I have them done by sunday, hopefully...

On the painting table: Khorne!

Today I got my first turn with a decent airbrush. I had 10 old Berzerkers in need of paint, and because I hate the models, and so have pushed back painting them, I decided to be lazy.
I must admit, I was a little afraid to use the airbrush, but since I didn't really care how the DerpZerks turned out, the feeling passed, and I just committed to learn the basics of airbrushing.

I recently realised that the Vallejo Model series reds contain cadmium, and thusly should not be airbrushed. Standing in the hobby store I had to kinda wing it and picked the very few reds that is available from the Air range. I considered going to the gaming store to get Citadel or VGC, but I was in a kind of a rush, and in the end, I achieved the tones I was aiming for.

After a day of using, and cleaning (and more cleaning), I think I can easily motivate myself to pay for a decent airbrush of my own in the future. For a gamers uses, priming, basecoating, vehicles etc I see nothing easier and more time saving, the only really tricky part is maintenance and if you use other than VMA style prethinned paint, getting a feel for paint/thinner ratios.

I tried to achieve a zenithal highlight, and I am quite pleased with the results. They don't make for very exciting pictures however, and the lighting in the club is not optimal.

I did get a snap of my count-as Abaddon: Zhufor! He got the same treatment as the Berzerkers when I felt confident enough to do a decent job with the AB. The model makes me wish that ForgeWorld would release all the named characters from the CSM Codex. The level of detail is as always just stunning.

Touch my boss pole!

Touch the boss pole to go to Flickr…

I got kinda super-inspired while waiting for my project manager to reply to an e-mail. So I started to build on the base for the grot holding Buzzgobs boss pole.

A couple of hours later I was in the same situation, and since the airbrush still was on the table I decided to at least prime it. After I was done, there was still no reply in my inbox. So I went for the hairspray and salt.

The goal is to make the boss pole to look like it's been toted around from waaagh to waaagh for a while. And the salt technique is kinda fun to work with so I really couldn't resist to use it when I had a chance.

Now… the sad thing is that my project manager replied with an e-mail that basically said "You'll be working all night" (FML) so the boss pole is off to the glass cabinets WIP-shelf. Although I'm itching to continue painting now that I have the inspiration.

Ah well... off to the Powerpoint-madness with a business-tip…

Never EVER tell your client that you're actually an ace at making Office-templates and can do that together with the other design stuff. Even though you might be an ace at it and the money is tempting. Office eats your soul! :)

One down, Two to go

Aaaand done! Pretty pleased with the final results, but there was some whining on forums that I did not overload him with a metric fuckton of guns, but that is neither good design, original, or the look I was going for. He has an energy (well slime then) weapon, and a nice claw hand to counts as a PF. He is also slightly larger than a GW Obliterator, modelling for advantage is for pussies

Would like som CC on the build, since it is my first conversion, I want to know what to improve in the future