It was ages ago...

... but still there's some visitors coming here. So I thought I would tell anyone dropping by and reading the posts from the beginning that stuff changed. I stopped the 40K (Games Workshops public relations finally got to me too) and that left room for the military modelling to grow. So much that I now run my own shop over at http://www.mamoco.se/

At the time of writing it's just out, and only for customers in Sweden. But I hope to be able to cater to the entire Europan Union in a few months. So if you're looking for airbrushes (Harder & Steenbeck and Sparmax for the moment), paints (I stock both Vallejo and Tamiya, Humbrol is on the way) or scale models, head on over to www.mamoco.se to have a look.

Best regards,
PX

How do GW come up with all these cool names?

Among all the WoC release chatter on Dakka this little gem turned up. Couldnt help but laugh out loud and now I have to write this post and peer between coffee stains on my monitor... Sucks to be me. But at least I'm happy!

Air Necronia, flight WIP942…

… to assimilation-land. This is captain 00110001 and flight engineer 00110010 welcoming you aboard. Have a nice flight and vaporize the living. Thank you.

Oh teh OSL!

A bit of a close up this time. I hope some of you are jumping with joy ;) Airbrushed with the Neo, so it seems it can handle pretty small detail. Still not used to the trigger, it's a bit more "jumpy" compared to the H&S Infinity.

Quick Review: Neo/Iwata CN airbrush

One of the major points I try to tell people when the "I wanna airbrush, what airbrush should I get?"-question pops up is that the cheap ones you see for €50 seldom is a good choice since you run the risk of getting a lemon. And once you bend a needle or loose a seal you have to get a new one instead of just replacing a part. (Yes, I know there are some knockoffs that have their lineage mapped. But meh)

The problem is that you then have to get yourself a €90-150 airbrush just to have warranty and ready access to replacement parts. Until a couple of months ago when the Neo (let's just call it Neo from now on even though it's an Neo for Iwata) arrived on the scene.

Built in Korea apparently, but with Iwata specs, which kinda makes it a less quality controlled Iwata.

Now, I'm a Harder & Steeenbeeekk user. So I'm not really up to spec with how Iwata airbrushes work. But I needed another airbrush for spraying on primer, varnishes and general basecoating. The 0.15 nozzle on the Infinity just doesn't let through enough paint and Im too lazy to change needle every now and then. Perfect excuse for getting myself a Neo!

THE SPECS
Built in Korea or whatever. 0.35mm nozzle (more on that later), exchangeable cups on the CN version. Duble action. Read more over at Iwata/Medea.

THE BRUSH

The Neo really screams "I'm a budget airbrush!" when you see the packaging. No fancy (fake) brushed aluminium presentation case. It even has a hole for a hanger!

In the box there is a small paint cup and a tool for removing the nozzle.

Out of the packaging it's, to my surprise, looking just like any other airbrush out there. So let's take it apart!

If you look carefully you can see my ugly mug on the paint cup lid! I opted not to remove the nozzle since it needed a tool (included) and other reviews said that it was fitted in the workshop and shouldn't be removed unless you really need to. Knowing me I would break it if I tried, so I left it alone.

One thing that I really liked was that the paint cups have their o-rings on the cups instead of on the airbrush body, like the H&S. This means that there will be less gunk to clean out of the o-rings, and hopefully less replacing of o-rings that have gone bad.

After re-assembling the airbrush I sprayed some cleaner through it and loaded it up with some VMA Black Primer. I wont show you the results, but the 0.35mm nozzle produces about the same width lines as the 0.2mm nozzle on my H&S Infinity. The 0.15mm nozzle on my Infinity makes thinner lines (of course) but not that much thinner. Which kinda makes the Neo perfect for any beginner out there. It should be able to handle everything but the smallest of small details.

I'll get back to the Neo in a week or two when I have put it through it's paces. Since I have a bunch of Necron flyers to paint I guess that will be the real test for the Neo. :)

WIP: Immortals

Working in "bulk" like I do with the necrons sure eats up space in your working area. There is absolutely no way to set up the photo equipment properly. These were put on top of the spray booth with a makeshift light setup (that's why they're a bit yellow). I even had to crouch like Quasimodo to be able to see what my camera was aimed at. The stuff I do for you in order to show some WIP photos, eh?

Same technique as on the warriors. Zenithal metallics and all that jazz. Just finished painting the basecoat on their guns and the white stripes [att: pop culture reference] on their heads. Some more highlights and detailing to do before the oil washe(s).

Well that's it. Back to getting metal flakes all over my precious brushes!

Necron metal band...

If there only was a way to have these on the board...

Some 'crons...

Making bases is boring. Really boring. I tried some fancy ones from Taban Miniatures first. But they looked a bit too fancy. The green gauss thingie steals enough focus as it is. So I had to resort to making bland bases. Cork plates, pigments and vigorous drybrushing really saved the day.

Now there's just 20 more warriors to base. :D

Games Workshop needs to fire their "designers"

From the latest worthless "teaser" they love to put out these days. First it was the cover of Blood Reaver and now it's Rebirth.

Stuff like letter spacing and adjusting kerning (the letter spacing) is covered in the first class of practical typography. I guess that's why it irks me so much. Making newbie mistakes like this is like waving the "I don't know jack"-flag around. Not only did they use a crappy version of Jenson, but also violated all fundamental rules of typography. Shows how they really care about making a perfect product. -.-

Thats enough of beard rage for today. Gotta paint some necrons...

A crowded paint station...

They said they came in peace. Bringing gifts and stuff. At least that's what I think they said. "010011010110000101110100001000000101011101100001011100100110010000100000011001010110000101110100011100110010000001100010011000010110001001101001011001010111001100100001" is kinda hard to understand.

Which reminds me of a cool short story Stephen King wrote about a dudes army men coming alive. It was my favorite when I was a young teen discovering the joy of horror.

The Warriors are painted pretty standard. Black primer, VMA Dark Metal, Gun & Steel in a progressive zenithal style. Guns are getting more or less black and right now I'm debating wether to do them with red rods/glow or the standard green. Green is more 60s sci-fi, but red is more Terminator/80's LED... Both are themes I love so I have a hard time deciding. Perhaps I should have thought this out before starting to paint them. But meh. Planning is for mortals.

Adventures in Oil: Einstein WIP #2

Found some time inbetween x-mas stuff (for me, assembling Necrons) to paint some more on Einstein. I think I'm done with the basic skin color. At least it feels like this is a good base for adding some discoloration like pinkish lips and some blue to the eye-sockets.

One fun thing about oils is that they kinda behave different from acrylics. Below is a shot of the colors I used for shade and highlight and they are way different than how they acted on the figure. I guess the blue (Winsor Blue (Green)) and yellow (Chrome Yellow Hue) are way stronger than the Yellow Ochre I mix them with. So when blending it turns more green than brown-green.

Start color is #3 but then I realized I wanted more contrast so I upped the highlights a little since the shadow would turn out more or less 100% black if I went down that route.

Anyways. I have to assemble a ton of necrons. See you on the other side of X-mas!