Airbrush time again. Since setting up our dining table with all the spray gear isn't an everyday event, I try to get as much done in bulk as possible when I do. On the cards are 40 guardian bodies and all the magnetised weapon platform options for 4 squads.
So - the guardians themselves were kind of derailed.
The first squad with a standard vallejo black primer. I'm moving the alligator clips from the leg to the gun on a second pass to hit the parts previously missed with black. All good so far.
I then tried following my previously test scheme using duck egg blue and coelia greenshade wash on a couple of guardians. They looked very blue. Try another couple with a slightly different amount of each paint... they also look horrible.
After 10 I realise that I cannot for the life of me replicate the colour I got on my test models earlier - and think there must have been some inks in the airbrush cup before that just changed the colour enough from blue to green.
This is not good.
So the models are back into simple green to soak the paint off. Plenty of scrubbing with a toothbrush... waiting... then waiting for them to dry.
In the meantime, I've switched to the weapon platforms.
Which frankly I have been quite excited about painting - this is also a mini-test for how a fast airbrush scheme will look on larger vehicles like tanks and jetbikes too.
For these, I want to start with anything that is going to be white and work backwards into the greens. First time using the stynylrez white primer, and... I'm finding it sucks.
It's taking at least 4+ passes to get even remotely decent coverage, and still seems to be prone to peeling off if prodded a little. Doing this again, I'd use a vallejo grey first and stick this on top.
Also hitting the platform base & shield pieces where there will be some markings in white.
A somewhat tedious stage of covering up all the white areas with masking tape and blutac. Doesn't need to be razor precise, though neater is better.
The platforms themselves and the shield pieces have masking tape added for stripes - either 2 thin or 1 slightly thicker. This will effectively be my squad markings too; either 4 squads of 10, or 2 large squads of 20.
Now for the fallback painting option, since the fancy layering and wash combo isn't working... games workshop staple colours of caliban green, warpstone glow, moot green.
Making sure I'm happy with these is kind of a big deal, in that whatever greens I do all my guardians in will need to be the colour palette commitment for the rest of the army...
Also I've just had to do 4 layers of white primer, so I'll be buggered if these are getting repainted again.
Black primer again to get the areas that weren't touched with white already. The vallejo stuff goes on so much more easily.
Caliban green is kind of subtle over the black... in average light, you'd think it wasn't even there at all.
Warpstone glow does *not* come in an air version - so this is half a pipette and about an equal amount of thinner mixed together through the airbrush.
Moot green sprayed and now we have quite a nice effect. I think the trick with these is going to be getting the right balance of light and dark. Hopefully easier on bigger models. Probably not so easy on eldar sized foot troops.
Same thing then working around all 20 of the platform weapons, aiming mainly for upper surfaces and leaving caliban green on the undersides.
Peeling off the masking tape and... these look pretty good.
I'm much happier with the GW colours; and while moot green is almost a lime tone, using it lightly for the edges still keeps an overall emerald green effect.
Last thing before packing up everything is to give all the weapon platforms and parts a solid coat of gloss varnish. Partly to help seal the white primer and stop any chipping; and partly as my test runs using a grey wash on white looked horrible.
I'm counting on the gloss helping any shading stick to the crevices rather than looking like a dirty mess.
Ok - happy with progress on these, and the weapon platforms are looking good. Need to swing back to the actual guardians themselves next and get them up to a similar level.
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