Hey Polda! Love your work (also snooped around your X-wing and Imperial Assault stuff), especially the window/engine highlights and overall contrast and highlighting of the ships. I'm fairly new to the world of miniatures painting but have done a few Armada ships and squadrons. I had a few questions I was hoping you might be able to help with:

1) For blending, I watched the video you posted but am struggling with getting the right paint consistency. Do you use the retarder? I only have water for thinning at this point, but feel the paint is either to thick and covers the layer underneath or to watery and just pools.

2) What do you do in terms of painting order? IE Base Coat -> base colors -> wash -> highlight? I usually spend a lot of time on the base colors, wash it and feel that the miniature comes out dirty (maybe doing to much wash).

3) what color blue are you using as your base color for the engines/windows?

Thanks!

Hey Polda! Love your work (also snooped around your X-wing and Imperial Assault stuff), especially the window/engine highlights and overall contrast and highlighting of the ships. I'm fairly new to the world of miniatures painting but have done a few Armada ships and squadrons. I had a few questions I was hoping you might be able to help with:

1) For blending, I watched the video you posted but am struggling with getting the right paint consistency. Do you use the retarder? I only have water for thinning at this point, but feel the paint is either to thick and covers the layer underneath or to watery and just pools.

2) What do you do in terms of painting order? IE Base Coat -> base colors -> wash -> highlight? I usually spend a lot of time on the base colors, wash it and feel that the miniature comes out dirty (maybe doing to much wash).

3) what color blue are you using as your base color for the engines/windows?

Thanks!

1) Consistency is a b**c to get right at first.

Rule of thumb - aim for a consistency that gives you full coverage after 2 or 3 layers.

Prime a plastic pill bottle and practice on that first.

The trick is not just in how much you thin your paint but how much you get on your brush.

Load just a bit of paint on the tip, if you pickup a watered down blob, paint a line on the back of your hand first.

Water's fine as a thinner. I do use acrylic medium (like Lahmian Medium) as a thinner for gradients, it's just a bit less runny.

2) my workflow is:

I. spray-on primer

follow the temperature, humidity, distance and drying time instructions on the can

II. basecoat

(that whole three layer thing)

III. wash (drop some onto a clean pallette, add a drop of

water and a small drop of dish washing liquid)

IV. reapply thinned basecoat colors over raised areas,

Avoid the washed recesses, just paint over each panel to cover any staining left by the wash.

ALTERNATIVE (to paint thinning on this one):

If your hull is just one color, you could "drybrush" with your basecoat again but you need to make sure your primer finish is smooth not grainy.

I did this for the ISD (SO MANY PANELS), and X-Wing Jumpmasters.

First I wiped most of the paint from my flat brush into a paper towel. then checked for leftovers by brushing onto the back of my hand.

Once I was happy with how little paint the brush was leaving behind, I just did big cirles with it all around the ships.

V. add lighter highlights to the edges

I run the tip of a 000 size brush along the edge of each panel. If the line ends up too thick - just paint over part of it with your base color again

for more impact pick a corner,

add lighter highlights closer to where the two sides meet then drop a dot of white on the corner itself

VI. weathering -

chips - for armada, I use a medium gray, tip a torn piece of foam into it and stamp it on some paper until it leaves smaller stains, then stap that over the hull

scratches - paint a black line, then a thin white line next to it

worn edges - take a small syntethic brush, stipple medium gray in corners where the panels would wear down usually

scorch marks - wipe a small amount of black paint with a q-tip onto the hull,

first turn it around in circles in one spot, then in a straight line starting in the centre of the circle, heading out

melted metal - I dunno, ask Lyr, the ship sadist

VII. effects - lightning bolts, engines, windows etc.

VIII. matt spray varnish (I can only get revell here, Testor's Dullcote is apparently the best if you live in the States)

IX. gloss varnish over things like lightsabers, windows, royal guard helmets, parts painted with metallic paints

3. Vallejo Andrea Blue and Sky Blue

I did not find a proper Citadel alternative for these.

Both are high pigment content paint. They almost glow they are so bright.

Andrea blue is the darker one, apply a bit of that around a wider area (again, drybrush. I'm too cheap to get an airbrush)

Then Sky blue around a smaller area

For windows - dots of sky blue in the middle of the drybrushed areas

For engines - just add some white to the middle of the thruster

All of the above is probably unreadable gibberish as I'm too lazy to format the text better sorry for that.

Hope this helps.

Progress has been made.

that Liberty looks kind of ... supercool.

The MC80 looks a bit too dark under bad lighting. I'll have to fix that later.

Right now I'm all about that sexy beast that is the Interdictor.

I think I still need to improve the contrast between the green and white highlights on the grav well effect.

that interdictor looks super sharp

might do something like that but red

The Interdictor paint job is amazing. I have wanted to do something like that since the upgrade card with the red lighting was spoiled.

I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out the best way to get the highlights in the crevices. I was thinking of a very thin bright red layer paint (I use Citadel acrylics) as a 'base' coat, and then layering up with the red glaze. I'm concerned about losing the grey hull plating though.

Any advice you can offer this amateur painter is appreciated!

Base-coat the lines with dark red and then wet blend by adding light red, orange and yellow in the hotspots (I used white for my green glow hotspots).

Then paint the red glaze over the effect to help you blend in any harsh transitions.

The glow on surrounding panels is just drybrushed 'cause I'm cheap and lazy.

Edit: or do flood and let it dry repeatedly with increasingly brighter colors. This is the quick and dirty way o to do it. https://www.instagram.com/p/BH95sJ2BM-C/

Wave 5 got here, so I did a quick and dirty paintjob on the Rebel Squadrons.

The other VCX-100 and Lancer-class reflect my Fat Chance and Banshee X-Wing repaints.

Nice, great to see some wave 5 paints popping up already, I reeaaally wanted to paint some last night, but just did not have the time! Hopefully have a crack at a couple this evening

They look great man. Love Ghost, looks awesome.

Pelta-class progress. The washes are drying right now.

Awesome stuff mate. The grav well effects on the Interdictor look really good. This and a blue one on another thread are making me regret going red like everyone else...

Those wave 5 paints are stunning, really liking both the big fighters and the Pelta is boss.

This is as far as I can get at the moment. I'll be finishing highlighting and battle damage on the Pelta sometimes late next week.

As usual I will be doing some chipped paintjob effects and scratches over the bright-coloured accents to dull them down to non-cartoonish levels ;-)

Meanwhile... Happy Hogswatch everyone!

KEEP SLEIGHING THEM ALL POLDA. HO. HO. HO.

Fantastic work sir!

KEEP SLEIGHING THEM ALL POLDA. HO. HO. HO.

Edit: I'm more or less done.

Amazing paint jobs. I wish I had that steady of a hand.

Update on the entire fleet (sans most squadrons as I am redoing my original "f**k it, let's just do a couple of stripes and a wash" paintjobs).

Just insanely good.

Your one step from the grave fleet is always good to look at.

Your one step from the grave fleet is always good to look at.

Is that by any chance a Warhammer 40K thing?

Your one step from the grave fleet is always good to look at.

Is that by any chance a Warhammer 40K thing?

Might be, never played it. More beaten battered, ready to enter valhalla, shiny and chrome. To end with silliness, the wear and bettering you put on the ships makes them look like the next fight will be the last one. It is cool stuff.

Nvm

On 5/25/2016 at 11:33 AM, Polda said:

Ha! Found some pictures of the gups.

They are a darker variation of the MC30 scheme.

On 5/29/2016 at 11:55 PM, Polda said:

Whale, Whale, Whale... look what we Gup here. (I am truly sorry for making you read that.)

I don't know what your intent was, but for some reason those Whales remind me of Halo Elites. . . specifically, Halo Reach Zealots' helmets.

@Polda Any new ships that you have painted? Like the MC75 for example?