I'm getting close to what I would consider "done" on the space whale (which I hate with a fiery passion...but got it to give the rebels some firepower)

Basically I'm torn on a few ideas and was curious if anyone else would care to offer some insight. I'm considering coating the model in a gloss varnish and then using a MIG dark wash to get into the recesses, then use a q-tip to clean the excess....paint the engine then seal the model.

Alternatively I could skip the gloss, add a coat of that black GW wash and just roll with it that way.

OR I can go mega old school and black line it with a sharp brush and black paint.

This Ship reminds me of a Clone Trooper...


I Like It

I always go for the second option and highlight some of the paint up using lighter mixes of the same colour/ just wipe the shade away like you said.

That's just my own personal opinion though...

I've got a very love/hate relationship with Washing the Assault Frigate. The surface is unusually textured, and even with my thinnest wash, it picked up a LOT of tone on the surfacing rather than recesses...

Really, it should boil down into how much time you want to spend on them... Glossing and MIG are the (relatively) time consuming way, but should get you fantastic results, being that, that system was devised for tiny detail military scale models (being MIG and all)... But you will end up with a Glossy boat unless you have a really nice sealant afterwards.

The only thing I'd recommend against is trying to blackline it by brush by hand... I've tried. I really did. It was heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.

I'm convinced it can be blacklined by hand, but it will probably require a very fine (0.25 or smaller) artists pen, rather than a brush... There's just something about the way some of the panel lines sit higher than others with raised panels that a brush LOVES flicking the edges of, and being that you have such a light hullcoat, you wouldn't want the black anywhere but recesses - it'll be almost impossible to colour-correct a mistake.

IF you're going to go the straight up GW Wash... Wether its Badab Black or Nuln Oil (I'm torn over which would be better), its going to have to be EVEN THINNER than it is in-pot... Add some Water and some Tension breaker like Dishwashing liquid - just the tiniest drop..... and panel-line target rather than all-over...

I just hope for you, unlike me, its not heartbreaking in the end...

... I'm saving up for a good half-gallon of rubbing alcohol for when I have the time to strip everything back to bare plastic, even getting rid of the original FFG scheme, to see what's up with that surface coating....

I'm Telling you the resemblance is Uncanny!

My thoughts:

• Rather than old school blacklining, if you want depth, paint the wash into the recesses and around the details. It will require cleanup work after, but it gives better depth than a straight blackline.
• If you are washing the frigate, a dark brown works better than a black on the red sections.
• I know you probably don't want to, but after washing, some highlighting on the top edges of raised panels really brings out the texture.

The wash flat out ate the paint...

This thing is turning into my white whale, I may just strip it and sell it and get anbmk 1 model from shapeways.

That is exactly what I was afraid of, and what happened to me......

Yeah this thing is the work of the dark Lord and the time i set by to do it has,past, it's gonna get a bath and tossed,into the dark box and maybe deviated when I tire of the mk1

I am jealous.

I unfortunately I have to make do with what I've got right now

The wash flat out ate the paint...

This thing is turning into my white whale, I may just strip it and sell it and get anbmk 1 model from shapeways.

I'm utterly gutted for you . I was really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

It's just another day in a modeller's life. Some times you win 'em, and sometimes you don't. One can have an extraordinary amount of good luck

and paint something truly amazing and then other times one can start painting something and it turns into a horror story.

Don't get despondent. It happens to the best of us.

Yeah...3rd times a charm I guess.

Right, I tossed it into a vat of simple green and I've put the vat into a dark corner of the closet....

aaaaaaaand I'm probably going to get me an assault frigate MK 1...just not sure which one.

Well, the good/bad news is Simple Green will take off all of your painting.

But it'll leave the FFG baseline intact.

Well, the good/bad news is Simple Green will take off all of your painting.

But it'll leave the FFG baseline intact.

In my fantasy world the paint will go away and will be left with the luckluster FFG paint job that I took for granted.

I may base coat it in white this time around or just paint it battleship grey pick out a few panels and just leave it as is and resell it.

The wash flat out ate the paint...

This thing is turning into my white whale, I may just strip it and sell it and get anbmk 1 model from shapeways.

What does this mean? it totally obscured your paint, or something else?

The wash flat out ate the paint...

This thing is turning into my white whale, I may just strip it and sell it and get anbmk 1 model from shapeways.

What does this mean? it totally obscured your paint, or something else?

Basically what happened is I applied the wash and first it caused the ammo paints to bleed, then flat out run off, the wash pooled and went tie dye rapidly I came home from work home for the work of god to save it...but it was just a total write off.

Next time around, I wont airbrush anything other than a white vallejo base coat, and use my vallejo paints for a free hand...I got fancy twice..the third time I'll just get it done.

I'm getting close to what I would consider "done" on the space whale (which I hate with a fiery passion...but got it to give the rebels some firepower)

Basically I'm torn on a few ideas and was curious if anyone else would care to offer some insight. I'm considering coating the model in a gloss varnish and then using a MIG dark wash to get into the recesses, then use a q-tip to clean the excess....paint the engine then seal the model.

Alternatively I could skip the gloss, add a coat of that black GW wash and just roll with it that way.

OR I can go mega old school and black line it with a sharp brush and black paint.

Best advice: Don't gloss varnish. It never looks right on a model of this size, and it steals the details. They just vanish. Try a wash with a really fine brush and just let the wash run down the panel lines. It's a lot faster than faffing around with a fine pen. After the wash, you can carefully highlight pane edges.

What's you base colour? White or light grey?

Ok so that was step one. Now add the ink to the lines for definition. Second make several panels look less than perfect by giving them a wash more ink wash than others. Add coloring to back to show thrusters. the entire idea is to give it some character...some warts. Add blast marking around firing ports. Add damage. Make some panels look older than others as panels are replaced as the ship ages. Some will be older than others. We are not making a Tesla here. First rule of painting. Do no harm. So far you haven't done any harm if your telling me you are half done. It takes about 8-12 hours to paint a ship right. Then again, if your happy who cares. Your bed ...lie in it.

I'm getting close to what I would consider "done" on the space whale (which I hate with a fiery passion...but got it to give the rebels some firepower)

Basically I'm torn on a few ideas and was curious if anyone else would care to offer some insight. I'm considering coating the model in a gloss varnish and then using a MIG dark wash to get into the recesses, then use a q-tip to clean the excess....paint the engine then seal the model.

Alternatively I could skip the gloss, add a coat of that black GW wash and just roll with it that way.

OR I can go mega old school and black line it with a sharp brush and black paint.

It is a really really good step one. Check.

Okay, we have a bit of a 'before and after' going on here and I guess I kinda have thoughts on both. But I do have some questions that may or may not have any bearing on it.

My first real 'thing' is that Rebel Assault Frigate's kind of suck to paint in a few ways. Airbrushes and targeted washes seem to produce some very good results because the ship itself is challenging: it's got massive flat plates, rounded bodies, and some strange texture on most of the models I've worked with (about 5). The enormous plates compare to an MC 80 or Mc30 are a problem with washes that really do pool and stain with drying. But you can still use a normal method. I rather like what I'm seeing of the 'before' shot after all: it's very clone trooper-ish like Clony said.

I don't use pigments much because I just haven't gotten good with them, and I don't know enough about properly affixing them. I know that the gloss varnish is important, but what kind of gloss have you been using? Does it have a specific chemical cure time?

My first-time suggestion is the same as Reinholt's. Just go to that checklist. I'll put my rambling inside spoilers as it's the same thing just expanded in my usual teetering way.

Alright, on to part 2... when you mean the wash 'ate' the paint... like, chemically? Did it leave some weird surface issues? What exactly did you use? If it's just a colour issue you may still be able to use it to your advantage by just using it as a patch-toner, like an undercoat, then applying handbrushing it and picking out the details. Can we get some pictures and see what we have to work with?

I don't mean to photo bomb anything, I really don't, but I did have a very similar problem with colouration while working on a group of Mon Cals They were a hairsbredth away from going into the simple green vat as unsalvageable messes that could be charged under a few obscenity laws. I've got the pictures to prove it. I'm usually quite skeptical of anything being a 'write off' unless it actively does something that makes repainting next to impossible on a physical level.

Vykes knows what he is doing ...take his advise!!!!

if you want mignwash future acrylic is a different chemical: i jnow its too late, but next time gloss it with that first. i know ur an airbrusher, so after you do the lining/cleaning, just hit it with thinned liquitex matte medium for a no cloud matte finish.

You pretty mucb HAVE to gloss first when working with mig or other lawuer/oil things

I know what happened:

The red was just unstable, it was a 75/25 mix of an airbrush color and a crystal ammo color, the wash didn't react to well to it. It was the GW Nuln Oil and it essentially pooled heavily and then the red just started to bleed away, I tried to wipe the excess away quickly but it gave me a dark dank blotched look.

So yes, I simple greened it...and the original FFG colors are showing through slowly. I think I'm going to just use the original paint job, modify it a little and go from there.