So, The old forge was lost to the bowels of the main form where it was replaced by Greeblehauling and new wave speculation and the inevitable armada is dead threads.

But no more! This will be the new and rightful home of the forge where ill post my repaints, and if I get a bit ambitious I will even post some of the repainting tutorial videos I have been working on.And god forbid if I cant do that ill even post pictures of the Armada related things I make.

Ill start this off with saying I am by no means a professional painter, however I do posses a steady hand (with the alfluence of inkohol) and I blatantly cheat wherever and whenever possible to get a result I like. My tastes have been compared to that of Sabine from the "Rebels". I like color, I like Contrast, and I draw inspiration from wherever the heck I please (Caution soviet influence warning). Expect spelling mistakes, excessive use of parenthesis and dashes, and colorful pictures set to glorious backgrounds of my work bench.

So sit back in your comfy chair and prepare to look through my pictures (pronounced garbage lol) and tell me what you think or ask your questions!

BEWARE VERY PICTURE HEAVY

So lets start this off right with a few pictures of what I have been working on recently.

So...

I watched a show on crunchy roll called Schwarzesmarken which was an anime im not sure was worth my time, HOWEVER - what was worth my time was the sweet plot point that Germany was still split, the Stasi were still trying to screw everything up, and there were giant robots.

Inspired by the East German Camo Scheme:

and the Kick ass Unit logo:

I made this:

Now this ship lacks a lot of the detailed weathering you will see in some of my other works because: when I tried to weather it, it no longer looked right.

the graying and dirtying of the ship made the whole thing look ... dirty

Now normally I would say that that was the point, but in this case it was a bit too much, and considering where I drew my inspiration from it didn't look enough like the cartoon. If you look at the model robot above you will see what I mean. If you were to add battle damage it would look more like it was real, and it would take away from the color choice. I wanted to make this pop - and it does. On the table it truly looks impressive and it stands out.

*Edited for broken links

Now, not to let anyone think that i'm incapable of weathering ill show you something else I recently finished:

Obviously this is Slave one. However what is hard to see in this light is that there is a subtle blue glaze over the engines giving them a nice diffused glow effect while still having the its a white flame in the center effect.

for the rest of the model, unlike what I've seen from most people, my weathering technique starts backwards

I start with priming the model black, doing a heavy dry brush of white or grey and then painting the color over the top of it.

This lets me have a rough and worn base coat, and everything that sits on top looks just as rough and worn. Then I finish it off with a thinned coat of sepia or brown wash to add in a little dirt coloring. I personally like the look this technique gives the model, and it is a lot easier at this scale.

Ive done this on larger ships too, and ill get those pictures up soon.

*Edited for Broken Links

Now that i managed to fix all the broken Picture links i was able to grab some other pictures:

This is another ship for which inspiration came from a Giant robot anime (you will see a trend lol)

This one came from the Isiribi from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - The hands down best Gundam anime I have ever had the pleasure of watching. - Those kids are brutal

This:

Is the inspiration for This:

Now this time - I felt that it looked better with the weathering. It may just be because it it an assault frigate and all rebel ships look cartooney to me but whatever the case - I bothered to weather this one and it came out well.

Again I started with a black ship, dry-brushed the grey onto the entire ship, then painted it with the red and white design. Then after that dried I put a thinned out sepia wash on it and finished it off with some yellow spot treatment on the lasers.

I like painting the assault frigates, although I have had to fight my almost irresistible urge top paint them all like orcas. For those of you who saw the previous "Forge" you may have seen the Thunder Fire and the Dragon - two assault frigates which really put the pirate moniker on the rebels. I will try to re upload some of those pictures in the next few days. (along with my other ships)

The base coating on that ISD makes the colors POP ! I really dig it.

I found my other images (after figuring out why Photobucket was messing with my stuff - who says i cant have 5 gigs of pictures lol)

so i will start to put up pics of my stuff one ship type at a time

Today is Assault Frigate Day

You've already seen the Isiribi , so may I introduce the Thunder Fire

This one was fun to paint, but it took FOREVER!!!

I primed it black then took some red paint and thinned the heck out of it with acrylic paint thinner. Then i painted 1000 (probably only 9) layers starting on the front and going back less and less making the front very red, and the back barely red for a nice gradient effect. The lightning was 2 layers of un-thinned paint with white highlights.

Last up is the Dragon

The dragon was influenced by my tattoos. I decided - Hey, if I'm inked up why cant i do it to my ships?

A fleet pic:

A better look at the dragon before i painted it black:

I free handed the dragon right on the primer and although i liked the look, I decided that the rest of my fleet was black so this one should be no different. So carefully I painted black and purple around the dragon design. I then decided that the ship looked wayyyy to shiny so I decided to take a damp sponge with some gray paint on it to add in the look of paint chips and battle damage. It looks alright, and if it wasn't for the Dragon itself i would have given this one a greenstuff bath to try again. (still too shiny)

I have 1 more Assault Frigate which is sitting on my desk in a painted condition, but not a paint job im particularly proud of. so i will be repainting that one soon (also i believe it will be a part of a trade, and a new paintjob is part of the deal so i will put that one up here as soon as it is done.

That ISD looks like you sponged on the Camo. Cool effect

So I think today is going to be MC30 day.

MC30's are my favorite rebel ship. Why you ask? its because I fly my rebels like imperials. Batton down the hatches and **** the torpedoes. Lets get close and personal and blast the heck out of each other.

They fit oh so well into Centerpoint's Personal Rule 37: There is no "overkill", There is only" Open Fire" and "I need to reload"

So, I named all mine after missiles/ Warheads and painted them the same

First Up:

The Hammer

For the Hammer I primed it black, carefully edged in un-diluted mephiston red, and then dry brushed the whole thing with a touch of necron compound to give it a hint of bare metal wear. a simple process, but it looks soo good. And the little hammer and sickle emblem on the side makes me smile every time she fires at those Capitalist uh... I mean imperial dogs.

Next up we have the Spade

I'm not sure why, But I always feel like all of my ships need a logo on them. Probably influenced by WW2 fighters. Anywho, as soon as i opened my first MC30 I looked at the tail and thought ace of spades.. Also the spade is a missile. As soon as i put those two together this paint job was essentially already done lol.

I started with a coat of light grey, painted on the bordering and the spade using white and black respectively. I then outlined the white with a .005 mm Ink pen, and did selective washes of individual paneling using sepia, earth, flesh, and even some watered down green.

This is one of my favorites, and the Spade usually carries the Foresight Title. Don't ask me why, it just does.

Next up is the Sidewinder

If the Spade is Foresight, then the Sidewinder is Admonition. This was another paint job I had in mind as soon as i saw what these things looked like on the table. Hungry. I feel as though this paint job inspires a little fear on the table. it doesn't hurt that I'm almost always running it with extra dice modification cards on it.

This one started with an OD green coat, then I painted on the eyes and mouth with a small brush. i painted the teeth first because painting white on top of black takes forever and always looks grey to me. Then i did the selective washes of individual paneling using sepia, earth, flesh, and a bunch of green, and green mixed with other colors.

Lastly I have the Aggregat 4

For those of you who don't know, the Aggregat is the technical name for the German developed V2 rocket. It originally had a black and white paint job, but the yellow looked much slicker with the checkerboard then the white did.

This started with a black primer, then I painted yellow in about 3 layers over the top. then I took a very small (5/0) brush and painted black on top of the yellow to clean up the lines. this is actually the only one I put matte varnish over, and frankly I wish I hadn't. For being matte it is awfully shiny. Oh well, live and learn,

Really like these.

I have a questiin, when doing thinned acrylic coats, what drying time do you allow between layers?

Can't speak for Centerpoint, but for me, it depends on the brand of paint.

GW's are normally good within a minute or two.
P3s or Vallejo need 5-10 minutes.

The unique Tamiya Acrylics I've used in the past, as well as a lot of the 'cheaper' brands need longer. 10-15 minutes.

I always wondered where that unique German ISD came from. Now I know -laughs- veeery cool. Haven't heard of that particular title yet, but I may have to look it up. And great header image (pun seriously not intended).

That said, every day is a good MC30 day! And that philosophy certainly carries weight for me. I've said it before, but I do love your unique, well executed, and genuinely creative paint jobs. They're a fleet that I'd just like to see because it feels far more like a sci-fi group of rebels, renegades, pirates, and gens de haut-armee sorts would actually maintain.

That Aggragat is new though, isn't it? Love it, the checkerboard pattern and the pale series of yellow stripes is a great touch, particularly on the tail. Hmm, that is an odd 'matte' though. What brand, might I ask? I had the same thing happen recently with Testors which boggled my mind.

so to answer in order:

I have a questiin, when doing thinned acrylic coats, what drying time do you allow between layers?

most of the paints I paint with are Games Workshop. as Dras says they only take a minute or two, and this stays consistent whether they are thinned with water or straight from the pot. However, I have a huge bottle of acrylic thinner I bought at Joann Fabrics for 6 bucks. it slows the drying time down to about 8 mins a coat, which is why the Thunder Fire took so long.

Thanks for the compliments Vykes. The logo is actually the one I use when i make knives from scratch. I Have been doing it for a few years now, and that's why it is actually called a forge. The Aggregat is new yes. I have been looking at it sitting unpainted on my table the one and only time i tried running 4 of them and it bothered me. so now its painted too lol. As for seeing them for yourself, if your ever within 100 miles of NY let me know and we can get together for a game. Ill be at the Quebec and the Toronto Regionals.

Not sure on the brand. I know i got it at walmart, but ill take a pic when I get home.

EDIT - its Krylon matte finish

Today I am going to highlight my one and only scratch build. I have never done much with modeling, but I felt I really needed a Neb B2.

To start i made a mold out if greenstuff, and I cast the front spires. Actually I had to do this 2 times because I didn't realize I couldn't do both sides of it at the same time, but instead had to do one side at a time and get 2 molds which could be pressed together.

After much Trial and Error I had a good looking forward spire ready to go.

so i cut off the old one, and super glued the two of them in place and painted the whole thing black to see if i needed to do any additional greenstuff modeling around the places where they were glued. (much easier when everything is the same color.

if you can't tell which is which -then I did my job!

Then I took a drybrush to the whole thing painting it back to it's white color.

Lastly I present the Completed Ship

The Gecko State

Yet another giant robot anime - Eureka 7 was pretty good.

The Gecko State was the ship they all rode on, but I Digress,

I managed to mix up a light green using Lorren green, some yellow, and some white. and it looked the exact color of the ship from the show, so I went with it. I don't usually fly Nebulons, but when I do B dous. lol.

Seriously I only fly this one with salvation and slaved turrets to make it feel like it really has a stronger front arc.

-laughs- I'd love to get to those regionals buuuut I'm some 1700 miles away. I may be going that way sometime this year though.

Anyhow, bloody great work on the B2. It's a lot closer to the ones I recall in TIE fighter even if I have one of the 'later' version B2's. Good colour, nice reference, and it really does fit the Salvation look. I'm still impressed that you got such good definition out of a green stuff press mold. Mine's never come out that well so I gave up a while back. You did great, it's a nice gunship look and B2's are always good in my books.

Well done, seriously, that press looks more like a straight cut from a spare. I'm not sure what to think on the krylon, usually their primers have served me well but I wonder if their varnishes need more shaking than normal.

Anyhow, bloody great work on the B2. It's a lot closer to the ones I recall in TIE fighter even if I have one of the 'later' version B2's. Good colour, nice reference, and it really does fit the Salvation look. I'm still impressed that you got such good definition out of a green stuff press mold. Mine's never come out that well so I gave up a while back. You did great, it's a nice gunship look and B2's are always good in my books.

There was A LOT of trial and error. Eventually I made 2 molds that both covered 3 sides. I pressed it into one side, trimmed the other mold and crushed the two molds together and threw them in the fridge to slow the process a bit. Every hour i would pull off one side or the other . re-soak it in water (so it would come off clean) and use a modeling knife to clean up the lines.

Also - the black main gun was a broken piece off of another neb lol.

I couldn't get it to look right otherwise, and luckily I never throw anything out. you can see its a little gummy still at the top (the fake one is the one on the port side of the ship), but thank you - I'm pleased with it too.

Today is Thursday (and Thursdays are blah) so I will spruce it up with the most flamboyant fish in my fleet.

Presenting the MC80

The Cuttlefish

http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/6562aaeccb80b2aa7ab38063702619e1?width=650

Far from cuddley The cuttlefish is capable of changing the color of its skin at will, and it looks kind of like a squid. I figured that was about right so I painted up this:

(WIP shot without the grey)

Finished shot across the Starboard side

Shot from the Aft Starboard

Similar to the Thunder fire, this was painted by spray painting it tan with Krylon's camoflage line of paints, then using a thinned purple paint to paint back from the front in layers. I then put yellow/tan dots on the purple and purple dots on the tan to help the whole thing blend together. I touched up the engines and highlighted some of the piping on the outside with administratum grey and it made it look much more realistic. I washed the whole thing in agrax earthshade, then painted the engine glow.

Originally I tried to paint this with orange spots with yellow dots in the middle, but it looked ridiculous. Just goes to show, if your not pleased with the paint you can always simple green your mistakes away

I'm lucky to see these wonderful works in person and they are great. Looking forward to seeing the updates at Regionals!!

Yes!!

Im going to the Quebec one and the Toronto one (I really want a set of those dice lol)

We'll have to get together to plan on travel lol.

Gonna have to paint up something special for regionals I think.

So I realized yesterday that I only put up a picture of one of my MC80's and I have 2 of them painted. So today I'll put up the other one:

The Diamondback

Mon Cal ships always seem to be very organic so i wanted to paint them using organic shapes and patterns. Like the Cuttlefish I used a creature in the wild for inspiration while painting,

The eastern Diamondback is a mean snake, and I've had the (dis)pleasure of seeing one in person. But aside from all that, i really like the camouflage look on a ship that has alot of little surface defects.

For this paint job I primed it first in Krylon Camouflage Tan, then I took an old fat brush and made black paint dabs in the shape of a diamond. Then I took brown and tan and put dabs all over to make it look like scales. Afterwards I realized that I had a piece of scrap netting i could have used as a fantastic template, but I suppose i will have to save that for later.

I then washed the whole ship in a mix of Sepia and Earth washes to even out the colors. I touched up the lines and the engines with Adminsitratum Grey and painted the engine glow like on the Cuttlefish , but the pattern hides it a lot better than the plain tan on the back of it.

Welcome to monday everyone. It may not actually be reason to celebrate, but today I am going to show off dome of my imperial ships.

The first, and biggest of which is the Imperial Star Destroyer ( or Auf Deutsch Die Sternzerstörer der Imperium II-Klasse - it sounds cooler in German)

So First off we have the Chimera

This ship was painted black then dry brushed silver which makes it shiny, and therefore looks alot brighter than it actually is. This ship is almost black when looking at it. There are also touches of sepia wash over the silver which give it the bronzed look.

Next, with a comparison shot we have the Admonitor

The only disapointment I really have with Armada is that Thrawn hasn't made an appearance yet, Though I'm still hoping he makes it into Episode VIII. To prepare for his eventual arrival, I painted the Admonitor, a Imp Star Dues with a hint of blue in the paint to show the galaxy that a Chiss can make it as a Grand Admiral in a Galaxy full of Humans. I started with a white primer, then painted the entire ship with blue wash, then added panels of darker blue and grey to add some visual interest. The second shot shows a comparison to an unpainted ship.

They both have yellow windows painted on them and on the Chimera they really pop.

So today is a bit special for me because I am shipping off my First commissioned ship ever (sort of). Part of a trade deal was that i would paint the ship I've traded, and I just finished Packing it up. So to celebrate i figured it put it up here.

I was given literally no direction when painting this from the person i'm trading it to, as he seems to think i'm good at it or something. So I put on my thinking cap and tried to make something thematic but fun. So I painted a war plane.

Presenting the Idiot's Array

For those of you who don't know, an Idiot's array is the best Sabbac hand you could have and personally my favorite. Sabbac is played trying to make the number 23 with positive and negative values, but the Idiot's array is the Idiot (face card) with a 2 and a 3.

Now For this i started with an OD green Base and painted the tan brown on top of it. Then I painted the Design and the kill markings.

The Kill markings were the most fun as i realized how easy it is to paint silhouettes of iconic star wars ships. This one has apparently killed a Victory, a few tie's, a Bomber, and an ISD. a pretty lofty record for a medium based ship, But i wanted to make it impressive.

I went a little heavy on the wash because I wanted to make it look like its been through heck and back. all in all Im happy with how it came out in the end, and I hope the recipient likes it too!

I think this would make an awesome rebel fleet full of WWII esque craft with rad bomber names. If I had a shred of artistic ability I would have a go at it, but basic repaints are tough enough for me. Still, great to see such a cool concept, I hope the guy you traded it to is pleased.

As always, bloody well done Centerpoint. I do like the more authentic colours, and I think only you and Cruiser are the ones that have really dabbled in it (that I can recall anyway). I like the Idiot's Array, very muted colours but in a unique pattern, fun theme, great nose are, and a fun idea with the outlines. Well done and great theme again. Hope you got a right good trade, mate!

Thanks guys, Im sure I'll end up painting more WW2 stuff in the future. Ive always been interested in WWII aircraft, especially Allied aircraft. However I've been thinking of doing a white and red rising sun MC30 and naming it Shimakaze (island wind)

Also - To address some of the PM's I've gotten recently - Yes I am willing to do Commission work I cant discuss money on posts, but I'm also willing to do them for trades.

And now for what I've been working on the last few days -

I really am not much of an X wing player as I am engrossed in both Imperial assault as well as Armada, and my wallet is only willing to stretch so much. However a buddy of mine told me about the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster campaign and I am Uber eager to play through it. Also I do some play by post for Age of Rebellion as a Y wing pilot so i figured id kill off two birds with one stone:

So I bought a Y wing and painted it up

Presenting The Last Stand

The background is that this ship's call sign is Green 2, and its a beat to hell fighter cobbled together out of two other Y wings that had been partially destroyed and then put back together.

So I really wanted it to look beat.

It was spray primed grey, then i painted on the black and green markings as well as selectively painting the pipe and tube greebles different shades of brown. Then I went to town painting the thing in kind of a camo pattern of sepia, earth shade and nuln oil. The goal was to make it look like different things were leaking, and not every fluid in the ship is the same color. Then I added some Typhus Corrosion and some selective dry brushing of ryza rust.

I wanted to try using colored pencils for some leaks and rust lines, but the back of this ship is already so busy with the different colored Greebles, that i didn't bother.

I like the end result - Its more of a "lived in" ship than I thought it would turn out to be, but it fits the character better.

A short update today as I spent most of my weekend doing non armada related things ( D: )

Im headed to the Montreal Regionals this weekend, and my list calls for a lot of squadrons. To celebrate, and to get me in the armada mood, I am painting all my squadrons that i will be using.

Unfortunately my list has 134 points of squadrons exactly so there will be a lot of painting.

For now, here are the Main AS fleet, my YT2400's

These all started with a black base coat and some white dry brushing. I then painted on the color to make them pop, and hit them with a very subtle wash.

I will try to get the second picture of the engines off my phone and up here.