How to Mount an X-Wing Miniature for Painting

Pictured: Some, but not all, of the things you'll need.

You'll need:

• Masking tape
• Wooden cocktail sticks
• A model to mount for painting
• A cork, or something else to stick the cocktail stick into
• Something to mount the cork to if the cork isn't big enough to be a good handle
• Craft knife
• Something to drill into the cork with

If you're going to be airbrushing or spray priming, mask the mounting point.

Cut your cocktail stick in half and whittle the blunt end so it fits in the mounting hole.

The stick should fit snugly in so that no adhesive is required. Only use light pressure or you might deform the socket.

Drill a hole for the sharp end of the cocktail stick.

Put stick in hole.

Optionally: blu-tac cork to larger, nicer handle.

Paint!

Catch Up Monday

Is Catch Up Mondays a thing? It probably isn't.

I finished the Stormcast I showed in progress back in October.

Hello! That's us!

I felt like painting and didn't feel like thinking, so they were a nice, simple choice.

Meanwhile I've finally finished the Nomad and Panoceania starter sets for Infinity. 

"Click here for a whole album of pictures of us!"

"No! Click on us instead! We are cool rebels!"

Thrilling, I know.

Photography Extravaganza!

Remember that last post with the rubbish photos? Here are some slightly better ones.

Naturally I still forgot to dust him, again.

Look at that tartan! Not too shabby, eh?

Now, back to the grindstone.

Spaceships!

Hoarluk Doomshaper - Hordes

I finished this lovely fella late last year, but my first attempts to photograph him were appalling. So are these, but less so.

There's a wee touch of dayglo pigment on the glowing runes, and his glowy eye. 

Apart from that there isn't much to note.

Except that I should remember to dust a model before I photograph it, if it's been on the shelf for a while.

Akalis Sikh Commando - Infinity

I've been gradually painting my way through the Operation Icestorm starter box for Infinity for a few months now. It's been an interesting exercise, especially since I've been directly following Angel Giraldez's instructions - a combination of the specific guide on his Facebook page, and a lot of hints and tips from his painting book (which I recommend if you have an airbrush and a significant amount of painting experience).

I was waiting until they were all done to put any up here, but that's silly, I think. So here's one I've just finished.

He looks a bit like he needs a wee, I think.

I followed, pretty closely, the techniques in this photo album. The only touch that's really my own is the 50/50 matt/satin varnish mix, which I'm really taking to. For whatever reason it's almost invisible going on, so it preserves the paint-job as I dun it. I don't like how much a matt varnish flattens everything, and I dislike the shine from satin. Leaving gaming models unvarnished isn't really an option for me, sadly, because I'm a ham-handed klutz.

Incidentally, I also tried shooting this model against a white backdrop.

Maybe not, eh?

Photography is hard, gentle reader. Bearing that in mind, have some more photos.

I nearly forgot to paint the knife entirely, which would have been pretty shoddy.

I quite like the effect on the rifle viewfinder/scope thing.

Spot the deliberate mistake. Hint: Mistake not deliberate.

How I Painted: An X-Wing from the game X-Wing, which has X-Wings in it

Recently I have playing Fantasy Flight's delightful game about space dogfighting, X-Wing. There aren't just X-Wings in it. Among its many virtues are that the minis come pre-painted.

It's surprisingly hard to find a close-up of this model as it comes.

Technically these are collectibles, so I thought I'd set about ruining them. Inspired, in part, by this series of tutorial videos from Painting Buddha.

No going back now.

We start with a gradient prime from black, through grey, to white, with lighting slightly biased from 3 o'clock and slightly above. Then a carefully applied wash of army painter strong tone, then highlights up with light grey and, um, very very light grey, each slightly adulterated with strong tone wash.

Which takes us to here.

Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without a bit of grime, so I plonked some strong tone, dark tone, black paint, and smoke ink and started slopping it about. I cheated a bit by using these weathering mixes to work on the shading as well, and line in some of the panels.

I'm making this all sound very ordered, but with all my mixes from the start of the process still wet on the palette I was popping back and forth between dotting highlights, lining, shading, etc with gay abandon. It's a nice way to work!

Oh, and I blacked in and gloss varnished the cockpit windows while I was at it.

When it comes to X-Wing markings there's an internet rabbit hole of terrifying depth, which I naturally flung myself into with great and nerdy gusto. In the end I went for the simple marking scheme used in A New Hope - specifically Wedge's Red 2. There's considerable discussion about how his astromech droid was patterned, but thankfully I'd used up my enthusiasm for research, so I painted it entirely to my whims.

It was my first time using this tape.

It worked pretty well!

A touch more weathering and chipping, and some varnish (a mix of vallejo matt and satin that seemed to work quite nicely), re-glossing of the cockpit windows, and my work is done.

Whoosh!

Zap!

Swoosh!

Wet Palette - Final Form?

A symptom of the problem.

(Please excuse the even less good than normal pictures. I changed the settings on my camera and now I don't know what's happening anymore.)

I've tried to make my own wet palette before, but failed miserably for reasons to be revealed in a BONUS HOT TIP below. This year I mostly have been using the P3 wet palette. It's the first functioning wet palette I've ever used. It's got a bad rap, but at least it kinda works.

The bad rap goes as follows:

1. The box doesn't seal, such that the water inside all evaporates while you aren't looking, or even if you are.
2. The sponge that comes with it doesn't absorb very much water, or pass it to the palette paper very well.
3. The supplied palette paper is too easily permeable for miniature paints (it works very well for heavy body artists acrylics, apparently)

I live in cold, damp Scotland, which might have contributed to the first too flaws not bothering me. The last did, however. Water is supposed to gently osmose up through the paper in a wet palette, keeping the pain from drying out. On the P3 palette, all paint is immediately diluted to a thin glaze, then it gently oozes across the surface and makes friends with all the other colours. Oh, and I'd add my very own 4:

1. There's not very much surface area to work with.

Blogger won't let me make that a 4.

Behold!

Inspired by articles at Arcane Paintworks and Lil'Legend I had a crack at making something better.

It's a combination of the Lil'Legend jay-cloth-wrapped sponge, and the Arcane Paintworks tupperware and leetle bit of washing up liquid to stop it going mouldy.

Let's see how it works!

I sprayed too much white on the backpack, and the heid is supposed to have a nice blue gradient, but I forgot.

And fixed!

It worked pretty well! I could control the consistency of the paint! I could put blobs of paint near each other and they didn't immediately mate! The paint is still both wet and where I put it, nearly a full day later!

We'll see if it goes mouldy later, but it's good so far.

BONUS HOT TIP: Morrison's own brand baking paper works well for this purpose. Previous attempts with Sainsbury's equivalent didn't work at all, because it is silicone coated and completely waterproof.