Ultra Sonic Cleaner

Hi All

Yay! I now have my ultrasonic cleaner - Ultra 7000, what a name!  Well it is a small thing which works wonderfully!  Of course with ultrasonic cleaners you need to consider the job they are made to do and not what is hoped!  If you watch all the videos on Youtube concerning ultrasonic cleaners, you will see a lot of buzzing a not a huge amount otherwise, but afterwards you will see the amount of grime and dirt removed during the cleaning process.
I wasn't really someone who would meticulously clean a miniature before cleaning unless they really needed it – not a good habit to continue with really!  But I thought I would give the Ultra7000 a blast to see what it could get off some metal minis – see below

As you can see from the pictures, concentric rings are formed around the models where the dirt and manufacturing bits are pushed into sections called nodal points (standing wave physics).  The rings of dirt are enough to convince me that cleaning the minis through this method are a good idea. 
I have cleaned my airbrush through the ultra7000 and I was incredibly pleased/alarmed at the amount of paint coming from the individual nozzles!  The airbrush is good and clean and I have been blasting a base coat on 80 ultra marines for a friend at university who kindly gave me a load of zombies, a few wraith type things and a black coach!
Anyways I will stop there!
God Bless
Andy

GW Paints Old and New

Hi People
Just a little entry on the state of Games Workshop paints.

(From http://www.thehogsofwar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/15321_sm-2nd-Edition-Citadel-Paints-History-Retro-Review.jpg?9d7bd4)

I just remember those old pots and the annoying lids!!!  Such memories!

Anyways, to move away from nostalgia I would like to give a quick post about what I have found about GW paints since coming back to the hobby.  Of course back in the day when the world was Sepia and I was knee height to a grasshopper, the GW range wasn't as extensive as it is now and the pots were different within certain respects!  However the price per pot then was £1.40 and expensive at the time - a far cry to nowadays!  But we mustn't forget the natural price increases over time as I am talking from 2nd ed 40k days till now!

However, with the advent of greater competition for paints from companies such as Vallejo and P3, GW have just released or should we say re-released a 'new' paint range.  I got the e-mail from GW today saying that some of the feedback on the 'new' paint range is just like "painting with magic" or something to that effect.  This does appear to be quite a statement, but a business would not do well if they were to release press captions such as "our paints apart from a few new things, are basically the same"!  The layer paints are re-named paints from the usual range and why re-named?  Because it helps with copyrighting the colours (info from an inside GW source), easier to keep tabs if other companies try to copy Abbadon Black or Calgar Blue rather than chaos black and ultramarine blue!

The new ranges look interesting though, such as the washes or glazes but one thing that does worry rather a lot is the drybrushing mush they have made. In all fairness (and I have to agree with several other gaming/painting friends) if you are unable to drybrush or at least drybrush heavily onto models using normal paints, then you are doing something wrong.  It isn't really that hard to dip your brush into a pot of paint, dry the majority (or practically all) of the paint off onto a paper towel and then lightly brush over the model! I know for people just starting out it may seem a little weird to do this, but the techniques once obtained definitely do give lovely effects.  However the main factor of the dry range of paints in the new release which does worry is the level of fluid in these paints.  As stated they are a mush, very thick indeed and therefore due to GW not going over to dropper bottles, I fear these dry paints will dry out quicker than the others such as the glazes or the layers.  We have all had paints do this from GW and maybe other companies also, so maybe something to watch out for!  Also the marketing of the products annoys somewhat - "Revolutionise your painting".  Tamiya paints and maybe others have marketed terrain or texture paints for years, Vallejo and others have glazes, mediums and washes and have had them for years, so where is the revolution?!?!?  The dry range?

Although this does seem very much like GW bashing and I suppose it is somewhat (although I like their models - definitely NOT finecack and love their games), I feel that sometimes things like this need to be said as they are desperately attempting to hold the monopoly on the hobby gaming world.  

However tonight I made a conscious decision to get rid of all of my GW paints (maybe keep one or two) and to move solely over to Vallejo. I have the whole range of Game Colour (sorry but I will not spell it the other way as it is not English!-no disrespect to Americans and the such who spell it incorrectly ;) ) range bought on eBay for such a low price each bottle comes out at £1.43 and of course with 5ml more per bottle! 

I like the old washes from GW but they dry up so quickly, I have had trouble left, right and centre over their other paints due to coverage when applied either thick or diluted and this includes the gloopy foundation paints – I have tested all to see the effects of coverage and they are not that good in my opinion.  I also heard some chaps at my local gaming club discussing the irony of photos from the ‘Eavy Metal team displaying (in the background) other companies’ paints!!!!!

However why tonight to decide, well, I was working on the wings for my Terrorgheist and after doing a rather nice job (if I may say so myself) on the membrane skin, I had to first undercoat a light grey onto the skeletal parts to be followed by bleached bone.  I want to do this model well and therefore I am watering down the paints and adding a few layers – the bleached bone decided to pool and collect in crevices.  Added slightly more paint and tried again – coverage very poor.  Added yet more paint almost getting neat and yet again coverage poor.  The brushes I use are Series 7 W and N – some of the best brushes money can buy and although I am not a Golden Daemon winner, my skill isn’t too bad!  So being the scientist I am, I went through a process of elimination and testing to see what was going on!  Painting skill – good, brushes – excellent, went through varying thickness of paint – suspect and needed testing.  I changed the paint over to my bone white Vallejo and found that when at the same dilution at the first stage, the results were slightly better coverage – not brilliant but did not pool.  Added to the paint mixture – covered well.  So conclusion although not based solely on tonight, was that Vallejo makes superior and cheaper paints.  

I think that I am just fed up with GW and their shoddy overpriced rubbish (not their models although they are vastly overpriced). 
The glue – over priced and not good.
The static grass – very nice but way over priced.
GW PVA glue – come on give me a break! How much does this cost??!?!!?!?!?!?! I bought from WHSmiths a pot of Art Attack PVA glue which was cheaper than GW’s own and had more in it! To give you the numbers GW PVA glue 120ml for £5.10.  Art Attack PVA glue 175ml for £2.99
Then I found something even better, Wickes sells 5 yes 5 LITRES of PVA for £8!!!!! That’s more PVA than you can shake a stick at!!!!!!!!
So anyways I will stop there and climb down from my soap box!
Cheers All!

Airbrush!

Well yesterday I managed to get the airbrush back into working order! The tiny fluid nozzle arrived on Saturday morning and the brush works again! Yay!  I cannot wait until I get my ultrasonic cleaner to help with the cleaning!
Anyways I will catch you later on!

Cheers

Some of my painted models

Hi All

I seem to be a little busy on this blog today but I thought I would add some pictures of my models (mine and commission jobs).
Cheers

Airbrushes!

Hi All

I thought I would put up a little something on airbrushes.  My chosen weapon is is an Iwata Custom Micron plus. I chose this model due to adaptability of the nozzle from 0.23mm down to 0.18mm.  The claim from the company is utmost precision for the elite professional! I don't doubt that for a single minute!
However, last week I was painting a load of zombies and and found problems with my airflow.  Took the lead liquid nozzle off (screw piece with a cool little spanner to help), cleaned it and then put it back to find no difference in zirflow etc.  Took it off once more and then screwed it back into place - only to shear the thread section into the airbrush itself! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH is a slight understatement! I couldn't believe that happened and what's more, the nozzle isn't covered by the 5 year warranty!  I could have cried.....in fact I almost did when I got a quote from someone to fix it - £80+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I took it into the mechanical labs dept of my university and the head technician chappy fixed it in around 5 minutes! To say happy is a bigger understatement! Two things would explain this; 1. I am very heavily dependant on my airbrush due to the quickness, covering abilities, airbrush techniques looking good, the list goes on, and 2. Now I only have to pay £40 for a new nozzle and my pride and joy will be back spraying loads and loads of undead for my Vamp Counts!

One thing all of this did flag up to me was the cleanliness of the airbrush itself.  Paint gets everywhere and the use of ultrasonic cleaners and the like are very important.  I used to clean my airbrush (used to as in will not anymore) by using an airbrush cleaning brush (will keep on with this) and blasting water through the airbrush when finished with a particular paint.  Opening the airbrush sections so that he could remove the existing thread, the technician found the nozzle housing fairly clogged with paint!  So be aware of this! I am getting an ultrasonic cleaner very soon but another thing I will be getting to help keep the airbrush clean, will be some proper airbrush cleaning fluid.  With the cost of some of these tools, you cannot be too careful about the cleanliness of the airbrush!

Cheers

My best friend's birthday present!

Hi All

Well the other day I found myself in a bit of a situation - I forgot my best friend's birthday for over a week! To say I felt bad was an understatement(!) so I decided to get him something from the Lord of the Rings range at Games Workshop and to paint it for him.  I went along to my local store and got him the Sauron with Isildor and dead king model set.  I absolutely hate finecast with a massive passion (as you may know) but on inspection of these models, I was pleasantly surprised. The mace was straight and with a few smaller air bubbles the models were not too bad - also they took the paint rather well!
Anyways here are some piccies on the paint jobs.  Please comment if you like.

Cheers
Me!

GW glue update!

Hi All
This is a small post in update the Games Workshop super glue post a little while ago.  I was having a chat with my uni friend (plays a lot of 40k and well-versed in fantasy) just yesterday (we are in the same postgrad room although he is researching material physics and I am researching astrophysics) and he informed me that he did a specific test on GW super glue to find the constituent chemical make-up and to compare it with Loctite super glue.  The results shocked even me - not wanting to get into too much depth, super glue uses a specific compound called cyanoacrylate with other stuff to enhance and bulk out the glue.  The loctite had an active ingredient content of around 70-80% whilst the GW super glue had only approximately 30%!!!!!  My jaw hit the floor! Now I know this, there's no wonder why it's so crap, around 70% of the GW glue is water and other rubbish!

Cheers