Doom figures from the board game

As the title of this blog would suggest I try to paint two figures a week.  This first came about trying to do two Saga war bands and after three months not much progress had occurred.  So I set myself the realistic quota of two figures a week and after many months  my Anglo-Danish and Viking war bands were done.  Most of the posts on this blog will be terrain related as my painting isn’t that great and there are much better pure painting blogs out there.  However I will throw up a few painting posts along the way.

I own the Doom board game by Fantasy Flight Games.  It was $30 one year at Cancon and had heaps of cool looking figures so it was an easy purchase to make.  The game plays quite well and the figures are very good.  They are in a single colour and made of a hard(ish) plastic.  Since I had finished off my Scots Saga war band I wanted to try something different on the painting side.  Too much green and browns in the dark ages.  These figures looked nice and since I already had them I thought what the heck.  Also I wanted to trial pre shading with my airbrush and try some more zenithal  painting techniques.

For the larger figures I would be taking some time to try out new techniques (and the train up in them).  For the smaller figures since there were 12 identical figures I got a bit more pragmatic and used the magic dip and dry brushing to speed things up.  After all I only play 1-2 games a year of this.

After scraping the mould lines and washing the figures I undercoated them white, and then pre shaded them in the zenithal style.  So white was splayed (via airbrush) from above and black from below.  The only snag on this was the base of the Hell Knight was quite large and made it hard to get a decent spray from below.  That done I painted the figures as below.

Trite

Trite

VMC Green Brown and then washed with AP Soft tone followed by Strong tone.  Then a dry brush with the Green Brown again lightened with VGC Iraqi Sand over a few successive highlights.  The eyes were done GW Warlock Purple and the mouth GW Scab Red.  The figures are normally one of three colours (to match the three colours each player can be).  Since the Trite doesn’t have a base that you can check the underside of to determine the original colour a small spot of colour was painted on the body of the Trite.

Demon

Demon

The front body was VGC Parasite Brown washed with AP Soft tone and dry brushed with Parasite Brown lightened with VGC Leather Brown.  The back body was GW Gun Metal washed with AP Dark tone with a few bits painted brass/metallic blue for bling.  Dry brushed with  GW Gun Metal and Chainmail

Imp

Imp

One of the easiest figures as it is all one colour.  The body was done in VGC Leather Brown and washed with AP Soft tone followed by Strong tone (notice a pattern yet?).  Then it was dry brushed Leather Brown and VMC Iraqi Sand.  The 8 or so eyes were done in GW Blood Red and the claws were done in layers from pale brown/Iraqi Sand/White.

Hell Knight

Hell Knight

This was one of the figures I wanted to spend the time one.  Nothing but one mass of skin so a real learning exercise in smooth shading.  Being a bigger figure I used the airbrush to do the first highlights.  The base colour is VPA Shadows Flesh.  This was then highlighted by adding GW Blood Red and then VGC Orange Fire.  The pre shading worked a treat as the underside was pretty much done.  Then there was redoing the top of the figure and adding the shadows back to the skin (Shadows Flesh and Black mixtures) creases and general tiding up.  The teeth and claws were done with GW Bleached Bone and VGC White and the eyes a metallic orange.  Very happy with the end result.  Now just have to do 5 more.

Paasche Model H airbrush review

Olde airbrush of times past

My Paasche Model H is quite old, getting on 25 years.  It is a single action, siphon feed type airbrush.  Due to the simplicity of single action airbrushes and the well maintained condition it still works perfectly today.  It still even lives in the original cardboard box :)  It has three nozzles (0.3, 0.5, 1.0mm labelled as 1,3,5), and both bottles (big/small) and a side paint cup (which I use most of the time).  I purchased a Paasche M32 to 1/8 connector so I could connect to the 1/8 air line I have.  The connector cost $4.  Ebay is a wonderful source of connectors between all the various size connectors  that the airbrush manufacturers use.  I recommend standardising on 1/8 inch as most airbrushes have connectors to 1/8 inch and most compressors are either 1/8 inch (hobby) or 1/4 inch (garage).

My Model H being the older model gives me a bit more control on air flow than newer H models.  I can get approx a 1/3, 2/3, full control on the air flow.  Newer models seem to be much more full on or nothing.  Mind you this is in a travel of a few millimetres on the trigger so you need a light touch.

For most occasions I use the small side cup as that enough paint capacity.  There is more than enough capacity to spray a dozen or so figures for an undercoat for example.  For nozzles I found the 0.5mm size best for cheap craft paints as they tend to be a bit lumpy.  For better quality model paints the 0.3mm nozzle was ok.  For ugly paint like metal primer I use the 0.5mm or 1.0mm nozzle.

Like the majority of single action air brushes there is no adjusting the needle on the fly.  You have to stop painting, turn the needle adjuster which is on the underside of the airbrush, spray some more, readjust, etc.  Also the air flow and pressure impacts this.  So early on there was a lot of trial and error (and splattering and running of paint) until I got to a few known setting combinations that work.  Ie paint type X thinned down with Y amount of water means the needle adjustment should be turned 1.5 turns from the closed position.

The best part of this airbrush is the cleaning (very easy), ease of disassembly and the large nozzles you get with the set.  No tiny needle nozzles to drop and lose.  The large nozzles allow you to spray things you wouldn't normally (e.g. metal primer, PVA glue) spray easily.  Also if you want to put down a large amount of paint the bottles can be used (instead of the side cup).  The biggest downside is that to swap paint you have to do a fair amount of cleaning.  Disconnect and wash out the side cup, rinse and spray out the remaining paint in the nozzle, etc.  You could reduce this by having two side cups.

I wouldn't recommend this airbrush if you were only going to buy one.  The defaco standard dual action gravity feed models are much easier to use.  However it make a great second airbrush for all those jobs you don't want to use your 0.2mm fine detail airbrush for.  The robust nature of this model may make it good for a shared use environment in that it can be cleaned easily and all the parts that come in contact with paint can be removed simply.

Airbrush dreams

I have always wanted an airbrush.  Not sure why, it just seemed like a really cool tool to paint things with.  Perhaps it was looking at airbrush art and not seeing any brush strokes or colour transition lines that influenced me.

My first attempt at buying an airbrush was a total failure.  I, like many others got conned by the cheap no-name brand single action airbrushes sold in hobby stores that use air cans.  It came in a little kit with two bottles, air line, etc for $30.  Bargain I thought.  No.  The little cans of compressed air are terrible value (around $20 each) and hell to use.  The air pressure is all over the place and you are limited to quite short bursts.  But the biggest issue was the airbrush itself.  The needle wasn't aligned properly with the airflow so the paint splattered everywhere.  The cheap plastic body of the airbrush was warped and twisted.  At that time I was using enamel paint to test which in hindsight made things harder.  After a few tries the kit got packed up and the dream was lost.

A few years later my father gave me his old (probably around 25 years old now) Paasche model H single action brush.  He use to use it for spraying stain on leather work.  It comes with a air hose with a 1/4 inch connector which didn't connect to the little air can I had so it just sat in the cupboard for awhile.  I could have purchased a large garage type compressor but given the terrible results I had previously and space restrictions I didn't seriously consider this an option.

Then one day at my local game store someone was using a small air compressor which didn't look like the normal $300+ ones I had seen for sale in Hobbyco.  That got me all inspired to have another look at the Paasche airbrush.  This was when I discovered that the cheap airbrush kit came with a 1/4 inch to air car connector so I could actually use the Paasche (via two air lines connected back to back).  Yes, I just hadn't looked at things the right way first time round.  So five minutes later I did a test spray and it worked.  Paint was sprayed, not splattered and everything was working like it should.  To reduce the complexity further I also purchased a pot of Vallejo air colour as that paint range is already at the correct consistency for using in an airbrush.  Everything was smiles.  However after 10 minutes the air can was done.  But my faith was restored and I knew I wanted to try airbrushing properly.

Not willing to spend $300+ on a hobby air compressor or $20 on each air can I did what all people do and checked out ebay.  Pretty soon I found that 1/6 hp air compressors with and without air tanks were everywhere and quite cheap (under $100).  Also all the extra bits (air lines, cleaning gear, pipettes, quick connectors, etc) were available too.  In addition the metric system seems to have skipped airbrush land and everything is still imperial.

1/6 hp compressor with 3L tank

For the compressor I wanted one with an air tank.  Having an air tank reduces the pulsation in the air line when the motor is running and thus you get a smoother flow of air.  The standard model with a 1/6hp motor had a 3 litre tank and also had regulator attached.  The motor was the same between those with an air tank and those without.  Some of the air compressors have some sheet metal around them which I suspect is an attempt at noise shielding.  Since I was going to do any spraying in the shed this wasn't much of an issue.  From the same supplier I also purchased a 10ft 1/8 inch female to 1/8 inch female air line and some cleaning brushes.  Three days later there was a knock on the door from the courier and I was in business.

10ft 1/8 female to female air line

Desert diorama base for a 1/35 Tamiya Panzer II

Taking the advice of better painters than me, I have started trying different scales and topics from my normal ones (ie 28mm historical/fantasy) in an effort to improve my painting skills.  I never got into 1/35 scale military models as a kid.  The kits were too expensive so I stuck to cheap 1/72 scale aircraft.  But I always wanted to try 1/35 scale kits and doing so got another item off the bucket list.  I wanted to go all in and make a diorama base, try weathering pigments, etc.  It's never too late for a happy childhood...

Wanting a small vehicle and some figures I purchased the Panzer II (f/g) tank with 5 figures from Tamiya (part no. 35009).  A very old kit but this makes it cheap and I didn't want to spend too much money on a fancy.  The figures are Afrika Korps so for the diorama base I wanted a north Africa look.  Google images and an hour later I decided upon a very standard rocky desert ground scape.  Most of the desert is sharp rock not sand so I needed lots of little rocks.  Luckily I had a whole pile from my previous attempts of making building rubble.

Raw board with corner rock

The base was formed from 12mm ply with a border made from 16mm pine strips.  In one corner I made a rock hillock from one of the plaster rock moulds I have.  I chopped the plaster rock down to be square sided so it fitted.  Plaster is quite easy to cut with a wood saw and can be sanded easily to smooth finish.  It's just really messy when doing so.

Before I did anything more on the base I experimented with some small scale attempts to first get a look of the rocky ground right and secondly to get the paint job correct.  I had all the rocks I needed but wasn't sure on how to attach them to the base.  I needed something covering the wood and didn't want to use fine sand as it would look out of scale and too uniform.

Plaster rocks, texture paste and PVA glue

My first experiment was to try just using PVA glue to stick a pile of rocks down.  That didn't work too well as the larger rocks fell off and the spaces in between the rocks weren't covered.  The second attempt was to put down a layer of texture paste and then push the rocks into this.  That way there were no uncovered spaces.  However the adhesive qualities of texture paste weren’t great.  So of course I took the fool's logic and combined the two.  I first lay down a thick coat of texture paste.  Then I pushed in a selection of rocks and finally coated everything with a layer of watered down PVA glue.

It does get better

The whole thing looked a mess.  The next day it was still not fully dry and the rocks moved slightly.  I considered it a failure but left it for a few more days.  The good news was that after approx. 3 days the texture paste and PVA had dried and all the rocks (big and small) were very solid in the base.  So I had a technique for making rocky ground.  When I did it large scale on the base I left it for four days to dry fully.  Now for the paint job.

The bare patch is were the tank goes

Using my sample I painted it VGC Earth and dry brushed the rocks with Pale Brown/Iraqi Sand/White.  This left the rocks looking pasty and the spaces between the rocks were darker than the rocks which was not correct.  I then toned everything down with some Vallejo pigments.  This also coloured the spaces between the rocks (ie the sand in real life).  I used Dark Yellow Ochre, Light Yellow Ochre and Light Slate grey.  The end result was pretty close to what I wanted.  I also later used the Light Yellow Ochre to blend in the boots of the figures to the ground.

Near final result - just needs a tank and border cleanup