Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Pathfinder Alpha

So the pathfinders are next. I always need to paint one model in a squad before I start doing any kind of line painting. It seems like I need the one mini to familiarize myself and my brushes with the colors, lines, etc. The pathfinders were a lot of fun, and should go relatively quickly. They are a lot of fatigues.

I used the same P3 and Citadel Wash color combos as I did for my fire warriors Sash'ui. The one exception was that, because the fatigues were so prevalent on the pathfinders, I wanted a smoother and more cloth like blend. In order to do that I based the fatigues with P3 Trollblood Base, then washed it with a mix of VMC Matte Medium, water, P3 Greatcoat Grey, and a little P3 Armor Wash for flow. Once the wash was dry I went back over the raised areas again with P3 Trollblood Base and finally put the line high lights on with P3 Frostbite. I wanted to bring it up to P3 Menoth White Highlight but the Frostbite maintained the blue better. I choose color richness over reality in this case.

From Stuff I Have Painted


Like my fire warriors, I put the squad markings on the shoulders and helmets, though the pathfinders are opposite side because they only had the one shoulder pad. The one squad marking on this guy's shoulder is pretty effed, I am going to go back and clean it up tonight, it was just pissing me off last night and sometimes I need to walk away.

From Stuff I Have Painted


I used my ghetto glow effect on the marker light and the grenades. The grenades will require a smoother blend on future models but hey, this is why I paint one first.

Thanks for reading,
T

4 comments:

  1. wow nice and the base is amazing too, what did you use for that?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. Base is P3 Bootstrap Leather-> Washed with Citadel Wash Devlan Mud -> Dry-brushed P3 Sulfuric Yellow ->Dry-brushed P3 Menoth White Base.

    For the flora it is a clump of Woodland Scenics tree foliage dry-brushed with P3 Thrall Flesh. I use Woodland Scenics Honey static grass, dry-brushed with P3 Menoth White Highlight and GW Scorched grass dry-brushed with P3 Thrall Flesh. After all that I paint the ring with P3 Gun Corp Brown. It sounds way harder then it actually is. I would say the basing takes a few mins a mini tops.

    Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How do you get your squad markings consistent like that? Even using a 5-aught brush, I find making a marking like that pretty much impossible.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Gabe

    The quick answer is practice. There are a lot of people who paint much straighter than I do that may have better tips. The

    trick I use is one that I learned firing a gun. I don't own a gun, nor do I nesscarily feel compelled to, but I did learn how to shoot once. When I was being taught to shoot the instructor told me to keep my eye on the target, exhale half a breath then slowly let out the rest of my breath as I depressed the trigger.

    When I absolutley have to paint a straight line I keep my eyes locked on the end of the line, exhale half a breath then let the rest out slowly as I drag the brush to where my eyes are. it sounds complicated but it really isn't. You get the hang of it quickly, and it will let you do "straight enough" lines to look good from a distance.

    last tip, don't use 0/5 brushes for anything! Put a nice tip ona 1 or 0 and use it. Running out of paint midway through a line is almost guarenteed to mess it up. Big brushes hold more paint so you can finish your line in one "swoop".

    Hope that helps.
    T

    ReplyDelete