Hobby - Vallejo Metal Color Paints

 Where have you been all my life?

Over the past few months I have seen more and more painters recommend Vallejo Model Color paints as their metal paints of choice. I was largely unhappy with my Citadel (sans Retributor and Iron Warriors) and Vallejo Model Color paints, and ho-hum about the Army Painter metals.

So I went to Element Games and picked up five of these supposed fantastic metals. I chose:

• Gold
• Aluminum
• Burnt Iron
• Steel
• Copper

They are GBP 6 each (NZ 12) but you get 32ml in each bottle rather than the 12ml in Citadel. The paints can be used straight through an airbrush or applied by brush.

These paints are stunning. The opacity is phenomenal and the flow off the brush is fantastic. You put them exactly where you want them and they stay there, covering with a single coat.

You can blend them very easily on a dry palette and they stay 'wet' long enough to be used for batch painting.

If you want to up your "metal" game them I really think you should be using these. Having painted miniatures for over 25 years, I've never seen metals that come close to these.

Mournival Challenge - Sam Whitt (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

Painted 10 Wolf guard and Murderfang in my grimdark scheme.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

Went to Lakes of Blood tournament with an Emperors children/Daemon list. Went 3-2 and came 6th overall.

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

9. Organise a multiplayer game

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Mournival Challenge - Jeremy Webster (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

Some slow progress on my new GSC army but I've finally cleared the bulk of my Craftworlds backlog so I'm expecting to get a lot done in March. 

Most notable progress has been doing some conversions for my HQ characters. I'll be running this guy as my GSC Primus armed with a Needle Gun, Bone sword, and Toxin Injector Claw. Next step will be to decide on (and test) a colour scheme that looks good but doesn't take a million years to paint.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

On my desk is a restoration job on an old Eldar Falcon Grav-Tank that I picked up in a lot. It was in pretty bad shape but I've made some progress stripping (and in some cases chiseling) the old paint/glue away and replacing some missing parts.

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

9. Organise a multiplayer game

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Mournival Challenge - Bruce Manning (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

I added 2 new units to my Crons, one fun to paint the other was terrible , you guess which one!

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

NP

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

NP

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

NP

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

NP

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

NP

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

Played a 2000 point game vs. Steve Hill's GSC army

Using fluffy Fields of Blood NZGT lists

Here is Steve explaining how the bikes can throw 5 Demo Charges at my poor destroyers.

It wasn’t pretty but you gotta love the new reanimation . I rolled 4 5s and 6s from 8 dice!

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

9. Organise a multiplayer game

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Mournival Challenge - Steve Joll (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

Progress on the Tyranids continues.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

NP

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

NP

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

NP

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

Added a Redemptor to the Space Wolves

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

NP

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

Played two games with Aaron Wilson but no pictures

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

NP

9. Organise a multiplayer game

NP. However did release multiple episodes of the 40K Gamechangers podcast (Pete: And very good they were)

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Nothing started yet

Hobby - Posca Paint Pens

 Over the Summer I have been painting up my Adeptus Titanicus war engines. One thing these have is an awful lot of metallic trim. Virtually every panel has trim on it.

While on the Legio Vulpa Facebook page, one of the members posted that an easy way to do all this trim was to use Posca Paint Pens. I have tried paint pens before and found them less than successful, however this was generally to write script etc. The problem was usually with the flow - nothing or a flood.

So I was a little bit sceptical.

Posca Pens are carried by our local art supply shop - Gordan Harris. I ordered online and received two pens 4-5 days later. I chose the Bronze (link here) and the Ivory pens.

The pens are a little like Sharpies. You push hard down on the tip once and the paint begins to flow.

From there it is just a case of colouring in 😀. Coverage is great and you can paint and highlight over it. It is a great time saver, being much faster than tried to paint the trim with a #0 or #1 brush. My only downside was that I had done most of my engines before I discovered this.

Here is an example of the result I was able to achieve just by colouring in the trim.

These pens have enormous applications for 40k, especially vehicles and monsters (I'm looking at you Helldrake). I would also use them for terrain in future. There are a wide variety of colours so I'm sure there is a pen for most jobs.

Mournival Challenge - Louis Thomson-Gregg (February)

 1. Paint a new 40k army

Inspired by my pick for a character I don't own I have decided to do a CSM force, I have picked up some basic troops and will convert in a similar style to my abaddon conversion 

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

No progress - I am looking at options for making my small amount of terrain more functional

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

No progress

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

Waiting till we aren't perpetually jumping between alert levels

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

 I have picked up Incubi, and a bunch of old metal wyches for my Dark eldar, not painted yet

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

I have started converting abaddon, inspired by the Lich King, waiting on some parts from a friend

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

I installed TTS does that count? 

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

Deciding which one, most likely Splintered Fang, I have a squig hopper one in my garage

9. Organise a multiplayer game

No progress

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

No progress, events haven't started

Mournival Challenge - Alistair Allan (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

- maybe starting to lean towards converting Slaanesh Hedonites

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

- in concept

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

- have done a bit of window shopping

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

- on pause, COVID

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

- onto start of highlighting stage for XV25s

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

- Xerxes counts surely, he can sub into 40K and AoS

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

- taught a new recruit to play AoS

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

- taught new recruit to paint my Squig warband

9. Organise a multiplayer game

- no progress

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

- no progress

Mournival Challenge - Pete Dunn (February)

1. Paint a new 40k army

Built the army over the course of a weekend. Added a Rhino to the initial list. Have painted and based two units of 7 Plague Marines.

Elrik's Hobbies' Trench bases....post airbrush/drybrush

Third unit of Plague Marines start the process

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

Still working through my Citifight table, adding 16 new tiles.

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

No more painting but have based the army. Still waiting for final bases to arrive.

Gamer's Grass Badlands resin bases

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

Not started

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

Not started

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

Not started

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

No games at all this month....been consumed by hobby bug. I won't play with unpainted models so I am powering through the Death Guard so I can get them on the table.

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

Not started. Today managed to pick up the Warcry Starter Box.

9. Organise a multiplayer game

Not started. Have organised the annual FOB NZGT for July. The event sold out in under 48 hours.

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Not started. However I have signed up for ValleyCon in May to give me the impetus to get the Death Guard finished.

And we have added to new members to the Dunn family. Suggs is the Ginger while Newt is the Tabby. They are both males from the same litter. They have mounted raids on my hobby area already......the Legio Vulpa engines mysteriously had relocated to the floor when we got up one morning.

They are both incredibly interested when I am airbrushing - not at all put off by the noise.

Hobby - Badger Stynylrez Primer

 Over the past three months I have digested Youtube, not battle reports but the hobby content producers. My stats say I've watched between 400-500 hours of hobby content. Yep, I need a life. 

From that I have found a wealth of great hobbyists and a huge number of great products. I've been employing what I've learnt in my new 40k army and my Titanicus engines. The key takeaway is that I think I'm getting better results, in faster time, because I'm using better tools......and particularly, the right tool for the job.

It was suggested to me that I should post what I've learnt so that others may benefit from my huge font of knowledge 😆

The first product I want to highlight is Stynylrez Airbrush Primer sold by Badger Airbrush.

As I said, I've been watching a huge number of creators and I was surprised by how many use Stynylrez primers. When I was at Adepticon in 2019 (be still my sad heart), I picked up a pack of the Stynylrez primers - white, grey, black, brown, green - and they had sat on my hobby desk. I used the green primer to prime some metal Plaguebearers mid-2020 and it was very good. In this instance I used it over a Vallejo black to ensure I got good coverage. 

Recently I have used the black to prime a lot of GW plastic and I found it provided a good base to lay down colours on top of. The coverage through the airbrush is good (0.3-0.4 needle, 20 psi) straight out of the bottle. The Titanicus engines are a mix of metallic and non-metallic paints and both adhere well.

A couple of weeks ago I started painting my 40k Death Guard. These are in the pre-Heresy colours - essentially white - so I decided to use some of the grey. Over this I used GW Screaming Skull and Ulthuan Grey (both Layer paints) and the coverage has been great

However where the primer has really excelled has been in its ability to protect when I am using a lot of different mediums. As part of my "learning" I have started using both White Spirits and Turpentine and the primer has held up (without the requirement for protective coats of varnish.

When I did my 30k army about 6-7 years ago, I had all sorts of problems with the solvents eating through to bear plastic. I'm sure I now have better solvents but I do think the primer is also playing a big part.

You can get the Stynylrez primers locally from Mighty Ape and it comes in a variety of sizes. This is great as you can buy the small (60ml) bottles for specific jobs.