Tutorial: Space Marine Plasma Coils

Another tutorial. This time, the subject is Space Marine Plasma Coil Glow. I have seen plenty of tutorials on this, but they all seem pretty involved to me, having many steps and gradient highlighting. If you're a lazy painter like me, you want something quick and easy that looks halfway decent. So read on because I think I have the technique for you.

Airbrush Tip: Pre-Mixing Paints

 Vallejo Model Air is a nice product as it's a smaller sized pigment and comes in a handy dropper bottle so you only have to put into your airbrush what you need. Unfortunately, it doesn't have all the colors you might need. So I set out to make my own! What you see above is a bottle of Citadel Sycorax Bronze, pre-mixed into a dropper bottle. Here's how you can do it.

Kickstarter: Resin Terrain

I try to stay away from Kickstarter... but I can't. Sigh. Anyway, here's my latest miniature related find.

Basing Technique: Resin Sand

We're all familiar with basing models. Techniques range from really simple (glue and flock on a green painted base) to really complex multi-step variations. I want to show one method I found that is pretty quick and easy. I don't use it on all my models, just some. What you see in the picture is Liquitex brand Resin Sand. It's a gel medium meant for painting on canvas. This is going to be our basing medium.

MaskFX: First Try

I mentioned in a blog post on 7/12 that I had purchased a 15mm mask for doing digital camo called MaskFX. (pictured above) I finally got all my Vallejo Model Air paints and I gave it a whirl. So here's my review and test run with the mask.

Mantic's Prices Heading Up and a New Kickstarter

From the latest Mantic Newsletter:

However, with massively fluctuating exchange rates at the moment, our Euro and US Dollar prices have had to come under review. Whilst we’ve been absorbing the cost to the best of our ability, regrettably we are going to have a price rise.

After a fight between Orcy and our Finance Director, we’ve managed to hold off any price increase to the 1st August. We have not put everything up and we have tried to keep the rise as low as possible.

So get your orders in before 8/1!

Also, in the Newsletter, they're gearing up for a Kickstarter for a new game called The Dwarf King's Quest. Likely to be very similar to their existing game: The Dwarf King's Hold. A miniatures based, scenario driven board game. So if you're interested in that, be on the lookout for it.

Relic Knights Unboxing: Cerci Speed Circuit Battle Box

I recently bought the battle box for the Cerci Speed Circuit faction from Relic Knights. I have always been interested in their miniatures (since I love anime) and I recently got a deal on someone's Kickstarter that had Cerci and Noh minis, but it was lacking the Battle Box for Cerci so I got that first. So here's my unboxing of it.

Updated Imperial Armour 4

In Forge Word Bulletin #25, Chris from Forge World announced that at their upcoming show appearances they'd have the new updated Imperial Armour 4: The Anphelion Project. Check out the link to read the announcement. Everything it is updated.

Dropzone Commander Tournament Rules

Hawk Wargames recently (July 1st) released a PDF with tournament rules support for DZC. It was a quiet release, only showing up in a news post on their forum. You check out the forum post which contains the link for the free PDF file. The PDF has scoring info, as well new scenarios to use in a tournament setting.

MaskFX and Stencilis

MaskFX from Critical Mass Games

So I mentioned MaskFX and Stencilis in my last post, and I wanted to give them a little show case as I think these are going to be quite useful in my model painting. First up is MaskFX.

Good Used Deal and Other Recent Happenings

Been a while since I posted. I've been laid up after having back surgery to rid myself of sciatic pain from a badly herniated lumbar disc (lift with your knees, kids!). As such I have had lots of time to deal with my backlog of minis, although since I'm not allowed to sit for very long, I haven't been able to do any painting. I did get an airbrush for my birthday and I then bought a compressor. Stupid me though... I got a Grex airbrush and bought a Paasche Compressor not realizing the difference would be an issue. Realizing I didn't have a hose, I ordered a Grex hose. It turns out Paasche uses a proprietary fitting on its regulator. So I bought an adapter... which apparently only works from Paasche air hoses to a Grex air hose. Grumble, grumble... . So I bought a Paasche air hose. So hopefully by early next week I will at least be able to do airbrush base coats and such which I don't have to sit to do.