Mark Szeman

I haven't been back at the hobby long but I can share your sentiment Merlin, I hear people say all sorts of good things about Vallejo and I also can't believe it. I have a shelf full of vallejo model and game air which I used to use for brush painting (which is ironic seeing as it's supposed to be made for airbrushing) and people swear by it for airbrushing but I have the same problem you do. The only acrylic I will use is Tamiya, seeing as it's not a true water based acrylic and actually thins just as well if not better with lacquer thinner. It doesn't help your situation but you aren't going crazy, amongst all the people swearing by acrylics, and vallejo in particular, I'm another in the long list of people swearing at it .. I'm personally moving to enamels, they thin better, clean up better, go down better MUCH MUCH MUCH better, are idiot proof in the airbrush, on the plus side, Tamiyas LP line of lacquer paints is slowly getting wider, and they aren't the only trick in town when it comes to enamels. But if they aren't available in your area, then try sticking with Tamiya acrylic, they thin beautifully with lacquer thinner and they also have their own retarder, as well as a thinner with the retarder in it already.

Cool I thought you would be doing so being so thorough in everything else Just from the example pictures of the paints brushed out on the strips of what looked like paper I was worried Excellent stuff as always

Very clinical Manfred and a good method, albeit I personally find the milk consistency measure to be better for me. When in the cup of the airbrush (i use pipettes) if its a milk consistency and gives an even coverage on the side of the cup without the film of paint breaking its just right. This is about the best way I can describe it, if its nice and even and the surface tension doesn't break the film of paint like in the image below then its good. I generally go with this, even though its more touchy feely, I've found it a better all round when working with a variety of paints, e.g. i don't know if your drop method would work with other paints, Tamiya paints have a very good pigment and basically sprays well in a wide range of thinning ratios and air pressures, their lacquer paints in particular I found are idiot proof, I've over and under thinned them, and sprayed at everything from 12-15 psi all the way up to 45-50psi, and it comes out just fine. On another note, I would spray your colours onto a material that better represents what you will be painting, like if you plan to prime with grey, then spray the number of coats you plan to spray on the model onto a grey primed example, the shade of primer under your paint can make a difference especially when using such bright low coverage paints, depending on how many coats you plan to give it. Brush painting will give you a slightly different look/shade. Looking forward to see the main booster painted, excellent work as always

Swiftly moving on, I laid down the paint and pulled all that masking off, this is the first of 5 base layers, it is quite a stark contrast to the white, but it will get a misting of insignia white, and a grey AK filter eventually so it won't be quite so stark. Putting it on hold for a little from here , just waiting for a decal set i ordered from ebay to come in, and get the masks for the tiny panelling details laser cut.

Hi all, Got a little further down the road with this, I finally managed to source an aftermarket decal set which is winging its way to me, I hope at Warp 9... In the meantime I got the masking of some "pre-shading" of sorts done, I hope I don't dream of masking tape and latex .. Not a particularly nice mix Going to sleep on the colour mix for this, I'm a little frustrated by the lack of plain "grey" in Tamiyas line up, so I'll make some home brew of what I have. I did a test spray of a selection I was planning on using, some are ok straight up, but I'm not happy with the selection overall. That's all for now Thanks for looking.

Hi chaps, made a little progress with this, got myself a new table and a few other goodies including an Ikea extractor fan "spray booth" working wonders so far. I gave everything that needed it 4 coats of insignia white, then a coat of XF-86 flat clear, before going in for some detailing with the home brew mix of silver, all Tamiya lacquer paints so far. 5 thin coats of lacquer later All demasked I masked all the indents around the center of the saucer individually before masking the bulk, I had a little overspray where i wasn't diligent enough with the tape, but I'm not mad, that area is going to be another grey anyway. Im just biding my time doing little bits and bobs on it until my masks are cut for the aztecs, plus i actually found a set of decals for it on ebay, so those are winging their way to me too. Not much but just enough for now thanks for looking.

That looks sweet mate !! Really nice paint job, Predator is my no. 1 fav movie of all time great little Dio of an epic moment

Hi Gemini, This is an amazing build ! and most definitely inspired me to try my hand at building one. I have a question on the figures, did you make these yourself or modify an existing one ? Or do they come with one of the kits ? Thanks mate for any info you have, and thanks for the inspiration, this is amazing!

And getting photography equipment is not prohibitively expensive Light Box Its only 2 dollars (plus 5 for shipping ) with a small LED light and multiple colour backgrounds Actually im gonna order myself one of these right now

For your aircraft, a simple light box like above would be great, tra and shine lights in from all sides. If you can put the phone on a tripod on any kind, even rubber banding it to something is great, frame you aircraft in the middle of the box, and move the aircraft round to get multiple angles, not the camera. Most smartphone cameras give you the possibility of choosing where you want it to focus, keep everything centered it will make your life easier. Center the aircraft in the frame, and keep the focus in the center of the aircraft. You can do a little editing on the phone, and in post on your computer, but if you have enough light and take the picture from relatively close up you wont have focus problems, of course the distance is going to depend on what you are photographing. But in the example above I was no more than 20-30 cm (1 foot for the backwards people ) away from the shell. Experiment, its a digital photo take lots and experiment with the light, you will cop on to the correlation yourself when you have examples with different lighting in front of you

Forgive the poor examples, I threw this together in a few minutes, and the subject is one of the worst to photograph, small and shiny. Its a 30x165mm round I fired myself from a 2A42 back in the day. The first is edited slightly with only the in phone standard options (iPhone 8plus) and the second is straight out of the phone no editing. And this is where it was taken . Light is both your best friend and worst enemy. In my case I have very harsh spotlights pointed at my table and multiple monitors quite close giving bad reflections. I turned the monitors off, or blocked their light. The spot lights were diffused like this : Yep, just a piece of paper To turn this to your example, diffuse your light. Try and have multiple sources of diffused light to avoid shadows, unless they are what you are going for. If you are photographing it in an open area you will need multiple light sources. Even something as simple as this can make s difference, yes its a torch and a jug of milk And try and have no interruption in the background, get a bigger piece of card, or hide your seam with the angle of the photo and the subject of the photograph. And light box is a massive help, I remember the first one I ever made. It looked something like this. Shine lights in from different sides to get different effects, and play around with that effect to your advantage. It only takes a little time and you can get really great pics from next to no investment and a little creativity.

Hi, as having worked as a lighting technician in film, before giving any advice, I would ask what kind of look are you going for in the photo ? Do you just want a nice balanced lit picture, or are you trying to give it definition with the light.

Sweet figures and excellent painting mate. This is for sure my favourite Dracula, Gary Oldman was great in this.

Thanks @exdraken I searched eduard and master model seperately, but i see hannants has a great overview of everything related to a selected model from multiple vendors, and actually quite more than than scalemates has listed per model.. bookmarking that one

Hi Lads, I had a bit of a meltdown I think, I was at a market today and found these two and actually bought them both I only wanted the Yamaha but the old bloke at the market would only sell them together. He was tired of lugging them from boot sale to boot sale. I'll probably only build the Yamaha, but I need to clear out a bigger bench before starting this beast !!