Showing posts with label Airbrush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Airbrush. Show all posts

Saturday, June 12, 2010

First Airbrush Project...Kursk!

Well there's no use in having a new airbrush setup if I don't go ahead and start an insane project with it.

A couple of years ago I collected German and Russian 15mm armies for a large Kursk scenario (July, 1943). I got a good portion of the way through the Russian forces, but stalled out on the Germans as my attention waned. I had brush-painted the majority of the armor force to the point of getting the base dark yellow color shaded and high-lighted. Honestly, it was a messy finish that I was never really happy with. The whole project went into the cupboard.

So now it's time to resurrect this beast and do a proper job on the paint schemes.

Everything started with a base coat of can-sprayed Tamiya dark yellow.


Each piece then got a heavy wash of floor wax and black paint. After that was dry, everything received a highlight dry brush of lightened yellow. As you can see, the base coat, which would then have received camouflage paint, was pretty rough. This is where the project stopped a couple of years ago.


However, now with the airbrush, the project is back on the table, and the base coats are now smoother...and I'm really looking forward to starting into the camouflage paint schemes.


These are all the German armor pieces I'm working on right now. Base coats with preliminary shading have been redone, and it's time to move on to the camo.


This assortment of 15mm pieces come from several manufacturers. Anything with a Pz III chassis is from Quality Castings, except for the StuG III Fs, which are the very nice models from Skytrex. The Pz IV Gs, along with all the tank destroyers, SdKfz 251s and Opel trucks are from Battlefront. The Tigers are the excellent models from Peter Pig...incredible, four different Tigers...so nice. Finally, the Kfz 10 and PaK 40s are, I think, from Quality Castings.

Next up, I start into the camouflage painting, weathering and detail painting. Time to see what this airbrush can really do.

'Til next time.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Airbrush Station

My wife and I spent most of the day Saturday cleaning out the basement. Why? Well, part of the reason was to clear an area for my new airbrush station. I decided to take the plunge this week and get into the world of airbrushing. I've been brush painting for over 30 years and always looked enviously at other modelers who had been able to master the dark arts of airbrushing.

The technology has improved significantly over the past 10 years, and more and more hobbyists are doing great things with airbrushes...so time to give it a go!

OK, so here is the new station...spray booth by Paasche, everything else from Iwata.


Iwata Eclipse dual action gravity feed airbrush. I'm going to ask the boss for a siphon-feed version for my birthday this summer.


Compressor by Iwata as well. It's fairly quiet and only runs when the airflow is activated through the airbrush.


I have a number of projects I'd like to get underway with this new tech...but I really should be finishing my current brush projects first (or at least...at the same time).

'Til next time.