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WiP: Valkrie "Metallica" Part Two

Last night I left the 'plain' looking Valk to dry with its decals in place and then quickly gave the model a spray with a matte sealer. Now its time to weather the crap out of this thing. All of the rest of the vehicles in the army reflect the cruel 'Martian' like sands and wind on the outer moon of Cadian where the Black Jacks train and protect the Imperium from the vile influence of Chaos. To reflect this, we need to weather this poor bird like a mother.

I am using Oil Based paints to 'tint' the model. Its a common technique in the military modelers and it works great with 40K models for sure. All you need is a few tubes of paint.  With the primary colors and a few browns you can make anything you want. One tube will last a modeler several lifetimes. Also, wait until Hobby Lobby puts these on sale (a couple of times a year) to get them even cheaper. Also, you can use water based paints. But then you don't get to sniff paint thinner. It would be your loss.


The first step is to ruin your model. Take some dabs of the paint and place it on your perfectly based plane. Don't worry, just have fun. I tried to put my 'lighter' colors in areas of highlight and the darker browns in areas of shade. 


Then, dip your brush in paint thinner and start to move the oil paint around. You'll find you instantly create a wash-like material that not only goes into the deep parts of the model but 'tints' the entire model.  In the case of the Valkyrie, I made sure that the brush strokes all went in the same direction to represent oil, engine grease, and atmospheric dust moving along the hull when this beast flies through the air. If you find that you have too much paint left in an area, just dilute your brush with more thinner. Play around, its fun. But don't sniff too much of the thinner. 



Here it is, nice wet oily mess. I'll leave her overnight to dry. Remember that the oil paints take a minimum 24 hours to dry, and often much longer than that. That means you still have time to move the paint around, and if you add more water/thinner to model you'll loose what you have done. So matte seal it before you do anything else. 
More tomorrow. 

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2 comments:

  1. My question about weathering is answered :). I really love the look that you get with oil paints. Do you find them easy to use? I'm not sure if I want to use oil paints or pigments to try for weathering.

  2. Courtney- I found the oil paint very easy to use. The learning curve is nearly flat if you are used to acrylic paints. Also, as my update will show, I use both oil paints and weathering pigments. So go for both!!

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