New Stuff: Games & Gears Pro Studio Brushes

Last fall I took the plunge and backed my first Kickstarter campaign. Since then, I've pledged support for a few more.

One of the more recent campaigns I've backed was Games & Gears' Pro Studio brushes. A few weeks ago, I received my order:

I pledged at the £25 level and received a total of nine brushes, as pictured above.

This included the Core Set, which consists of brushes in sizes 000, 00, 0, 1 and 2:

As well as the stretch goal rewards of the 3LX, 4RX, and the S1 and S2 specialist brushes:

All of the brushes are sturdily constructed with big, thick handles. The Kolinsky sable hair bristles are strong and snap back with good resiliency. Also, the bellies provide an adequate reservoir for dispensing paint.

Interestingly, compared to the Raphael 8404 brushes I regularly use, the Pro Studio brush heads are noticeably smaller:

I don't know exactly what this will mean performance wise, as I've only been able to play around a bit with these Pro Studio brushes, but I'm excited to start using them.

I think the dual heads will be helpful in blending better highlights, and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at wet blending. After a little more experience with them, I'll be able to give a more thorough review.

Next up: An actual update on the basecoating and shading of the Grot Tank.

So until next time, keep painting!

WIP: Cawdor Gang 2 Basecoat & Shading

Switching from Grots to gangers, here's the latest WIP shot of my two newest Cawdor gang initiates:

The above photo shows the two after a basecoat and shading.

While using the airbrush to lay down a basecoat on the Grot Tank, I thought I might as well use it to put paint on these two as well:

PROTIP: Always properly dilute your paints (about the consistency of skim milk) before putting them through an airbrush.

I got lazy toward the end of the airbrushing session and failed to properly dilute my paint. The Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Burnt Cadmium Red (814) was the worst, as you can tell by the splattering in the photos above, and it ended up giving the airbrush a nasty clog that took a couple of days to properly clear out.

I tidied everything up with some brushwork:

These are the first gang members I've painted that are wearing undershirts. I initially went with VMC Burnt Cad, as you can see in the airbrushing photos, but decided it was just too much red. So, I did them up in the same color as their brethren's tank tops: Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Khaki.

I also simplified some of the paint formulas from the first batch of gang members. I dropped the VMC Red (926) from the pants and removed the Citadel (GW) Rotting Flesh from the skin mix. The changes saved time and won't alter the final look of the models.

Finally, I made sure to completely basecoat both models before moving on to shade them:

There's still work to be done on the Dragon Forge Design bases before I can move on to highlighting and weathering, but these two gentlemen are coming along much faster than the first group.

For details on basecoating and shading, see here, here, and here.

Next up: Basecoating and shading the Grot Tank.

So, until next time, keep painting!

WIP: Grot Tank Final Prep & Undercoat

In lieu of an update on the two newest additions to my Cawdor gang (basecoating plods along), I thought I'd share the latest progress on my Grot Tank.

Since my last post, I've fixed the mold lines on the grotzooka that comes with the Forge World (FW) kit, constructed a big shoota as well as an ammo box to go with each option, and undercoated all the pieces.

As you can see in the first picture, the grotzooka required extensive filing and puttying, as each side of the barrel had an approximately 1-mm-wide mold line.

I'm guessing this was due more to misalignment of the molds; unfortunately, most of the weapons and a few of the tank bodies in my kit suffer from this.

The grotzooka ammo box is constructed of 1-mm-think sheet styrene, which I roughed up to give an orky (groty?) appearance, 1.5-mm angle and flat strips, and various thicknesses of rod for the rivets.

Most of the material in the grotzooka ammo box is FW sprue, which goes to show that you shouldn't throw anything away.

The big shoota turret mount is 9/32-inch diameter plasticard tubing, which matches the diameter of the FW turret mounts perfectly, as well as some strips and rivets.

The big shoota barrel is from the FW Ork Weapon Set; the barrel was carefully separated from its stock and pinned to the turret mount.

The big shoota ammo box is constructed of 0.5-mm-thick sheet styrene, 1.5-mm channel (the top of the box) and flat strips, and some thin floral wire for the handles. The dags and rivets round out the orkiness.

Each item is magnetized:

So I can switch between the grotzooka:

And big shoota with ease:

The ammo boxes attach to the tank through a small magnet I sunk into the deck lid:

After final prep and cleanup, everything went into the spray booth:

And Grot Tank #1 is now ready for basecoating.

Next up: My second batch of Cawdor models basecoated and shaded (for reals).

So, until next time, keep painting!