Siege Studios Essentials Masterclass

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending the Essentials Masterclass run by Siege Studios at Wayland Games in Hockley, Essex.

I'd always wanted to attend a painting workshop like this to meet with like-minded people and learn how to push my painting to the next level.

The course took place at the impressive Wayland Games centre, a large warehouse filled with gaming tables (and a very well stocked shop, which is either a good or bad thing depending on your budget!). We were sat upstairs in a large studio space which provided a good base of operations.

Over the course of the weekend we were introduced to a variety of techniques that I would agree are essential for producing great looking miniatures. We started off with the basics, creating a simple zenithal highlight using an airbrush, which even though it took all of 2 minutes, produced a really impressive effect.

Next we moved on to wet blending on a Space Marine shoulder pad, I found this quite difficult initially as it was something I'd never really attempted before to this level, but the instruction of James, Rich and Ben really helped, they walked around the room advising on next steps and giving advice wherever required, but ultimately letting us settle into our own methods. I was pretty happy with the results overall, and it's something I'll be practicing much more in the coming months.

Other topics we covered included weathering, decal application, the use of a wet palette (I'm a convert for sure, revolutionary!), faces, gems and my favourite, power swords!

The power sword section was probably my favourite section, and was taught in a very clear way, it's something I've always wanted to try myself but didn't really know how to begin, using the techniques we were taught, I was able to produce a result I was very happy with, it's another technique that will only improve the more I practice it, so I'll definitely be working it into my weekly technique learning slot of my hobby time (an excellent idea suggested by the guys too).

There was also plenty of time during the course for free painting, an excellent time to add some of the new techniques learned to your own models, or ask the advice of the instructors on any other projects you were working on, nothing was off limits.

The finished set of all my practice pieces from the weekend

A detailed view of the hairspray technique weathering lesson, tough to get the hang of initially but I was happy with how it turned out, potential for some amazing results with this as well in the future!

Probably the piece I'm most proud of, my weathered back panel from a Rhino, I will be applying these weathering techniques on all my future tanks as I really love the look!

The instructors James, Rich and Ben were all really great guys, more than happy to help and go over anything we didn't pick up the first time around, they're all very keen painters and their enthusiasm is infectious. It was great chatting about painting and the hobby in between the taught segments of the course, although my my list of paints to buy has grown considerably from these chats!

Overall the weekend was a fantastic experience, the chance to work with such excellent teachers was worth the price alone, and I came away with my head completely full of new ideas and techniques, it really invigorated me to push my painting further and have a go at entering competitions in the near future. I'd highly recommend attending one of their courses if you can, definitely worth a trip!

Forgeworld Weathering Powders - First attempt

I finally managed to complete my Kastelans that have been sat on my painting table for the past 6+ months this week. Better late than never right.

This was my first attempt at quite a few techniques. The initial base colours were put down using my airbrush, I'm very keen to learn some new techniques for this during the course of this year so figured this was a good start. I laid down the base colours of Mephiston Red up to Wild Rider Red in a zenithal fashion, spraying the very final highlights sparingly from above.

This resulted in a very clean looking model, something a 10000 year old battle robot certainly would not be. I applied quite a bit of sponge-chipping with Abaddon Black, followed by Leadbelcher. This at least broke up the surface a little, and added some much-needed battle damage.

Now it was on to the weathering powders from Forgeworld. I purchased these at the last open day in Nottingham, and haven't dared use them until now. For the robots I used the Rust colour.

I used an old brush to sprinkle some clumps of powder in some areas that I thought would accumulate rust the most. I then touched a brush loaded with white spirit onto the surfaces that had powder on them. The white spirit flooded over the powder quite quickly, you shouldn't manipulate the powders at this stage.

Once the white spirit had dried, the powders were partially set in place, I then used an old scruffy brush to smudge the clumps that had formed and work the powder properly into the recesses of the model. I then sealed the whole thing by airbrushing Vallejo Matte Varnish.

The results are below, what do you think? I think I perhaps went a little overboard on the rust, but as this was my first attempt I'm pretty happy with the results! On my next project I'll try some of the different powders I picked up, the ones for simulating mud and dust look particularly fun.

Until next time
RB

Transferring Citadel paint into dropper bottles

Here's a project that has taken me weeks longer than I'd have ever thought (or hoped).

Having recently taken the plunge and buying an airbrush setup (Iwata Revolution for those wondering) and having it change my life (no hyperbole, well maybe a little), I decided to take on the grand task of transferring all my Citadel paint (200+ pots) into a more convenient dropper bottle format much like the beloved Vallejo. The idea being that once I run out of a GW colour I will replace it with the Vallejo equivalent.

My initial eBay searches found me buying 100 cheap plastic dropper bottles much like Vallejo ones but a little smaller from a Chinese retailer for about £11.

They arrived after a few weeks and I began the project in earnest. The main problems, and there were many, went as follows:

• The openings on the bottles were tiny, pouring paint into them directly from a Citadel pot proved too much of a challenge, I must have wasted more paint doing this than I've ever put on models in my life.
• Some of the bottles were not perfect, and had tiny holes in them around joints and seals, something I didn't realise until later, obviously drying out some of my paint.
• Tiny metal funnels (eBay again, think they're designed for transferring perfume into other bottles) make the job easier, but you really need to thin the Citadel paint down dramatically and then there's the hassle of rinsing out the funnels every time you use them etc.

Overall I considered the project a partial success. After weeks I had moved most of my paint over to these little dropper bottles and was reasonably happy with the results.

The problems became evident when it was finally time to use the paints, I realised that hardly any of the bottles had a good seal on them, and most had dried paint in the dropper part, blocking up the hole. Not ideal.

I eventually found a different retailer on eBay (The Plastic Bottle Company) and ordered a few of their High Density 18ml bottles to test. They were much better quality with a firm finish and a secure lid. The 2nd stage paint transfer project began.

The process:

• Here's how the bottle come, in 3 parts. You simply push the dropper top into the bottle and screw the lid on once it's full of paint, easy.
  
  
  
• First things first with the citadel bottles is to remove the label and transfer it onto the new bottle, pretty simple with a nice sharp scalpel, you can then add some water to thin the paint to aid in the pouring stage which comes next. How much water you add depends on how thick the paint already is, I generally pretty much topped up the pot with water in most cases, and gave it a good shake.
  
  
  
  
• Once the paint is at a reasonable consistency and is nicely mixed, it should be ok to free-pour into the new pot, this could take a few attempts to get right, but by the time I was finished doing all 200+ of my own, I could pretty much do it blindfolded if needed. You never know. A good tip is to snip the little hinges on the back of the citadel pot to completely remove the lid, you don't want it flapping shut mid-pour or anything.
  
• Finally simply assemble the new pot and sling the other one in the bin.
  
• Bask in the glory of your new super efficient easy to use dropper bottle GW paint. Mmmm. Now just try not to go mad repeating this X times for your whole paint collection. We all go a little mad sometimes.

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