Starting out. part V

  Hello again. Its time for our, what I prefer to believe to be, regularly scheduled update. Now with an extra 25% spelling and grammar errors.
Previously on A Brush, a Paint and a Mini: I typed at great length the importance of safety when using sharp tools and potentially hazardous chemicals. Yes, primer is a chemical and the solvent in the can is not good for you. I also elaborated a little more on the preparation and cleaning process to get you ready for the can of primer. And then I showed you how I prime my models. Hopefully that was a useful bit of information as it is time to move on to:
Painting!
And that is the subject of today's update. I should mention that this will be a somewhat short one. I have decided to split the whole thing over a number of days. The reasons being that a) I need material for regular updates and thus I don't want to run out of stuff. b) it really does take me hours to select the best images from the pictures that we have taken and then edit them. and c) I like to have eight hours of sleep. I realize that my coffee addiction should come in handy here, but it is nice to wake up at 9:00am. As opposed to clicking the publish button at 10:30am after a 12 hour marathon. So rants aside lets get to painting.

Before we begin lets take a look at what we will need.

First we will need some brushes and two plastic cups. Well instead of cups you can use any container that can hold water. I recommend the plastic cups that you get with your iced coffee beverages from the local cafe. I know you buy at least one or two a day. Just wash them out and fill them with water. Now, you are probably wondering why you will need two cups/ water containers. The answer is simple. You will need one for clean water to dilute your paint with and the other to rinse your brushes in. Simple no? As far as brushes go you will need several sizes. I use two for the beginning stage of my average painting project. I find that sizes 000, 00, 0 and 1 work best. Bear in mind that these are sizes that I find in the US so I am not sure what the standards are for the international community.They should be the same. If you opt for the official P3 brushes or those of any other hobby supplier you will see sizes such as Detail, Small, Medium, Large, and Base. Since there are at least two different sizing standards I will try to limit myself to the key principals involved in painting and also to help you decide which brush is useful when.
Next you will need a paint palette. This is where you will mix, thin and drop off extra paint when you are painting. Paint palettes are made from a variety of materials from ceramic tile to plastic to rice paper ( in the case of wet palettes). You can buy from your local game shop, hobby store or from online store such as thewarstore.com or if you are a little short on cash like me. Use an old piece of plastic packaging like a plastic jar lid etc. or maybe a split card sleeve. The latter being easier to obtain if you have friends that play collectible card games.
And last but not least we will need paint. I prefer the P3 line of paints simply because they are made with a liquid pigment. You can read more about them on Privateerpress.com as well as the interview with Mike McVey on Brushthralls.com. For this project I will use the following three colors: Coal black ( I believe it to be an essential paint for anyone just like black and white.), Thamar Black, and Khador Red, red is the predominant faction color for Khador.

The three colors that will be used for the base coat.

And for added imagery this is what my work area looks like. Just in case you haven't gleaned from previous pictures what the chaos appears to look like.

Its always useful to have something that can hold your brushes for you.

So, lets get our Juggernaut.

Looks promising.

Ever so helpful the red arrows point out where primer has not reached.

Oh no! I t looks like there is some primer missing! Right there where the red arrows are pointing. Its ok. That happens all the time. There are recesses where primer spray has a hard time getting to and it dries up before reaching the surface. In the case of the armor plate above the left arm. Its on the right side of the picture, one of the helpful red arrows is pointing it out. That was where I unintentionally wiped it off with my thumb when i set it down to dry. ( And now you know why having gloves on is a good idea). So how do we deal with it? Well, by opening the black paint pot, dropping a little water on the palette and loading a paint brush with black paint. then you mix the paint on the brush with the water on the palette to thin it down a little bit and then apply it to the model.

After a coat of black paint

For some clarification you can use a brush or an eye dropper to add water to your palette. Up until now it didn't matter which cup/jar you used to get the water to dilute your paint with. Now, however you get to make your arbitrary choice as to which cup (in my case) you use to rinse your brush in. Its a binary choice and one that you would do well to keep track of.  Now then we wait for the paint to dry.

 One little bit of advice: Be sure to have something to hold on to your model by. Like a piece of cork or some other material that you can poke with the brass rod or paperclip that you glued to your model. Acrylic paint isn't toxic, but it's nice not to have to explain the new color you hands have taken on.

And what do you know, it didn't take too long for the paint to dry.










So now that we covered all of the parts of the Juggernaut that needed to be covered in black we move on to colors. I chose to use Coal Black first. purely on a whim. You could start with red if you want as Coal Black will cover it quite well should you stray with the red paint. All the same Coal Black I chose and Coal Black I start with. As it is more of a teal well actually it looks like Prussian Blue, it is an excellent color to use as a base for the brass parts of the Juggernaut [Once you cover it with brass, the parts that you miss look like tarnish and rust, it's also good for shadows]

Since I love this color so much, I decided to use it as base for all of the shiny metal parts.
Truth be told I believe that Coal Black is a quintessential part of any paint collection whether it is of the P3 line.

 And sometimes you will need to pull the model off of its handle to get to those hard to reach places.

 It is important to look and paint the underside of a model. It adds a little bit of extra flavor and dimension to a model. And even though it would be hard to see because of a base, your friends and fellow players will still like the look. It's also a good place to hide mistakes, hehehehe. If you want to try a shadow, that is your place.

Watch out for the pokey bit. It isn't hazardous but it pokes and not in a good way.

Still I hope that you get a good idea as to what i am working on. All of the pistons and components that will be painted with metallic paints get the CB (  short for Coal Black) treatment.
Once we are done with that we move on to the red.

 And so we repeat the same process that we used to thin down and load our brushes with Khador red, as we did with coal black and Thamar black before. Only this time you have a nice picture to look at.

 And we begin to apply it to the Juggernaut. I use a large(ish), large being a relative term, to paint the larger armor plates that will be red. taking care not to paint any parts that I want to be any other color.

 By now you will notice the fairly obvious. Red just doesn't give you a very opaque cover like black does. So the only way to deal with it is to add more coats or it.

 Just be sure to do it slowly and take your time. As you need to give the paint time to dry so as to not move it around and thus end up with rings on your model.

 As you apply successive coats you will notice the streaks left behind bu the brush. Don't worry those will eventually even out. It is for this reason that I like to thin down my paint as multiple thin coats allow for more control of the process and give you a more even and nicer finish.

Not quite ready.

 I try to get all of the armor plates that will be visible as well as the ones that aren't readily seen.

It is always important to look at the entire model. And paint even the back.

So I will leave the Juggernaut to dry for now. I will pick it up later to see if it needs any more coats of red.
In the next post we will tackle the Destroyer, which is currently in pieces. This is being done to ready both models for highlighting and shading as I can do that step for both models in a single post. I hope.