The Airbrush is Civilization. : painting a forge world sicaran for my alpha legion

wooof!

it's been a while since i sat down and actually blogged some about what I've been up to and what I've had on my painting desk (a glorified name for the joint kitchen area that my family share) well i could blame the move or me taking a stab at getting better at the parenting role, and alleviating somr of my partners responsibilities in the home. But mostly i have just had to choose to either put aside time to blog, or putting aside some time to get down to painting. And occasionally neglecting both to put some time into the Witcher III (witchiester-est of the games) / working myself into an early grave. But i s'pose balance is the key. To what i do not know, but as a literal minded person i assume it is to some legendary chest giving me more time to paint. IE crack.

But still. i'm going to actually share my first "real" tank painted. And the first tank i can honestly say that i look at and go "yeah, that's alright". Which, as anyone who has painted for more than a forthnight, and who has had the time to look around a bit, can tell you. Is actually something of a hard thing to do.

The thing is, i usually look at a finished product and think. This needs another layer of shade, this needs a steadier highligh, this needs scrapping and going back to basics. But one of the reasons i picked AL for my 30k Army was that i wanted to up my game in painting. It was, to that date, my third power armored army, and i was getting real tired at cranking out models. Which i needed to do to play my more experienced buddies. Not because any of them gave me flakk for putting up unpainted greys, or half finished models. But because it felt like a shame for deploying unfinished armies when they had so much greatness deployed, and it REALLY detracted from the immersion. Which scratches some fluff. And we are more of fluff players, all of us.

Now the reasons above, as well as the fact that resin heroin is more expensive and as such i am reduced to purchase it at a lower rate. I wanted to try new techniques and get better stuff on the table, as such i have tried new techniques, such as sponge chipping, soot effects and realistics metals, and am really happy for doing it. I have also tried getting better at transfers, and the FW transfers are no joke. I have only really tried the Alpha legion ones. But they are Toight. And i will wholeheartedly reccommend them to anyone.

but still. Moving on to my Siccarian tank.

First off, the actual kit. Now putting it together was a bit harder than i thought, and certainly took more glue than expected. The only advice i can give for the actualy Chassis is that you get some rubber bands to make sure it "fuses" correctly. Otherwise, you can do what i did. And Put it on it's side. Making sure there is a book on each side to make sure it remains standing. So for the pic above you are missing a track side on either part. And that is what i reccommend putting on it's side.

This is what you end up. Now, i would reccommend not gluing the
- Turret
- Sponsoons
- Heavy bolter

As they all need more attention and love, and the turret is stable enough to actually sit well when not glued in place.

Now the next two parts actually involve a jump cut. So far i've done a basecoat of Vallejo black primer airbrushes. And then added a simple coat of "vallejo acryllic metal color" .Now, this is just ONE coat, and i can tell you. It is a delight to work with frankly. There is no clogging of the brush. No metallic residue dripping, and no flow control issues. You get an even, good and realistic color for vehicles. I have, so far only tried two (copper and gun metal) but both of these are GREAT starter paints for anyone, and i can't even imagine what a pro could do with them.

same for the turret above. I then taped the tracks, and the barrels. As i found the gritty gun metal a great color for both of these places. It is simple marker tapes.

Now for the jumpcut. The only reason i bought these two colors (for about 10 Euros all in all for both) was that the local insistent retailer, was rather convincing in effacing their efficiency. By all accounts he did military modelling. And what he lacked in social skills me more than made up for in knowledge about military vehicular painting. So with that in mind i bought these two

love in a bottle for good prices

And went to town.

Now the next step is going over the chassi, the turret and other select parts with Vallejos air silver. And then giving it two light coats of Calth blue form Forgeworld. I've just recently nutted up and gotten the actual FW colors. And AGAIN. Let me tell you. Deh-liiiight.

After that i used the acryllic copper for the back of the turret gun, and the front of the barrels. And then did a highlight with heshtut copper.

Which resulted in this

Pretty nice so far i think. And now on to the details.

If this little project has taught me anything. It is that you really need to make time for details. I estimated about three hours. Which was a bit light. In reality i needed about six to get into fine detail work.

But first i did the following parts in leadbelcher
- Rivets
-Hatches
- Joints and seams
- Metal protrusions.

Following into doing two thinned coats of abaddon black on

- Sides of the frontal glacial plate
- back striping
- Front of the glacis
- Sides of the threads

And then some simple white on chosen markings.

The rationale of the black is to break out certain parts and make it catches the eye to them. As well as giving some background for those sweet, sweeeet transfers. The rationale for white is to denote a command color for my sicarian. As it will serve as a command tank in my tank lists. And i want my opponents to readily be able to distinguish them from ordinary tanks.

The i finished with doing some red for lenses on the turret, shading copper and metal parts and fastening the HB and sponsoons. After which i did some light sponge chipping, and adding transfers.

The end product is as follows.