Using Colour Shift Paints

This post is designed to be both a tutorial and review on some of the colour shift paints available today. Many of you are familiar with Green Stuff World's line, but there's also paints available from Turbo Dork which have been creating some interest in the community lately.

What are colour shift paints? Essentially they're paints that are a different colour depending on the angle you're looking at them or the way the light is hitting them. Typically you have one colour in the light and another in the shadow. You may have seen these kinds of things on sports cars or in nature like on beetles and pearls.

You can see an example below, in how the colour shifts between green highlights and purple shadows with the Martian Green paint from Green Stuff World:

Then how it shifts between blue and purple with TurboDork's 3D-Glasses paint:

This post is two parts:

First, I'm going to cover how you're supposed to apply colour shift paints to your miniatures.

Then, I'm going to discuss some alternate Do's and Don'ts when painting with them and include unique techniques that you can use.

Finally, I'm going to summarize my feelings on the differences between the products offered by TurboDork and Green Stuff World.

Full Disclosure, TurboDork sent me a few free samples for review purposes.

Mordheim Pit Fighters

I painted a band of Pit Fighters a little while back for Mordheim, using a variety of models but mostly some Tzeentch cultists. I also did a few unique things when it came to painting them that I'll also discuss the details of at the end of the article.

Basically since I was painting for an old school game (Mordheim) I decided to try my hand at more of a Games Workshop grim dark style with less contrast and less highlights... it's so unlike what I usually paint that I'm not sure I'm happy with how they look. I did enjoy creating the blue chitin armour though.

The following is a 360 degree video of the warband, after while I'll show some images of each of the models and talk about them and at the end of this article I have the paint formulas for everything.

Hordebloods - Forsaken Fennblades WIP

I've been working on my Fennblades for quite a while now and it's past due that I post a Work in Progress post about them, especially as I'm quite proud of how they're coming along. The theme of these miniatures is undead, deep blue armour, worn weapons, with a variety of skin colours

The first gentleman off the workbench was my Fennblade Kithkar - the hero. Didn't get much in the way of WIP for him, but I was mostly creating and using him as test case for the rest.

I'm also leaving the basing for when everyone's completed, that way they'll all be uniform.

I'll also admit to breaking one of my rules during this project. Usually, once I start painting a miniature, it gets pulled from the battlefield until complete. But I've been working on them for so long, they've continued to see their fair share of combat.

Create an Airbrush Carrying Case

My wonderful wife picked me up a new airbrush a while back. It's another Iwata, but moving up from a 0.35mm to a 0.2mm and yes, it makes a difference. But before that I kept my airbrush on my hobby shelf, nothing fancy and now I have a second one to take care of. I wanted to make a nice case for it for a few reasons.

First and foremost I needed a nice case to store and protect them, but also because my Favorite Local Gaming Store has a painting bar with airbrush compressors and I've been working on getting a little more mobile with my hobby supplies.

Axer Blademaster [part 1]

This is going to be the first post detailing how I created my Hordebloods Axer Blademaster. Today, I'll cover the painting stages, later you'll be able to read about basing him and after that I'll post a last post with the final photos.

Got a chance to airbrush more and more smoothly, which I think has finally convinced me I want to get a second finer airbrush. Had a lot of fun making him, always cathartic to paint when life (work) gets busy.

Midnight Court on Parade

Armies on Parade:
Count Vlagorescu's Midnight Court

A while back I picked up an Age of Sigmar army, King Vlagorescu's Ghoulish Host, mostly because of the guy who's opened our local Warhammer store. (Which goes to show you how much "community" plays a factor in which game system you choose to play.)  I've been looking for an excuse to paint them up and it finally came in the form of the region's first Armies on Parade competition. If you've been following the work in progress on Facebook, then you've already gotten a peak into what's currently unfolding on my desk.

For those unfamiliar, this is basically a painting competition on the scale of a small army with a display board component.

Curious to know more? (Like the unique colour scheme?) Keep reading!

Painting Hair with Style

 As a follow up to my previous post on the progress of my Janessa conversion, I'm going to describe how I've painted her hair.

If you missed it, I've also covered painting fur in the past.

These are both topics that can be pretty tricky so I hope I've helped to shed some light on them. Ask away in the comments if you have any questions.

Fun side-story. This model's become known as "Maybelline" because people feel the hair I've sculpted for her is too blocky. Looks like a cape they say. In response, I tell them, "Maybe it's Maybelline." This actually becomes relevant a little later as it helped inspire the technique I ended up using.

Hordebloods: Janissa Stonetide Tauren WIP

I've begun working on what's probably the most controversial model in my Hordebloods army. Controversial, because TheWife and friends feel strongly in their belief that her hair looks like a cape. I tell them maybe it's Maybelline.

As I start applying paint, I realize it's the mouth, if anything, that doesn't look the greatest. But I love her hair.

Painting the Mountain King's Loin Cloth

Next up in the saga of the Elemental King, I've got a brief article on his loin cloth. (haha) Not really anything fancy going on here, but I'll cover it nonetheless.


Base Coat

As I've demonstrated before, stippling / sponging is a great way to paint leather because of the texture it adds. So as an undercoat, I've painted some layers of mixed size dots by changing up how firm I'm pressing the sponge onto the surface. I want the cloth to be red when I'm done, so I use a number of red and browns of different brightnesses. Because of the nature of leather, don't even wait for paint to dry - let it mix.

At this stage, don't worry about the details of stitching that hold the sections together. That'll get painted later.

Painting the Mountain King's Stones

After painting the Mountain King's skin, his stones were the other large task I was faced with. It meant a lot of airbrushing, time consuming edge highlighting and possibly the most tedious task I have ever done in my time painting.

All well worth it and along the way his "stones" became more "crystal." The artistic process is a fluid one. Allow your vision to shift if things start veering away from your original destination as long as you're pleased with how it's coming together.

Take a look at the Elemental King's completed photos and an outline.

Painting the Mountain King's Skin

Today I'm going to demonstrate the number 1 question I received during the Mountain King project - How I painted his skin.

There were a lot of steps to it, but I'll show the ones that stand out. Most of the photos are hi-res so you can click them to get a more detailed view.

Overall, it basically came down to:

- Stippling with a sponge.
- Airbrushing.
- Painting deep shadows.
- Highlighting with weathering powders.
- Shading subtle shadows.
- Varnish.

Building an Airbrush Cleaning Station

Last week, I added Airbrush Paints to my long list of Airbrush Articles. This week I'm going to show you how to make your own airbrush cleaning station. What is it you ask? This allows you to spray out your airbrush at full strength without making a mess. Use it when gently cleaning between paints or for running a ton of water and airbrush cleaner through for a full clean.

If you're not much of a do-it-yourselfer, you can always find them online for about $30 or so, which isn't much, but what I'm going to show you will cost A LOT less. Something that some store-bought cleaning stations will include are filters to do a better job of handling the extra air that escapes but this tends to work just fine.

All it takes is some kind of small jar and a little bit of green stuff - practically free!

Airbrush Paint - Why and Why Not

Createx is just the brand I happened to try, probably others.

I've discussed Airbrushes at length in the past, but up until recently I've always thinned and mixed airbrush paints myself.

Recently I finally tried out actual airbrush paints and it was absolutely worth it. For my wife's Crystalline Affliction army, heavy on the beasts, I wanted consistency in how the colours looked rather than mixing every time.

Not having to thin paints for my airbrush was AWESOME. I've added a small selection of paints to my list of Wargaming Approved Supplies.

Masking and Stenciling

a stencil, via

These are two different techniques that fall under the same category...

"Masking" means you’re covering areas to make sure overspray doesn’t accidently paint over parts of your surface.

"Stencilling" means you have a pattern or design cut into something. When you spray paint through this hole, the pattern is transferred to the surface.

Types of Thinners

When making your acrylics (normal water based GW, P3, etc paints) thin enough to airbrush, you'll have to add something to the paint. By default, most of us will just add water until it's thin enough to spray without clogging and thick enough to not be a wash and to still have some colour. Instead of water, there are other mediums you can use - each has benefits and downsides.

Any of these thinners work well, some better than others depending on the situation. It’s also helpful to mix different mediums and aids together. What’s the perfect mix? People spend a lot of time concocting potions of paint thinners - not just for airbrushing but even to mix with all their paints.

I also have an overview of using thinners with airbrushes.

A bunch of these supplies are available in my Wargaming Approved supplies list.

Practicing with Airbrushes

It's useful to get a feel for your airbrush before you dive in and start painting your good minis. There are a few things to look for and some helpful tips to consider when you're trying to get used to how your airbrush works. The following post is going to talk about the best way to practice with your airbrush without using models, and provide you with some templates for practicing on.

Overview of Airbrush Paints and Thinners

The paint that you use in an airbrush needs to be thin for a few reasons. It needs to be able to mix with the air and turn into a fine mist, you don’t want it clogging, you want the paint to flow nicely, etc.

Splitting your Compressor's Line

In yesterday's post, I talked about a number of devices that you can put in line with an air compressor. Today, I'm going to look at some practical examples.

The scenario is this: Say that to avoid noise, you've setup the compressor in your garage and run an air line to your hobby room. In some cases someone will want to use air tools in the garage at the same time someone else is airbrushing. In other cases, maybe two people want to be able to airbrush at the same time.

The only drawback to these scenarios is that hobby compressors won't be able to output enough pressure in most cases. In order to do these things, you'll probably need a larger professional compressor that can handle at least 100 psi out, preferably more like 150 psi.

In-Line Compressor and Tank Devices

These are extra things you can buy to put put in-line with the tubing of your tank and expand it's functions. Some of them protect it, like a water / dust trap, others make your life easier such as a quick release valve and finally there are a whole bunch of splitters, regulators and valves to expand on how much control you have and how many people can use it.

Using Compressors

Operation

The way compressors and tanks work is they’ll have a minimum and a maximum pressure. (sometimes this can be adjusted on compressors)

A tank’s minimum pressure will be the same as the air around you – that’s 0 psi. (so, technically, “0 psi” is actually a different pressure depending on where in the world you live – but that doesn’t affect how your airbrush/compressor works, just a random bit of info) The maximum pressure for a tank is the point where it’ll start to bulge, crack and worst case – blow. (Though odds are that your meters and valves will leak out first) For safety reasons, compressors will usually stop filling a tank before it gets to that point.