Brent: Trip to the Hobby Store!
Good morning, Western Hemisphere! Good evening, Eastern Hemisphere! For those of you at work reading this, just tell your employers your productivity will no doubt increase with an infusion of creativity.
For those of you reading this at home, if you get caught by your significant other you can always try the time honored, Stealth Geek excuse, “But dear, I was looking for porn.”
Brent from Strictly Average here on a Terrible Tuesday morning. Today’s article is a bit of nothing special that won’t tax your brain; a break, really, from all the Space Marine articles and arguments. Yesterday I visited the shrine of all things hobbyist.
No, not a Games Workshop retail store. I’m talking about Hobby Lobby! Here’s the goodies I walked away with this time.
This was a pleasant surprise, and perhaps the most useful generalist item I’ve seen in a long time. This product is like GW’s texture paints. Except cheaper. And better.
Why better? Think of the difference between butter and margarine It spreads easier. It doesn’t dry as fast, meaning you can add kibble into the mixture, say a skull, and it will dry into the base. Then you paint over it and voilà! C’est vrai!
Except wait a hot moment! Why not add your paint in advance and save yourself the trouble? Yeah, you can do that. I used food coloring, which worked just fine, but it’s designed to work with acrylic paint.
I imagine this would be useful texturing mud onto the tracks of vehicles as well, but I haven’t tried that just yet.
I’ve been itching to get my hands on this product forever. I actually tried to make an order straight to Tamiya for it, but ran into some difficulty with their distributor here stateside. No longer! It’s stocked at Hobby Lobby.
A quick word. Locally, I use Michaels and Hobby Lobby, but I’m sure you have your equivalent hobby store carrying the same sorts of products. Hobby Lobby is just starting to carry Vallejo paints this past year and this is a brand new product. That said, if your store isn’t carrying it, it probably will / can. Why not ask?
This isn’t like the Forge World powders, which I also want, greedy soul that I am. It’s got a slightly wet texture, allowing for different types of applications.
My long-suffering wife said it looks “…cute, like my makeup.” Little does she realize that means I’m going to start experimenting with her makeup.
These are paint markers. You shake them up, just like spray paint or a Shake Weight, then depress the applicator. The paint will infuse the tip (heh!) and then you use it like a paint brush.
As an aside, I’d never in a million years use the Shake Weight – I’ve got a box full of Army Painter spray paints. Shaking those darn things for a full minute is proof the Shake Weight concept is stolen.
Anyway, I used the ‘Glowing Green’ to dot on the eyes of Plague Bearers. I used the white paint marker to edge highlight claws on a stupid number of Hormagaunts. The benefit of this over a paint brush is simply speed. It’s a time-saver for some basic applications of paint.
I’m sure many of you know the benefits of a .005 black pen for creating contrasts between armor plates. These are a bit bigger, but are a cross between pen and marker. Each is a bright color, compared to paint, but once the model is matte-sprayed, you can’t tell that the highlights weren’t traditionally done with a paintbrush.
For example, I find red is a difficult color to correct. If the model I’m working on starts turning a muddy orange, I have a problem saving it. The reason is you have to start layering on thin coats, so the model doesn’t start losing definition. This isn’t a real problem if you’re painting a Purity Seal or tabard or something, but I was working on a Khorne Beserker Lord on a Bike, a model I’m knocking together for a friend.
I used the red pen to (draw on? write on?) cover the flat, armored sections of the model. The spread of the ink is enough that it can cover with a good consistency – it doesn’t look like lines of pencil on paper would, for example. At that point, I matte-sprayed the model to seal it, and I had a deep crimson color to work from.
These are also useful to provide that contrast I mentioned. If you’re painting up Ultramarines – in order to use Tigurius or Telion, for example – you can use the blue pen to line the joins of armor, providing a dark blue to contrast instead of a more noticeable black line. In this case, it’s about control. Washes perform the same function, but if you’re looking for a consistent line than this is the way to go.
Lastly, I purchased two Windsor and Newton Series 7’s, the best paintbrush I’ve ever had the privilege of destroying a perfectly-good base coated model with.
Because sometimes, there are no shortcuts.
Here are some other articles on the same theme, for those who might be interested. In the Blogosphere, articles older than a week are rarely visited, but we keep them around anyway.
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/?p=35027
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/?p=34695
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/?p=34597
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/?p=34171
That’s it for the day, ladies and gentlemen, Unicorns and children of all ages! You’re up – what’s your favorite hobby tip, trick, or purchase?
As always, thoughts? Comments? Manly, back-slapping hugs?
