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Painting a valkyrie

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I wrote a tutorial for this site so here's one. I have painted a valkyrie over the last two days firstly to relax and change my minds before reattacking the paint job of the juggernaut and other projects for Toronto and hicago. The goal was never to paint an entry for the !olden "emons so this piece is far from perfect. #ut I took a few shots of the different stages so here is the step by step! The built itself was pretty straightforward. The latest kits from !$ are better and better. %ow the only thing they really need to improve is the &uality of the instruction booklet. ' lot of times you are not sure that you are using the right pieces. (ven worse they ask you to glue to pieces under the wings... pieces which I still have to find on the sprues. )astly if you are building this kit I highly recommend of not glueing the roof of the valkyrie straight away. If you do good luck to include the gunners if it is your desire. 'll the colors airbrushed were Tamiya flat paint. I prefer those for airbrushing than !$ as they are mainly designed for airbrushing. "on't get me wrong here* !$ paint or +, can easily be used with an airbrush but they are less practical. !$ or +, paints are designed to be applies by brush* they dry faster and cover better. The problem is when you airbrush these paints they tend to accumulate on the tip of the needle which jam your airbrush more &uickly. -ou'll need to retract more your needle to get paint out which only invites a disaster! Therefore you'll need to constantly clean the tip of your needle* carefully. The initial base coat was "ark !rey ./012. 'll the contours of the various parts of the plane where shaded in /lat #lack ./03. The black was highly thinned down so several layers were necessary.

The model received a coat of hair spray which will be explained later. The real color was then applied* 4edium !rey ./015. %ow the laborious work begins. (very panel of the plane will be lightly shaded and highlighted with /lat #lack ./03 and /lat $hiter ./01. 6o every panels need to be tape to maximise the the sharpness of the lines.

"ifference between done panels and still to be done7

The whole model done. 'n additionnal coat of 4edium !rey ./015 was applied to solidify the cohesion of the model. This coat was highly thinned down to ensure a smooth transition and built up 7

%ow what is the purppose of the hairspray8 Technically it is to protect the inital coat of paint. Technically now I could use a paint* a little rough* dipped in water to peel off the top layer only letting the bottow one showing. The problem is depending on how many layers that you applied on top it might be harder to do and re&uire a little bit of alcool on your brush... and since I did that while working at the store... well I had no alcool handy. I would have mostly peeled off the paint along the edges or any other place where friction is most likely. In the absence of alcool I used the blister foam techni&ue. 9sing the corner of a foam from a blister* in this case a 4ordor 6iege #ow* I know &uite relevant it is* you applied paint along those edges to create that chipped paint effect. I used haradon !ranite from /oundation. /or the next step* it is easier if you have a satin or gloss finish. Therefore a coat of +urity 6eal was applied. The next few steps are done using oil paint. $e seldom overlook the advantages of this type of paint when we were brought to the hobby by !ames $orkshop or other similar games. It is a little bit more complex to use but the advantages* especially in the case of vehicules cannot be neglected. They allow you to achieve realistic weathering effects in a fraction of the time re&uired with acrylics. 4ig +roductions offer an interesting line of fine &uality oil paint for modelers. In this case industrial earth was used. Thinned down with turbenthine to have the consistency of a wash every lines* corners* recesses received a dose of the wash. There is nothing more simple. In order to do so simply charge your brush and simply delicately touch one of those line and the capillary action does the rest. This example is best illustrated by video but simply try it yourself and you'll see how simple it is. 4ore streaks were applied on the model along the direction of the movement of the vehicule. -ou can also se the chipped effect discussed earlier.

%ow we will add more streaks using pure white* still and oil paint. 6ome lines are painted on the edges7

9sing a flat brush with a little bit of turbenthine these lines are faded with the rest of the model. In an instant you achieve impressive and realistic results without too much hassle!

's you can see* most of the initial brown streaks are gone... that is the problem with oil paint* it takes days to dry properly. :therwise as soon as you show up with a little bit of turbenthine* well* bye bye brown paint! In order to avoid that you have two choices... well 1 and a half... The first one is to wait 1 or , days. The second one is to apply a coat of varnish ;remember satin or gloss< to protect what was already applied. The other half one

is simple as well* since you can have s&uadron of 3 to , models in your army well you work on the second and then the third one while the first one dries! /or now don't worry we will simply redo these brown streaks...! The whole model weathered with the white paint7

The core of the job is done. %ow it is the time to apply a new coat of varnish* this time a flat one. this will unify the flatness and glossiness of others in one unify texture until we decide to pic and choose what should be gloss or not. The details are now painted. =uite rapidly I must say but as said initially the goal here was to relax and not to produce a contest winning entry. Here is a final picture of the model7

The metallics received a base coast of boltgun metal. They were then shaded by a mix of black and chestnut ink. The ink was thinned down using /uture floor finish. It allows the ink to go in the crack and we avoid the usual stain effect produced by ink. It also keep the consistency of the ink and its glossiness. 's you'll see on the following pictures* some areas of the model* where oil leaks are more likely* were airbrushed with chestnut inks* once again thinned down with future. -es I know there's a few blotches here and there but hey.. I was tired... I know lame excuse but once again it was to relax 7p I probably went a bit overboard as well with the chestnut but hey!

%ext time I'll dose it more! The other step was to airbrush with /lat #lack ./03 the burnt areas so behind the engines and on the engines themselves.

6o here we go! These are only a few of the different techni&ues used by military modelers. They are usually &uite simple* fast and realistic. -es you need to ac&uire new products and master them but the time you will save is definitely worth it. These techni&ues and some others are discussed in my 4iniature 4entor video on the painting of a "readnought. /urthermore the classes on weathering and airbrushing at !(% :% will explore these principles and more. This article will be kept along the other step by step! /or now keep painting!

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