The Rob Hawkins Hobby Blog

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The Rob Hawkins Hobby Blog

Norman Invasion of the Workbench Part 1

And so it begins, my first real painting project in a few years. I'm going to attempt to do an "in progress" series on the painting of this group. We'll see if I still have any of the old skills left, especially with my eyes not what they used to be.

I finally decided on a Norman army for SAGA and the first pack I'm going to tackle is the Norman Characters (DA1042) from Black Tree Designs. These will be used as a unit of Hearthguard and will be based individually to allow them to be fielded for gaming in other rule systems.

Here they are in their natural state before the initial removal of flash and mold lines.

After the initial removal of flash and mold lines. This wasn't too terrible, but I quickly remembered my least favorite part of the hobby.

Inked with Liquitex Transparent Raw Umber Ink to pick out any missed mold lines. Decided to use the ink instead of primer for this step. For a while I would prime and ink, but with the Liquitex stuff the primer is unnecessary. Why use up primer when you don't need to?

Mold lines completely removed (or so I thought), ink stain washed off, and ready for primer. The primer (White Stynylrez) was applied with the Patriot 105 airbrush @ 30 PSI from about 6"-8" away.

The first coat of primer went on a little too lightly and had a slight dusty appearance. I've heard the white takes multiple coats to get good coverage, but decided to give it a little help just in case.

Second coat of primer. Added a little Liquitex Airbrush Medium to the Stynylrez. This went on a little wetter and smoothed out the primer. Missed a little bit of mold line on the guy with the spear. See it?

No need to call Commando Cody. It's just Maskol by Humbrol.

The next step will be to spray the primarily metallic areas with a black primer. This will be either Vallejo Surface Primer or Stynylrez, again applied with the Badger 105 Patriot.

Long Time, No Post

Wow. Over three years since my last post...

New posts coming soon. I've actually started a new project; Norman army for SAGA. The first few figures will be from the Black Tree Designs line. I just couldn't get those awkward Battlestandard sculpts to look right. It could be the flatness of the Vallejo Model Color paints I used on them. They'll get a Simple Green bath and another go to see if I can improve on them.