Hi all,

I'll declare my intentions right away - a friend of mine is running a Kickstarter for a new range of Airbrush Masks / stencils, and I thought some of you may be interested. The, already funded, kickstarter can be found here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/805 ... o-and-deta

He's been targeting the 28mm market as that's where he's involved, but I've been persuading him to do more for smaller scales.

Now, he's an award winning airbrush painter, toting numerous Golden Demons and Forge world best in shows among his cabinets. I, on the other hand, am an airbrush Newbie and have never used a Mask in my life until now.

That said, I want to try and Prove to him that there's a market and the detail he's achieving with these masks is perfectly useable on 6mm figures.

Thus, I will here present my own tests using preview runs of his new products on models which you'll all be familiar with.

I am NOT a master airbrush artist - this style of painting is all new to me so the first ones are rough. This is my fault rather than the product, but it does show they can be applied in all of our favorite scales as well as the larger stuff


First up Flames...
First up is actually the third test piece I did. Brian's producing a sheet of Hotrod flames in a variety of sizes. The smallest set my mind racing immediately for Warp Runners.....

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

Then I'll go back to the beginnig.

Mini Hex Camo

This piece looks really rough, but that is down to my lack of skill rather than the stencils - I used over-thinned paint with too high a pressure and bled the black under the adhesive stencils.

I will be re-doing this one when I get a chance as its no good as it is but now I've used the masks a couple more times and now know more what I'm doing, I know I can get a good result. It does, however, show how easy it would be to do a classic carapace on the Beetlebacks. Equally, camoflague on any old tank is dead simple!

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

And my third test piece in the first evening was a simple 6mm tank - a Rampart from Dark Realm Miniatures.


I used a prototype of the upcoming "Mini Shattered" mask. 3 colour camo complete in about 15 minutes. I'm beginning to really like the idea of these...





THese are just the start for me to get an idea of working with stencils / masks and I'll post some better pictures of better pieces as soon as I get a chance to paint them. The product is all the same quality, but my work with them should improve to show them off a little better in small scale uses!

Hope its of some interest to some of you - check out the kickstarter to see all the products currently unlocked and pester Brian for more for us small scale guys!

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

That is just perfect! Will buy. The flames are just fantastic! I would like to do flyers. Like the new Lancastrian. How does it work with more 'busy' surfaces?

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

that's the beauty of these over other types of stencil and mask - the material stretches over details and adheres well around angles. If you're careful applying them (I used a ball ended sculpting tool) and careful removing them, then they're still re-useable after stretching as they have (limited) elastic properties to retain and reform to their original shape.

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

I like it !!!! Thanks for the intel !!!!

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Damnit. Now I need an airbrush. Grrrrrrr

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

The flames on the titan look great, but the camo on the tank is too large and could do with being finer detailed to look right at 6mm.

Very interesting, have you tried applying paint with any other means, ie spunge or stipple instead of an airbrush?

Obviously the effect would not be as good but i would be interested to see these options tried.

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Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

yeah, been watching this from the start, and with the flames, hexes and diamonds, i expect i will be buying in
i would like a bunch of checkering without all the extra rubbish on it though

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

Hi All,
Sorry for poor reply rate

@Glyn - Totally agree its over-large for realism, but realism isn't always the best answer for 6mm, and I'm tending to like the effect on that particular tank (very tempted to paint a small force for fun like it in fact... ) but each to their own

@Moredakka - I haven't tried it yet, but I'm doing stencil replies tonight as I've been playing with them a fair bit. I'm also now sponging on weathering to the vehicles I spraye, so I see an ideal opportiunity when I go back up to the workshop.... more on this later

@JTG - Checks are on the way, but Brian's trying different options for them to avoid having to place individual squares. Since they dont overlap corners, they cant be done in a single mask and Brian's trying to make all the sets useable with as few placements as possible.

To all - I have been playing more with them tonight and done something of a re-useability check on them. I did 28 15mm tanks with 2 stars each, using only 2 stencils and they're still going strong. Its obviously one of the simpler ones to place, but I'm impressed none the less - I think I could do them all again without any worries!

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

And so I've now tried the stencils and masks with sponging and the results were pretty good! I used the mini hexo-camo on another beetleback carapace I had lying around, using chardron granite as my paint of choise, simply because that's what I was using to sponge on battle wear to my 15mm vehicles at the time

two things of note -
1. The layers you apply are obviously nowhere near as fine as a pass with an airbrush, so more drying time required.
2. whilst results were favourable (pictures soon) I dont think the stencils will survive as many uses when used with the sponging technique, because more paint builds up on them

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

its down to just minutes on the counter,, and a load more small scale stencils / masks have been unlocked. There's also more given for many of the pledge levels than originally announced after a great pledge boosting stretch goal reward somewhere back aroud 15K
Check it out fast for a good deal!

_________________
Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
http://hobbybrush.com - My New Website, with thousands of painted Mini Pics :)
http://hobbybrush.blogspot.com - My Hobby Blog
TuffSkull's notepad- My Old Blog on Wargames Wiki.

Well, that's that. Youve tricked me into getting some. Will be interesting to hear what is possible in our scale! Any good suggestions for three must have patterns?

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)