Warlord Titan – Painting the Legs Part II

Next, let’s do some caution stripe pistons!

Yellow is a PITA, even with an airbrush. Below is about 35 coats of Createx Wicked Golden Yellow (W011). I thinned with W100 reducer, although I just ordered W500 reducer, which I’m super excited about as it’s supposed to be way better. W100 can cause cratering, tip drying, dries slowly, and dires glossy.

W500 claims to address these issues which would make Createx Wicked Colors my main paint for basically everything.

Airbrushing models like this is 90% masking, 5% paint prep, and 5% actually airbrushing. Give in to this fact. Just surrender. Trust me.

I used 1/8″ 3m vinyl tape, which is good for really sharp edges, but a bit too sticky (risk of pulling up paint).

To combat this, I laid down three layers of  Liquitex Gloss Varnish and let dry overnight. The gloss varnish toughens up the finish and makes the tape pull up without tearing the paint film. If you don’t have existing tape to use up, I’d recommend 3mm Tamiya masking tape, either the regular yellow stuff or the new white ‘for curves’ variety although I haven’t tried that yet.

After a few hours of masking, about 10 minutes of very light coats of Vallejo Black Primer  which is one of my favorite paints of all time, as it shoots through my Iwata HP-BCS Airbrush with the 0.5mm setup like a dream, has great adhesion, and a great matte finish.

Caaaaarefully pulling up the tape.

Starting to apply a brown undercoat to the trim. This is actually P3 Bootstrap leather, my favorite brown paint.

I’m trying the new Games Workshop golds and I HATE THEM. They are super chunky. Applied lightly they give like 2% coverage and would take 50 coats. Applied liberally, they pool up and dry with an uneven, chunky texture. After searching online, I’m going to try Citadel ‘Retribution Armor’ gold base, which is supposed to act like the older Citadel ‘Shining Gold’ Paint which I LOVED. Failing that, adding ‘Lahmian Medium’  is supposed to help the new metallic paints. Failing that, I’ll use Reaper/MSP 9050 Antique Gold which is a perfectly serviceable gold, just not as good as the old ‘Shining Gold.’

Here you can see the pistons painted and glued in. The second picture shows a piston that was clamped wrong, and dried in a tweaked position. :/ This is JBWeld, so once it’s glued, it’s glued. The Armor plates will make this mistake less obvious, but darn! :/

Not great lighting for these pics, but the warning stripe pistons on the warlord feet.