Commisioning Ironman Suits

Well its been a while since I posted on this blog, as I am mainly commandeering my other blog "Life of a Hellenic Pagan blogspot", which is mainly aimed at my Hellenic Pagan religious practices. But this blog is mainly where all my non- religious stuff goes, (mainly warhammer stuff , but other "stuff" too) . So last year i did some commission work for a friend of mine who wanted to have an Iron man Suit repainted in a darkpurple almost balck colour. So of course i immediately jumped at the chance as I loved painting and what better model to do it on than an Ironman suit because it's so versatile and the themes and colours are so vast it just well..awesome , So here is the Purple black Ironman suit Before, Primed and After shots:

Ironman Stealth Suit 

This is the model in his original "Stealth suit" , as you can see the colouring isn't al that great to begin with. I had to attach teh model to a paint pot with blue tac so that it would be held steady when it came to priming him with my Gamesworkdshop Citadel Black primer paint. What i really loved about this model is the amount of detail and the ridges too which made it look quite Tron like.

"Primed" ironman suit

 On the right here is the same model but with the black Citadel  "Black Chaos" primer spray paint. I had to prime it twice to get a smooth matt finish and to speed up the drying process I used a hairdryer on a cool setting so it didn't melt the model.  I tried to make the coats of primer as thin as possible to avoid "pooling" in the indentations of the armour. i think it looked pretty badass if I do say so myself. I could've left it black , but what the customer wants, the customer gets right?!!










and below  is the final Product. Not too bad if i do say so myself, although to really appreciate the colour purple you have to hold it up to the light as in shadow it just looks completely black. but can you see what i did to the ridges to give it that Tron likesque to the model? yeah I painted the inside ridges in purple and painted his hand arc reactors and chest piece white with a slight border of bright yellow to give it that glowy effect! It looks totally awesome right ?

Finished Product

So I hoped you enjoyed this Ironmanpost, coz next time you may be surprised at the next ironman post so tune in next time. Till then amigos and May the Gods bless you

Super Hero Squad collection

So I have made the decision to start collecting the miniature Marvel figures "Superhero Squad". Now I don't usually collect these sorts of figurine but as my fiance (PsychoboyUK Prime of a Lifetime) and my close friend (Not Quite Prime) seem to be having some sort of "transformers Collectors war" going on between them, I thought it was time for me to start making a collection of something. I love superheroes and as much as I would love to adorn my pad with 8" models, its not something that is always feesable when you lack space to put it all! Already my fiance has taken up an entire bookshelf and some TV stand space with his transformers figurines, that unless we get a our back bedroom re-decked, I fear that our living room will be over run with Decepticons and Autobots lol!! OMG I'll end up becoming like Penny from the Big Bang Theory TV series!, not that I already have two guys in my life that are taking those personas minus the physicists part of it lol. Already both my fiance and my friend test me every now and again on which superhero or villan belongs to the Marvel Universe or DC Universe. Yeah believe me it is hard.

So here we have Captain America with his shield  and Red Skull what seems to be holding the tessaract. I intend on collecting more as my fiance works at an awesome retail shop called B&M, where they sell these little guys quite cheaply. Unfotunatley Captain America's shield is not very secure so I had to stick a tiny bit of blue tack so that it would stay in place in his hand. So here they are Captain America with his old nemesis Red Skull battleing it out . I apologise for the bad quality pictures , I did this on my webcam

Each of the figurines are about 2 1/2 - 3 inches in height so they are quite small in size,small and mighty that is. There is even a cartoon called "Super Heroes Squad", and I have watched a few episodes on Youtube and its really fun. You may have seen similar figures to these which are in my friends post "Not quite Prime" Blogspot, but I think they are of a different brand and he has two Batman figures and an Aquaman figure which he has featured in his blog post "Hall of Armors" too so check out his blog on the following link : http://notquiteaprime.blogspot.co.uk . and my fiances blog http://pbukprimeofalifetime.blogspot.co.uk/ for all things, Marvel, DC and above all Transformers!

captain America 

Red Skull

So until then May the Gods bless you and keep fighting the good fight, coz you will never know when you need to "Suit Up"!! enjoy the wee movie too :) 

Cheaper ways of painting your army

I have always had the need to find a cheaper and more affordable way of painting my miniatures. I have found that Games Workshop paints "Citadel" have gotten even more expensive than they were about a year ago, this is probably due to their new colour scheme and also new paints range along with new paint names ( I liked the old paint names) which are quite frankly unecessary in my opinion. for a 12oz pot of paint paying £2.30 is a bit steep considering its only a very small amount in the pot and once you have run out you have to go out and buy more.

Of course there are more chaeper but good  quality alternatives,such as vallejo Model Color (spanish), Reaper paints

So instead of having to pay so much for paint, I had decided on buying a set of acrylic paints which I found in my local store in town. to be honest for aset of 12 paints for £2.29 i was quite impressed as not only am i paying for 12 paints for teh price of one pot of GW paint, I'm saving that much more! If i was to buy a set of GW base paints box ( 9 paints plus a few tools plus gstatic grass and sand) in teh set i woudl have to pay almost thre timws as much £35!

Citadel hobby set

this is what comes in a Citadel Hobby starter set for £35:

1 pot of Leadbelcher (12ml)
1 pot of Macragge Blue (12ml)
1 pot of Waaagh! Flesh (12ml)
1 pot of Averland Sunset (12ml)
1 pot of Bugman's Glow (12ml)
1 pot of Mephiston Red (12ml)
1 pot of Mournfang Brown (12ml)
1 pot of Imperial Primer (12ml)
1 pot of White Scar (12ml)
1 Starter Brush
1 pair of Plastic Cutters
1 bottle of PVA Glue (20ml)
1 bottle of Plastic Glue (20ml)
1 Tub of Static Grass (10 grams)
1 Tub of Sand (45 grams)

So with the extra bits aside , for 9 pots of paint (£2.30 each) I would be paying £20.70 where as for my acrylic set I'm getting 12 paints for only £2.29 so a big saving of £18.41 !

Pros and Con's of Acrylic Paint

One thing you have to remember about acrylic paints is that they dry FAST and if you do not use the paint that is on your palette in about 2 or 3 hours, you can bet that it will solidify and then you would have wasted paint, so the best thing to do is to either add a small dab of water onto the acrylic blob or just use it up really fast. Another thing is that they are very thick paints and so you do need to thin them down slightly with water, but thin them down too much and you end up with a watercolour consistancy and that will not make the paint "stick" to the model, as it will just slide right off . The best thing when using acrylics is to apply in thin even layers and often to get the opaqueness of them. Of course you could slather it on like butter, but that is a technique for canvases. If the paint is applied to the model too thickly it won't dry quickly and so you will have to wait a good 2-3 hours for it to dry out. So if you are one of those very speedy painters that like to slp on a bit of colour just to add variety to your models then maybe acrylics would not be your choice, so its probably better to stick to GW paints or Vallejo Model colour paints. Yet if using acrylic paints then it best to apply thin coats on the said model thereby building the colour up.

Hoped this blog has helped you somewhat in determining whether to buy more expensive paints, thereby draining your wallet, or cheaper alternative paints thereby easing your wallet. Just bear in mind that "most expensive" doesn't always mean "best quality or endurability".

Happy Painting !