Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Airbrush-Enabled Possibilities

So,

I've been asked privately about why I'm bringing the Nids and what I think of them.

I think they're more match-up fragile than I typically am comfortable with. I think they're more powerful than the internet thinks they are. I think I won't win Best Overall or Best General with them, but I think I'll do fine record-wise regardless.

Also, my guard army is spread across the country, still being shipped back from being shot at for the KR/Basic Black video being worked on. Half the army, the half that actually got shot, came back from Florida ... the other half for some reason got left behind, because they ended up not using it as part of the demo (basically, they weren't miniature soldier guys, and couldn't figure out how to fit all the models in the cases the way they do, so some of them were left out of the bag when it took bullets to the face).

So, I don't really have a fully painted ready to go army anyway, but I DO like my Nids ... they were my first real army, and they're fun to play with, and I've wanted to bite the bullet and paint up a new army for a while now.

Daunting task to try and rush paint an army with a brush (I've never used an airbrush before on minis, only on terrain), but people suggested it so last night I went and tried to figure out how quickly and effectively I could get things done. The Airbrush Gargs ended up looking better than with a brush by far, quite poppy and effective, and I'm happy with this start point. There's a lot of detail that needs to be pulled out, but they look quite good for tabletop / tournament standard as is, so I'll probably try to bring the 100 models I have to build and paint to this standard first, and see where I stand in terms of time left before BFS.

Here's a shot of the gargs I painted in under an hour last night.

I'm also permuting the army to give the Gargs furious charge, and dropping the Tyrant Guard to pull it off. I'll probably also put the Zoanthropes into two squads of 3, instead of 3 squads of 2. This will help a little in kill points (and also discourage people trying to kill them for "easy" kill points), and doesn't really inhibit their value at all, since Blessings and Maledictions don't follow the targeting restrictions that Witchfires do ... you can literally bless or maledict whoever with whichever zoanthrope in whatever order you like.


As an aside, these are the bases the army will be using, by Secret Weapon Miniatures, thanks to Grimlock/Jon for the rec on these:
And the Zoanthropes, by Troll Forged (just a random google image, not my paint, obviously given the color diffs), thanks to ghostin/Jamie for the rec on these:

12 comments:

  1. Nice job!

    I definitely wouldn't be making the progress that I do without an airbrush. I just made a blog post about airbrushing bases too. Did about 45 bases in 2 evenings.

    I'll be following your Nid endeavors with interest.

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  2. My first project after purchasing an airbrush, was a 3k point Tyranid army. That took 4 days to paint, including a dip stage.

    You'll see it at BfS.

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  3. Wow, they look great. You managed a nice hue transition- I can't wait to see the rest of your army.

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  4. They look great! Goodluck at BFS.

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  5. I just made a bargain with one of my gaming pals: he assembles my Kings of War Orcs and Goblins, and I airbrush his Tyranid army. Neat timing. And nice job on the Gargs! Are the outlines brush-painted or washed on?

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    1. Airbrushed on! Heh, I just finessed the airbrush as best I could to maintain outlining in the recesses. If time allows at the very end, I'll go back through and polish the army much better. If time doesn't allow, I'll do it some time post-BFS (probably when the next tournament thereafter pressures me to).

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  6. Those are nice placemats you have there. I actually own a set of those...

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  7. Needs moar color! ;) Looks great Mike - I'll be putting an airbrush on the Xmas wish list early this year.

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  8. now you know how gmm does it...not hard eh?

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  9. I gots to learn me how to paint with one of those...

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    Replies
    1. Come to my seminar, "Zen and the Art of Airbrush Maintenance". It will be an enlightening experience ;)
      .

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