zondag 30 juli 2017

Maxing the Mad, or how to make a Wasteland, part 4

This week has been marked by experimentation...

First I received the crackle gel I had ordered.  After a false start I had a first result I was happy with. Experiment number 1.
Second, I received the couplers I needed to finally hook up my old airbrush to the compressor (the whole airbrush-experiment had stalled years ago out of frustration with compressed air canisters and lack of a compressor).  Experiment number 2.
One plus one led to a piece of cracked earth rough terrain that needed a basecoat:
The airbrush performed well, though a few things have become obvious:
-The coupling between airbrush and hose needs some o-rings as it leaks air.
-The compressor hose and coupling are on the heavy side, I'd like to be able to use the original hose for the brush, but I'd need a coupling piece for that.
-My current airbrush is definitely a basecoat and terrain brush, maybe in time I'd like to ad a second airbrush to the roster for finer work (my current one is a single-action syphon feeder, the addition would be a dual-action grav-feeder).

Naturally terrain piede it still needs highlighting and such, but that will be done with traditional methods (a.k.a. sponging and drybrushing. But so far, I'm calling this a succesfull experiment.
I may be switching gears for a bit, as I'll be having limited acces to my hobby space and gear the next couple of weeks/weekends, so I'll limit myself to a small self-contained project; the Nurgle part of my Dark Imperium box. After that, it should be Gaslands firing on all cylinders again!

UPDATE:
This is the crackle gel I used for the above terrain piece, I slathered it on in about 1mm thickness. I think a little thinner would have been better, as that would give finer crackling:

And as a bonus, a pic of my jury rigged airbrushing set up:
What I'd like to improve about it is to find a way to link up the original hose to the airbrush, as it's much lighter and more manageable than the compressor one. And I'd like to either take the top off the box or put some vent holes at the rear, as I get a lot of mist drifting back into my face. Maybe a white sheet on the inside to give some better light would be nice too. Making it indoor-proof would be completely awesome, ofcourse...

See you next time! (Which may be a bit longer, as the next three weekends are booked full...)

3 opmerkingen:

  1. An airbrush is an instrument I haven't tried myself before (I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to painting I guess 😉).
    The crackle gel looks promising, I look forward to see more experimentations with it.

    BeantwoordenVerwijderen
  2. That crackle gel is very interesting.

    BeantwoordenVerwijderen
  3. Thanks! I really should have remembered to take a picture of the pot of gel. I'll try and update this post wit it soon.

    BeantwoordenVerwijderen