Airbrush skipping problems

Wow, just.... wow.
 Recieved my brand new shiny Iwata Eclipse about 3 weeks ago. After rummaging about for a while I found a compressor that should do the job with getting something out of it, an AS189 with tank and airfilter. I was happy as an otter when it arrived and fast as a shark to get the painting going.

Is this the rascal in this drama?

Said and done, connected the brush to the compressor. Put it to 30 psi to begin with and diluted my paint with about 3/1 ration of water/paint. Then I went to try some doodles on a piece of paper- This is when the shit hit the fan. Oh, the horror! From the very first line i tried to draw it began skipping. For you who don't know what skipping is: Skipping is when you get a broken line when spraying with your airbrush. Paint flows, creating a beatiful thin line only to stop and only give air. Starts flowing again, stops, starts, stops etc.

I thought it would be an easy fix. Changed the psi to 20- Same problem. Thinning the paint even more- Same problem. 15psi maybe? Nope! Thinned the paint to almost water and then it flowed as it should, but the paint is way too thin and splashes of the pressure if you try to put it onto a model. This is when I went into forum berzerk-mode. I checked every single site I could find about the problem:

Paint stuck in the nozzle: 

Cleaned the whole gun thoroughly and tried to look if I could see some paint residues in the nozzle but to no awail. I even took it to a friend of mine who works as dental technician and borrowed their ultrasonic cleaner and let it soak in 30 minutes. Problem persists.

Damaged needle: 

Needle looks fine. Dont feel as sharp as my ancient airbursh though so could be a  manufacturing problem, but no bend or other damage that i could see. Going to compare to a friends Eclipse soon.

Compressor issues: 

Water in the air? Hard to say, tank and airfilter should minimize any traces of water. Pressure problems? Also hard to say, tried to hold a steady flow against the skin but coudnt feel any changes in the pressure. Going to try it with another compressor at previous mentioned friends place.

I'm a wee bit worried about the Iwata. It was listed as 0.3mm needle and Eclipses don't come with 0.3mm needle but I took it for being a typo from the seller . It also came with the wrong spanner, a spanner made for screw-on nozzles, not self centering as the Eclipses. Fraud maybe? Looks authentic thou and came in sealed package.
Hopefully there's problem with the compressor since it's the cheapest equipment so I can send it as a warranty errand and buy a cheap one from a local store while waiting.The Iwata is ordered from Japan.

Iwata incoming

Oooh, I´'m exited. After some long thoughts and a bit of research i finally decided which airbrush to go for. I had Iwata in mind pretty early since that's the brand that turned up on most searches and seems to be a solid choice. The hard part was to decide which model.

 I tend to go for expensive stuff when I buy something, this is how my mind works; 1. I start looking at the cheapest alternative. 2. I Look at the second cheapest, thinking "Hmm, not a biggie. Lets go for that one instead." Then repeat step 2 untill my bank account reach its pain treshold or no more costly options are available. This time I restrained my impulses to go for the super-mega-top-notch-high-line-model. My vote went for the Iwata Eclipse HP-CS. Not the cheapest one and not the most expensive either. The pro's seem to agree that it´s a good choice for first timers and an allrounder.

Full plate and packing steel

Ordered it from ebay since it's half the price compared to Swedish retailers. I'm a bit worried though since I noticed that the description says that it got a 0.3mm nozzle and as far as I know they only come with .35mm. It's new and unopened so it's not modified in any way. Hopefully thats just a mistyping from the seller and not a fraud, fingers crossed. But they had only possitive feedback so I should be okay. Otherwise I'll be forced to make a trip to Tokyo to clear the air with someone.

Also a .3mm could prove to be more of a challenge to use. I know for a fact that airbrushing isn't easy. I got myself a real low budget one many years ago. With low budget I mean really low budget. You know the kind of equipment they make from broken parts that they sweep from the floor. Then put together to some kind of abomination that even the 7:th circle of hell would be proud of.

I was doing mural paintings at that time for a laser tag arena and it wasn't pretty on close inspection, lots of stains and splashes. As I'm older and wiser now (ehr...) I understand that much of my problems then was partially caused by too thick paint in the gun. But my first first tries with the Iwata will probably make puppies cry in despair anyway. I'm not looking for miracles to happen beacuse of the equipment, but it will surely speed up the process with laying the initial shadow and highlights.

Guts 'n Glory: Chaos Lord of Nurgle

Just an little progress update. Actually not much of progress at all. Only bland everyday chores that stops me from doing fun things. 
All work and no play makes Stefan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Stefan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Stefan a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Stefan a dull boy.

Despite all the boring stuff I rewarded myself with a bit of playtime; that Chaos Lord have been standing on the shelf for way too long time now, tantalizing me to paint him. So thats what I did, he´s gonna get it good!. Not much done yet, only a couple of base layers and a few glazes here and there to catch the overall look. Planning to do my first stumbling attempts of NMM on the axe since it´s quite a big piece that shouldn´t be too difficult. At least I hope so.

It´s not a very clean paintjob so far but i should be able to make it a bit smoother with a bit of work. Only put about 45 minutes on him so far, mostly trying different purples on his stomach. But I´ll get there eventually. He really is a delight to paint, lots of little details (or infections). No wonder that he got so much exposure, it´s an awesome model.
Here he is:

Think I´ll give him a rest for a while now so i can grab myself in the collar and finish the cannon fodder (Marauders) They´ve been gathering dust for too long now.

Pimp my Warrior

Long time no see.

Back at the paint rack at last. Been busy with work and rereation the past weeks. Took a ski tour to a cabin in the woods for some table rpg with old time friends and it was a blast. Lots of shenanigans for 3 days.

Anyway. While in the woods I loitered on ebay for a while and found some cheap Warhammer stuff for my Warriors of Chaos (or Marauders) and today they came to my mailbox. Bring out ze heads!:

Yep, Space Wolves Heads. Most of them are going to look good on my minis, not sure about the one with the helipad/flat top haircut. Looks bit too posh for a frothing maniac, but I can put him in the middle ranks just to get some extra diversity. There´s also some hi-tech armor plates on the back of the head, but thats not a problem, at least not on the Warriors since the fur trimming on the cloaks will hide them from view. Also got three helmeted heads that´s going into the bitbox of oblivion. I´ve got no plans whatsoever of turning to the dark side (40k).

Now over to another topic. I feel quite certain about which paintscheme to go for with my warriors now. Wrote about them in my previous post- The internet is for Khorne and I´m going for the dark red theme so the ever elusive step by step will be here in a near future.

Thats all!

The internet is for Khorne

At last I've got some time on my hands to do some painting. I've mentioned earlier that i would present a step by step when creating a color scheme for my Khorne warriors, unless it came out looking like something the cat dragged in. Turned out it came out just like that. Well, not completley.

I actually tried out 2 different approaches on red. I've read that painting red (pun not intended) is a pain to paint and I can't do nothing but agree. It is a pain. This is what I came up with:

The lef one could have turned out good but I think that I thinned the paint a bit too much or used wrong brush technique since the toning came out quite uneven with lots of streaks. Take a closer look by clicking the picture and you´ll see what I mean. It's also way too bright red. Top side is that it´s good contrast and looks good from afar, but on the other hand pretty much everything looks good at a distance.
Maybe if I mute it down with some blue glaze. Who knows, could take a bit of the streaks away.

I'm more pleased with the right one, It got a more Khorny look but still not exactly what I'm looking for. It don't pop so well from a distance. Maybe change my mind if I see them en masse. What speaks for this color scheme/tone is that it was quick to paint.

I'll give the left style another go tomorrow but going to try to go darker. From black up to bright red but starting with the brighter tones further up and try with thicker paint. This one was about 1:8 paint to water while the right was more like 1:3 ratio. I´m not looking for super smooth but still better than what i achieved here. Practice makes perfect, hopefully.

Minsc of the day:
"My hamster does not like your tone, away with ye!"

Warhammer Visions: March edition sneak peek

Laid my hands on the second Warhammer Visions today and had a quick look through the pages. And as everyone probably know it´s mostly about Dwarfs. It all starts with the Latest Releases where we get to see what we´ve already seen, provided that you read the february editions of White Dwarf Weekly. 

Some of the pictures following will show up the wrong way since blogger decides to flip it by despite they are correct on my hard drive. They may be a bit blurry since I took them with my phone at work

Then there is the Forge World pages presenting their latest releases consisting of 40k only. I wish they could release some Fantasy more frequently:

Then we have the Army of the Month chapter consisting of the Imperial Guard. Impressive work as usual:

Here comes the best part, the Parade Ground, 52 pages of goodness. I know, everyone says that you can find pictures on the internet. I say it´s not even close to the same thing as having it on print. Call me old fashioned, but a screen just don´t do it for me.

Over to the next chapter; The Battle Report I guess it would be called. Not that it is a battle report, only more pictures of Dwarves with a minimum of text saying nothing. A few shots of the opposing army, Skaven in this case (I want to emphasis few shots).

Moving to the Kit Bash. Not much bashing it seems, mostly green stuffing in the cracks. Edit: Ok, maybe there is some conversion done here, I´m not famailiar enough with 40k but after skimming through it again I see that there are parts from other models:

Then there is the Blanchitsu. Wish that the text was left. Well there is text, about a sentence per page. Would be nice to read about how they thought whne creating these models:

This is followed by a showcase of some Kabal Armies and even more Dwarfs. The grand finale is made out of the Paint Splatter section, don´t expect anything new here, it´s only the WD Weekly gathered in one spot:

So what is the verdict? Well, you could get this edition if you haven´t read the WD Weekly editions already. If you have i wouldn´t recomend it, only for the Parade Ground maybe or if you want to get better close up pictures of the Dwarf models. You could also have use for it if you have too much money and need something to spend it on.

Have a pleasant weekend, I won´t for sure. Work awaits.

Hammer Time! (and some sprues)

Oh yeah!

Was about to start painting on some Khorne Warriors today and take pics of the process while at it for a Step by Step. But as i stood there, brush in my hand and all, i recieved a letter that my package had arrived. Well, that put an end to my thoughts of painting as i laid my hands on these fine looking magazines:

Found them on Ebay for about £11, twelve issues of glory all in all, hardly touched by human hands. A fair price if it weren´t for the shipping that added £5 but still affordable considering the quality of the content. It´s such a huge difference between WD today compared to 4 years ago.  The painting tips were awesome. Lots of terrain tips and tutorials, in depth army tactics and lots of fluff. What happened? Guess that´s a question you can ask yourself about the quality of pretty much everything today, so no hard feelings Games Workshop. It´s all ´bout the money nowadays.

Khorne will have to wait, twelve issues of White Dwarf on the other hand can´t wait. But after that I´ll make sure to put up that Step by Step (unless i fail miserably with the painting) At least I managed to put up some pictures of the contents of the Warriors of Chaos box, you can find it here here.