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Is the airbrush a hard skill to pick up? Because I can't overstate how little I trust my hands with a brush. The price of airbrush + compressor gives me pause but my girlfriend assures me that "we could use a compressor around the house" (?). And I guess I could get back into art and try my hand at stenciling...
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Jan 29, 2018 15:10
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hackbunny posted:Is the airbrush a hard skill to pick up? Because I can't overstate how little I trust my hands with a brush. The price of airbrush + compressor gives me pause but my girlfriend assures me that "we could use a compressor around the house" (?). And I guess I could get back into art and try my hand at stenciling... I found that it was much easier to get good results with the airbrush once I started using it. You can get just as good results from hand brushing but it takes longer to acquire the skill. One downside of the airbrush is that you will need to select and prepare your paints more carefully and clean the airbrush thoroughly when you're done.
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Jan 29, 2018 15:25
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hackbunny posted:Is the airbrush a hard skill to pick up? Because I can't overstate how little I trust my hands with a brush. The price of airbrush + compressor gives me pause but my girlfriend assures me that "we could use a compressor around the house" (?). And I guess I could get back into art and try my hand at stenciling... My first model painted with an airbrush was incomparably better than anything I had done up to that point. A basic compressor + brush combo is $100, which is what some kits cost these days.
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Jan 29, 2018 15:54
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Even if its just for priming or getting a nice even basecoat to brushpaint on a airbrush is sooo worth it.
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Jan 29, 2018 16:02
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I'll toss in on the airbrush bit too. The quality gain was unreal compared to the brushmarked-streaked-icky models I had been making. Especially with camo patterns. Absolutely worth the money. My first compressor was actually an airpig with a regulator. Once I got sick of running to the garage to fill it up I picked up an Iwata desktop compressor.
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Jan 29, 2018 17:18
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Southern Heel posted:If the idea of that attracts you, then you could do alot worse than picking up one of the Model Railroader 'Beginner Railroad' books. The only thing I will emphasise over and over is that you should NOT go for a monolithic board in the middle of the room unless you have a handy billiards table. It is MUCH more space efficient to have it going around on shelves (or even a set of trestles)! Agreed on the MR books and going around the walls. You can get a lot more layout out of cutting a sheet of plywood into strips than having it in the middle of the room.
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Jan 30, 2018 00:38
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Boomer The Cannon posted:Agreed on the MR books and going around the walls. You can get a lot more layout out of cutting a sheet of plywood into strips than having it in the middle of the room.
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Jan 30, 2018 02:02
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I remember seeing that in MR as well. I'd be worried about knocking the detailed bits off or shedding ground foam/scenery, though. If you're building around the walls, you could build it on top of or into a set of book shelves also. There's a guy on Facebook who built an N-scale layout into his bar top, and it looks loving fantastic: https://www.facebook.com/NorthernNscale/ On a different topic, one of our club members built a camera car and had it out last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpE9TBo0IV4
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Jan 30, 2018 03:22
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hackbunny posted:Is the airbrush a hard skill to pick up? Because I can't overstate how little I trust my hands with a brush. The price of airbrush + compressor gives me pause but my girlfriend assures me that "we could use a compressor around the house" (?). And I guess I could get back into art and try my hand at stenciling... I'm not actually any good, but it is still dangol' fun.
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Jan 30, 2018 03:32
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Boomer The Cannon posted:Agreed on the MR books and going around the walls. You can get a lot more layout out of cutting a sheet of plywood into strips than having it in the middle of the room. My current plan is to build an 8' x 2' "scenic" board (think of a stage), to have on a shelf against a wall in my office, and then have bolt on 'wings' of 4' each that I attach when I take the layout out and put it together in the livingroom for a 'proper play' . That way, it's never completely out of the way, but it takes up a reasonable amount of space. Cartoon posted:Not disagreeing but my Dad came up with the idea of building the layout so it sat on top of a queen sized bed frame. When not in use it could be lent against the wall and the bed frame dismantled with 8 bolts. Other people have the layout on pulleys that hoist it up to the ceiling when not in use. Fair enough - but there are distinct disadvantages to that - notice how most videos showing model railroads are close to 'eye level' of the people in the scene? That means you'll need to sit on the floor or stoop the whole time. If realism or modelling is less important to you than running trains (which is equally valid!) then that may be less of an issue. Additionally unless a layout is low like that, the average person's reach isn't very long (and gets shorter as the layout gets higher) so having a 6' width could be problematic if you get a derailment right in the middle. Leaning up an 8' x 6' timber frame with fake grass and gravel stuck on it, up against the wall of the spare bedroom would be 100% forbidden for me!  If you go that way, I think the most elegant solution to using a single 8'x4 was to run a vertical dividing backscene down the middle of the layout and have a scene on either side. This way you get your 'monolith' but you also have two distinct areas to watch/play with.
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Jan 30, 2018 09:46
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hackbunny posted:Is the airbrush a hard skill to pick up? Because I can't overstate how little I trust my hands with a brush. The price of airbrush + compressor gives me pause but my girlfriend assures me that "we could use a compressor around the house" (?). And I guess I could get back into art and try my hand at stenciling... The basic stuff like priming and base coating is not that hard at all, it's just a matter of figuring out how to keep everything clean and running smoothly. Doing actual detail work still requires a steady hand and practice, but if you really don't trust your hands I bet you could achieve good effects with just zenithal and some masking.
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Jan 30, 2018 10:10
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Southern Heel posted:My current plan is to build an 8' x 2' "scenic" board (think of a stage), to have on a shelf against a wall in my office, and then have bolt on 'wings' of 4' each that I attach when I take the layout out and put it together in the livingroom for a 'proper play' . That way, it's never completely out of the way, but it takes up a reasonable amount of space. Module-based home layouts seem to be growing in popularity. Model Railroad Hobbyist has done a bunch of articles on it, and they seem to be big proponents of it. The price is right for their magazine as well (free online), and their Youtube page should give you some ideas for around-the-wall stuff (if you can get past the host, of course)
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Jan 30, 2018 23:45
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Modular layouts are absolutely critical in the UK where there simply isn't room to have a permanent setup like American basement empires. Many larger layouts are club affairs (i.e. owned by the club, contributed to by dues from all the members and worked on in concert) and typically only set up once every few weeks for everyone to 'have a go' or otherwise exhibited. I'll be going to an exhibition on Saturday so can happily take some photographs if anyone is interested? Iain Rice is quite a prolific layout designer (you will have seen his designs in Model Railroader, he typically is all curves and squiggly pen lines) and he leans very heavily on modelling one scene to diorama-type perfection: the end of flour mill, the throat of a yard, etc. and using a proscenium arch to frame it like a painting using all those tricks like forced perspective, hiding corners, etc. It's something I'm considering for my layout but having changed from 2mm:ft (N gauge) to 7mm:ft(O Gauge) it's a little more challenging to fit something meaningful in a relatively short space. The benefit of modelling early (1880's) is that all the trains themselves are quite short so although I've gone up to a large gauge, the lengths are actually relatively consistent - and they're bloody gorgeous models as well.
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Jan 31, 2018 09:29
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Scharnhorst Issue 29 We get to add the railings to the middle deck structure. Luckily the brass is pretty robust, as we have to bend it to follow the outline of the deck. This is made a little bit easier by the tiny overhang of the PE already attached, but still is not exactly a walk in the park because the brass wants to return to its earlier shape. So you have to overbend a bit, but not too much. Only when the brass perfectly follows the shape of the deck, can you glue it down, otherwise internal forces will soon rip it clean off again. For the first time the kit drops the pretense of "being easy enough anyone can build it" and the fallout is of course a lot of new builders dropping out of the build and trying to sell or even just give away their incomplete Scharnhorsts.
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Jan 31, 2018 16:46
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Greyhawk posted:Scharnhorst Issue 29
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Feb 1, 2018 18:35
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I saw this advertised on TV once and immediately thought back to this channel. What do you think would happen if you put paint in this? This is more of a funny idea I had in my head not something I'm going to act on.
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Feb 3, 2018 07:14
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PYROxSYCO posted:
It would probably work okay. Airbrushed makeup has been a thing for a long time.
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Feb 3, 2018 07:23
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Sweet! My next project has arrived: Just from looking at the castings it seems to have much better quality than that ancient Italieri kit I did last. The only thing that looks like it could be troublesome are the vinyl tracks, but I'll see how much of a problem those are once I get there. The kit also has some photo-etch parts. Those were unheard of when I did modeling as a kid, so it's my first time doing those. Holy poo poo are the PE pieces tiny. Any hints how to not immediately ruin them?
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Feb 3, 2018 11:03
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PYROxSYCO posted:
That airbrush is sold for about 10 euros on Amazon. It works well enough, it's my basecoat brush.
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Feb 3, 2018 11:29
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Just started airbrushing an EA-6B with the AK Real Colors and I'm just blown away at how awesome it sprays. I loathe having to seal it to add effects, it just looks ultra-matte and beautiful.
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Feb 3, 2018 15:30
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Kurvi, with PE it helps to lightly sand them a bit while on the sprue so any glue/paint will hold better. If you stick some low-tack tape on one side the tiny pieces wont jump away, never to be found. You have to use CA glue for PE, I prefer to use the gel kind, its less messh to apply ( with a toothpick) and it doesnt seg immediatly so you can correct mistakes.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:09
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Gewehr 43 posted:How are going to paint that? I thought it was SOP to leave off the railings until everything was painted, then add them. (?) Usually yes, however this kit is much larger than your usual plastic kit. The PE is also placed on wood which has inherently much more variations from kit to kit than plastic. Which means we're going to have to do quite a bit of filling and sanding later including the areas where the railing connects.
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Feb 3, 2018 22:26
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Attention: CSPAM recreational robot building thread has announced their next theme. The theme is "historical empires." Please descend to CSPAM if interested (notice: water may not be potable in CSPAM, check the rules thread for necessary inoculations)
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Feb 5, 2018 22:50
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Finished the first section of outer planking, now just sanding down the edges so they're flush with the frames. Now on to something less tediou..... oh, just planking the inside now? Hmmmm.....
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Feb 7, 2018 01:38
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Looks aweome. Very nice job on the planking. One thing to watch out for with the next section is to be careful with the wood glue. The inner planks are going to be treated with wood stain and wood stain absolutely abhors wood glue. Scharnhorst issue 30  Installed more brass on the middle decks structure to simulate netting. Also extended the areas between the curved sections with a grating and railings.
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Feb 7, 2018 10:14
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Greyhawk posted:Looks aweome. Very nice job on the planking. One thing to watch out for with the next section is to be careful with the wood glue. The inner planks are going to be treated with wood stain and wood stain absolutely abhors wood glue. Good tip. I ran into a little trouble with glue that had squeezed out under the planks next to the rib faces, but I got rid of it in the end. I did go back though and lay in a bunch of glue on the rear faces of the planks next to the ribs. Should make the whole assembly rock solid.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:43
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Got in a fun little kit today. A workable model of one of Theo Jansens Strandbeests. Nice little quick 2 hour build, only thing needed was some snips. Works surprisingly well too. https://i.imgur.com/6iY65m5.gifv
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Feb 8, 2018 03:11
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So given this thread seems to cover a multitude of various modeling, I've got an odd project I need advice with. Me and my friends have a board game which we all love (Merchants and Marauders) and the board is basically a 1600s ish Caribbean map, so 80% water with a few small landmasses and a small amount of writing printed on the board. So we're wanting to build a 30" x 25" sea diorama basically to use as the board. It's been 20 odd years since I dabbled with terrain so I have a bunch of questions. 1: We'd like the water to have that nice subtle dappled sea look to it, however we also require the surface to be totally flat so our miniatures don't fall over for printed text. Does anyone have any suggestions? I wasn't sure if I could get away with pouring a very thin clear layer over sculpted water. 2: With wanting such a large board, I'm not sure how to handle rigidity. I was thinking either some 12/16mm wood as a base or split the board up into 2 or 3 smaller sections, though that might ruin the water effect? Also given how much of it is water, I'm worried it might come loose from the land it's poured in if the board flexed at all. 3: Related to 2, I'm not sure if it'd be easier to carve the map out of a big cheap sheet of foamboard/polystyrene/insulation or if it would be better to use layers of plywood to make a topographical map and smooth the ridges with putty. I was thinking of doing a few postcard sized test runs to practice and try out techniques before committing to such a big project. So if anyone has any suggestions of products/tutorials/whatnot I'd be very grateful for the help I did try searching extensively but the vast majority of the results were how to make realistic bow waves for large military ships, which has really cool maths and such depending on how fast the ship is traveling, but was mostly not helpful. Apologies for the derail, keep on posting cool poo poo, the stuff I see in this thread amazes me.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:23
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You could use whatever wood as a base, mark out the islands and paint the water parts with shades of blue. Then put a clear sheet of the plastic used in suspended fluorescent light fixtures, like this, over the whole thing. It's got nice sculpted water-like ridges, perfect for the scale you want, but is still flat enough you can put figures on it and they'll stand up. If the plastic doesn't properly carry the blue color from below, you can repaint it with transparent blue shades on top. Paint/draw in some lines for the territory boundaries. Then use something like Das putty, that air dries, to sculpt out some islands and let them dry in place on the water. Paint them up, maybe add some scale foliage with various grades of Woodlands Scenics products. Maybe add in some edging around the edge of the board to tidy it up, and you're done. Anything else is along the same lines just to add more flavor and detail.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:46
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So I guess I pretty much finished my tiny library. Absolutely loved building it and the amount of stuff you get to build for the cost is incredible (I paid 25 Euro, if I remember correctly). Next up is a "commission" from the same series of models. A friend who has a tailors shop wants a tiny tailors shop. Can do.
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Feb 8, 2018 13:16
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:Stuff Ooh yeah now that's an idea. I could probably use a sheet of insulation foam that matches my water level, then after I've carved out the sea areas the landmasses would be the correct height to place a sheet of "water" over the top to support the weight and keep it sturdy, then as you said add island over the top. It'd be super light which would make it easier to move around. I'll see what plastic water effect sheets I can find, see if anything suits. Thanks for the idea
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Feb 8, 2018 13:40
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Greyhawk posted:So I guess I pretty much finished my tiny library. Absolutely loved building it and the amount of stuff you get to build for the cost is incredible (I paid 25 Euro, if I remember correctly). Next up is a "commission" from the same series of models. A friend who has a tailors shop wants a tiny tailors shop. Can do. Oh my god please tell me they make a tiny Wunderkammer too 
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Feb 8, 2018 16:27
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Not yet, but they're extending the series continually, so possibly soon. https://www.robotimeonline.com/collections/diy-dollhouse
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Feb 8, 2018 16:40
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Greyhawk posted:So I guess I pretty much finished my tiny library. Absolutely loved building it and the amount of stuff you get to build for the cost is incredible (I paid 25 Euro, if I remember correctly). Next up is a "commission" from the same series of models. A friend who has a tailors shop wants a tiny tailors shop. Can do. I've been eyeing these(especially this one) myself as they're also present in Bulgaria for about the same price and they look so wonderfully detailed. How are they in terms of building and amount of work?
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Feb 8, 2018 17:48
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X posting from the projects thread as it’s a 1/16 scale model. That just happens to move. So over 10 years ago I got myself a remote control Heng Long Tiger 1. Heng Long are a Chinese company that make knock off versions of the models that Tamiya put out; the models aren't of great quality and break easily. However, they're very easy to fix and substantially cheaper than the Tamiya equivalents (think £140 vs £700) and a whole niche has sprung up about upgrading them with better quality parts, making them more realistic and so on. So my tank inevitably stripped its gears and I decided to upgrade it and convert it into a later model (ausf E). Bought a metal hull, metal wheels, metal gearboxes, metal tracks, you name it. Didn't have a loving clue what I was doing, ran out of money and then shelved it. So fast forwarding 10 years later, I've recently moved in with my partner and had dug the tank out. Looking at the sorry excuse for a panzer made me decide that I was finally going to finish what I started.  The lower hull was in good shape. The only issue was that the drive sprockets and rear idlers wouldn't stay on properly, so I stripped all the running gear out and got to work. Turned out that I had used the wrong screws for the sprockets, and this was why they wouldn't work properly - a victim of not knowing what the hell I was doing back then. The rear idlers obviously had the wrong type of axle; whether I had a different one that has since been lost I don't know. The only option was to order new ones, and as they come as a set with the sprockets it meant both components would be replaced.  The upper hull wasn't in such good shape. I had paint run from where I was too heavy with the spray paint (another victim of not knowing what the gently caress I was doing back then), and dust had been fused into the paint because I hadn't bothered to dust the model before applying the paint (add another to the list). The headlights were also damaged, but as this was supposed to end up as a late Tiger where it would have a single headlamp in a different position this wouldn't be an issue. Eventually I realised that it would cost more to buy the tools to bring this up to scratch than it would to simply get a whole new top hull. So I ordered a new hull with some photo etched brass engine grilles, and the quality difference was immediately apparent.  In addition to simply being better made, it had fixed some inaccuracies with the original; specifically the driver's vision block and the hull machine gun. The radio operator and driver hatches also open, providing a convenient place to mount and access power switches. It also came with all the required electronics; a new turret ring motor, hull gun light, and headlights.  The brass engine grilles would add a nice bit of detail for little effort once painted. As this was not based on any particular Tiger, and in order to save myself money and aggravation, I decided not to convert the headlamp arrangement into that of a late Tiger. This means that it would effectively be an early tank that had been extensively retrofitted. The tank had all its components for the lower hull, and it was time to order the gubbins to make the thing actually work. While there are some very impressive all singing all dancing boards out there, I opted for the standard Taigen package due to cost and simplicity.  The image above shows the tank with the speaker unit installed, and the plastic base removed so I can install the smoke unit, exposing the torsion bar suspension underneath.  All the gubbins are installed sans battery. The smoke unit was disconnected after an initial test as I have no fluid to use with it at present.  The tracks are on and the unit is ready for testing. While everything worked the direction control was inverted, so after getting some advice I switched the wires around and this fixed the issue. So it was time to try again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCD3osiYlKU IT'S ALIVE!!! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!! This hull has sat dormant for a decade but for the first time it was moving under its own power. So it works! Now the current list of tasks for the hull looks like this:
While this is going on, I need to see if I can salvage the original turret as its condition is not far off the original top hull. I also need to decide which camo scheme to apply to the tank, but that will wait until the turret is mated with the hull and the structure of the model is effectively finished.  So far today I’ve pulled the turret apart. The shell might be ok but the gubbins inside are totally shot. If the cost of new gubbins matches that of a new turret I know what option I’m taking.
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Feb 8, 2018 18:27
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After painting this F-14 cockpit I think I'm going to go aftermarket for any modern aircraft and do resin/photoetch from now on. Turns out I'm really bad at brush painting.
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Feb 9, 2018 01:01
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EDIT: Double Post.
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Feb 9, 2018 01:01
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Greyhawk posted:So I guess I pretty much finished my tiny library. Absolutely loved building it and the amount of stuff you get to build for the cost is incredible (I paid 25 Euro, if I remember correctly). Next up is a "commission" from the same series of models. A friend who has a tailors shop wants a tiny tailors shop. Can do. That's baller as gently caress. Gonna buy that exact set.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:41
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Howdy thread. I've been stripping paint off a bunch of styrene figures with Dettol and a resin figure got into the mix. Paint came off just fine and all the detail is there but the thinner parts are quite soft and flexible now. I imagine it'll probably firm up a little with a base coat, but it's there anything else I could do?
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Feb 9, 2018 06:34
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Wait and see what happens, or give it a coat of varnish or maybe thinned PVA to add a bit of surface-tension to the model. Also next time consider Cilit Bang degreaser, that seems kinder to resin.
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Feb 9, 2018 07:01
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