Progress update and Helpful Handy Hint #1

Lets see, I've made a little bit of progress since last post. Got the remainder of the base-coating done on the legs and I've started shading. I might do more tonight. At any rate, my weekend starts tomorrow (technically today), so I'll have a couple of days to maybe finish the legs and move on to torsos.


Not much to look at I know, but you can kinda see some of the shading on the gray. I'll start touching that up once I add Shadow to the green.

On another note, I've gotten a better handle on my camera, and the pictures are starting to turn out much better. Still have a bit of graininess to purge and I'll be good to go. Now, on to...

Helpful handy Hint #1
So, whether or not anyone reads this, I'm going to start sharing some of the tricks I've picked up and find the useful. I'm no expert but, hey, I cans till share my insights.

For the first Helpful handy Hint, I'm going to talk about Tamiya Smoke. This stuff is great! It's best use is for making metal look all neat and weathered. Before I found this stuff, I used to use GW armor wash or black wash to take the edge of of metal paint's shininess and to add depth to armor and the like. This stuff is waaaay better at doing that.

Its a lot more transparent than inks and a little weird to work with at first (due to its thickness) and takes a bit to dry (about an hour), but its well worth it. Just dab some of this on over a metallic base coat and then highlight once its dry and you're set. You can re-apply to get darker and darker shades. Smoke is basically just a better way to make metal look good and operates on the same principals as washes and inks. I honestly don't know what I did before I found this.


Quick note, make sure you buy the acrylic version of the this. Tamiya makes some enamel paints as well, and they need special cleaning supplies and don't mix with any water-base paint you may be using.