Hairspray weathering – Imperial Bastion painting tutorial.

 

Olá Leitor.

 

Esta é a versão em inglês do artigo sobre a técnica de pintura conhecida como “Técnica do Laquê” (“Hairspray Weathering” em inglês). Para conferir a versão em português você pode clicar o link.

 

Abraço e até breve.

 

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Hello Reader.

 

Preparations for the “Rumble in the Jungle II – A Missão” continue very much like the series of famous Hollywood movies: Fast and furious.

 

In between all the miriad things involved in running a tournament I also took the time to work on some new scenery pieces to dress our tables for the event. If you’re following our Facebook page or our Instagram account you’ve probably seen a sneak peek of what we’ve been working on, and because of the photos we’ve published on the aforementioned social media outlets, we have received a few requests to share how we went about weathering some of the scenery pieces we’ve been working on.

Not wanting to keep my readers in the dark I thought it would be a nice idea to share the painting process of one of my new scenery pieces, an Imperial Bastion from Games Workshop.

 

Unfortunately I won’t have here photographs of the first steps of the painting process (which I’ll probably cover in more detail in another article soon), but it is pretty simple and easy to understand with a description.

 

I started by applying a black primer over the entire model, followed by an application of a dark metallic paint covering all the primer. When the metallic paint dried I applied a paint mixture to simulate rust, a lot like what I described on my salt weathering article.

 

When that rust wash was dry it was finally time to begin painting and to begin this quick tutorial article.

 

When I was researching weathering techniques and came across the aforementioned salt weathering technique I also found out about hairspray weathering, which consisted in applying a coat of hairspray to your model before applying paint and later peeling off the paint to reveal whatever was underneath when the paint applied over the hairspray was moistened with warm water.

 

Acording to the articles this technique produced a great effect of scratched paint, which is exactly what I wanted for this scenery piece in particular, so it was high time I gave it a go. So my first step was to apply a coat of hairspray on top of the entire model after the rusted metallic basecoat was dry. In order to protect the original paint I applied a coat of gloss varnish and waited for it to dry before I applied the hairspray.

 

In order to protect the metallic basecoat I used a couple coats of gloss varnish.

 

On top of that I then applied a couple of coats of hairspray.

 

With the hairspray dry it was time to begin painting. Using an airbrush I applied a coat of yellow over the entire model.

 

The yellow paint applied on top of the hairspray.

 

The cracks on the paint appeared almost instantly as the paint dried on top of the hairspray.

 

A detail shot of the cracks. I didn’t distress the paint in any way to get those. I noticed that when using the paint more diluted I got more cracks, and when using it straight from the bottle I got less of them.

 

I painted two Imperial Bastions, so, in order to differentiate between the two, I thought about making this one a command fortification. To denote the differentiated status I decided to apply a strip of a different color on some of the building’s facades, and to protect the yellow from overpray from the airbrush I used some masking tape.

 

I used some Tamiya masking tape I had here to protect the yellow from overspray. It is important to allow the paint to fully dry in order to avoid the masking tape pulling paint in places you don’t want it to.

 

The masking tape also helped me to delineate the red stripe running down the bastion.

 

The red applied on the opposite face of the building. The red was applied using low air pressure in order to try to minimize overspray.

 

How it looked with the masking tape removed. You’ll probably notice some mistakes where the red seeped under the masking tape. I distressed the paint in those places, hiding the mistakes.

 

 

With my base colors done, it was time to begin the weathering process. Different from the salt weathering technique, when all I had to do was dousing the salt with water and wait for it to dissolve, the process here takes a while longer and demands a little more effort, but gives in my opinion it gives the painter a lot more control over where you’ll get the scratches on the paint.

 

To start the process you need to apply some warm water on top of model moistening the paint. The water will seep through and dissolve the hairspray beneath loosening the paint applied on top of it and allowing us to scratch it off using a toothpick or a brush with stiff bristles.

 

With the paint moistened with water it is easy to start scraping it off where you want, using a toothpick.I used a wooden skewer.

 

Another shot showcasing the process. By varying the pressure applied you can opt to reveal the base paint, or any layer in between, giving a truly realistic effect to the weathering.

 

The Imperial Bastion with a lot of its paint already scraped off. I used a paintbrush to remove the yellow paint from metallic areas such as the metal banding or the windows, brushing the yellow off.

 

After I was done with removing the paint I felt like the bastion needed that extra “bling” to further enforce its command status, and I felt this would be a great opportunity to use a stencil. I had a couple of self adhesive vinyl stencils produced by Fallout Hobbies to use with airbrushes, especially their Vehicle Squad stencil (for adding unit markings to vehicles) which sported a skull with laurels which would be spot on for what I needed.

 

Fallout Hobbies self-adhesive vinyl stencils.

 

The instructions for using them. Being self-adhesive means you’re going to get some extra uses out of the stencil, but they’re not going to last forever.

 

It was time to add masking tape to the model again.

 

The stencil has enough tack to it to hold itself in place ensuing a very nice finish to it, but I also used masking tape to avoid overspray. The first coat of color was a very light gray.

 

The gray was followed by a coat of white. Both coats were applied with an airbrush, bus as the stencil adhered quite nicely I believe similar results could be obtained by stippling the paint with a sponge over the stencil.

 

The command symbol painted on.

 

After the detail was applied with the stencil I added some weathering to it, distressing the paint just like I had done to the yellow and red previously applied.

 

When distressing the newly painted symbol I tried to respect the orinally distressed paint areas.

 

By respecting the areas of paint already peeled off, you give a much more realistic look to the paintjob.

 

After I was satisfied with all the weathering to the paint I sealed the paintjob with another coat of gloss varnish and proceeded to add some rust streak marks using the same mixture of paints originally applied to the metallic basecoat. I also went back to some of the metal parts that looked too dulled and re-applied some of the original metal color.

 

Rust streak marks are painted where rain water would run.

 

I tried to respect the Bastion’s contours when painting the streak marks.

 

When I was done with all the weathering steps it was time to add the fine detail to the building painting some lenses and lamps. For the lamps I wanted to try some OSL (Object Source Lighting) so I broke out the airbrush once more to paint the lighting effect.

 

The servo skull lenses and sensors were painted red.

 

I got carried away and don’t have step by step shots of the painting process for the lights. This shot shows the two diferent tones of green painted with semi trasnparent paint in a circle around the light source.

 

Lighter shades of green were applied on top of the original green shades.

 

By respecting the original halo of green paint, and applying subsequent layers of brighter greens to the center of the light source, we create the ilusion of luminescence on the model.

 

In the end the entire process was a great learning experience of yet another useful technique I’ve added to my repertoire, and I was really satisfied with the final result, which I’ll showcase soon on the gaming tables of the Rumble in The Jungle II.

 

The final paintjob.

 

The opposite side.

 

One of the yellow faces of the Imperial Bastion.

 

And on that note, we wrap up this article. See you soon!

 

Over and out.

 

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