NEW Acrylicos Vallejo Metal Colors and Angel Giraldez paint sets

My pinturas has arrived! Just got my NEW Acrylicos Vallejo Metal Colors and Angel Giraldez paint sets to test this coming weekend! My day job has been killing me for the past month, I have been sleeping over the office for almost 3 weeks now and I only go home every Sundays. Weekend-less and workload these days means very little time to paint and do my commissioned works. Very little time to test and play with my new pinturas!



However, I should be able to take a leave of absence this Friday and have a 3 day weekend. That means 2 days of painting and a whole day for the family ( Sunday )! I have been sleeping over here at the office since Monday but I just got my new pinturas yesterday. My pinturas almost made me go home yesterday, but figured to finish everything before finally coming home this Friday.



Anyways, I just got the new Acrylicos Vallejo METAL Colors! These new metal color set is not yet  at the Acrylicos Vallejo website, but should be available to retail stores around late August or September. I also got a few other auxiliary products which should make using the paints even more fun and easy. I got the Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, Cleaner and Flow Improver. The Flow Improver is practically a retarder of sorts that improves airbrush use of heavy pigmented colors.



The oddest product I got is the Metal Varnish. I think it is a gloss varnish with micro glitters to enhance the shimmering effect of metallic paints. The Metal Varnish should add more bling bling to your metal finish which makes the Metal Colors and Metal Varnish perfect for bling bling Gunpla projects. I hope to test these new sets on spoons and quick Gunpla projects soon!



I also got 3 new paint sets that was developed in partnership with Angel Giraldez. The Game Air Face Painting set, The Special Effects set and the Non Death Chaos paint set. These beautiful specially formulated and mixed colors also come with step by step instruction guides on how to use. I will post a different photo review on each set as soon as I get home.



Please stay tuned as I test all these stuffs on my projects in the coming weeks. Should come up with new finished projects soon as I should no longer be busy at work. Thanks as always for dropping by as always! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby!

DC23 Pilot Painting Contest

Greattoysonline.com and myhmshop.com ( Hobbymate ) has agreed to sponsor our first "Pilot Painting Contest "( PPC )! Greattoysonline.com and myhmshop.com ( Hobbymate ) ships world wide so everyone in this planet is eligible to join! GreatToysOnline.com will be shipping a couple of Gundam Metallic Nano Puzzles, myhmshop.com will be shipping a HM135 .3 nozzle airbrush and yours truly will be shipping a set of Vallejo Acrylic Paints. 😊

I am most active at Instagram ( @dc23_mecharts ) and also active at My Facebook fan page and group page, but I will be requiring all participants to email me their entries during the contest. Using my hashtag #DC23mecharts at Facebook and Instagram is also a basic requirement. So here are the rules guys...

PPC RULES & MECHANICS

1. Paint any 1/144, 1/100 or 1/60 pilot figure from any of your Bandai kits.

2. Each participant is allowed to enter 5 painted pilot figures.

3. Good photography is an advantage as we will be judging based on your photos alone.

4. Email your entries at donc0023@yahoo.com

5. Label or title your email with PPC ENTRY. One email per entry ( each participant can submit 3 entries ). Include your name ( real name and hobby name ) and the scale of the pilot figure in your emails.

6. Each email should include 3 photos. Front, Back and most importantly a photo of the figure on top of any unpainted / painted Gundam head. The last photo requirement will ensure that the photo and entry is yours.

7. Use my hashtag #DC23mecharts and #DC23PPC whenever you post your entries at both Instagram and Facebook.

8. Deadline for submission is on March 31, 2015. You can submit on or before the deadline. 

PRIZES

ALL entries will be featured at DC23-mecharts Blogsite, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook page and group page. Winners will be notified and will be asked for their shipping address for the prizes. All prizes will be shipped by Greattoysonline.com and myhmshop.com ( Hobbymate ) directly to the winners.

Hope to see those awesome pilot figures soon! Thanks for dropping by! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! 

Some Vallejo Acrylic Supplies to Test

I needed to re-stock my Vallejo supplies as I have so many projects to do. So I got myself some supplies today and a few Vallejo stuffs to test. I have a few or most of the Vallejo pigments, washes and Inks already and I am expecting a whole set of Vallejo Game Air soon... So I thought of testing the Vallejo Liquid Gold and Silver range ( alcohol base ) and the White Stone Liner.



I am also suppose to get a THINNING MEDIUM to slow down the drying process ( during hand painting ) of my Vallejo acrylic paints. A slower drying time means better or longer control of the flow of the paint. The slower drying time should be great for creating those rain and rust streaks on weathered models. I figured the MATT MEDIUM should work about the same as the thinning medium. If not will experiment on using the Matt Medium with my Vallejo pigments instead.



Other than the usual AIRBRUSH THINNER that acts as an acrylic retarder to convert non-Air paints for airbrushing, I also got a huge 200ml bottle of SURFACE PRIMER. Much like the Vallejo Varnishes, I love the surface primer so much as they dry fast, dry smooth and thin and strong enough to bind with the plastic surface. Vallejo claims that their surface primers are also suitable for RESIN kits, and metal ( I have tried it on pewter and it cures as hard as rock after a couple of months ), but I have yet to try them on resin kits. Will do test this surface primer on a resin kit soon.



The WHITE STONE LINER should work as a nice ( maybe stronger ) alternative to Tamiya White Putty. Vallejo claims it contains marble dust and white titanium paint and that it cures to a very hard solid material ( marble hard most likely ). Unlike the Tamiya putty, the white stone liner is water soluble so clean up is easier. Both can be sanded and shaped once dry ( 30 minutes or so after application ). What I like with this putty type product of Vallejo is the bottle! Much like their paints, the bottle design will prevent curing and hardening and if you use it as a putty, it is easier to apply as it has a really narrow snout to dispense.

The LIQUID GOLD paints from Vallejo looks like and shines like real metal!



The Vallejo liquid gold series claims to contain real metal pigments. Thus these paints are TOXIC and are ALCOHOL base ( not water base ). Contact with water will RUST the paints! So a separate set of brushes should be used and clean up with 99% alcohol after use. Interesting that Vallejo warns as that the paints will rust in contact with water, this could look really cool as you get to produce real rust ( will also test this feature ). However Vallejo claims that after curing ( a few minutes as these paints dry really fast ), these paints are very strong and will not require sealing of type of varnish.

I am so excited to test these super metallic paints on piston parts and other details. I bought 3 bottles today. I got the Rich Gold, Copper and Silver ( more like Chrome ) colors!



I will be putting up separate posts of each of these Vallejo products once I have tested them! Hope you find this post helpful? Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! :)

Full Styrene Custom Base and Texturing with Paints

I wanted to do a quick project that would help me focus on painting and weathering so I decided to pull out an old unfinished project and crafted a quick base using styrene. As I've said in my previous post HERE, I am trying to improve my bases and the overall presentation of my builds. I want my build to look like sculptures.



I basically used my old 1/48 Zaku and removed most of it's limbs. I will need to detail up and add battle damage effects on the kit before painting. But painting and weathering of this project should be fun as I am working on a 1/48 scale. Meaning rust streaks and paint and armor chippings are very much visible unlike on 1/100 kits.

After setting up the pose of the limb-less kit, I then started painting the ground work. As is obvious with the photos above, the ground work and the whole base is made entirely of styrene. I used PU reducer to melt all those styrene chips together.



I am using the paints to create rough texture and not "paint" the ground work. After the modifications on the kit, I will be re-priming the whole thing using Vallejo Surface Primer ( Black ). I want to show everyone how I quickly added texture to the smooth surface of the styrene ground work with paints. I left this curing earlier today and should be nice and hard once I get home from work.



I basically hand brushed 2 coats of Vallejo Grey Primer. It surprisingly dried after around 30 minutes and dried smooth. Weird as I was not careful and just applied the primer thickly. Apparently the Grey primer has some sort of self-leveling properties.

I think but I am not sure, the Vallejo Acrylic Studio are the cheapest paints from Vallejo. This huge bottle only costs around 8 small bottles of Vallejo Model Color. Such a bargain for a paint this much. I was expecting lesser quality in terms of opacity from this paint. However the photos shows just a couple of coats which reveals that it is very opaque! Pretty high pigment count for it's price range.



I do think lighter colors of the Vallejo Acrylic Studio are not as opaque. As lighter colors tend to be more transparent and requires more coats of paint to fully cover the surface.

I did not let the Vallejo Acrylic Studio to dry at all... I immediately dabbed some Vallejo texture paint ( Oxid Paste ) to the surface. Resulting to some blending of textures and colors. I honestly need some Vallejo Black Lava texture paints as that paint has heavier or has a rougher texture. Adding a bit of Black Lava paint should give more variation to the texture.

This will dry to a nice rubbery - plasticky material and once you dabbed more paint or texture paint, you will be producing a rougher texture. The textures shown on the photo were hand painted on a very smooth ( primed ) styrene ground work. So painting over this surface should produce a rougher texture.



I then need to modify the kit and add battle damaged effects soon. Once I finished working on the kit, I could then re-prime the whole piece and start the actual painting. As I've said, I used the paints above to create the basic texture of the ground work and not to paint the kit. Stay tuned and you'll see updates of the results soon!



Last tip with dabbing paints and using texture paints... make sure you use really old OR really cheap brushes as texture paints ( much more dabbing texture paints ) will ruin your brushes. Ruins brushes much more than dry-brushing actually.



Thanks as always for dropping by! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! :)

Weathered OR Clean for my PG SF???

I am having second thoughts on the eventual finishing of my OLD Boys GB project if I will do a clean build or a weathered build due to Mr.Gav's WIP photos of his PG RX build.



Unlike Mr.Gav of Gavin Lee Manners, I very seldom do clean builds. I think I only have a couple of clean builds which are my MG Acguy and my commissioned work RG Aile Strike Gundam. I originally wanted to finish my PG SF clean... but as I've said Mr.Gav's work on his PG RX is poison!!! Great stuff as always and I am looking forward to the completed build!



I am as always leaning towards weathering my PG... I just think it will blend better on my diorama. I just can't make up my mind. Oh well... will see sooner than later. Will work on the diorama this weekend as I am itchy to weather and hand paint all of sudden.



Do check out Mr.Gav at his website at Gavin Lee Manners and also check his new account at Instagram...

GAVINMANNERS @Instagram

WIP: GW LOTR Mordor Orcs - clothes painting

I have painted all the red and green clothes / areas of all the 24 Games Workshop LOTR Mordor Orcs a couple of days ago. I have also painted the dark browns on the the parts. All of the green skin, green clothes and red clothes have highlights, edge lining and washes already.



The figures are being painted with Vallejo Model Color as usual but the washes are Windsor & Newton oil paints. Loving the oil paints very much but I have yet to invest on more tubes / colors.



I like taking photos of my progress as I see my imperfections in the close up pics. Some of the highlight colors are a bit thick and the washes are a little bit too dark. These are my first miniatures and painting all 24 of them should be a great learning experience as I paint more complex and more detailed miniatures very soon.



These are plastic figures and I am looking forward to leveling up to their metal counterparts very soon! Anyways here are a few progress shots of my Mordor Orcs...

WIP: GW LOTR Mordor Orcs - Green Orc Skin

These are my Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Mordor Orcs figures and I continued working on them last night.



I managed to paint 14 Mordor Orcs with green skin for a couple of hours before going to sleep yesterday. I plan to paint the other 4, orange skinned and the other 6, red skinned. As usual I painted these with Vallejo paints using Olive Green, Yellow Green and Yellow Ochre. I thinned the paints to skim milk consistency and applied around 3 coats for the base olive green coat.



I have yet to paint the eyes and have yet to apply some washes. Some washes would hopefully bring out more details on the skin parts soon.



I was pretty surprise that I somehow still have a steady hand and a sharp eye ( not getting any younger after all ). I painted these without any magnifying lenses and somehow it looks kinda okay for my first miniature attempt. 1/35 figures are suddenly so big and easy! lol



This is sooooo fun! Pretty nostalgic too as I used to paint and draw a lot back in college ( I took up Fine Arts ). Also really glad that my hands are still steady enough for this and eyes are working just fine. Hope to show you better updates soon, just too excited I had to post my green orc skin first attempt. :)