40k-Speedpainting-Challenge: A Battalion of Kasrkin in one Weekend ***COMPLETED***
2310h: What I've been waiting for...
When doing such a project like this there is always the fear something can go wrong. You always wait for it. And now it happened. The Decals went wrong. Not terribly, but enough to have shaken my confidence for about an hour. So I took a shower, helped myself to a beer and a piece of cold pizza and fixed the problem.
As I said the Decals are old Emperors Children Decals by GW. Like 10 years old. They applied easily and had the normal air bubbles and kinks for decals applied on a round surface.
Air bubbles and kinks in the decals (expected)I’ve expected this as I have applied decals to many Space Marines. I grabbed my wonder weapon Micro Sol. This is a decal solvent and normally takes care of flattening the decals in 2-4 applications. As nothing was happening after like the 10th application I was getting really nervous.
Google told me that old decals are much thicker than new ones and much harder. So decal solvents have problem softening them. I had a choice to make. Repaint the shoulder pads or try to fix it. After said shower, beer and pizza I decided to try and fix it. I applied Mirco Sol a few more times in much shorter intervals and much thicker. And it worked. Puhhh…
As on other projects I used quite a hard brush to flatten the decals so they ripped in a few parts giving them a used look. So if you want to point out that I ripped the decals, that’s actually on purpose.
To seal the decals I used a single layer of Army Painter Anti Shine (from the dropper bottle).
But see for yourself
Entire Battalion with the golden "screaming" eagle
Decal on a Plasma Gunner
Larger Decal on the Prime's Cloak
The Psyker looks a bit like a Boxer now heading to the ringNow onto Dipping. I will use Army Painter Quick Shade Dark Tone from the big 250ml tin. That’s the solvent based stuff. I love the results of this, but I hate doing this. I always fear that something will go wrong. But it never has. Until now. Keep your fingers crossed…
This!!!!
I have been dipping literally hundreds of models using the pliers method. And I never thought of this. Several times I have dropped a model as I was shaking it smashing it into the ground. This especially happens with metal models.
Now this changes everything!
Did you ever experience that the centrifugal force was too powerful basically removing all the ink and not just the excess?
Yes I had that @puyzen . If you thin down your dip or let it rotate for too long. With “normal” dip after like 15s nearly nothing is left. But they still will be shiny. Actually it happened to me a bit in this project, as I didn’t shake my dip sufficiently and had a bit too thin mix. But it also happened the other way around. I tried several cordless drills (to be used on wood screws or built an ikea cabinet) and they just don’t have enough rotational speed. Just give it a try. You can stop after… Read more »
Cool. Thanks. I use the Army Painter dip and never dilute it so it should work fine I guess…
Next question 😉 How do you get the bases off of the nails? They seem hard to get to under the “lip” of the base. Do you simply cut them off?
That is actually a good question. I use a single drop of super glue (the gelly type). On this project I used a bit more as it were old slit bases and the head of the nail did not have that much contact area. The trick is to use enough glue so the models don’t fly off when you mount the on the drill (happend to me twice so far). And not to use too much glue (happened more often). With these bases I was just able to break them of the nails due to the small contact area. Full… Read more »
Got it! Thanks a lot for the thorough reply (and the great project blog).
Now back to my 60 Napoleonic French Infantry that I have to finish up 😉 I will definitely use some of your tricks on them…