Maybe I should have retitled this post How Bad can it Get! My plan, a simple plan was to repaint this second-hand miniature of Abaddon the Despoiler with red and gold armour, as featured in the Cool Mini or Not 2008 Annual. Simple. But read on to see how bad it actually got.
Photo One - To help increase the vibrancy of the red, I decided that I would paint over the Black basecoat with Light Grey or White. I roughly drybrushed the Ghost Grey (from Vallejo) over most of the miniature then with less paint - lightly drybrushed Skull White from Games Workshop over the top of this. My idea was to build up the red with a newly purchased tube paint - Brilliant Red from Reeves, a Water Based Oil Colour. The plan was that the red would be more brilliant over a white/grey undercoat than a black one.
Photo Two - Reeves Water Based Oil Colour, Brilliant Red.
Photo Three - The base coated figure, three very light coats of Brilliant Red. I think you can see that the paint goes on very smoothly, giving uniform colour and coverage. My only criticism was that I found the red a little too orange - very Blood Angels Red and not the dark crimson I was looking for with this miniature. I was not too disappointed as my plan was to 'wash' the red armour with Baal Red Wash from Citadel.
Photo Four - This was not what I expected! The Citadel Wash, washed away the oil based paint! Leaving a very pinkish and grainy paint finish, as stated - not what I had expected at all. The thought of a Pink Abaddon was quite disturbing and as well as the shock (yes shock) of the paint being washed off so very easily, the wash had also highlighted a grainy paint finish.
Photo Five - I washed the miniature under running water and using a toothbrush was able to remove most of the red paint. The actual miniature is not damaged and I will now go back to my usual paints and build up the Red Armour with traditional modelling paints - Vallejo, Games Workshop and some Foundry acrylics.
In summary the experiment has been a total failure, but I will recover and future On-Line builds will not be using Water Based Oil Colour.For anyone thinking of experimenting with these paints, remember to test the paint on a scrap model or surface before doing as I have.
With a very pink Abaddon the Despoiler and feeling just a little bit silly, I'll sign off for now.
Tony
5 comments:
Heya Tony,
If it's a 100% metal mini throw it in a jar with some Nitromors and leave overnight. Mini will come up looking like new in the morning after a toothbrushing. It's how I clean up all my eBay metal minis that have stange paint jobs. Nitromors melts plastic though, on more than one occasion plastic additions (non essential stuff like heads, arms, weapons and legs) have melted off overnight :S
Craig
"With a very pink Abaddon the Despoiler..." - Doctor please provide one bucket of brain bleach - extra strong! Quick!
If it helps you have saved me some grief. I was going to get a tube or two of these paints to try next time I was in town - now I'll just get some more metal stuff :-)
Thanks for having the guts to show errors as well as the good bits.
Andrew
Hi Dampf, great blog, this may be of some use.
I use artists acryllics for washes and block coats and I think that you may have something more like a water colour paint. I have had a very similar experience, no matter how long I left the paint on as soon as I went to go over it it just gave way and broke down. I have had it happen with a paint which was specifically for water colour and an older tuber of chromacolour which I assumed was an oil replacement but as soon as it is diluted it just did not stop from breaking down with later coats.
I was pretty determined to see if I could make this work so I'm using another chroma product which is specifically called artist acryllic and in the art shop and on the brochure it is shown as specifically designed to replace oils. Once it has dried in wash or diluted form or hardened as straight from the tube it does not break down at all. Im still a bit of a preppy at the painting bizzo but I think this might be what your looking for if your still keen to give it a try.
http://www.chromaonline.com/products/atelier_interactive/colour_range
regards
dave
I used to paint on canvas a lot with oils, and have recently started using them on figures.
The thing about oils is they take a long time to dry. I mean a really long time.
sometimes years. depending how thickly the paint is applied.
now the thickness we would use on a mani, still is going to take days. - I have a space wolf here whose blade was painted with oils three days a go, hes just about dry now. but to be sure I'm going to seal the area before I do anything else to it.
now add to that using water based oils, yeah I can totally see how that happened to your abbadon.
My suggestion would be this - do try them again, but use them on a smaller area and make it the last thing you do o that guy for a good few days. i'd paint a weapon blade in the final stages then do soemthing else for a few days :)
there are some things they do better than acrylic - lighter colours retain thier strength, and the blending is easier. so it is worth another go-round :)
Thanks for all the comments. I have just repainted Abaddon (the red bits) using more traditional acrylic paints - expect a quick update very soon.
Tony
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