2 Pairs of balls!
What a marathon of painting 2 large Age of Sigmar Models Oh lordy! These large projects really test your limits in both patience and endurance to perform well and more importantly on time. To do one, let alone two of these is no tall order, but as I’ve said before, these are some of my favourite sculpts to paint from the AoS line. It also helps that I’m more familiar with the sculpt overall so it was much more of playing with colours than anything. I understood the light positioning even better from the first Mauler, so it was all about looking at the places to improve and execute.
The bigger things that jumped out from my experience have more to do with the colours than anything. If you want to know more about the processes and thought from the neon and such, I suggest reading back a few entries to get the landscape of this segment. Painting again with a majority of it being AK Interactive 3rd gen paint was refreshing and these paints have changed in opinion from what I thought of them a year ago.
Initially, I do not like how they mixed. Using them over a year ago yielded less favourable results as mine were tending to separate more on the palette being thinning with water. It would be quite a problem as I wanted more transparency with my mark and also to leave a softer feel. With the paint consistency changing so quickly and even separating on the palette, it was hard to keep control of the paint well enough to be reliable on it. I was much happier with them through the airbrush as they covered very well and the flow action was really nice, a close second to Tamiya Paints.
Fast forward to this project and I’ve decided to give them another go. Sometimes painting with different brands is a nice change-up and feel of a painting. You get a slightly different colour palette and brush marks you make on the model. Even the finish can feel a little different. Playing with the AK paints again I found out what I was doing wrong and the best current way for me to paint with them.
To get the desired transparency I wouldn’t think as much as I did in the past. I was going 3:1 ratio of water to paint with a lot of layering and small mark build-ups of volumes. What I’ve found is that I will now thin to an average layer of 1:1, but when I need a more transparent mark I won’t fully dry my brush, and come in with a slightly more damp brush. I would get it thinned within the brush and mixed more in the belly, the first mark of a freshly loaded brush would be a bit more opaque (this is why I generally aim in the middle of shapes). Then the subsequent strokes would get a little bit thinner and softer on the mark. I combine that with 1.5 years of progression and I have a paint that I was happy to have on the brush for this project.
Following up on these AK paints will be returning to a lot of dark colours with the Ascended Horus Luprical! With more colours to test out, especially this small 4-colour Wargame Eternal Darkness that will make up most of his dark armour plating. Their greys in the past were the most notorious for separating me, and I would much favour the Vallejo Model Colour with then Scale75 to take the top spot on my bench.
If any of the readers, students, and/or members of the Pro Palette want to try a few colours from AK, I do have some doubles that were sent to me that I’ll be happy to ship them to. Please shoot me a message on Discord or DM me on Instagram.
Peace
