MkIV Assault Squad - Part III (Showcase)

 

Jumpy jump jumps.

The MkIV armour assault squad is now considered finished. It was a background task, but as I was close to having them done anyway I thought may as well complete them and move onto something else in the background.

Overall they look ok in a squad, but the sculpts definitely have a few issues up close. I did not bother to clean them up perfectly, and neither did I bother to fix up every single spattered appearance from the airbrush. This is something I'm doing more of basically because there's very little reason to do so: the models look fine as they are, and I know I can fix up all of those issues if I wanted to. I have the skills, so anything more for numbers is just going to take extra time and make painting frustrating instead of enjoyable.

The whole point of painting these models is to have fun. For the most part, I do. Sometimes I need to push myself however and picture how everything will look when it's all completed and on display. I'm not collecting an army to play with, it's just going to look nice on a shelf, and this is partially why I buy very few of the same thing. I want different models, different poses, different details. If I was painting exactly the same model over and over again, I simply wouldn't bother collecting anything. I'm therefore not in any hurry to paint more of these, unless perhaps they're in plastic.

I did re-edge highlight this squad after varnishing, just to bring out the edges again. Using thinned reds works nicely enough, particularly Wild Rider Red. That just looks old and faded with the varnish, but afterwards the vibrancy is restored and the armour returned to the strong red tones I favour. I still need to work on my value contrast when airbrushing though - it's still very subtle by the end and doesn't define volumes as well as I would like.

The decals (not really visible in the photo) I tried something different with here too, by using distilled white vinegar. It did make the decals very soft and helped them conform to the surfaces, but also created a milky look to the transparent sections that not even the matt varnish helped with. I had to paint over those areas to blend them back into the model, but it honestly did not work the way I wanted. I'll stick to other products in future.

Not too much else to mention. Painting-wise, nothing I've not already mentioned, but as the details became fewer I did manage to batch paint them more effectively. I'm not good at batch painting, but I'm slowly being able to do little bits & pieces at a time while listening to podcasts, music, etc. The next background model task will probably be another set of give, so perhaps I can continue that - if not, there is no harm to only doing what I feel like at any given time.

The count is increased and now stands at 12.

-- silly painter.