Fen Model Show 2025

 This is a followup to the previous post but focused on the Fen Model Show, which I had a chance to attend recently (and where I saw Two Thin Coats on display). I have yet to pull photos from my camera, so this will be another text-only post.

Overall I quite liked the event. I guess it needs to be compared to Kontrast Festival, even if that's not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison. Before anything else, however, there was one major issue when attending - and it was nothing to do with the event directly, but more some of the people there. Display areas are always crowded as people shuffle along to look at all the models and appreciate the effort put into items on display, but as a result there's also a continuous pressure to look and move along so the next person can see them. I tried to go through with my camera as fast as possible and get snaps of anything that jumped out at me, and tried to arrive early to beat the crowds (spoiler: that didn't work). A group of about 3 or 4 people however were _constantly_ in the way of everywhere I tried to turn. They just stood chatting and blocking access to everything. I believe one of them was an organiser too, who should know better. The polite and sensible thing to do would be to stand back slightly and let others pass by, but nope: they stood in the display area, they stood at the entrance, they stood at the stalls, and in two cases just pushed in front of myself. Rude little buggers. I held my tongue for my own sake (I didn't have anything on display personally and wasn't in a rush, I just don't like being blocked when I want to move) but someone else did tell them to step out of the way. It still left a poor impression and honestly is a deal breaker: I won't be in any hurry to go back if I'm not entering anything personally.

It wasn't poorly laid out, but anyone running such an event by now should recognise this is going to happen. Even a sign to remind me to basically keep it moving and allow others to have a look would be enough. You can't force people to file past, but you can hint at people to stop being pricks.

Actually this is something kind of important - I was so put off from dealing with the above that I purposefully tried to avoid looking at the models....when at a model show. It defeats the whole point of going there really, so it would be nice to see the problem being addressed in future. It's extra annoying because it's a paid event.

There was a good range of vendors with product to display. Not many, but a good range. Plinths, 3d prints, resin prints, brushes, paints, accessories, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, movie (I _really_ wanted Vasquez), etc. Even Element Games was there (with a bust by Angel Giraldez tucked away in a corner, so I picked that up). When I was at Kontrast Festival last time I had found the models to be much the same: mostly female, mostly sexualised, nothing particularly jumping out as different. Maybe that changed this year, don't know as I didn't go, but there was a wide variety at the Fen Model Show. Male, female, human, animal, robot, it was really all there.

This expression of diverse possibilities extended into the models on show as well. The competition wasn't about winning first, second, third, so much as about showing off models. Everything was welcome, there was no particular requirement - and I even saw someone showing off his daughter's models next to his own. I think I enjoyed that so much more than everyone trying to be the best to win and it naturally encouraged people to enter models that were just plain different. It wasn't really same-y for 90%, which is what I was feeling from Kontrast Festival. There were "frogs of the world" on display (that was really cool), a Weta (I think) Abaddon, scale model cars, creepy boats, goblins, tanks, floral shops, embossed cards, dioramas, pugs, and more besides. I could happily have strolled around the display area a few times if it were more comfortable to do so, but as it is I'll just have to go back over photos.

If I do start to enter competition then I'll go back to these places, but without that I'll probably avoid them in future. The stalls were good to browse, but I shouldn't be spending so much right now. Highlights were Two Thin Coats (the guys there were friendly and really knew their paints, shout out to one of them for pointing me in the direction of Major Brushes for a cheap synthetic that looks very promising to use for day-to-day painting), Element Games (can the event runners next time fix the accessibility so everyone can go to that area too please?), and Fantasy Wood Works (miniatureplinths.com, some very nice wooden plinths, also friendly people and I'm trying to get a custom size arranged from them).

-- silly painter.

TTC - Two Thin Coats

 No pictures here because why bother?

I finally attended a model show (more on that in another post) where the Two Thin Coats range was displayed. I've been keeping an eye on this paint range for a while, wondering what sets it apart from others. There's the obvious youtube ravings, but I don't trust them at the best of times because even if it's not a commercial then their perspectives on the matter are almost certain to differ from mine.

Let's back up though and start from the beginning.

Citadel paints are great. That's my opinion on the matter of course, but they get the job done, are widely available, flexible enough (with water or flow improver), and have a very large range. I even prefer their bottles for their own range of base and layer paints. They're also not paints that are aimed at a youtuber - they're aimed at essentially young teenagers, or parents of teenagers, or people who dabble in the hobby without getting too serious about it. That is the target audience, and the Citadel paint range fit that audience very well - but can also be used by people who are a little more into the hobby. Citadel also came out with the Contrast range of paints that everyone else has tried to copy (with varying degrees of success).

To anyone young and starting out in the hobby, I would absolutely say go pick up a starter set from Citadel.

I don't think Two Thin Coats are aimed at that audience. They can be used, sure, but the audience I think is the slightly more experienced painter. There's going to be a lot of overlap with Citadel paints in levels of experience of course, but the point is that the ranges are not in direct competition and to me instead can complement each other. More on how that will work (for me) in a moment.

At the show I approached the testing area to try out the white (White Star). I have no particular problem with White Scar (from Citadel) other than it dries very fast and can be a little difficult to thin properly and work with it when the weather isn't particularly friendly. I had heard that Two Thin Coats' white was very nice, so I thought I'd see for myself. Yes - it is very nice. It's definitely more translucent than the Citadel equivalent and as the name suggests it's best applied in two (or more) thin coats, depending on what is being covered. It also flows more smoothly across the surface - which is hard to describe without trying it for yourself. It has lower viscosity than most from Citadel, but good surface tension.

If I had to guess, slightly more pigment and flow improver in the Two Thin Coats range. The latter also means the working time is longer than what I'm used to, making wet blending almost trivial for me. I became rather experienced with glazing to combat the fast drying time of the Citadel range (which is generally going to be better for beginners) but now I'm at the level where some of what I would like to do is better achieved with a longer working time and being able to blend together on the model.

Here is where the paint ranges starting to complement each other comes into play. I think I will prefer base coating with Citadel paints because of the faster drying time - I can apply multiple coats more quickly, and depending on the paint it might need fewer coats for complete coverage. Using Citadel to sketch out initial highlights, then I can come in with the Two Thin Coats paints and smooth everything out. At least that's the idea - I'll need to build up a selection of paints first, which I'll only do as I need to replace my existing ones - everything I have works fine, but now I have further options when needed.

Finally, I tried Doom Metal. It's a nearly black metallic which is exactly what I've been after for a while. I was getting annoyed at everything metal being bright silver or steel, and wanted a darker look for e.g gun barrels. Doom Metal fits the bill nicely. The Citadel metallics work mostly just fine for me, but there are a few gaps and I think the Two Thin Coats range will fill that niche without me constantly trying to mix up something.

Finally: TTC are a much more matt finish, but this doesn't bother me because I always varnish my models anyway.

I've yet to try them through an airbrush, but I think the TTC range is impressive and what I need to continue to improve my painting at this stage of the journey. Right tool for the job and all that.

-- silly painter.

Devastator Squad - Part VII

 

Oh....yeah.

Slow and steady as the saying goes, and finally the Devastator squad is fully assembled. That doesn't mean they're complete - just that I can finally finish painting everything without needing to access otherwise difficult to reach areas.

There's simultaneously not a whole lot left, and yet it feels like an overwhelming amount. The armour needs edge highlighting and probably some of the volumetric highlights given another pass. While I was considering that last point I realised that perhaps the airbrushing could be simplified if I knew I was going to highlight again later anyway: rough sketch with the airbrush, fine tune with the brush later, edge highlight at the end. Worth thinking about. 

The right knee pad for Blood Angels shows which squad they belong to, and I picked blue with white cross this time around. I knew it would clash with the rest of the model and so I never used white (it's actually Grey Seer) but I think it's still too bright. Going still darker with the blue (near black then volumetric highlights with Night Lords Blue maybe) and a darker grey as "white" is probably the way to go. I'll bear that in mind next time.

Most of the rest is just filling out colours. I am painting them now one at a time, moving on when I get a bit bored, switching around for the last details. This is part of what I do like about the finished models - they're all a little unique - but it's also a nightmare for batch painting. I knew that going in, and now I just need to push through and get them done.

There is one final piece that's new though, and on all of them. The base. My usual drybrush paints are Underhive Ash followed by Terminatus Stone. Both of those are basically congealed pigment now and unusable (unless I get a mortar and pestle) so I needed a replacement. To that end:

• Nurgling Green / Ionrach Skin (1:1) which gives the desaturated yellow-green of Underhive Ash.
• Wraithbone, which is a close enough approximation for Terminatus Stone as it is.

They don't need to be calibrated and colour matched exactly, just close enough for the drybrushing to look the same, and I think the end result is most acceptable. Now I just need time to get through everything else so I can call these models done - time that should be on the way soon.

-- silly painter.

Blood Angels Legion Terminator Praetor - Part IV

 

Not afraid to get that cape dirty.

It's been a few weeks since the last post, but I've not actually been idle - just haven't had time to take photos. One of the more recent tests has been the cape for the Praetor. I considered for a long while of how I wanted to show this, if it should be white, cream, or some other colour. Ultimately I wanted white to show purity and to help frame an otherwise darker model while still providing something to harmonise the brighter values of red on top and serve as a visual line to draw the eye upwards.

So the cape would be white, but white itself is never pure. There needs to be shadows, highlights, reflections from other colours, and so on. I ended up going for blue tints to continue the purity and angelic theme. Cream or beige is often associated with coarser material suitable for more rigorous endeavours, where as the blue is finery and status for the administrative halls of Terra. A high ranking Blood Angel seems to fit with status, purity, and the ornate armour already suggests artisan finery.

So far at least, the cape is just the basic outline and was entirely done with an airbrush. A few edge highlights will likely be added in, and then there's patterning to be added as well to break up the large surface (I'm thinking bright gold trim). I've struggled with capes in the past when using a brush, so this was mostly an attempt to gain experience with an airbrush to see what I could do.

The initial base colour is Night Lords Blue. This gives the deeper shadow colours, but it's not really too visible at the end - it will be entirely covered by the end, but covered with translucent layers. Next I mixed in Chemos Purple and used that to highlight some of the inner cape areas to act as a kind of reflection from the red armour. The end effect is subtle, but it's there.

Moving onwards through the paints I generally just remixed into an emptied but not thoroughly cleaned airbrush cup. The idea is to subtly influence each layer and help it blend into the one before - not sure it works too much, but it saves on having to deep clean between switching out paints. The next step up in blue was Macragge Blue, followed by Calgar Blue. These I started to add as highlights, but painting in thin layers and allowing them to over-spray into the folds.

One of the keys to cloth is that it's less about highlights and more about shadows: the mid-tones are the most important, deeper shadows away from the angle of the light source (_not_ just recessed areas, which might actually get direct light) and very soft highlights. The airbrush helps here: just angle the model and hit the sides or "walls" of the folds from one direction, adjusting the angle to reach recessed areas too as necessary.

Next up was White Scar, which was mixed with Calgar Blue in different ratios for multiple passes. Keep it thinned to almost glaze consistency here, and focus on raised areas the most. This was generally a filter to whiten the cape more than anything else.

After all of that I noticed some of the shading had been lost and so I went back with incredibly thinned Macragge Blue and deepened them again. I didn't want to go too much darker, again just filtering the colour is enough as that will naturally darken compared to white anyway. If I were to do this more then I would need to start adjusting air pressure, but as it was I played with trigger control and distance from the model for more or less the same effect (kind of, not really).

As always, the airbrush works best if the paints are thinned. Do not use them straight out of the bottle (at least not Citadel paints). Work in multiple layers, change colours gradually instead of going for large value jumps, and the end result can be very smooth without any speckling or "noise".

The cape is currently a little too contrasting to the rest of the model, however this will be sorted once edge highlights are applied on the armour (including the gold) and other details are added to the cape.

-- silly painter.