256: Dropper bottles (or not) for airbrush paint

The new Forgeworld and GW airbrush paint comes in normal pots. They use the same pots as for their standard bristle stick range.

 Many commented that they prefer dropper bottles, like Vallejo.

Plenty of others are fine with pots, and use pipettes to get small amounts of paint out. Indeed, they like the pots because they can get the paint back in easily. Though it is also possible to get the dropper top off the Vallejo bottle to get the paint back in, it is a little messy. (I heard they have different bottle designs, and with some it may not be possible).

As usual, I do it differently. I got a bunch of empty dropper bottles (where the dropper end is a little easier to remove than the Vallejo bottles). I mix my own, starting mostly from Vallejo Model Air.

Using a milligram balance and making up at least 5ml of paint at a time is more precise than using a dropper. I converted one of the lids to a funnel. I add the extra water last to rinse the spare paint from the funnel.

255: Edge highlighting

Edge highlighting is a basic technique, but it's one I think I have got better at in the last year or so.

The arrows point out a few regions where I have put bright white straight onto pure black. This is something I would have avoided before. The lines need to be very thin. I think I got away with it here.

• Use a fine brush. I use Winsor and Newton 000 for the finest edge highlights.
• Use retarder. This slows the paints drying time. Without it I can't move fast enough to get the paint onto the model before it dries on the brush. I use Vallejo retarder. The bottle says no more than 5% retarder. I have got up to 14% and it still cures, but this may depend on the paint you are using.
• Prep the brush. Wet it first. wipe enough water off that there is no longer a drop of water on the end of the brush separating the bristles. Get a tiny amount of paint on the brush and wipe off the excess.

Dont do this

The tip will fall one side of the edge, and then the other. You will not get a straight line.

Do this

Use part of the brush just back from the tip.

Drag with the brush. Try not to stab with it. For some hard to reach areas this may be impossible. It's a good reason to assemble some parts after painting.

The ideal angle is 5-30 degrees.

I like the strength of the edge highlight to vary. I think trying to get it completely uniform is difficult and does not look good. I usually try to get the corners a bit brighter. So I first touch the newly loaded brush near a corner, and then wipe the paint toward the corner.

 

The next stroke starts further back, but again wipes towards the corner.

 

And so on.

You should end up with a subtle graduation of paint along the edge. I have heard that some prefer to try to hit the edge highlights with one stroke, but I got better results this way.

The only other detail about the technique is to suggest that doing several steps of edge highlighting with brighter colours is a good idea, particularly for large surfaces. Let me know what I missed, and how you do your edges in the comments.

254: Fleshy eggs from popcorn

In which I will show how to make alien egg sacs. I put these on a mysterious objective marker. Should also be handy for terrain or Tyranid bases.

1. Start with a bag of cheap popcorn kernels. Nothing fancy. You may need to wash with detergent.
2. I usually use oil, if I am planning to eat them. This will cause problems. I found that I could get them to pop by leaving the grill to get hot, then putting a tray in very close. A few should come out right.
3. Glue them to your base.
4. Dilute PVA to seal (also acts as a fine primer).
5. Paint.
6. I also added some UHU glue strings to complete the look.

A "before" shot.

253: Mathhammer with GNU Octave

Many folk understand how to do basic mathhammer. For example 10 marines shooting bolters at marines (outside 12").

n_shots×prob_hit×prob_wound×prob_not_saved=mean_n_dead

10×(2/3)×(1/2)×(1/3)=1.1

It gets more complicated with things like rending. Still quite possible, but a bit more headscratching is required. Even trickier is shooting at vehicles. To do it properly you need to account for things like multiple immobilised results removing extra hull points.

There is a general method. You get a computer to roll the dice for you, lots of times and keep notes as it goes. This kind of thing is called a Monte Carlo Simulation. An early use was designing nuclear weapons in the second world war.

GNU Octave is a free (open source) maths scripting language. It's quite good for this sort of thing.
 To get octave to roll 10 dice, you can do this.

> rolls=ceil(rand(1,10)*6)
rolls =

   2   6   2   4   2   2   3   3   5   4

rand gives a matrix of 1×10 numbers. They are between 0 and 1, so you have to multiply by 6. We only want whole numbers, and dice don't give zeros, so we round up. This is what ceil (ceiling) does. Next, how many hit?

> passed=sum(rolls>=3)
passed =  6

rolls>=3 returns a matrix of 0s and 1s. As we need 3+ to hit, it gives 1s to represent the hits. sum adds up the hits. Roll some more dice to wound.

> rollstowound=ceil(rand(1,passed)*6)
rollstowound =

   1   2   4   3   4   2

Find out how many wounded

> wounds=sum(rollstowound>=4)
wounds =  2

Time for amour saves

> savingrolls=ceil(rand(1,wounds)*6)
savingrolls =

   4   1

How many die?

> deathtoll=sum(savingrolls<3)
deathtoll =  1

You can combine this lot into a script file ("example.m") that repeats 100 times.

n=100;
totaldead=0;
for i=1:n
    rolls=ceil(rand(1,10)*6);
    passed=sum(rolls>=3);
    rollstowound=ceil(rand(1,passed)*6);
    wounds=sum(rollstowound>=4);
    savingrolls=ceil(rand(1,wounds)*6);
    deathtoll=sum(savingrolls<3)
    totaldead=totaldead+deathtoll;
end
mean_dead=totaldead/n

Run this, and it spits out a number near 1.1. This is more hassle than first calculation, but when it gets more complicated simulations will beat the back of an envelope.

Note that I have put semicolons on the end of some lines. This suppresses output. So this script will just show you the deathtoll each loop, and the mean average at the end.

If there is some interest in the comments, I can expand this into a series of posts. Or, if I have time I can mathhammer on your behalf. My numbers are out of date now (vehicle damage table changed), but I did figure out the most cost effective way of taking down a Heldrake. At that time the highest probability of downing a heldrake in one per point spent that I could find was an Imperial Fist dev squad on a quad gun. The best value hull point stripper was a Stalker (you know, the Rhino chassis AA vehicle).

252: Japan = Gundam

Fear not fellow bloggerites, I'm not dead, just very very busy.

To whit, I'm currently slumming it in Japan on a trip for work.  This means two things:

1. I'm occupying my evenings when I'm stuck in my room by painting the final grunts for One Force
2. GUNDAM!!!

Yep, Japan is a bit of a hobby mecca (as long as you like Gundam that is).  Even the local chain of electronics stores - Yamada Denki, has racks and racks of Gundam models for you to buy and build.

This song plays near continuously in the shop.

How the staff don't go postal by the end of the day I don't know.

They can even make selling fridges seem somewhat more exciting.  I promise you there really are fridges underneath all those stickers.

Of course, the best place to go if you are anything like me is Akihabara - Tokyo's electronics town.  Akihabara started life as a district where the Japanese and US military were selling off spare electronics parts after the second world war.  Local students used to buy up the parts and make radios out of them to sell on and earn money to fund their studies.  Ever since it has been synonymous with the sale of electronic goods.  It really gained its reputation in the 80s and 90s when it was a one stop shop for tourists and locals alike to get the latest electronic gadgets at knock down prices, often long before they appeared in the local shops, and years before they reached the rest of the world.

Nowadays, with the growing prevalence of tech in the west, and apps on smartphones taking the place of many of the little gadgets that used to be sold, Akihabara has shifted its focus away from electronics (don't worry, you can still find loads) to other aspects of Japanese culture, namely manga and collectibles.  If anything, its made the place even more colourful than before.

 

Even the graffiti and the bikes are more colourful in Akihabara.

 

Back to Yamada Denki and the Gundam - just look at how many kits there were, and this was only a single set of shelves, there were at least 4 full racks just of Gundam, and that's not even mentioning the other racks of models.

There was even a Unicorn Gundam - in unicorn mode no less.

Well I couldn't rightly pass up such an opportunity, so after a lot of umming and ahhing, I settled on the basic, original Gundam.

They come as two parts, a fully poseable inner skeleton of parts, and then the outer armour additions.  Its all on separate sprues of appropriately coloured plastic so I won't even have to paint it, and there's a full set of transfers too.  Awesome, can't wait to build this guy.

 

Mind you, should you ever feel the need to re-paint any of your Gundam, or build and paint any of the other models that were available, you wouldn't be short of supplies:

 

Or, if collectibles is more your thing, then there were plenty of places to pick up just about anything you could think of, and some things that I kind of wish they hadn't thought of.  If you are ever in need of being weirded out, do a little research into the culture of doll ownership in Japan - let me just tell you that they are FULLY customisable and can be found in many of these shops.

Much cooler though was this guy...

 

... and this guy...

 ... if only!

Of course, since I mentioned I'd been working on One Force, I should at least show you where I'm at with painting them.

All that's left is shading and highlighting of the armour, battle damage and weathering and that'll be the last of the core 30 Tactical/Assault marines finished.  It'll have only taken me three and a half years to reach that point - positively rapid pace.